Poetry Writing Lesson: Forest Odes and Elegies
Lesson Plan
1 hour 30 minutesGrades9, 10, 11, 12English Language Arts
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Written by Yen-Yen Chiu
About this lesson
In this lesson, students learn about deforestation through a timelapse silent video and respond by writing an ode or an elegy using the literary device of apostrophe.
Inquire: Students watch a video showing deforestation and pick one region to further research the effects of climate change.
Investigate: Students learn key literary and structural differences between an ode and an elegy and write a poem to the lost forests.
Inspire: Students share their poems and investigate possible solutions to deforestation.
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Suggestions
- This lesson can be used as a standalone or as a lesson in a poetry unit.
- Teachers can split this lesson into two lessons 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.
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.
- Students can write odes and elegies as a personal poetic response to other parts of the environment that have been impacted by climate change effects such as coral bleaching, specific habitat loss, or glacial melt.
- 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.
From the scientist review
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.
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About the teacher writer
Yen-Yen Chiu
Director of Education
Yen-Yen Chiu, Ed.D., is SubjectToClimate's Director of Education. She holds a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership from the University of Phoenix and a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of San Diego, and taught public school for 22 years specializing in English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Music for grades 6–12, including Advanced Placement. She is credentialed in English, Mathematics, and Introductory Music, with extensive experience designing interdisciplinary curricula that foster student choice, meaningful assessment, and authentic learning.
Reviews
Kara Hisatake
I did a shortened version of this lesson with 10th graders, about 30-40 minutes. I went over the definition of odes and elegies, played the video, and then we discussed the video, researched a forested area for 8 min, and gave them time to write an ode or elegy.
This worked well within a larger poetry unit. The 10th graders seemed to be engaged in the video, attentively watched it, and we discussed how deforestation seems so damaging, especially with both visual browning and construction sounds in the video.
The lesson seemed to be memorable and helped students to really understand what an elegy is.
Several students struggled with finding information and putting that information productively into the poem. Only a few finished entire poems within the time period. There was also a bit of confusion because some students thought an ode meant praising deforestation, not the forest itself.
I would use this lesson again, and perhaps give more time to think through the writing and application of info to poetry.
3 years ago
