American Poetry: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (1915)

Welcome to Mrs Everstijn's (online) classroom
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Slide 1: Slide
EngelsVoortgezet speciaal onderwijsLeerroute 4

This lesson contains 31 slides, with interactive quizzes, text slides and 4 videos.

Items in this lesson

Welcome to Mrs Everstijn's (online) classroom

Slide 1 - Slide

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Necessities:
  • Laptop / mobile phone
  • Student's handout
  • pen
  • divide the class in 2

Slide 2 - Slide

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Learning objectives:



  • Students can predict a poem's theme by reading its title. 
  • Students can learn the settings of this poem by visualizing images.
  • Students can compare and contrast textual details and cite them to support their own inference.

Slide 3 - Slide

Exam objectives:

* determine theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text.

* cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

* determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text.

LITERATURE - POETRY:



The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (1916).

Slide 4 - Slide

Looking at the title of the poem what central idea or theme do you guess the poem will include?

What does this title make me think of?

Slide 5 - Video

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LITERATURE - POETRY:


What do you remember about Frost's biography?

What do you not understand about Frost's biography?

Slide 6 - Slide

Through peer mediation students help one another to obtain full comprehension.

Slide 7 - Video

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Who:  
What
How:  
Help:  
Time
Result:
Done:  

individual
linguistic meaning
vocabulary - p10  (next slide)
dictionary.cambridge.org
5 minutes
literary analysis
help group members
Literature:
timer
5:00

Slide 8 - Slide

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LITERATURE - POETRY:

Vocabulary:
Yellow wood (Line 1)
undergrowth(Line 5)
fair(Line 6)
claim(Line 7)
wanted wear (Line 8)

 
passing(Line 9)
trodden (Line 12)
hence (Line 17)
diverged (Line 18)

Slide 9 - Slide

* yellow wood = geel bos => herfstkleur
* undergrowth = struikgewas (onder de bomen in een bos)
* fair = mooi
* claim = aanspraak
* wanted wear = wilde gebruikssporen = impliceert dat er geen gebruikssporen zijn => mooier en minder gekozen.
* passing = passeren / voorbij gaan (soms refereert dit naar tijd of naar de dood).
* trodden = bewandeld (draf = trod)
* hence = (ouderwets woord) (from this time) na het verstrijken van ?? periode.
* diverged = uiteen lopen
*
What do you think is the focus of the poem?
A
making a decision
B
the person making the decision

Slide 10 - Quiz

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Slide 11 - Video

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LITERATURE - POETRY:


What other literary work do you know that includes 'duality'?

Slide 12 - Slide

Showing the importance of background knowledge + multiple interpretations/perspectives.
LITERATURE - POETRY:

"Poetry is when emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words"

by Robert Frost

Slide 13 - Slide

A poem is the expression of emotion in concentrated language. => inferencing & interpreting = different perspectives




LITERATURE - POETRY:


What is a 'simile'?

What is a 'metaphor'?

Slide 14 - Slide

Showing the importance of background knowledge + multiple interpretations/perspectives.
LITERATURE - POETRY:


What is a 'simile'?

What is a 'metaphor'?

Slide 15 - Slide

Showing the importance of background knowledge + multiple interpretations/perspectives.
LITERATURE - POETRY:


2nd reading (by students)

  • Anything that stands out to you?
  • Anything that needs clarifying?

Slide 16 - Slide

Students read poem outloud = practise speaking & pronunciation.
LITERATURE - POETRY:

Reading comprehension (p10):

  • Who is this poem about?
  • How do you know?
  • Which lines show this?

Slide 17 - Slide

Students read poem outloud = practise speaking & pronunciation.
LITERATURE - POETRY:

Resiliencies:

Insight; asking questions of yourself even when the questions are difficult. If you answer honestly, you can learn and move forward.
Independence; keeping a healthy distance between yourself and other people so you can think things through and do what is best for you.
Relationships; finding connections with people that are healthy for both of you and keeping those relationships growing.
Initiative; taking control of the problem and working to solve it.

Creativity; you use your imagination or resourcefulness to express your feelings, thoughts and plans in some unique way.
Humour; the ability to find something funny (especially yourself) in a situation, even when things seem really bad.
Morality; knowing the difference between right and wrong and being willing to choose and stand up for what is right.

Slide 18 - Slide

Insight; asking questions of yourself even when the questions are difficult. If you answer honestly, you can learn and move forward.
Independence; keeping a healthy distance between yourself and other people so you can think things through and do what is best for you.
Relationships; finding connections with people that are healthy for both of you and keeping those relationships growing.
Initiative; taking control of the problem and working to solve it. Asking questions of yourself and answering them as honestly as you can, so you can move past a sticky situation.
Creativity; you use your imagination or resourcefulness to express your feelings, thoughts and plans in some unique way.
Humour; the ability to find something funny (especially yourself) in a situation, even when things seem really bad.
Morality; knowing the difference between right and wrong and being willing to choose and stand up for what is right.

Who:  
What
How:  
Help:  
Time
Result:
Done:  

Groups (appr 4)
How does this poem illustrate resiliencies? (p10)
divide resiliencies & scan poem (p9)
each other
5 minutes
Class discussion (appr 5 min)
discuss found info with your group
Literature:

Slide 19 - Slide

This learning activity is related to exam objectives with reference to themes & interpreting text & finding detailed information.
Who:  
What
How:  
Help:  
Time
Result:
Done:  

individual
themes & interpreting text
Add information to student's handout - resiliencies (p10)
none
3 minutes
literary analysis
help group members
Literature:
timer
3:00

Slide 20 - Slide

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Who:  
What
How:  
Help:  
Time
Result:
Done:  

individual
literary analysis
Add information to student's handout (p11 - 13)
group members
remaining time
in-depth analysis of Still I Rise
help group members
read novel
work on other literary analysis
Literature:

Slide 21 - Slide

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LITERATURE - POETRY:


Robert Frost’s poem is often interpreted as an anthem of individualism and nonconformity, seemingly encouraging readers to take the road less traveled... But as Frost liked to warn his listeners, “You have to be careful of that one; it’s a tricky poem—very tricky.” In actuality, the two roads diverging in a yellow wood are “really about the same,” according to Frost, and are equally traveled and quite interchangeable.

In fact, the critic David Orr deemed Frost’s work “the most misread poem in America,” writing in The Paris Review: “This is the kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves by assuming that our current position is the product of our own choices… The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism. It’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives.” In the final stanza, we can’t know whether the speaker is sighing with contentedness or regret as he justifies the choices he’s made and shapes the narrative of his life.

Slide 22 - Slide

Students read poem outloud = practise speaking & pronunciation.
LITERATURE - POETRY:



Frost wrote the poem to tease his chronically indecisive friend, Edward Thomas, who misinterpreted the meaning and enlisted in the military shortly thereafter, only to be killed two years later in WWI.

Slide 23 - Slide

Students read poem outloud = practise speaking & pronunciation.
What do you think?
The poem is ...
A
a salute to can-do individualism
B
a commentary on the self-deception

Slide 24 - Quiz

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LITERATURE - POETRY:


Any questions?

Slide 25 - Slide

Students read poem outloud = practise speaking & pronunciation.
Name another example in
literature, movies or historical event
in which resilience is shown.

Slide 26 - Mind map

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When were you resilient?

Slide 27 - Open question

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What have you learned today?

Slide 28 - Open question

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Extra assignment:
Watch a video of a famous singer/band/spoken word performer who was inspired by the poem Still I Rise. Comment on the performance, include arguments.

Slide 29 - Slide

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Slide 30 - Video

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More resources:

Slide 31 - Slide

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