ENGLISH 4 POETRY HISTORY PROJECT ASSIGNMENT

How has poetry changed over time?

Assignment: Create a weblog that explores and analyzes poetry written through history on a topic of your choice. Use your poems to identify ways poetry has changed in the past two hundred years. Interact and comment on classmates' projects. 

Requirements:
- Present at least one poem from each of the following time periods:

• 19th century
• 20th century
• 21st century

- All poems much be about the same topic. Here are some possibilities (but you are not limited to these):

sacrifice             love                  loss                  grief               hope              friendship          
death                patriotism           God                  beauty            animals         respect          
trust                    success           gratitude           school            the sea           sorrow           
passion               truth                the sky             space              learning         the future                 
pain                    sleep                childhood        carpe diem     morality         happiness         
nature                 innocence        eternity            harmony        supernatural   identity                        injustice             morality           loyalty             war                 peace             awe

- Give credit to the authors of the poems you choose. Anonymous poems are not acceptable.

- Each poem needs to be displayed and analyzed on your blog:

• Give the author's name and the year span of his / her life
• Unfamiliar vocabulary words need to be hyperlinked to a definition
• Each poem needs to have your own paraphrase and summary (do not copy / paste from another source)
• Each poem needs an illustration / picture / video that shows an important element of the poem. This part can come from other sources you find online.
• See a sample entry here.

- Your last entry should be a paragraph that explains what you learned about how poetry has changed since the 19th century.

- Follow the poetry weblogs of all classmates and comment at least once on each student's weblog. Comments can include:

• Ideas you noticed on their poems
• Statements that connect a poem to your life
• Statements that connect a poem to the world around us / current events
• What the poem reminded you of 
• Comment on what the student said about poetry through history.
• Agree / disagree with the paraphrase or summary
• Give what you liked about the poem or student's comments
• Explain a metaphor or simile that the student did not pick up on

Steps:
1. Choose the theme you want to use for your project.

2. Research online for poems from the different time periods that fit your theme. Make sure you think you can understand them well enough to paraphrase and summarize them.

3. Create a weblog using Blogger. Make sure that you:

            - use your name in your blog title

            - make your blog available for comments (see settings)

            - share your blog title with Mrs. Ramos 

4. Add entries to your blog (poems, paraphrases, summaries, graphics). Keep all of the required information for each poem together.

5. When you have all required parts for each poem, begin following the weblogs of classmates. Mrs. Ramos will give you a list of blog titles for each person. Comment at least once on each classmate's weblog.

6. Read the comments others have posted on your weblog.

Bonus:

For bonus points, you can:

- analyze more than three poems

- add links to background information on the poets