A poem of possibilities: Thinking about the future
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=943
A lesson plan for grades 11–12 English Language Arts
Using John Updike’s poem “Ex-Basketball Player&rdquo as a model, students write original poems considering their own goals, plans and hopes for the future. The teacher reads the poem aloud and engages students in an analysis of the details of the poem and helps clarify any unfamiliar vocabulary. After reading the poem, students discuss its style, theme, and structure and suggest other ways in which the poem could have been written. Then, in groups, students try to re-write the poem as prose, free verse, in rhyme, or some other poetic format. When students have composed their own original poem predicting where they will be in five years, they work in collaborative groups to edit and revise their work. Students finally address an envelope, place the poem inside, and give the poem to the teacher to mail to them in five years. This lesson provides several online resources to help students write their poems, as well as opportunities for self-reflection. Readwritethink provides assignment guidelines, helpful prewriting questions, questions for reflection about the activity, and links to the poem “Ex-basketball Player” by John Updike.
North Carolina Curriculum Alignment
English Language Arts (2004)
Grade 11
- Goal 1: The learner will demonstrate increasing insight and reflection to print and non-print text through personal expression.
- Objective 1.02: Reflect and respond expressively to texts so that the audience will:
- discover multiple perspectives.
- investigate connections between life and literature.
- explore how the student's life experiences influence his or her response to the selection.
- recognize how the responses of others may be different.
- articulate insightful connections between life and literature.
-consider cultural or historical significance.
- Objective 1.02: Reflect and respond expressively to texts so that the audience will:
- Goal 4: The learner will critically analyze text to gain meaning, develop thematic connections, and synthesize ideas.
- Objective 4.01: Interpret meaning for an audience by:
- examining the functions and the effects of narrative strategies such as plot, conflict, suspense, point of view, characterization, and dialogue.
- interpreting the effect of figures of speech (e.g., personification, oxymoron) and the effect of devices of sound (e.g., alliteration, onomatopoeia).
- analyzing stylistic features such as word choice and links between sense and sound.
- identifying ambiguity, contradiction, irony, parody, and satire.
- demonstrating how literary works reflect the culture that shaped them.
- Objective 4.01: Interpret meaning for an audience by:
Grade 12
- Goal 1: The learner will express reflections and reactions to print and non-print text as well as to personal experience.
- Objective 1.02: Respond to texts so that the audience will:
- empathize with the voice of the text.
- make connections between the learner's life and the text.
- reflect on how cultural or historical perspectives may have influenced these responses.
- examine the learner's own response in light of peers' responses.
-recognize features of the author's use of language and how the learner relates these features to his/her own writing.
- Objective 1.02: Respond to texts so that the audience will:
