This lesson is will be taught as part of a collaborative unit, called "The Politics Behind Poetry" with a high school English teacher. The research portion of this unit would begin after the English teacher has thoroughly immersed students in poets' work. Each student would then choose a poet from a list of five poets, whose work exhibits and reflects the experiences of their life and the events of the historical time period in which they lived. This lesson would be the follow-up lesson to using print biographical resources second in the unit and focuses on using electronic databases to gather information on their poets. The remainder of the unit would involve students doing research on the major historical events that occurred during the poets' life. In class, the English teacher would be teaching the students in depth analysis strategies for reading and interpreting the poetry. At the end of the unit students will be required to make connections between events occurring in the poet's life and world at the time and explain how this might have affected their poetry. Students will be required to use examples of lines of poetry that illustrate these effects. The final product of this lesson would be a documentary created with windows Media Maker or iMovie. This documentary could include: photographs, voice over, text, music and/or live footage. The main instructional objective of this lesson would be for students to gain an understanding that art is not created in a vacuum, but rather is influenced by the context in which it is created.
Instructional Goals:
> Students will understand the value in using online databases as an information resource.
> Students will formulate questions based on the information they’ve already gathered on their topic
> Students will learn how to use online databases to find biographical and historical information
> Students will learn strategies for searching online databases
> Students will practice comprehension strategies they’ve already learned to understand the content of the information they are searching for.
> Students will begin to make connections between poet’s work and their lives and the historical context/time period in which they lived.
Learning Objectives:
> Students will record at least three questions they have about their poet’s life or world based on what they already know from previous lessons.
> Students will develop and record at least five keywords for their online database search.
> Students will record at least 3 facts about their author’s life or world that they feel is relevant, connected or reflected in the poet’s work.
> Students will verbally share at least one connection they think might connect the poet’s work to their life circumstances or historical events during that period of time.
Motivational Goals:
> Generate interest in using online databases as an information resource
> Build students confidence in using online resources other than web sites.
> Promote the relevance of using online databases as an information resource.
> Promote student’s satisfaction in their research accomplishments.
> Motivate continued interest in the research process.
