Waterworld

Goals:

To facilitate students recognition of poetry and the literary devices used to express the poem's meaning through poems about the sea.

To allow students to use their imagination along with critical thinking skills to apply what they just learned about poetic literary devices in preparation for a creative writing assignment.

To allow the students to express their creativity through writing in any style they choose as long as the (essay, story, poem, etc.) clearly connects to aspects of a future society where the whole earth is covered in water.

Content Areas:

Literature - reading and interpretation of the poems.

Creative Writing - writing about their own future society.

Materials:

Any poetry dealing with water or alluding to the sea.
 
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coolridge
"Sea Fever" by John Masefield
"The Wreck of the Edmind Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot

A possible internet source for finding this type of poetry:


Sea Poetry ( http://www.aloha.com/~craven/prop.html )

Movie clips from Waterworld or 2000 Leagues Under the Sea.

1) The teacher will give a brief introduction to poetry and the special literary devices that are used in the expression of meaning. (i.e.: shape, sound, images and figurative language)

2) Have the students separate into their planet groups and give each group a different poem to read and analyze.

3) Each group of students will have a few minutes to read the poem and talk about its meaning and the literary devices that are used to express its meaning.

4) Each group will then proceed to teach the rest of the groups about their particular poem and they will each take turns to discuss it with the whole class.

5) The teacher will then play a 10-20 minute clip from the movie Waterworld or 2000 Leagues Under the Sea and ask the students to imagine what life would be like if the whole earth was covered with water.

6) Have each student write in their journal (in whatever medium they choose) about what life would be like in an Earth covered completely by water.

Assessment:

The instructor will know through the discussion and group evaluation rubrics how well the students understand the concepts.

Through their journals, the instructor will assess how well the students can apply this knowledge to their own writing style. (The only criteria for success in the journal is completion.)

Group Evaluation Rubric and Discussion Rubric

Making Waves - written by Jennifer Cannistra, Jamie Hanna, Michael LeRoy, & Kim Mongoven

Back to Week 1 - Day 3