Reading Teach Living Poets (chapter link) by Lindsay Illich and Melissa Alter Smith inspired a lesson plan pairing "She Walks in Beauty" by George Gordon, Lord Byron with "To the Girl Who Works at Starbucks, Down the Street from My Business firm on Del Mar Heights Road, I Swear to God I'm Non a Stalker" past Rudy Francisco, available in print in his book Helium (affiliate link).

Performance of "To the Girl Who Works at Starbucks…"

These two poems both feature speakers who are taken immediately by seeing an attractive person and reflect on their beauty. To prepare students for the topic, I gave them the following journal prompt:

Write near a time you saw someone beyond the room and your eye simply stopped. What was it about the person that defenseless your attending?

I shared a personal story of a time when I was in higher and heard this guy pick up the payphone next to me and tell the operator he was looking for a number in "Athens." That 1 word was all he said, but his voice was only incredible. It was deep, gorgeous. I couldn't even plough around because I thought if his face matched his voice, I'd be in existent trouble. Some teachers might not feel comfortable sharing stories similar this, but I've established a rapport, and of course, it'southward wise to consider what yous feel is appropriate or not. I definitely did not and would not inquire students to share. Nevertheless, I invited them to share, if they felt comfy doing and then, but this topic, while a not bad claw for the lesson, is also very personal in nature.

Lindsay Illich and Melissa Modify Smith describe a protocol for reading poetry on pp. 20-21 for reading a poem. In a first reading, ask students to identify whether the verse form is an "up" or "downwards" poem. This metaphor can assist students tease out tone and mood. Some of my students felt "She Walks in Dazzler" was an "upward" poem based on the diction, only others constitute it kind of creepy and decided it was a "downwardly" poem. We had an interesting discussion about how we viewed the speaker and the impact of that perception on our reading. Near students viewed Rudy Francisco'southward poem as an "up" verse form. Next, students await for "hotspots" in the poem. What are the moments of tension, stiff imagery, and juxtaposition? Students identified the interplay of light and dark in Byron'south verse form and the unexpected comparison of the woman to darkness rather than to light. This observation also gave me an opportunity to discuss the art term "chiaroscuro" with students.

Later on this first read of Byron'south poem, I asked students to make it small groups of iii or four and read the poem once again, this time using Illich and Smith's protocol for a second (or subsequent) reading (slightly adjusted for this detail text set):

  1. Consider the scene of the poem: Who is speaking? Where and when is this happening?
  2. Locate the cardinal prototype(s) of the poem. What effect(s) is created by the imagery?
  3. Look up any unfamiliar words or references. Look for sentences (subjects, verbs). Locate modifiers and antecedents, which will help with hard or fragmented syntax.
  4. Consider the effect of construction: line breaks, rhyme, meter, stanzas.

Students worked in groups for nearly xv minutes, re-reading and annotating the poem with these questions in mind. One group noticed that Byron's verse form progresses from the offset moment the speaker sees the woman to a last stanza in which he attaches all sorts of values and assumptions (that she must exist skillful and that her centre is "innocent"). They noticed the imagery and described the kind of setting they imagined for the poem. They decided the central image was the beginning line, the woman walking and capturing the speaker's attention. The rest of the poem, they reasoned, hinged on that one epitome. In Francisco's verse form, they decided it was Starbucks. As soon every bit the word appeared in the title, they had a picture show of the entire scene—sights, smells, tastes, sounds.

We also had a adventure to discuss intertextuality and the style these two works could be considered in conversation with one another.

Illich and Smith'southward protocol works very well to give students an entry point into a text, and it worked particularly well with this pairing since both poems are dependent on a strong primal paradigm and draw a particular scene. They were not bad for thinking well-nigh setting; the AP Lit CED emphasizes the ability to explain the function of a setting, and these poems are both fantabulous ways to address the setting skills:

  • Identify and draw specific details that convey or reveal a setting. two.A
  • Explain the function of setting in a narrative. 2.B
  • Draw the relationship betwixt a character and a setting. 2.C

I created a Google Slide deck with the major components of this lesson. My institution has disabled sharing exterior of our establishment, but I believe that if you click this link, yous can still make a re-create of my slide deck. You will also need copies of "She Walks in Dazzler" and "To the Daughter Who Works at Starbucks…" If you try this text pairing and protocol, I'd love to hear how it goes for you lot.

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