Breathe in: experience. Breathe out: poetry

Control of selected form/genre

Use of ideas generated by set context

Use of language and structure appropriate to audience and purpose

Mastery of key performance elements (e.g. tone, gesture, expression etc)

Evidence of planning and revision

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Part 1: It may be necessary to re-cap what a sonnet is here – specifically Shakespearean sonnets (see Section 1 Appendices for further information).

Teachers may choose to read or perform Sonnet 141 themselves, or have students read aloud.

Extension Activity: There is also the option of using a clip from the 1999 film – 10 Things I Hate About You (in which the high school English teacher raps this sonnet), in order to illustrate the ways in which poetry can be performed. Teachers could use this clip to further discuss the relevance of poetry today and some of the basics of performing to an audience (see next Activity 4 for further details). Students could then ‘perform’ this sonnet to the class.

Sonnet 141
In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,

For they in thee a thousand errors note;

But ’tis my heart that loves what they despise,

Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.

Nor are mine ears with thy tongue’s tune delighted,

Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,

Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited

To any sensual feast with thee alone.

But my five wits, nor my five senses, can

Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,

Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,

Thy proud heart’s slave and vassal wretch to be.

Only my plague thus far I count my gain,

That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

Source: http://nfs.sparknotes.com/sonnets/sonnet_141.html

Part 2: Students may choose to work in small groups or individually for this task. Teachers should emphasise the importance of ‘translating’ this sonnet on a line-by-line basis. Once completed, students should be given the opportunity to perform their translated sonnet for the class.

Modified Activity: Prompt students to write answers to the 4 questions discussed earlier in this activity. Students should also make a list of the words they do not recognise or understand and work towards defining these words. Students should also work at ‘translating’ the first quatrain.

Extension Activity: Students should attempt their own sonnet, ensuring they stick to the correct form and structure and convey themes of love and/or friendship.
Activity 4

Poetry in production: poems = written to be heard.

Notes: Teachers will need access to recording equipment (e.g. video camera, sound recorder, recorder software on MAC/PC). If teachers are unable to access this equipment, they may instead choose to host a ‘live’ performance and have students perform their selected poem in front of another class or their family/community if suitable. Teachers should allow at least 3 periods for writing, rehearsing and performing this activity.

Teachers should explain to students that this activity is performance based and requires them to perform their poem either to camera or in front of a live audience.

Part 1: Students should write their own sonnet (or other form of poetry). Students may choose to write their own sonnet based on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 141 (similar to the film 10 Things I Hate About You in which the central character performs the ‘10 Things’ poem in couplet form). Alternatively, teachers could select another of poem to use as a prompt or allow students to formulate their own without a prompt.

Once written, students should practice rehearsing their poems and focus on key performance elements. Teachers should re-cap important elements to remember when performing (including tone, expression, emphasis, body movements, eye contact, delivery speed, audience etc).

Teachers may like to run a few ‘warm-up’ activities to get students comfortable with the concept of performing their piece. Such activities could include having students read a selected poem at different speeds (i.e. really fast versus very slow) and analyse the difference the speed of delivery had on their response to the poem. Teachers could run other activities around emphasis and body language using a similar format.

Part 2: Students should perform their written piece live to an audience or teachers should record their pieces on camera/sound recorder. If teachers choose to do the latter, the recorded pieces could be turned into a DVD or MP3 available to students (in compliance with policies of specific school).

Section One Appendices

Sonnet Characteristics

A sonnet is a poem with 14 lines, divided into 4 ‘quatrains’ (or sections).
The rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet is ABAB / CDCD / EFEF / GG
Sonnets are written in iambic pentameter: a poetic meter with 10 beats per line made up of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables.
A sonnet can be broken down into four sections called quatrains. The first three quatrains contain four lines each and use an alternating rhyme scheme. The final quatrain consists of just two lines which both rhyme.
Each quatrain should progress the poem as follows:
First quatrain: This should establish the subject of the sonnet.
Number of lines: 4. Rhyme Scheme: ABAB
Second quatrain: This should develop the sonnet’s theme.
Number of lines: 4. Rhyme Scheme: CDCD
Third quatrain: This should round off the sonnet’s theme.
Number of lines: 4. Rhyme Scheme: EFEF
Fourth quatrain: This should act as a conclusion to the sonnet.
Number of lines: 2. Rhyme Scheme: GG

