“Spring and Fall” by Gerard Manly Hopkins

Objectives: Students will be able to analyze how Hopkins, a 19th century poet, uses diction, alliteration, structure and imagery to convey his complex attitude toward human mortality.

  • CCSS
    CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.4
    Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. (Include Shakespeare as well as other authors.)
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.5
    Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.1
    Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2
    Write explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

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Text: Poem “Spring and Fall: to a Young Child” by Gerard Manly Hopkins
Materials: copies of the poem, AP Essay rubric, discussion questions and TPCASTT poetry analysis tool; poster papers and markers
Resource for further reading: Style of Hopkins’ poetry

Differentiation: Students select details from the poem based on their individual reading experience and understanding of the text. They are also given various options to respond to the poem depending on their personal level of challenges or strengths. Students can raise their own questions to probe into the implied meaning of the poem. They are provided with TPCASTT and the Method as tools to help them analyze the poem.
Grouping Rationale: Students will be grouped based on personal choice with consideration of individual learning needs, styles, talents and personality to maximize their productivity.

In each group, all participants are contributors; but several of them will also be a timer, recorder, facilitator, presenter, spelling/grammar checker.
________________________

Do Now:  (5 minutes) Briefly respond in writing: What do you see in nature that mirrors our human life or world? Write a line or two to describe your understanding of such a relationship. Pair-share. Is there any particular attitude revealed in your lines? How?

Transition: Even in simple lines such as the ones you have written, how does language play a role in expressing your attitude toward nature? Now we will read a nature poem “Spring and Fall” by Gerard Manly Hopkins and examine how the poet expresses his complex attitude toward human mortality.

Mini Lesson (10 minutes)

Lesson Focus: Which poetic element will help us understand an author’s attitude? What does “complex” attitude connote? How do we infer it?

With the specific purpose in mind, let’s read the poem out loud.

The class is divided into 4 groups of 5. Within the small group, students will share their responses to each question and build their understanding on each other’s responses.

  • For the 1st reading, we will use Notice & Focus close reading strategy to single out words or phrases that are most interesting, strange and revealing.
    • What is Margaret crying about in the opening lines? What does she see that saddens her?
    • What is strange about the phrase coming to “sights colder”( synaesthesia)? What does “colder” connote?
  • For the 2nd reading, students go over the details they have noticed and rank them. Rank the top 5 details. What pattern did you notice of the top five details?
    • What repeats? Any particular imagery or diction? What motif does the repetition suggest?
      • What do the (coined) word “unleaving”, “wanwood” and “leafmeal” mean? How do you know ? What imagery do these coined words create? What kind of tone is revealed?
      • What imagery does the line “worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie” create? What effect does it create?
    • What is opposed to what (binaries)?
      • Why are leaves “like the things of man”? Why are Margaret’s thoughts “fresh”? What connotations does that word have instead of “innocent” or “immature” or “young”? How do the two lines indicate a shift?
    • What doesn’t fit (anomaly)?
      • What does the example of alliteration “sorrow’s springs are the same” suggest? What kind of sense does it create?

Based on the “Notice and Focus” activity, what part of the poem stands out the most to you? What does it suggest about the meaning of the poem? Use evidence to support your claim.

Independent Practice and Assessment ( 20 minutes)

Now each group will pick a topic for their group discussion of a specific literary technique. Each group will analyze how the poet uses a specific device to reveal his complex attitude toward human mortality. Students will have 10 minutes complete the group task by writing down their responses on a poster paper.

The four groups are:

  1. Diction
  2. Imagery
  3. Structure
  4. alliteration

For each group, students will-

  • select a few examples of a specific device
  • point out a pattern or patterns of the cited evidence
  • explain what the text seems to ‘say”
  • analyze what deeper meaning the text suggests and why
  • make a claim about the author’s attitude toward human mortality.

Afterwards, students will take additional 6 minutes to do a gallery walk and make comments on other groups’ work.

(time permits 4 minutes) Small Group Presentation: each group will present its claim: How does Hopkins uses a specific literary device to reveal his attitude toward human mortality?

