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AP-11 Lesson Plan: 11/11/10
Unit 2: American Dreaming
Lesson: Walt Whitman and the American Dream
Veres
Essential Questions
Is the American Dream idealistic or realistic?
Is the American Dream an American reality for everyone?
Has the American Dream changed over time?
How does a text reflect and shape culture?
How is our understanding of culture and society constructed by and through language?
How does the American Dream affect the individual?
Lesson Questions
How does Walt Whitman's poetry reflect aspects of the American Dream?
Objectives:
Students will be able to…
Identify the main idea, poetic techniques, and significance of poems by Walt Whitman.
Instructional Activities:
Instructor will ensure students' understandings of concepts about free verse/enjambment.
Instructor will pass out the What/How/Why handout and poems.
Instructor and one student will read 'I hear America Singing' out loud.
Instructor will guide students through the first column of the handout.
What images immediately stand out?
Why does Whitman choose these occupations? Why not others?
What does the symbolism of singing represent in this poem?
What is a difference between the songs of the day and songs of the night?
What aspects of America are celebrated by Whitman?
Do you think this was a realistic view of America when it was written?
Do you think this is a realistic view of America now?
Instructor will read through 'Song of Myself stanza 1, 6, & 17.'
Students will break into groups of 4-5 people. They will do one additional read-through
of the poem before completing the worksheet together.
Instructor will tell students to reference dictionaries for any words that they do not know.
First, what questions do you have about this poem? places you don't understand or
simply want to revisit...
What tone does Whitman strike with this poem?
Why is Whitman extolling work?
What does Whitman believe about the individual?
What is Whitman's attitude towards society?
How does this fit with his attitude in 'I hear America singing?'
What do ‘creeds and schools’ represent? Why are they in abeyance?
What is Whitman’s view of the individual and the group?
How does this help support his claim?
(What is Whitman's view about shared beliefs?)
What does the grass represent?
What are his views of life and death?
What does Whitman think about the importance of his own poetry?
The poet Ezra Pound called Whitman, “America's poet... He is America.” The
philanthropist Andrew Carnegie called him, "the great poet of America so far.”
He’s been called the first “poet of democracy." How does what you’ve seen of
Whitman today fit into this view?
How does Whitman's view of America fit with your more contemporary view of
America?
What are your ideas about life and how do they fit with or conflict with Whitman's
ideas?
Materials:
Walt Whitman- 'Song of Myself stanzas 1, 6, & 17' and 'I hear America Singing'
Handout- What/How/Why
Notes:
assume- Here is a good example of Whitman using several definitions of a word at once:
1. to put on (like a garment), 2. to take upon oneself, undertake, 3. to invest oneself
formally with, 4. to take on, adopt, to feign, affect, 6. to take for granted, suppose, 7. to
take up or receive, as into heaven.
Reflections:
11/11/10. This lesson plan seemed to fall short of the mark in periods 1&2. The first
period had a student who didn’t believe that free-verse was a valid form of poetry, but the
kids seemed to continue to learn when I opened this up for discussion, as we ended up
covering many of the lesson plan’s ideas through the discussion of the validity of free
verse.
Period two was dry, which lead me to the realization that Whitman has ideas that are
more alive than I was making them.
In period three, I did “I Hear America Singing” like normal, but split up the group into
the 3 stanzas for “song of myself.” I asked them to find both “the big idea” and “why we
should care.” I didn’t get all the way to the end of the lesson due to time constraints, but
it went a lot better than the first two.