Literature - John Donne

The poem along with a picture of a compass.  This poem and its in class discussion usually gets one of the biggest "ah ha" moments from students.  Especially when I show the over-sized chalk board compass and create a circle on the blackboard -- illustrating the last lines of the poem.  As of late, the past few years, I have actually been leaving the picture of the compass off of the handout - as I like them to be as surprised at the end.  I have also gone over the poem that past two years without them having read it the night before - which also leads to a different discussion.  There is an audio of the class discussion available on the website.

These two poems are presented in a lecture/discussion.  One of the interesting things here -- is that the poems couldn't be, in many ways, more opposite -- it is often hard for the students to believe that they were written by the same man.  "Song" is clever but ultimately misogynistic, while "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning," is one of the most important and humanistic poems in the English language. It certainly is for me anyway -- and I believe that comes across in this recording.  For the second poem you will have to imagine some props (silly putty, a giant chalk compass), but if you do -- there is I believe ample pay-off (from the poem, not from me).

After Literary Criticism, I thought it would be a good idea to get back to looking at some poems devoid of the type of analysis that the students have been doing the past 2 weeks.  Though we will probably sneak some Stephen Booth moments into our discussion, now that they know what those are.  The poems are by Donne, Marlowe, and Shakespeare.  The first two poems are lifted direclly from Lisa Danforth's lesson on John Donne poems (thank you!)   I have also attached the Power Point presentation that I use for discussing these poems.