(5 minutes) Assessment
Select a specific device from the list and write a paragraph analyzing how the author uses the device to reveal his complex attitude toward human mortality. Be sure to use textual evidence to support your claim. Consider the following questions when you do the analysis:

  • Why is the poem entitled “Spring and Fall?” Is the poem about spring and fall or something else? Why?
  • For what purpose are people born, according to the poem? How does this reveal the author’s attitude toward human mortality?

Homework: Write an analysis in which you discuss how Hopkins reveals his complex attitude toward the human mortality. You may consider author’s use of  diction, alliteration, structure  or  imagery for the  analysis.

___________________________

Day 2-3

Objectives: Students will be able to revise the claim about Hopkins’ attitude toward human mortality by analyzing the evidence they have identified; students will also be able to create a thesis statement based on individual claims.

  • CCSS
    CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.4
    Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. (Include Shakespeare as well as other authors.)
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.5
    Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.1
    Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2
    Write explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

Text: Poem “Spring and Fall: to a Young Child” by Gerard Manly Hopkins
Materials: copies of the poem, AP Essay rubric, discussion questions and TPCASTT poetry analysis tool; poster papers and markers
Resource for further reading: Style of Hopkins’ poetry

Differentiation: Students select details from the poem based on their individual reading experience and understanding of the text. They are also given various options to respond to the poem depending on their personal level of challenges or strengths. Students can raise their own questions to probe into the implied meaning of the poem. They are provided with TPCASTT and the Method as tools to help them analyze the poem.
Grouping Rationale: Students will be grouped based on personal choice with consideration of individual learning needs, styles, talents and personality to maximize their productivity.

In each group, all participants are contributors; but several of them will also be a timer, recorder, facilitator, presenter, spelling/grammar checker.

Do Now: Each student copies the group claim and one other claim by a different group ( as well as evidence). Pair talk to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the claim.

Mini Lesson with Guided Practice

Strategies to refine a claim-

  1. Is it a complex response to the essay question? Does the claim sound like a cliche? If someone else never read the poem and can come up with your claim-that’s a cliche.
  2. Does the claim reflect the synthesis of all ideas embedded in the evidence presented?
  3. Is your analysis based on a specific pattern of the evidence?
  4. Is there a shift in your claim?

How do we combine all claims together and synthesize them into a complex thesis statement?

Claim # 1 based on Imagery: The author describes a child’s hear-broken reaction to the decaying or dying nature when the seasons change

Textual Evidence: golden grove unleaving/ wanwood leafmeal/ you will weep

Claim #2 based on Alliteration and assonance:  The use of assonance and alliteration reveals the speaker’s contrasting tone toward the decaying nature- one’s words and thoughts can not express how one’s heart and soul feel because life only goes in one direction while nature is cyclical.

Evidence:

  • assonance by and by/ nor spare a sign/ convey a tone of irrelevance/nonchalance
  • Alliteration: sorrow’s springs..same/ heart heard/ghost guessed/Margaret Mourn- convey a sense of compassion for the young Margaret who has not had much experience seeing the decadent nature. The speaker seems to to also subtly bring up the imminent subject of death through “ghost” and the irrevocable nature of life-each spring only brings more sorrow and the nature’s rebirth does change the direction where life goes

Claim #3 based on Structure: The structure reveals the speaker’s didactic purpose by expressing his concerns to sharing his own views to illuminating to Margaret the nature of her mourning .

Evidence:

  1. The poem begins  with  speaker’s question directly to Margaret: ” Are you grieving” to show his understanding of a child’s sensitive view toward life as revealed in  pointing out her ” fresh thoughts” to ” care for” “things of man”.
  2. To follow his concerned tone of Margaret’s grieving, the speaker immediately sighs to reveal his more detached feeling toward nature’s death as he directly speaks to the reader, ” Ah as the heart grows older” to suggest one’s beginning to accept on’e mortality by not reacting to the depressing sight  as described as ” sights colder”
  3. The poem concludes with him sharing his insight with Margaret that she “mourns for” her own “blight”, the inevitability of human mortality.

What does it mean to write an idea-driven AP Lit essay?

Student Independent Practice

Revise the paragraph you have written based on the workshop and complete the full essay over the holiday break.

Exist Slip: Copy your new revised claim on a post-it and put it on your poster individually.

Homework: Read and annotate “Style in Hopkins’ poetry”. We’ll discuss it tomorrow. Finish reading Act 2 of Othello and all the activities related to Act 2.

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