Lesson Plan Introduction to Poetry
Julie Tagg| Think and Write for CSEC English| January 18, 2025 Poetry can be difficult to teach at times but with this downloadable lesson plan, this can be a lot less challenging.
Julie Tagg| Think and Write for CSEC English| January 18, 2025 Poetry can be difficult to teach at times but with this downloadable lesson plan, this can be a lot less challenging.
Engaging Students with the Art of Free Verse Poetry Lesson Overview In this lesson, students will explore the concept of free verse poetry, understand its characteristics, and create their own free verse poems. Students will appreciate the freedom and creativity inherent in free verse and express their thoughts and emotions without the constraints of traditional… Read More Lesson Plan: Teaching a Free Verse Poem
Julie Tagg| Think and Write English| November 12, 2024 Figurative language makes writing lively, relatable, and memorable by using words in non-literal or imaginative ways (5E Lesson Plan for Figurative Devices) Here’s a breakdown of some common figurative devices with examples to make them clear: 1. Simile 2. Metaphor 3. Personification 4. Hyperbole 5. Onomatopoeia… Read More Common Figurative Devices and Their Examples
Julie Tagg| Think and Write for CSEC English A and B In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, foreshadowing is not used in a conventional way, and significant events are not overtly predicted in the early parts of the play. Instead, Shakespeare uses wordplay and imagery to amplify later scenes, allowing them to reverberate in retrospect. This technique… Read More Foreshadowing in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”
Julie Tagg| Think and Write for CSEC English A and B Write an essay discussing the poems “A Stone’s Throw” and “The Woman Speaks to the Man Who has Employed her Son”. The essay should briefly describe what is happening in each poem, the speaker’s attitude towards the woman in each poem, and examine one… Read More Sample Essay- Themes in Poetry (English B) – Patriarchy and Men in Power (A Stone’s Throw” and Goodison’s “The Woman Speaks to the Man who has Employed her Son”)
Julie Tagg| Think and Write for CSEC English A and B Death Owen’s poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” and Goodison’s poem “The Woman Speaks to the Man Who Has Employed Her Son,” explores the theme of death or tragic loss of young lives. With close reference to the poems, discuss how each speaker responds to… Read More Sample Essay -Themes in Poetry (English B) – Death or Tragic Loss (Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” and Goodison’s “The Woman Speaks to the Man who has Employed her Son”)
Julie Tagg| Think and Write for CSEC English A and B Note: The response can be used for any of these TWO questions. The poems “Mirror” and “Little Boy Crying” both present the theme of pain that humans experience. Write an essay that compares the pain that speakers experience in EACH poem. In addition, comment… Read More Sample Essay -Themes in Poetry (English B) – Painful experiences (Platt’s “Mirror” and Morris’ “Little Boy Crying”)
Julie Tagg| Think and Write for CSEC English A and B The poems ‘It is the Constant Image of Your Face’ and ‘Dreaming Black Boy’ both address the themes of confessions of hopes and desires.” Write an essay in which you discuss the theme of hopes and desires that are portrayed in EACH poem. Finally,… Read More Sample Essay – Themes in Poetry: Hopes and Desires in “It is the Constant Image of Your Face” and “Dreaming Black Boy”
Julie Tagg| Think and Write for CSEC English Note that this response/essay will help with any theme question that relates to childhood experiences, parental role and parental love, family relationships, and love. It will also help with answering questions on literary devices (allusion, emotive words and narrator voice) Mervyn Morris’s poem “Little Boy Crying” delves… Read More Sample Essay – Analysis of Mervyn Morris “Little Boy Crying”
Julie Tagg| Think and Write for CSEC English A and B These are possible CSEC questions and answers for poetry. These questions are similar and the response applies to both. (Rubadiri’s An African Thunderstorm” and Wordsworth “Sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge” Question A In “An African Thunderstorm” and “Sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge”, the speaker… Read More Sample Essay – The theme of Nature in CSEC Poetry – Comparative Essay
Personification In this play, Girl narrates her journey from Africa and describes the river as having human qualities that carry her further and further away from her mother on its great brown back. This personification not only shows the force of nature but also highlights how Girl is helplessly separated from her birthplace. The playwright… Read More Personification in Alistair Campbell’s “Anansi”
The growing idleness of summer grass With its frail kites of furious butterflies Requests the lemonade of simple praise In scansion gentler than my hammock swings And rituals no more upsetting than a Black maid shaking linen as she sings The plain notes of some Protestant hosanna— Since I lie idling from the thought in… Read More A Lesson for this Sunday by Derek Walcott
Bridge, September 3, 1802 – William Wordsworth Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open… Read More Sonnet Composed Upon Westminister
I watch him set up easel, Both straddling precariously A corner of the twisted, climbing Mountain track A tireless humming-bird, his brush Dips, darts, hovers now here, now there, Where puddles of pigment Bloom in the palette’s wild small garden. The mountains pose for him In a family group Dignified, self-conscious, against the wide blue… Read More Landscape Painter, Jamaica (for Albert Huie) by Vivian Virtue
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest… Read More “Death, be not proud” (Holy Sonnet 10) by John Donne
The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you— Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here to this college on the hill above Harlem. I am… Read More Theme for English B by Langston Hughes
From the west Clouds come hurrying with the wind Turning sharply Here and there Like a plague of locusts Whirling, Tossing up things on its tail Like a madman chasing nothing. Pregnant clouds Ride stately on its back, Gathering to perch on hills Like sinister dark wings; The wind whistles by And trees bend to… Read More An African Thunderstorm By David Rubadiri
Once upon a time, son, they used to laugh with their hearts and laugh with their eyes: but now they only laugh with their teeth, while their ice-block-cold eyes search behind my shadow. There was a time indeed they used to shake hands with their hearts: but that’s gone, son. Now they shake hands without… Read More Once Upon a Time by Gabriel Okara
Martin Carter This is the dark time, my love, All round the land brown beetles crawl about. The shining sun is hidden in the sky Red flowers bend their heads in awful sorrow. This is the dark time, my love, It is the season of oppression, dark metal, and tears. It is the festival of… Read More This is the Dark Time, My Love
I leave this house box pieces of the five-week life I’ve gathered. I’ll send them on to fill spaces in my future life. One thing is left a spray of orchids someone gave from a bouquet one who makes a ritual of flower-giving sent. The orchids have no fragrance but purple petals draw you to… Read More Orchids by Hazel Simmons-McDonald