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Lesson plan: Parsing bad prose, poetry

June 23, 2000
Web posted at 10:21 p.m. EST (0221 GMT)

RELATED SITES

Objectives

Students will:

Define literature and poetry.
Create criteria by which to separate "good literature" from "bad."
Define and illustrate various elements of poetry.
Compare the opening of T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" with the parody in the CNNfyi article "As bad as it gets."

Standards for the English Language Arts

I. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.

II. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and other texts, their word identification strategies and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context graphics).

III. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language and genre to create, critique and discuss print and nonprint texts.

Suggested time

1-2 class periods

Materials

CNNfyi article, "As bad as it gets"
Internet access
The opening text of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Anthologies containing poetry

Procedure

1. Begin with a general discussion about literature, questioning its definitions and its qualities. You may want to use the following questions:

What is literature? How do you define poetry? Do you read literature or poetry in your free time? Why or why not?

What do you read in your spare time? Do you consider it to be literature? Why or why not?

What criteria would you include in defining "good" literature and poetry? You may want to find examples of unusual poetry, such as William Carlos Williams' "This Is Just to Say" or some e.e. cummings poems. Challenge the class, asking whether or not these fit into their criteria for good poetry. Discuss what makes them poems.

2. Discuss the CNNfyi article with the class. Ask the following questions:

What is the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest? Where is it held? What does a writer do to gain entry in the competition? Analyze Ray Gainey's entry about a large pimple. What literary conventions does it include? Why do you think it was judged to be the best worst opening sentence of an imaginary novel?

What is the Julia A. Moore Poetry Parody? Whom does it honor? Why? In what city is it held? How would you classify Moore's poetry? (Use her poem "Willie and Nellie" to form your opinion.) Organizer Renee Nixon says of the event, "That's the intent [of the contest] -- to shed some humor ... into an art form that can be stuffy sometimes." What does she mean? Do you agree? Give an example of a poem that may be seen as "stuffy."

3. There are several references to literary and poetic elements in the CNNfyi article. Be sure your students understand the following terms: analogy, simile, alliteration, metaphor, rhyme and parody. Ask them to find the words in the text of the article, define them and see if they can find examples of the conventions in the "bad writing examples" included in the article.

4. Use the Rudy Espinoza example to introduce students to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the classic poem by T.S. Eliot. Go through some of the original poem opening and the parody to give students a model of how to compare and contrast the two pieces.

Evaluation

Direct students to write an analysis of the original opening to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." They may want to learn more about Eliot and the rest of "J. Alfred Prufrock" to help them understand why he would choose to write about this topic.

Extension

Challenge students to create collages of the original poem by Eliot. Ask them to explain to the class why they chose the images that decorate each collage.

RELATED SITES

Elements of poetry
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
T.S. Eliot

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