Seventh Grade Poetry Study...

I'm pulling together some things right now for a more formal poetry study.  We tend to read poetry mixed in with our history and literature studies (sometimes even science!), but I occasionally do a lengthier study as well.  We will finish out the rest of our school year with this.

I'm using A Child's Anthology of Poetry, Elizabeth Hauge Sword, Ed. (picture in my poetry list in the right margin) as my primary book for this.  There is a lot of poetry available online now days, too, if you don't have books at home.

We're going to be looking at some anonymous poetry from the book first, and talking about why so much poetry is anonymous; then we'll move into a basically chronological study covering a period from the 1600's through those poets born in the early part of the 1800's.  Later poets we'll save for next year, with modern studies.

I will pull some biographical info from various online sites to set up the author and the time period in which they were writing; their background, which influenced their writing, etc.

Here's a list of the authors we're covering.  We may read additional poems of theirs from other books or from online, as well:

1.  A variety of Anonymous poetry
2.  Matsuo Basho 1644 - 1694
3.  Isaac Watts 1674 - 1748
4.  Yosa Buson 1716 - 1784
5.  Christopher Smart 1722 - 1771
6.  William Blake 1757 - 1827
7.  Robert Burns 1759 - 1796
8.  Kobayashi Issa 1763 - 1828
9.  William Wordsworth 1770 - 1850
10.  Sir Walter Scott 1771 - 1832
11.  Clement Clarke Moore 1779 - 1863
12.  Sir Thomas Moore 1779 - 1852
13.  Jane Taylor 1783 - 1824
14.  James Henry Leigh Hunt 1784 - 1859
15.  Lord George Gordon Byron 1788 - 1824
16.  Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 - 1822
17.  John Clare 1793 - 1864
18.  John Keats 1795 - 1821
19.  Sara Coleridge 1802 - 1852
20.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 - 1882
21.  Edgar Allan Poe 1809 - 1849
22.  Edward Lear 1812 - 1888
23.  Cecil Francis Alexander 1818 - 1895
24.  Emily Dickinson 1830 - 1886
25.  Christina Rossetti 1830 - 1894
26.  Lewis Carroll 1832 - 1898

Here are a couple of websites that provide info on different genres of poetry, poetry elements, etc.:

http://www.types-of-poetry.org.uk/

http://www.poemofquotes.com/articles/poetry_forms.php

I will use these as we discuss the poetry.

Analysis of some of Blake's poetry: http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/blake

Study guide for Burns' To a Mouse:  http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides4/Mouse.html

William Wordsworth study:  http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/wordsworth/study.html

Percy Bysshe Shelley:  http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/shelley/

John Keats study:  http://englishhistory.net/keats/contents.html

(He's more familiar with Longfellow, Poe, Lear, Dickinson, Rossetti, and Carroll, so I'm not looking at them more in depth at this time....)

April is National Poetry Month!  http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/41

Spring and the end of the school year is a terrific time to read poetry!

Regena