Emily Mullins

TE 407 Lab
Burke
21 October 2008

Poetry Lesson

This lesson will be on Robert Frost’s poetry, more specifically “Stopping by

Woods on a Snowy Evening”

• Audience: High School, 11th or 12th grade, probably upper level English

courses.

• Why?: Frost’s poetry, although more traditional in verse, allows readers

to use their imagination and fill in the gaps in the narrative. His poetry is

almost like short stories that ask for readers to invent characters’ or

speakers’ motives and look closely at what they reveal and omit.

• Introduction to Lesson: Begin by doing a PowerPoint that will include the

history/biography of Robert Frost. Then I will ask students for their

definitions of poetic terms such as simile, metaphor, rhyme schemes,

figurative language, repetition, alliteration, etc. I will ask them to write

these down.

• Objective: Students will learn to identify and define poetic devices and

identify themes in Frost’s poems by using these poetic devices. I also

want students to be able to come to conclusions concerning point of

view and perspective of the persona exemplified through the speaker or

other characters. We will also look at the terms narrative and persona so
 they can draw inferences from the poem about the speaker and the

scene.

• The Lesson: During the PowerPoint presentation I will pass out

photocopies of the poem, and I will have someone read it aloud. Then I

will have students read it individually, writing their notations on the

side, underlining words they may not know, as well as underlining any

poetic devices. They may even draw the scene they see. Then in pairs or

groups of three they will discuss themes, speaker’s conflict and motives.

I will then ask students to work in groups come up with a way of creating

a story from this poem. They may make inferences about the speaker or

any aspect of the poem, and the story can be told from any point of

view. Then in their groups they will devise a way of depicting the story

they have inferred about. It can be a concept for a music video (story

board or a director’s vision), a comic strip, a short story (Halloween

related) or any other way they can think of being creative. Markers and

paper will be up front.

• During the Lesson: I will walk around while they are looking at the poem

for poetic devices and ask which ones they have found, the rhyme

scheme they think it has, and the meaning they have inferred from the

lines of the poem. Then when they are in groups I will ask about the

inferences they have made about the speaker and his position in the

woods.
• Assignment: For homework I will ask the students to pick any of Robert

Frost’s poems and make inferences about the speaker’s motivations and

their character (internal and external conflicts, perspective, point of

view, etc.). They will need to have evidence for those inferences in the

words of the poem. They can make notes on the poem itself, draw a

picture, journal about how it relates to them, or find another way of

analyzing the poem’s meaning.