Lesson Overview 

Quiz 

I have included a quiz below and it covers both the poems from the students' text book and the background material on Percy Shelley.  Honestly - I rarely gave this quiz.  You will need the entire class period whether you do the Group / Solo Work or discuss all the poems as a class.  In addition - the students were often working on their Research Papers by this point - and I didn't want to assign more out of the class homework.  The poems will all be gone over in class - and it's always good to mix things up and have the students read some poems "cold".

Part I: A Choral Reading of "Ozymandias"

The students have a copy of the poem in their handout (see below).  The teacher announces that the entire class is going to do a Choral Reading of the Poem and they will all start out together reading it in unison - loudly and clearly.  The entire class (and me) begin the poem, reading it aloud.  And then I move past each respective row - and as I do that row drops out - each 2 or 3 rows (it depends on the number of students and how your classroom is arranged).  By the time that we get to the final three lines - I am speaking alone - and read it in a loud whisper: "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, /The lone and level sands stretch far away".

The effect is phenominal - you really don't have to say much after that - let the students put it together in their own heads.  The love "meta"!  There are two short questions about the poem - give the students time to answer them or jot down a few thoughts...then...

Part 2: Breaking Bad & "Ozymandias"

Next, show a short scene from the HBO series, "Breaking Bad".  Don't worry - there's nothing obscene or objectionable in the scene - except perhaps (ok I know this is a big except) the manufacturing of drugs and Bryan Cranston in his underwear.  Screen it first - if you think it's too much or is against your community standards - you can just describe the scene to your students. 

You do have to set it up before you show it.  Here is what I usually said before starting the video:

You are about to see a 5 minute scene from the show, Breaking Bad.  The scene highlights the character Walter White.  Though this episode appeared late in the series run - it is about something that happened at the beginning.  Walter White has been diagonsed with a terminal illness and  has decided to make drugs in order to give his family money for when he is gone.  He knows what he is doing is wrong - but justifies it with what it will do.  He believes it will be this legacy that his family will appreciate - the money, the security.  At the very start of this scene - he hasn't done anything wrong yet - and his wife will call him innocently -  believing he is somewhere else, doing something else.  Think of Shelley's poem and ask yourself why the creator decided to call this episode, "Ozymandias".

   Again, there is a short question (10 minutes) give the students time to answer it - and then they to move on to "To a Skylark"

Part 3: "To a Skylark"

Part 3 is a series of questions to be done while reading the poem (aloud if in a group / by themselves if solo).  Usually, this is done with a "cold" reading of the poem.  It will be difficult to finish all of these unless you are on a longer block schedule.  Most years, I let the students choose whether to work in a group or by themselves (that's pretty unique in my class).  However, if they are in a Group, collect what they have done as a Group (see my page on Group Work) at the end of the period - and let them know that anything they didn't get to should be done for homework (along with Part 4).

Here is a summary of Part 3 - for more see the actual handout (found below)

Part III is a close, stanza-by-stanza reading of Shelley's "To a Skylark," with one or more guided questions keyed to each of the poem's twenty-one stanzas. Students read each stanza aloud (or independently, if working at home) and answer as they go, keeping Wordsworth's "To the Skylark" out on their desks for constant cross-reference. The questions build a sustained inquiry into the source of artistic inspiration: students unpack "unpremeditated art" to contrast the bird's spontaneous song with the poet's labored craft, trace Shelley's chain of similes (the hidden poet, the high-born maiden, the glow-worm, the rose) as figures who give beauty to the world unseen, and connect the "silver sphere" and "hidden want" to the Romantic idea — familiar from "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" — of feeling more than the senses can literally deliver. Throughout, students weigh the two possibilities raised in the Wordsworth lesson: whether the skylark-poet soars to escape the "wretched earth" or draws inspiration from it.

The later questions press into the section's central tension: Shelley's claim that the skylark's song is pure precisely because the bird is ignorant of pain, set against his admission that "our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought." Students evaluate whether great art requires suffering, testing Shelley against Burns's "To a Mouse," Byron's turn to the harp in sorrow, Blake's epigraph to Grendel, and Wordsworth's earthbound skylark, and they revisit earlier course material along the way (the Carpe Diem poems, Wordsworth's Lucy poem, "Barbara Allen"). The section closes on the poem's ultimate irony, linked explicitly to Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18": Shelley begs the bird to teach him a song the world will listen to — and the students, reading the poem two centuries later, are themselves the proof that he succeeded. Two questions are flagged VERY IMPORTANT (stanzas 15 and 18); these anchor the inspiration and pain-in-art threads and reward extra discussion time.

Part 4: A Personal Take "To a Skylark"

This part asks the students to give their individual take (it is not to be done in the group - and should be either homework or given part of another class period to complete) on Shelley's poem.  Here is Part 4:

Part IV (on your own and turned in separately – whether you are doing this yourself or not) How are poets (and any artists – including writers of great TV shows), and specifically Shelley, the antithesis of that ancient king Ozymandias – be very specific in your answer.  Remember – John Keats (from our last lesson) wrote “When I have Fears that I May Cease to Be” – and Keats was so worried that he would die before he had a chance to write Great Poetry, and he instructed his friends to write on  his grave: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”

 Consider this: what were the two books found in Shelley’s pocket after he drowned?  Amaze yourselves.  Please think about (and write down): What two books would you want to be found in your pocket?

Power Point Presentation

As with many of the Romantic Power Point Presentations, I created these during the Pandemic and Remote Learning to help with keeping the class focused.  Usually, I've said that they are great during In-Person Learning as well.  However - in this case - I don't think so.  For one, this Power Point has the introductory background material that there is 1) no time for in this lesson 2) no need - since we talk about the life of Percy Shelley during the next lesson: "Ode to the West Wind".  

The Power Point gives 1) The background material  2) A layout for doing a choral reading of "Ozymandias"  (see above)  3) a placeholder to take a few minutes to talk about skylarks (it also has a recording of a skylark's song)  4) and then that poem - so we can read and talk about it together.  However - I earnestly think the best way - especially at this point of the year - to cover this poem is either in small groups or students working by themselves (see above).