I begin first semester with a short unit on fixed form poetry, such as the villanelle and sonnet. Over the course of 3-4 weeks, students will read and analyze poems, compose their own fixed form poetry, study musical device terminology, and write a Q1 essay in response to a sonnet.

On the first day back from winter break, I like to incorporate elements of fun. Actually, this is true of my lesson planning as often as possible, but especially on this first day of work after a long break. Caveat: it turns out English teachers define “fun” differently than students. 🙂

As students walked into the room, the slide on the screen instructed them to write down one of their favorite words on a small slip of paper at their desks. I collect these in a basket and set them aside for later.

Next, I passed out copies of “Sestina” by Elizabeth Bishop. I played audio of the poem while students followed along. After they listened, I asked them to write down responses to this question: “What is happening in the poem at the literal level? Who are the characters and what are they doing?” Then, I played the audio a second time, this time with these instructions on the screen: “As you listen, underline or highlight 3+ places in the poem where it’s clear that the surface does not reflect the full story. What is implied in this poem—what is lurking just under the surface? Write your answer on your paper.” We talked about the poem under the document camera, making sense of its meaning as well as identifying elements like personification, anthropomorphism, and other devices.

Finally, I presented the big question of our unit: What is the relationship between a poem’s form and its meaning? I shared a little of the history of the sestina, shared a slide with stanza-length terminology, and then asked students to write down a “definition” of the sestina. They understood the etymology of “six” in the name of the form when they realized it’s six six-line stanzas (plus an envoi) and there are six repeating words. We talked about that pattern too. Then, I asked, “What kind of mood does the repetition of the teleutons in “Sestina” create? How does the repetition connect to the content?”

Then it was time for the fun. I pulled six words from the basket and wrote them on the board, in order. We looked at the word list and came up with a theme and title for the poem, which I also wrote down. My students work in table groups, so I then assigned each group one sestina stanza. Their job was to follow the correct order of teleutons for their assigned stanza, and to connect its content to the title. I set a 12-minute timer and off they went. When the time was up, each group shared their stanza aloud so we could hear the whole poem. It was terrible, but they got the idea of the structure and were totally engaged.

Just before the bell rang to end class, I told them their homework assignment: write a sestina on their own. The challenge: we drew six more words from the basket and those became the teleutons for their individual sestinas.