Source: http://shakespeare.about.com/od/thesonnets/a/what_is_a_sonnet.htm

Suggested Rubrix for Performance Activity 4

Section Two

Morbid Pop:

The Concept of Death in Poetry and Culture

Rationale

This section will enable students to explore the concept of death as it is used in film, gothic literature, poetry and music lyrics. The unit is divided into five sections: Death and Horror In Film, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, Japanese Death Poetry and Butoh Dance of Darkness, Suicide and Seppuku, and Grief and Mourning. The unit is divided in this way to address the multi-faceted complexity that death has played in cultural texts for thousands of years. Each section facilitates a diverse range of teaching and learning opportunities which stretch beyond the poetry itself, enabling critical exploration of contextual topics. Such topics address issues related to cultural understanding, human motivation and social justice. Students will explore a wide variety of poetic devices, narratives and structures which aim to engage awareness and advocacy. The ultimate aim of this section is for students discover their own capacity to question their assumptions about poetry and how it is interwoven into the entire spectrum of the human condition.

Aims

Explore the Elements of Horror as extracted from gothic literature by identifying their representation and purpose in modern horror film.
Analyse ‘The Raven’ by breaking the poem down into sections and interpreting the text into simplified language. They will identify how the themes of love, madness, the supernatural and death manifest themselves into the atmosphere of the poetry, and will also identify Poe’s use of Gothic Elements as well as modern media interpretations.
Investigate Japan’s classic poetic structures, haiku and waka, and how they were used to paint the final thoughts of samurai, poets and monks.
Explore the concept of life cycle, renewal and rebellion through Butoh Dance.
Identify and elaborate on a variety of contexts related to suicide, its glamorisation and prevention.
Analyse, compare, discuss, create and perform different texts related to grief, death, war, mourning suicide and anger.

Introduction

Death has been represented in poetry for thousands of years. Ancient Greek Tragedians like Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides wrote highly emotional portrayals of once-great humans falling into neurotic pits of despair and chaos, pleading to the gods for Mercy. Though the action itself was rarely violent, death was laced into the prose, and often the audience was left with their imaginations to think the unthinkably grotesque. In Euripides’ Medea, for example, the titular character seeks revenge for her husband’s infidelity by giving a poisoned crown to his new bride. A Messenger approaches Medea and describes the gruesome death of the bride and her father:

“Defeated by her suffering, she fell
to the ground, difficult to recognize
except by a parent, for the form of her eyes
was not clear, nor her beautiful face,
and blood was dripping from the top of her head,
burning with fire, her flesh flowing off the bone
like pine sap from the poison's hidden teeth,
a terrible sight. Everyone was
afraid to touch the corpse, for we had
her misfortune as our teacher. Her father,
however—poor man, in ignorance
of the disaster, he came suddenly
into the house and fell on the corpse.
He groaned and embraced her, kissing her hands,
crying, “My poor child, what god has destroyed
you so pitifully? Who makes this old man,
one foot in the grave, bereft of you?
Oh, would that I could die with you, child!”
When he stopped wailing and groaning, the old man
tried to stand up, but the fine dress, like ivy
on the branches of a laurel, clung to his skin,
the struggling was terrible. The more he tried
to rise to his knees, the more she held on.
If he used force, he was just tearing the flesh
off his own old bones. In time he gave up
and, unfortunate man, let go his soul,
for he could no longer fight the evil,
The corpses lay there, the young girl with her
old father close by, a disaster regretted
with tears. “

What is particularly effective about this scene is how it describes the offstage action—the audience can only imagine a beautiful girl slowly burning to death, her ‘flesh flowing off the bone’ and her father—attempting to save her—becoming literally stuck to his daughter’s poisoned skin, and must resolve to letting go of his soul and slowly burning to death as well. The scene is gruesome and ugly, yet it is all happening in the minds of the audience.

