Class: English 20-‐1 Teacher: Cade Bengert Objective: (2.2.2) Students can relate elements, devices and techniques to created effects. Resources: Projector/SMART Board, PowerPoint, worksheet, and YouTube. Introduction (10 minutes): • Greet the students at the door as they come in, asking them how they are. • Greet the class as a whole, while opening the PowerPoint to the title slide, with the date, class, and objective. • Move to the next slide, which shows photos of Eminem, Robert Plant, and Emily Dickinson, with their birthdays, places of origin, and occupations below the pictures. • Read the information to the class, and then ask the class what these three people have in common. Give the class one minute to come up with answers. • Inform the class that they are poets in their own right. • Explain that poetry is really just the stylistic use of rhetorical devices in writing. Explain that this makes all music with words a form of poetry. Input (30 minutes): • Hand out a sheet with the following rhetorical/poetic devices, their definitions, and examples of each: o Onomatopoeia: A word describing a sound § “Boom!” o Simile: A comparison between two things using “like” or “as” § “He drove like he was in a NASCAR race.” o Metaphor: A comparison between two things without using “like” or “as” § “Her eyes were two brilliant stars.” o Allusion: A reference to another work, event, or person § “The 13 years old boy skated down the ice like he was trying to beat the clock on the Summit Series” o Alliteration: Repeated words with the same initial sound § “Lame lizards licked lollipops.” o Repetition: Repeating the same word or phrase o Personification: Giving human-‐like qualities to something nonhuman § “The tree turned its back to the cold breeze.” o Cliché: A phrase commonly used (should be avoided) § “It is raining cats and dogs.” o Hyperbole: An extreme exaggeration § “He was as tall as a giant.” o Symbol: Something that implicitly represents something else § The dove is typically a symbol for peace.
o Rhyming: The use of words that end with the same sound § Cat, hat, mat, fat, rat, bat, etc.… o Assonance: The repeating of vowel sounds § Cage, bait, male, hay, etc.… o Consonance: The repeating of consonant sounds § Catering, rating, bait, tattle, etc.… o Paradox: A contradicting statement § “What happens if Pinocchio says ‘my nose will grow now.’?” o Oxymoron: Two words with opposite meanings beside themselves § “jumbo shrimp”, “pretty ugly”, “catfish”, etc.… o Imagery: The description of something that creates a specific image o Fragment sentences: Stylistic use of incomplete sentences
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Using YouTube, let the class listen to the clean version of “Lose Yourself” by Eminem. Pull up the lyrics to the first verse on the next slide. Begin going through the lyrics, identifying the rhetorical devices (direct instruction): o Onomatopoeia: “bloah!” o Cliché: “his whole back's to these ropes” o Assonance: “sweaty”, “heavy”, “already”, “spaghetti”, “ready” Using YouTube, let the class listen to some of “Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin, and analyze the first verse’s lyrics on the next slide, letting the class find more on their own (guided practice): o Personification: “sounds caress my ears” o Imagery: “let the sun beat down upon my face, stars to fill my dreams” o Consonance: “dreams”, “been”, “seen”, “revealed” o Simile: “like thoughts inside a dream” Using YouTube, show the class videos of modern poets (Miles Hodges’ “Harlem”, Joshua Bennett’s “Lords of the Fly”, Justin Reilly’s “A Basketball Diary”, and Shane Koyzan’s “We are More”). Ask the class to listen to the poems and listen for rhetorical devices and be aware of how they add to the effect of the poems (independent practice).
Assessment/Closure (10 minutes): • Inform the class that they are to find a school appropriate song with at least 3 rhetorical devices. They must then bring in their songs to present to the class, and hand in a copy of the lyrics with the rhetorical devices identified. Presentations will be in a week. • Ask if there are any questions. • Allow students to discuss the project for any remaining time. • Dismiss the class, wishing them all a nice day.
Resources “Lose Yourself” – Eminem (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYlqUSkBgwQ) “Kashmir” – Led Zeppelin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfR_HWMzgyc) “Lords of the Fly” – Joshua Bennett (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah0kLUjAbTs) “Harlem” – Miles Hodges (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dueJyntQPtI) “A Basketball Diary” – Justin Reilly (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4pNXgWCjww) “We are More” – Shane Koyzan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsq68qRexFc)