Lesson Overview:
Students will analyze various texts within their larger historical and social contexts, and examine how differences in an artist's perspective, purpose, and audience can affect his/her artwork. Specifically, students will compare poems by Randall Jarrell, Paul Celan, and Salvatore Quasimodo, and determine the poetic devices used and themes apparent in each. They will also compare and contrast documentary photographs detailing various aspects of World War II, including Nazi propaganda versus photographs documenting the Holocaust, and works by Japanese photographer Yosuke Yamahata versus photographs of the military outside of the battlefield. They will discuss whether poetry and photography evoke different feelings or thoughts in the audience, and will create original poetry and photography.
Length of Lesson:
Four 45-minute class periods
Instructional Objectives:
Students will:
- analyze and discuss poetic devices conveying musical elements.
- analyze and discuss figures of speech in poetry.
- compare and contrast literary and visual texts offering different perspectives.
- interpret visual media to determine viewpoints and intent.
- write original poetry and compose original photographic works.
Supplies:
For the Student:
- Pen and journal
- Camera and film or digital camera and printer
For the Teacher:
- Computer with Internet access and projector (optional)
- Copies of "Death Fugue" by Paul Celan (translated by John Felstiner.) Available on the Poets.org Web site or in Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness (see Sources section for more info.)
- Copies of Salvatore Quasimodo's "19 January 1944" (translated by Jack Bevan.) Available on the Legacy Project Web site or in Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness (see Sources section for more info.)
- Copies of Randall Jarrell's "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner." Available on the Poets.org Web site.
Instructional Plan:
Warm Up: What is Poetry?
If students do not have much experience analyzing poetry, you may wish to begin this lesson with an introduction to poetry, explaining key poetic devices and talking about poetry in general. Ask students "What is poetry"? Ask the class for their perceptions regarding what defines poetry. How would they describe it? What are its characteristics? Using students' responses as a jumping off point, point out that poetry is a literary composition in verse, but successful poems are much more than that; however, the "more" is not easily defined.
Talk about the difference between a short story and a poem, mentioning the fact that poems are condensed descriptions or reflections of experience that often incorporate figurative language. Pass out a poem by Martin Espada, "Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper" (available on the Library of Congress's Poetry 180 Web site). Point out that just inserting line breaks in a story would not create a poem. Read Espada's poem aloud as if you were reading prose. Ask students why it would not make a good short story (i.e., lack of plot, setting, description, etc.)
Directed Instruction
Introduce the term "figures of speech," specifically defining simile and metaphor. Describe terminology related to the music of poetry, including alliteration, rhythm, onomatopoeia, assonance, consonance, and rhyme. Point out which devices Espada uses in his poem. An example of metaphor is "every open law book/ was a pair of hands/upturned and burning." An example of alliteration is "perfection of paper." An example of assonance is "slits thinner." You may wish to introduce additional terminology to students. (See Poets.org's Poetry Glossary for key terminology and definitions.)
Explain to students that Espada discusses the theme of overcoming difficulties in his poem. Point out that poetry allows you to gain a deeper understanding of what oppression feels like, and how it affects individuals on personal, emotional, and intellectual levels. Lead a discussion on whether photography can also provide the same level of understanding.
Effects of War on the Individual
Pass out copies of Paul Celan's "Death Fugue" (available on the Poets.org Web site.) Tell students that Celan's parents, German-speaking Jews, died in Nazi labor camps, and Celan himself was interned in a camp for eighteen months before he escaped. Read the poem aloud, then discuss the symbolism behind the image of black milk. What is black milk? What might it signify for Celan? Discuss the effect that repetition has in the poem. Is it haunting? Disturbing? Horrifying? Musical? Tell students to compare the way Margarete is described vs. Shulamith (golden hair vs. death imagery). How are these names symbolic of events surrounding the Holocaust?
Pass out Salvatore Quasimodo's "19 January 1944" (available online at The Legacy Project) and read the poem aloud. Tell students that Quasimodo was imprisoned for his anti-Fascist beliefs and activities during World War II. Discuss the poetic devices Quasimodo uses in his poem. How does the poem sound different than Celan's? Does he pay less/more attention to the music of the poem (i.e., alliteration, assonance, consonance, etc.)? Talk about the image in which "among the tombs of rubble/ the malign grass rears up its flower." Point out that "19 January 1944" has a similar theme as Espada's poem-overcoming difficult challenges. In "Death Fugue", how does Quasimodo's poem differ in theme and tone?