Death in poetry has continued its tradition of painting a tragic, beautiful and at times gruesome picture in the reader’s imagination. It does this using language, rhythm and narrative specifically focused on plucking particular strings in the reader’s emotions.

Many young people today would connect death not to written poetry, but to its visual representation in film, television and music. Many have expressed concern about the amount of violent death featured in these mediums. For example, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, by the age of 16 the average American has seen 18,000 murders on television. Popular music frequently has morbid elements that emphasize death’s destructive and catastrophic nature. Many parents and professionals find such lyrical topics unsavoury and feel they promote destructive and suicidal behaviour in adolescents, and have heralded campaigns to ban, censor or deface the music and its creators.

In the following units, students will examine death and violence in various historic, modern, poetic and social contexts, and determine their own understanding of its purpose and value in culture.

1/Part One: Death and Horror in Film

Aim

In this section, students will learn the Elements of Horror as extracted from gothic literature by identifying their representation and purpose in modern horror film. This knowledge will then be used by students to identify individual elements in specific classic horror scenes, construct their own modern adaptation of classic urban legends, and later use it to guide their understanding of Poe’s The Raven.

Suggested Materials: computer, data projector, film clips, blank table worksheets, sinister horror sound effects and music, torches, urban legends examples, cameras, video editing software.

Introduction

For centuries films have featured death and horror in a number of scenarios. Beginning in the 1950’s, a popular motif involved attacks on humanity by the (un)natural order—sharks, birds, piranhas, crocodiles, frogs, bees, killer tomatoes and blobs. A vast array of films have featured disastrous and life-threatening phenomena such as diseases, accidents and natural disasters. Ghost and ‘monster’ movies emerged in the silent film era, shortly followed by demons and satanic possession, serial killers and zombies.

A particular focus in these films is death. In the past several decades, many viewers have found themselves fascinated by films with violent, gory death scenes. However, not all ‘horror films’ utilise graphic death scenes to convey morbid terror. Many rely on classic elements such as suspense, atmosphere and high emotions to convey fear in their characters and enable viewers to experience it as well. These elements have all been plucked from gothic literature of previous centuries.

Nosferatu, 1922

The Elements of Horror

The elements of horror have been established through centuries of gothic novels, poems and stories. In the past century, films have adapted these elements from literature to interpret stories of horror and terror into a visual format. (See Appendices 1.1 for full list)

Questions:

What are common themes, plots, settings and characters used in horror films?
Why do some people like scary stories and movies?
Do you think horror has changed over the years? How and why?
Which horror ‘villains’ do you think have been around the longest? Why?

Activities

Clipshow

Show a few clips of classic horror scenes. For each clip, have students write down the horror elements used and how they are used. Use a table for organisation. NOTE: Try to avoid gore.

Suggested clips:

Nosferatu (1922) Staircase scene
The Omen (1976) Priest death scene
Jaws (1975) Skinny dipping death scene
The Evil Dead 2 (1987) Maniacal cabin laughing scene
The Shining (1980) ‘All work and no play’ scene
Scream (1996) Drew Barrymore phone call scene
An American Werewolf in London (1981) Transformation scene
Psycho (1960) Shower scene
Ringu or The Ring (1998/2002) Girl coming out of the TV scene
Mullholland Drive (2001) Dumpster scene

Sound Effects Lightning Writing

Using a collection of creepy Horror/Halloween sound effects and music, have students do ‘automatic writing’ (aka stream of consciousness writing) relevant to the particular sounds. Scaffold the theme if necessary. For example, if you play a collage of howling wind, thunder, lightning and ghostly moans, you can give them the title “Lost in a Dark Forest.” For a collage of creaking stairs, slamming doors and nails scratching, you can give them the title, “The Abandoned House.” 1-2 minutes for each segment.

Campfire Stories

Give students time to brainstorm their favourite ghost/horror stories or write their own. Have them sit in a circle like a campfire, turn off the light and tell their stories. Bring two torches to class—one for you and one for the student telling the story.

IT’S ALIVE!

Group Project. Students choose their favourite classic horror stories/urban myths. Film, edit and present a live-action re-telling of the story using modern references and ideas. Incorporate at least four different Elements of Horror into the story.