Deforestation Odes and Elegies

In this lesson, students learn about deforestation and climate change and respond by writing an ode or an elegy.

Step 1 - Inquire: Students watch a video showing deforestation and pick one region to further research the effects of climate change.

Step 2 - Investigate: Students learn the differences between an ode and an elegy and write a poem to the lost forests.

Step 3 - Inspire: Students share their poems and investigate possible solutions to deforestation.

Positives

• This lesson can be used as a standalone or as a lesson in a poetry unit.

• Students are given voice and choice.

• Students create their own poetic response to a real-world challenge.

Additional Prerequisites

• Students should have some basic understanding of poetry.

• Students should have a basic understanding of deforestation and its connection to climate change.

Differentiation

• This lesson is easily adaptable to Advanced Placement or honors level classes by including other literary and language elements in the poems such as juxtaposition, oxymoron, consonance, assonance, enjambment, alliteration, and personification.

• Students can write each stanza in a different meter or rhyme. Examples include iambic pentameter or ABBA rhyme scheme.

• Teachers can split the lesson in two and focus on an ode in the first lesson and an elegy in the second.

• Students can write both an ode and an elegy and compare the differences in writing, tone, and overall effect.

• Social studies, civics, and economics classes can extend this topic to social justice, socioeconomic class, and cultural impacts of deforestation within each specific region.

• Student poems can be shared outside of the classroom in the school newspaper or a community newsletter, on a class or teacher website, on school display boards, or in extracurricular poetry or environmental clubs.

This lesson empowers students to understand what deforestation entails and how they can write poems to express their feelings of grief, respect, emotion, and valor in combating deforestation in their community. All materials used in the lesson have been verified and are suitable for teaching. In this light, this lesson is credible and recommended for the classroom.

Primary Standards

• Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
  • Language (K-12)
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.5 Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.11-12.5 Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
  • Writing (K-12)
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

Supporting Standards

• Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
  • Language (K-12)
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.3 Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.11-12.3 Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.