Audio/poetry Lesson Plan

Audio Lesson Plan Teacher Name: Brooke Kistner Lesson Title: Analyzing the American Dream Target Grade/Subject: This is targeted for Honors 11th grade English class studying American Literature at in a county where students are issued IBooks. The typical class size in the school is 19. This school is a specialty center for technology, so most students will have sufficient experience with technology. Most of these students have access to technology such as computers, video cameras and internet at home. The students attend each class on Monday (45 mins)and have a 90 minute block schedule the rest of the week. This lesson is intended to take place towards the end of the poetry unitto ensure students’ familiarity with material and terms. Although the students are strong test takers, they prefer not to be assessed through tests on their knowledge and abilities. Length: 90 minutes VA SOL: 11.5 The student will read and critique a variety of poetry. a) Analyze the poetic elements of contemporary and traditional poems. b) Identify the poetic elements and techniques that are most appealing and that make poetry enjoyable. c) Compare and contrast the works of contemporary and past American poets. Essential Questions: 1. Can songs be interpreted as poetry? 2. How do these songs/poems portray Americans? 3. How do these songs contrast/support the idea of the “American Dream”? 4. How do these songs compare with the poems representing the idea of the “American Dream”? Objectives: • Identify at least four poetic elements within each song/poem presented • Make connections between the songs/poems and the “American Dream” • Compare/contrast the structure of poems and songs • Determine each author’s point of view on the American Dream • Compile a “new” song with the selected elements using Garageband Tools and Resources • Handouts of lyrics to the following songs: Bruce Springsteen “Born in the U.S.A.”, Ben Folds “Jesusland”, Neil Diamond “America”, and Alabama “Song of the South” • Audio Cds of the above songs

• • • • • • •

Headphones for each student Handouts of the following poems: “The American Dream” Gary R. Hess, “The American Dream” Sgt. Aaron M. Gilbert, “Democracy” Leonard Cohen, and “Shrinking Away” Jim Northup Textbooks/notes for reference of poetic elements/terms School issued laptops with Garageband and internet access (class website) Teacher’s USB Classroom Computer LCD Projector

Preparation Technology/Classroom Arrangement and Management Strategies: • Students will be allowed time in class to examine the audio files on their laptops. The students will need internet access to upload their blogs. If internet isn’t accessible, they will save their Word document to a USB and will have a quick class discussion on the findings. Prerequisite technology skills needed by students: • Basic working knowledge of internet and word processing skills. • Basic knowledge of Garageband Lesson Development Focus and Review of previous work/knowledge: Students will first need to identify poetic elements and structure of the song/poem they are given. They can use their textbooks, notes and internet to help determine the elements. Anticipatory set: Students will be asked the following questions in an open discussion: 1. What makes a poem effective? 2. What elements are common in the poems we’ve read so far? 3. Have any of you ever written a song? a. Does is seem possible the song could be interpreted as a poem? How, why, etc.? 4. What differentiates a poem from a song? Or is there any differentiation between the two? Instructional Activity: Students will be placed in groups of 5 and be assigned the following poem/song: Group 1: “Born in the U.S.A.” Bruce Springsteen, “Shrinking Away” Jim Northup Group 2: “Jesusland” Ben Folds, “The American Dream” Sgt. Aaron M. Gilbert Group 3: “Song of the South” Alabama, “Democracy” Leonard Cohen

Group 4: “Political Science” Randy Newman, “The American Dream” Gary R. Hess Each group is responsible for the following: 1. Uploading the song to their computer and listening to their assigned song (with headphones) 2. Reading the poem they were given Using Garageband 1. Upload the song and pull out the 4 poetic elements you chose to identify, making them their own special file 2. Save this as a file to the Teacher’s USB In Word Document: 1. State the poem’s and the song’s theme 2. State the author’s intended or possible audiences 3. State whether the author is effective in conveying his message 4. State whether society would agree with author. Why? Why not? 5. Working through each song and poem to pull out at least 4 poetic elements in each work- you will need to be able to defend your findings 6. Submit this to the class website 7. Each group member must comment on another group’s findings via blogging on the class website. Once all the songs are collected, the teacher will upload the clips to the class computer’s Garageband, which is connected to a LCD projector. The class will then choose how they want to compile the clips into a “new” song. The teacher will then play the song at the end of class so the students can hear each groups findings. Guided practice and checking for understanding (student activities): Students will work together in finding poetic elements in the songs and in the poems. The students will work together in compiling a “new” song containing all the poetic elements from each group. Independent practice (student activities): • Students will comment on another group’s findings via the class blog. Through this, they will show their understanding of the poetic elements and interpretations of poems. Closure: • The students can listen to the “new” song. The students will then discuss the following questions: • Can songs be interpreted as poetry? • How do these songs/poems portray Americans? • How do these songs contrast/support the idea of the “American Dream”? • How do these songs compare with the poems representing the idea of the “American Dream”?

•

How do you better understand the poetic elements through this exercise?

Evaluation Procedure Assessment of objectives: • Each group will have contributed their own clips to the “new” song and will have uploaded their Word document to the class website. Each student will have commented on another group’s findings. The students will be graded on the group’s blog and their contribution to the “new” song. Rubric: 4 – Group provided strong examples of poetic elements, successfully linked the songs/poems to the American Dream, effectively contributed to the “new” song, to the class blog and class discussion 3 – Group provided some strong examples of poetic elements, somewhat linked the songs/poems to the American Dream, somewhat contributed to the “new” song, class blog and class discussion 2 – Group provided weak examples of poetic elements, weakly linked the songs/poems to the American Dream, weakly contributed to the “new” song, class blog and class discussion 1 – Group did not provide examples of poetic elements, did not link the songs/poems to the American Dream, did not contribute to the “new” song, class blog and class discussion