Weekly Agenda: February 13-17

Monday, February 13
Volunteers Share
Definitions: Denotation & Connotation
Example: “Cross” (packet)
Writing warm-up: Pick a word that you know has multiple meanings. Grab a dictionary, look it up, and write them down. Then, write a poem with that word as the title, which somehow manages to define that word creatively, addressing all its major denotations AND its personal connotations
- Brainstorm
- Example
- Volunteers share
Introduction to rhyme and stanza
- Define “stanza” and types of stanzas
o Couplet, tercet, quatrain
- Define “rhyme”, “rhyme scheme” and “internal rhyme”
- Examples: “Woman Work” and “Narcissus and Echo” (packet)
HW: Write a skeltonic poem on the topic of your choice.

Wednesday, February 15
LATE START
Volunteers share skeltonic poems
Review types of stanza
Review perfect rhyme
- Example “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” (packet)
Define “slant rhyme”
- Example “The soul selects her own society” (handout)
- Journal exercise: Write a poem using slant rhyme about yourself, written in 3rd person. Try to see and think about yourself like someone else might
HW: Bring in 3 or 4 random news story or magazine article headlines for 2/17

Friday, February 17
Introduction to rhythm and meter
- Vocabulary
- Types of meter
- Intro to basic scansion – marking stressed and unstressed syllables
- Examples: “Stopping by Woods…”; listen to “Eleanor Rigby”
- Scansion on “Eleanor Rigby”
In-class Journal Prompt: Take a headline from a newspaper, magazine etc. and make it the title of your poem. Be sure to reference where you found the headline.
HW: Finish journal prompt, if necessary