1. Focus Question: How does Romanticism play a role in modern times?

Find TWO songs and print out the lyrics for tomorrow’s class!

• Find a popular love song that embodies romantic thought and annotate it through a romantic lens (how does it portray the ideals of the romantic movement? Why is it Romantic? How does it make you feel?)

AND

• Find a another song and describe how it perverts human emotion/beauty and how it shows romantic thought has changed. Write one short paragraph (3-5 sentences) on this song explaining how it perverts the Romantic movement.

2. (Due 3/28) Reading–Read the two William Blake poems distributed in class (the Chimney Sweeper poems) and I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud and The World is Too Much with Us by William Wordsworth.

3. Writing–(Due 3/29) By this time we will have read several Romantics (Blake, Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, and Dickinson)! Considering these poets and the above quotation (take inspiration from the themes, ideas, and social implications), you will write your very own Romantic Poem! Naturally, your poem should reflect an understanding of Romanticism. Heading:

Name
Poetry Seminar
3/29/17
5. Romantic Poem

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.” -Thoreau

1. (Due 3/28) Reading–Read the two William Blake poems distributed in class (the Chimney Sweeper poems) and I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud and The World is Too Much with Us by William Wordsworth.

2. Writing–(Due 3/29) By this time we will have read several Romantics (Blake, Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, and Dickinson)! Considering these poets and the above quotation (take inspiration from the themes, ideas, and social implications), you will write your very own Romantic Poem! Naturally, your poem should reflect an understanding of Romanticism. Heading:

Name
Poetry Seminar
3/29/17
5. Romantic Poem

1. Reading–Read and annotate John Keats Ode to a Nightingale.

2. Writing–Free write in your poetry journal.

1. Complete the homework assigned by the Romantic Group. It will be collected at the end of class. Also, you must bring in your Metaphysical Group Readings.

2. (Due 11/22) Surprise: Gratitude Letters!!! Yes, in the spirit of being thankful, please write (handwritten preferably) a letter to someone for whom you are grateful. Thank them and let them know why you are thankful. Be heartfelt. Write your name at the bottom of the letter (However, if you insist that it be anonymous, please write your name on a post it and put that on the outside of the envelope. Ideally, this letter would be to an adult in the building (excluding me). Put the letter in an envelope and write the recipient’s name on the outside of the envelope.

1. Reading–Read Because I could not stop for Death,  My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun, and I felt a Funeral, in my Brain by Emily Dickinson.

2. Writing–(Due 11/17) Gratitude Poem!!! So, what are you grateful for? Please, pay close attention to language (sound, image, and figures) in creating your poem. Also, be conscious of stanzaic shape.