Grade Level: 9-12
Overview: This lesson is designed to assist students in understanding a type of lyric poems, *ode. Through the study and analysis of the poem * "To Autumn" by Keats, students can understand this particular type of lyric poetry more effectively in their future reading, and they will also demonstrate their understanding by doing a multi-media presentation on their website.
Objective:
Materials:
Motivational Activity:
Discussion Forum,
Click Post a New Article. In the subject box,
write the topic you write about and put your full name in
the box. In the "Category" click "Journal". Copy and
paste your journal entry in the "Post" Box. When you finish,
click "Submit" only once. Refresh your screen to read yours and
other participants' entries. Click "Reply" to respond to your
peers' writing. You may respond back and forth as many times as you wish.To Autumn
by John Keats
1.
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
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2.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
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3.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
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Activities and Procedures:
I. Getting Ready for the Lesson
II. Analyzing the First Stanza of the Poem with words.
III. Interpreting the Poem with Multi-Media
After the class, you can visit some virtual museums to search for more images that you may like to use to help you present your interpretation of the poem.
Links to the museums:
6. Add music to your page.
Go to Yahoo.com and in Search Box type in midi.
You will see various genres of music. Choose the one you like to use to add
to your interpretation piece. Right Click and download the music to your
computer by choosing Save Target As. Remember where the music file
is. Open Notepad Program in your computer and open the file "To
Autumn". You will see the file in html code, something resembling
this
<head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<meta name=ProgId content=Word.Document>
<bgsound src="apart.mid" loop="6" delay="3"
</head>
Between
<HEAD> and </HEAD>,
copy and paste <bgsound
src="apart.mid" loop="6" delay="3"
but replace the sound file "apart.mid" with your music
file, for example, "Mozart.mid". Save
your file in Notepad and now you'll have the background music for your page.
Homework Assignment:
Use the same method used in the analysis of Stanza One to interpret Stanza Two & Three of the poem. Make a web page of your multi-media presentation of the poem and upload it into your website. (See a sample work)
You may use the following questions to help you generate some ideas for the rest of the poem-
Follow-up Activities:
Resources:
Here are some websites you can go to to learn to compose an ode.
An ode is an exalted lyric poem, aiming at loftier thought, more dignified expression, and more intricate formal structure than most lyrics. Another characteristic of odes is that they often addressed to someone or something.
An ode is a long lyric poem, serious and dignified in subject, tone, and style, often written to celebrate an event, person, being or power--or to provide a vehicle for private meditation. Sometimes an ode may have an elaborate stanzaic structure. Almost all odes are poems of address, in which the poet uses apostrophe( repetition of the initial word of thou -a poetic figure of speech in which inanimate object or absent person is directly addressed).
The ode was originally a Greek form used in dramatic poetry, in which a chorus would follow the movements of a dance while singing the words of the ode. Those odes often celebrated a public occasion of consequence, such as a military victory. From those ancient Greek beginnings, the form has descended through the Western culture to appear in English divested of dance and song.
Irregular odes: they have no set rhyme scheme and no set stanza pattern.
Horatian odes follow a regular stanza pattern and rhyme scheme, as does the ode by Keats.