This unit is closely aligned to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. The process of reading, interpreting, and writing poetry builds students’ skills in analyzing texts, interpreting author’s choice and craft, and discerning and using purposeful language and vocabulary. As this unit will be taught in the 2023-2024 school year to seventh grade students, the standards are aligned for this grade level. Other applicable strands can be adjusted for other grade levels.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.1
Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
Students will use close reading to explore and analyze poetry. Classroom discussions and written assignments will require that students provide evidence to support their ideas. All sample lessons demonstrate how this standard will be implemented.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of rhymes and other repetitions of sounds (e.g., alliteration) on a specific verse or stanza of a poem or section of a story or drama.
The use of sound in poetry is essential to the teaching of this unit. By extension, students will have to understand how poets use language to craft their works. Sample Lesson 3 demonstrates how this standard will be implemented.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.5
Analyze how a drama’s or poem’s form or structure (e.g., soliloquy, sonnet) contributes to its meaning.
In this unit, students will encounter a variety of forms of poetry, including both sonnets and free verse. In sample Lesson 3, students compare how the form of a poem like Whitman’s “Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun” differs from those such as Wordsworth’s “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge.”
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.7
Compare and contrast a written story, drama, or poem to its audio, filmed, staged, or multimedia version, analyzing the effects of techniques unique to each medium (e.g., lighting, sound, color, or camera focus and angles in a film).
Students will both create their own audio/visual/performed version of the poems in this unit, as well as analyze existing interpretations. These lessons will focus explicitly on how specific techniques influence the meaning presented in different forms. Lesson 2 demonstrates the implementation of this standard.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.D
Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.
Students will write their own poetry in this unit, and using techniques from the texts they have read, will implement the use of rhyme, imagery, and figurative language.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.5
With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1-3 up to and including grade 7 here.)
As part of the concluding poem project of the unit, students will work with their peers to edit and revise their final submission.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.7.1
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 7 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.
Throughout the course of the unit, discussion will play a crucial role in learning activities. All samples lessons include examples of collaborative discourse.
