This activity was designed to give students a sense of the expressive potential of sonnets, the shifts in the poems, and different possible interpretations of individual poems. First, I found pairs of actors' interpretations of individual sonnets.
Sonnet # | Read by |
12 | |
18 | |
29 | |
73 | |
116 | |
130 | |
144 |
Students were asked to follow these steps:
1. Read the sonnet. Record your reactions below—the subject(s)/topic(s) of the poem (such as the beloved and immortality, or thepower of literature/poetry), the speaker’s attitude toward the subject, the thesis/argument that the poem is making about the subject,the tone and/or mood of the poem.2. Listen/view one reading of the poem from the list. What mood does the actor portray? Does the actor’s mood change? Record wherethe actor changes the mood (line 5? Between the second and third quatrain? Etc.) Does this reading agree with your own? Does itchange your impression?3. Listen/view a second reading of the poem from the list. What mood does the actor portray? Does the actor’s mood change? Recordwhere the actor changes the mood (line 5? Between the second and third quatrain? Etc.) How does the second performance compareto the first?
I also created a worksheet with a chart to help students to be able to record these observations--because poetry analyses, in particular, need some structure!
The responses were good overall--better when the student wrote a bit more about the poem initially, when there was a significant contrast between the two versions, or when one version impacted the student's initial interpretation gained from reading the poem. Sometimes, I suspect that the readings actualy influenced an interpretation where none had existed before--also a good thing. And frankly, I really enjoyed finding the sonnets. It was gratifying that the videos were able to substitute for discussion of interpretations, giving a sense of what the sonnets were about, as well as their ambiguities (the versions of #130 were particularly good for this). I believe the students enjoyed the readings as well.
After they completed the worksheet activity, I had them post a comparison/contrast of two versions of the same sonnet to a discussion forum to share with the class--the online equivalent of a brief presentation and an assignment follow-up that I require often, since they are learning from each other to a large degree. I haven't looked at these yet, but the forum theoretically gives students the opportunity to bring their ideas together into paragraphs rather than leaving them in the chart.
The responses were good overall--better when the student wrote a bit more about the poem initially, when there was a significant contrast between the two versions, or when one version impacted the student's initial interpretation gained from reading the poem. Sometimes, I suspect that the readings actualy influenced an interpretation where none had existed before--also a good thing. And frankly, I really enjoyed finding the sonnets. It was gratifying that the videos were able to substitute for discussion of interpretations, giving a sense of what the sonnets were about, as well as their ambiguities (the versions of #130 were particularly good for this). I believe the students enjoyed the readings as well.
After they completed the worksheet activity, I had them post a comparison/contrast of two versions of the same sonnet to a discussion forum to share with the class--the online equivalent of a brief presentation and an assignment follow-up that I require often, since they are learning from each other to a large degree. I haven't looked at these yet, but the forum theoretically gives students the opportunity to bring their ideas together into paragraphs rather than leaving them in the chart.
