Aurora Staggs

Poetry
Dr. Stevens
24 October 2019
Common Core
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative
and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone,
including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or
beautiful. (Include Shakespeare as well as other authors.)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.D
Use precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language to convey a vivid picture of
the experiences, events, setting, and/or characters.

Educational Objectives
 Students will be able to identify and analyze elements such as theme, rhyme, imagery,
tone, metaphor, alliteration, etc. and explaining their importance in a poem- “Birches” by
Robert Frost.
 Students will be able to write a 5-8 sentence paragraph describing their analysis and
interpretation one of the poems read in class.
Assessments on Learning
 The students will fill out a Poetry Scavenger Hunt Task Sheet on the poem discussed in
class in order to assess their ability to locate poetic elements and determine their
meanings within the text.
 The students will write a 5-8 sentence paragraph about one poem read in class to assess
their ability to analyze and interpret the text and support their analysis and interpretation
with textual evidence.
Central Focus
 The students will learn to identify elements of poetry, use those elements to analyze the
poems provided, and support their analysis using textual evidence.
Academic Language
 Personification-giving nonhuman things human qualities or characteristics
 Metaphor-comparison not using “like” or “as”
  Simile-comparison using “like” or “as”
 Theme-main idea or underlying meaning
 Juxtaposition-two or more things put next to each other to make contrast
 Meter-stressed and unstressed syllabic pattern of a verse or poem
 Alliteration-the same sound at the beginning of adjacent or close words
 Tone-the attitude of a speaker towards an object or subject
 Imagery-language and description that appeals to the five senses
Materials

Students will need:

Teacher Will Need:
 Writing utensil
 Printouts of each poem
 Loose leaf paper or
(enough copies for each
notebook
student to have their own)
 Printouts of Poetry
Scavenger Hunt Task Sheet
(enough for each student to
have their own)
 Vocab and definition cards
for Memory game
 Stickers
 Whiteboard and dry erase
markers

Anticipatory Set
 Play Memory with vocabulary words
 “Good morning! We are going to start off by playing a vocab game. These cards each
have either a vocab word or a definition written on them. Shuffle the cards and arrange
them all face down on a table. Take turns flipping over two cards. If the cards make a set,
you keep the cards and take an additional turn. The person with the most cards at the end
of the game wins.”
 Hand the students the cards.
 Keep score on the board.
 The student who wins the game gets a sticker.
Sequence of Events
 “Today we are going to be reading and analyzing a poem. We are going to do that by
doing a Poetry Scavenger Hunt. You are then going to write a five to eight sentence
paragraph about the poem we read and discussed. Today we’re going to be looking at
“Birches” by Robert Frost.”
 Pass out “Birches” by Robert Frost and the Poetry Scavenger Hunt Task Sheet.
 “I am going to read “Birches” aloud. Please follow along on your copy.”
 Read the poem aloud
 “Were there any words or phrases that need clarification or defining?”
o If yes
 Clarify or define any words or phrases
 Possible words/phrases
 Enamel-an opaque or semitransparent glassy substance applied to
metallic or other hard surfaces for ornament or as a protective
coating.
 Bracken-a tall fern with coarse lobed fronds, which occurs
worldwide and can cover large areas
o If no
 Move to next item in sequence
 “For the poetry scavenger hunt you are going to work as a team. Find an example for
each poetic element listed on the sheet in the poem and write it in the corresponding
shape. Once you have completed that, we are going to come together to discuss what you
found.”
 Give them 5 minutes to complete the Poetry Scavenger Hunt
o If more time is needed, extend to 7 minutes
 Discuss what was found. As the students share their answers, write them on the board.
This will be helpful when they write their paragraphs.
 “Let’s start with meter. What is the meter of the poem?”
o Iambic pentameter
 “What were the examples of alliteration that you found?”
o “When I see birches bend to left and right”
 “birches bend” is alliteration
o “As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel”
 “cracks and crazes”
o “I should prefer to have some boy bend them”
 “boy bend”
o “Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,”
 “flung outward, feet first”
 “What example of personification did you see?”
o “But I was going to say when Truth broke in/With all her matter-of-fact about the
ice-storm,”
  “Truth” is capitalized as a person’s name would be and is referred to as
“her”, giving it the treatment a person would receive when being talked
about
 “What simile did you find?”
o “You may see their trunks arching in the woods/Years afterwards, trailing their
leaves on the ground,/Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair/Before
them over their heads to dry in the sun.”
 The image of the trees is being compared to girls bending over to dry their
hair in the sun
 “What examples of imagery did you find?”
o “After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.”
 This section uses sight and sound to invoke an image
 “They click upon themselves”
 “shed crystal shells”
 “such heaps of broken glass’
o “Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,/Kicking his way down through
the air to the ground.”
 These lines use sight to invoke the image of the boy jumping from the
tree.
 “Excellent. Now I want you each to write a 5-8 sentence paragraph describing what you
found and how each element affects the poem as a whole. For example, two sentences
might be: ‘In the beginning of the poem, the author uses imagery to describe the trees.
This allows the reader to connect to the poem more by being able to have a clear image of
what the speaker is describing.’”
 Give them five minutes to write the paragraph.
o If more time is needed extend to 7 minutes
 Have each student read their paragraph out loud
Questions to Ask
 Analysis-How did the imagery you found in “Birches” affect the poem as a whole?
 Evaluation-What was your favorite line of the poem and why?
Summary and Conclusion
 “Awesome work today, everyone! We read and analyzed “Birches” by Robert Frost. We
identified elements such as alliteration, imagery, meter, etc. and completed the Poetry
Scavenger Hunt. After that, you wrote a paragraph on the poem we read today. I will be
collecting your Task Sheets and the paragraphs you wrote. I will hand them back to you
next week. Does anyone have any questions or comments regarding what we did today?
Okay, have a good weekend everyone and I will see you next week!”
Birches - Poem by Robert Frost
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows-
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.