Experiencing the Sonnet

Experiencing the Sonnet

            Recognizing theme and the ability to analyze a poem are important skills for high school students.  However, I believe that students should also have the opportunity to experience poetry.  To provide an ‘experience’, teachers should try to motivate the study of poetry through personal connections.  High school is a time where students begin trying to figure out who they are and how to express themselves.  As a teacher, I want to offer poetry as a means for my students to express themselves.  By doing this, I can show students how people in the past often used poetry to express their emotions and experiences.  I have designed a unit focused on cooperative learning and personal creation in order to study the Renaissance sonnet.  Seniors in North Carolina schools study British literature, thus, I have developed this unit with an Honors English IV class of twenty to twenty-five students in mind. 

            At a time of lowered self-confidence and heightened insecurity, students thrive on individual successes.  Thus, I want to first provide my students with the tools so that they can be “expert” sonnet commentators.  To do this, I believe that students should first learn about each poet they will study and the major sonnet forms used by each poet.  I have then developed a simple poetry analysis sheet that allows students to organize their analysis of a poem.  The poetry analysis form gives students the opportunity to develop their reading of poetry.  Modeling close reading combined with the use of the poetry analysis form will help students have a sense of expertise.  After introducing students to the sonnet and Petrarch, students will experience Wyatt and explore the connection between music and poetry.  I want to focus on this connection in order to further the personal connection with poetry.  Demonstrating how sonnets connect to music that the students listen to today will help them to see that the distance between them and the literature is not as great as they might think it is. 

            The second week of the unit focuses on the Spenser, Sidney, and the creation of personal sonnets.  During this week, students will see how the sonnet evolved during the Renaissance.  Not only will they continue to analyze sonnets and learn about the poets, but this week they will be able to create their own sonnets.  This activity will allow students to apply what they have learned about the different sonnet forms and the sonnet themes.  Further, it will give them the opportunity to connect the sonnet form with their own emotions and experiences. 

            The last two weeks of the unit focus on the English/Shakespearean sonnet form.  The third week will begin with Raleigh and Marlowe.  While the poems that we will study from each of these poets are not sonnets, they demonstrate pastoral poetry as well as illustrating a conversation through poetry.  During this week, we will also do an internet lesson on how to do successful web searches.  I believe it is important to incorporate technology into each unit in order to help students use it more effectively in regards to their education.  During the senior year, students write a research paper.  The internet lesson included in this unit is a preparatory lesson allowing them to develop the skills to do more effective web searches and to evaluate the web sites they find within their searches. 

            I have included plenty of cooperative learning exercises within this unit to allow my students to continue to develop their ability to work in groups.  Further, I believe that this is a great way to get students to feel more comfortable speaking about poetry.  Rather than always having them feel like the entire class is listening to them, they can discuss in small groups first and become comfortable and confident in their ideas.  Then, we can move to large group discussion at the end of class where they can share what their groups discussed.  The day that we study Shakespeare’s background is a prime example of cooperative learning.  I want the students to help teach each other through the use of a Jigsaw where they form groups, discuss, and then reform groups and instruct each other on what they learned. 

            The end of the third week will focus on preparing students for their Shakespeare sonnet performances.  Each student will pick a sonnet to perform.  This allows us to study twenty to twenty-five of Shakespeare’s sonnets rather than only a handful.  Further, I think that the performance of poetry is just as important as the performance of drama.  Hearing and seeing one person’s interpretation of a sonnet will be a great way for my students to connect to the sonnets.  Further, they will be able to demonstrate their analysis of the sonnet through brief explication presentations following their performances.  I also feel that the once students memorize their sonnets, they will be able to see more than they would by simply reading through each sonnet a few times. 

            I decided not to give a traditional test for this unit because I want to give my students a good foundation in formal writing.  I believe a paper on the analysis and comparison of three sonnets will be a wonderful way for them to demonstrate their understanding of the lessons in the unit as well as for them to produce a well organized essay.  Further, I developed this unit with the idea that Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Lost would be the next unit followed by a study of the metaphysical poets.  Therefore, the final test for the quarter would incorporate the sonnets, the play, and the metaphysical poets. 

            In the following poem, Billy Collins expresses the wonder of experiencing a poem and the harmful nature of over-analyzing.  This poem is an excellent example of how I want my students to experience the sonnets.  I also believe that analysis and an understanding of the poet are both important skills that contribute to an overall experience of poetry.

"Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear aginst its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find otu what it really means.

                I believe that this unit will give students the skills to read, understand, analyze, and connect to the Renaissance sonnet.  The students’ overall experience within this unit will help prepare them to study Love’s Labours Lost and the metaphysical poets. 

 Textbook: Glencoe Literature The Reader's Choice: British Literature.  Westerville, OH: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2000. 

Collins, Billy. "Introduction to Poetry." Poetry 180: A Poem A Day for American High Schools. http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/