There is no number in front of this lesson - it is not given as the first (though it could be) lesson when we return to the Renaissance.  No, this lesson is conducted when the first beautiful and delicate flowers of the spring, the snowdrops are starting to bloom.  That means you must have a place near you school where you can take your students to see them.  I was lucky enough to have such a spot - though it did change three times over the 30 years that I taught this lesson.  You take the students outside to see these harbingers of spring - you read "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" while out there - and you mention that these flowers they are seeing won't be there in a week - and that should get them thinking.  You return to your classroom, show a video (that you - or I if you want to use the one I made) on what Carpe Diem is - and you read Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress".  You end it with a story or two about what "Carpe Diem" is to you - in a very personal way.  The students - you hope (and so many have told me over the years) - leave your classroom transformed (at least for a little bit, and perhaps longer).

So the overriding question that this poem asks is - does the form of a poem matter - and how does it matter?  The first poem examined (the one the students read for homework is Sidney's Renaissance poem, "My true love hath my heart".  Next the students will look at (and watch an Illuminated Text of) the modern poem (which was loosely based on Sidney's) "i carry  your heart" by e e cummings.  The structure and evolution of the poems old & modern is compared to what happened with the development of architecture.  The Sidney poem with its restrictive sonnet format is likened to a Gothic Cathedral - the cummings poem - free versed and untethered is compared to a modern church - such as one built by the king of form following function - Frank Lloyd Wright.  Which is the more organic?  And then when the students think they've got it figured out, I throw a wrench into their collective gears: "Is it possible that a restrictive form - can, in reality, be more freeing?"

So the overriding question that this poem asks is - does the form of a poem matter - and how does it matter?  The first poem examined (the one the students read for homework is Sidney's Renaissance poem, "My true love hath my heart".  Next the students will look at (and watch an Illuminated Text of) the modern poem (which was loosely based on Sidney's) "i carry  your heart" by e e cummings.  The structure and evolution of the poems old & modern is compared to what happened with the development of architecture.  The Sidney poem with its restrictive sonnet format is likened to a Gothic Cathedral - the cummings poem - free versed and untethered is compared to a modern church - such as one built by the king of form following function - Frank Lloyd Wright.  Which is the more organic?  And then when the students think they've got it figured out, I throw a wrench into their collective gears: "Is it possible that a restrictive form - can, in reality, be more freeing?"

A VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY important lesson.  There that's the second time I've said that - but my students used to tell me I said it for every class.  But, it's true.  I know for a fact that this lesson - and this poem won many students over to poetry throughout the years.  And there are only two poems that are covered in the lesson.  The first - though well written is pretty misogynistic and cynical.  The second - well, the second, "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" is one of the greatest poems ever written in English.  Like most of Donne's poetry, it speaks across the ages - and students can identify with its sentiment - and it can give them hope (like so many of the poems that we cover) in a sea of sadness.  Though I ask many questions directed at the students in this lesson - this is perhaps as close to being a lecture (not a dirty word) as I got all year - without it actually being one.

The critical thinking questions that this Group Work asks are dependent on Donne's text - but they are also dependent on what has come before in the class (all year up to that point) as well as what the students will listen to (a new story about the death of an Ebola doctor in Uganda) and do (come up with the name of some who has died - and who has made the world a better place for having lived in it).   After the students give the names of these people who have improved the world - the teacher adds pictures of these individuals to an ever-growing data base.  That data base is then used to create a mosaic photographic rendering of that Ebola doctor from Uganda (Dr. Matthew Lukwiya) - helping them fully undertand this idea that "we are all part of the same continent".

One almost last look at the Renaissance/Elizabethan era.  What better way to do it than a cold reading (the students didn't - and yes, in my class that is very rare - read these poems for homework the night before.    For the first, we will do our usual close reading - putting lines up on the screen for the students to respond to.  For the second Donne poem, I created an Illuminated Text to watch (and given the scope of the lesson, there isn't time to do much more than watch the video).  Next, there is an excellent poem by Christopher Marlowe.   His poem also gives a great opportunity to show the importance of knowing every word.  Finishing it off is "Sonnet 44" by Shakespeare.  

Before we leave the Renaissance, we will examine the works of John Milton.  The first thing we will look at is his Sonnet 19 - also known as "On his Blindness".   We begin by reading aloud some of Milton's biography, including (and this will become very important later, some history about the wonderful support that he received from his parents in becoming the writer that scholar he wanted to be.    The students are then asked to write down one thing that they are good at.
We then read an excerpt from Lorraine Hansberry's "To Be Young, Gifted, and Black".  The students are being given parts of an intellectual equation that they will be putting together today.  Also, before they can understand Sonnet 19  - it's necessary to know "The Parable of the Talents" from the New Testament.   With that in mind, the students will be given some time to plan - and then act it out.
We then read an excerpt from Milton's "Lycidas" where the poet writes about a dear friend who died too early to have lived out the potential of what he could have become.  We finish the lesson by listening to Nina Simone's "To Be Young Gifted and Black".  As the students listen they write down connections with the song, Milton's two poems, and what Lorraine Hansberry wrote.

Paradise Lost is much too big to cover in one class - and as this reading always fell (no pun intended) right before my students started on their research paper, I used that "bigness" to my students' advantage.  After they had read (either 1/2 or the whole) excerpt of Paradise Lost in their text book - I would have them - in this exercise - get together with a partner and summarize each of the sections.  Each set of partners is also instructed to find another set of partners so they can quickly look over each other's work - and give them advise.   In order to summarize what happened - they first have to understand what happens and that is the key to this exercise.  I give them a few clues - a few good practices and very little time to get the entire summary done - giving them the resilience and skills to quickly (and accurately) summarize the readings that they will be doing at the library for their research papers.