Discuss "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" by Randall Jarrell, who served in the army during World War II. (See the Poets.org Web site for a copy of the poem.) Jarrell's experience as a control tower operator fueled his poetry about the fears and struggles of soldiers. Ask students how the poet's perspective differs in this poem from the other two poems discussed in class. Analyze what Jarrell means by "the State" and speculate on the meaning of the image of "wet fur." Pass out the Exploring Audience, Music, and Figurative Language in Poetry worksheet, and have students compare the audience, musical language, and use of figures of speech in all three poems. Students may work in pairs or small groups to complete the worksheet.
Deeper into Perspective
Tell students that they will be looking at some photography taken around the time of World War II in order to gain a more in-depth understanding of how differences in perspective affect the outcome of texts. Remind students that the camera is never neutral. Not only is it possible to crop and re-touch images in the darkroom, but also photographers' own personal biases may affect the photographs they decide to take. In addition, publishers may ask photographers to look for shots that evoke particular subjects. Refer to the article, The Camera as Weapon: Documentary Photography and the Holocaust, available on Simon Wiesenthal Center's Web site, for useful information on documentary photography.
You may choose to explore any or all of the interactive slideshows below. Students could break into small discussion groups and share their findings with the class, or you could lead a whole class discussion after projecting different groups of photographs for students. In each option below, discuss how intention and audience would affect which photographs are taken.
Please note: Each of the interactive slideshows below contain some images that graphically depict the effects of propaganda and war on human life. Prior to this portion of the lesson, you should review each slideshow and determine if appropriate for grade level, your teaching environment, and in relation to community/school standards.
A. Explore the interactive slideshow Documentary Photography - Part I. Have students compare the photographs of soldiers preparing for battle in the first set of images to the photographs taken of battles in the second set of images. How does each set portray war differently? What mood is evoked from the different sets?
B. Explore the interactive slideshow Documentary Photography - Part II. (Note: You may wish to have students view the Web site, Remembering Nagasaki, from which some of the photographs are excerpted as it contains compelling observations and narrative from the photographer, Yosuke Yamahata.) After viewing the interactive slideshow, have students compare the photographs of atomic bomb explosions taken from far-away in the first set of images to close-ups of destruction of Nagasaki and its people in the second set of images.
Ask students why the U.S. press during World War II would show the image of the mushroom cloud and not show images depicting battlefield atrocities. You may wish to provide background information on the dropping of the atomic bomb to refresh students' memories. The Avalon Project's The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Web site is a great resource for additional information.
C. Explore the interactive slideshow Documentary Photography - Part III. Have students compare the photographs from a 1937 Nazi publication in the first set of images with the photographs of the Holocaust in the second set of images. Discuss how the Nazi publication is an example of propaganda used to segregate and humiliate Jewish citizens. Explain that images of the concentration camps were only revealed to the world after the war.
Perspective in Poetry
Revisit the three poems by Quasimodo, Celan, and Jarrell. Discuss how each of the poet's personal experiences may have affected the resulting poem. Note that Quasimodo's poem depicts the theme of survival in the face of oppression while Celan's poem depicts the effects of oppressive, violent forces on individuals. Discuss who the "we" is in each poem. Compare the audience in Quasimodo and Celan's poems (the "we") to Jarrell's. Who might the speaker in Jarrell's poem by talking to? Discuss how each of these poems critique war, but from different perspectives.
Now the Student's Perspective
Instruct students that they will act as social witnesses and will create a portfolio consisting of two photographs and a poem. For each photograph, the student should pick a different audience and perspective. For the poem, they must write from the perspective of someone personally affected by the current event. The poem should contain at least two instances of figurative language and three instances of the following devices that add to the music of a poem: alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, or repetition.
Instruct students to spend some time reading local newspapers to find out about important events or places in their neighborhood, such as a community town hall meeting, a soup kitchen, city hall, a political rally, or an activist organization meeting. They should look for a story or issue that interests and speaks to them in some way—whether emotional, intellectual, political or otherwise. They could take photographs of an event in their town or city and/or portraits of people who play important roles in the event. Students may wish to interview people involved in the event in order to gain ideas and hear different perspectives on a particular issue. This information would assist them in writing a poem about an issue from the perspective of one individual.
Alternatively, students may do creative work that is more metaphorical in nature. For example, there may be a controversial current event that takes place in another town or country—or an event that affects multiple countries—that sparks a student's interest (i.e., war, famine, poverty, environmental concerns.) They may choose to express both sides of a controversial issue via photography in a more abstract or general way. For example, if a student is interested in environmental concerns, he/she may photograph an otherwise beautiful landscape that is covered in litter to represent one perspective and a photograph of an oil drill to represent an individual who is more interested in profit than the environment.
Assessment:
Use the Assessment Rubric to evaluate student's progress and final project. Evaluate students' poetry based on creativity, facility with language, and whether they include figurative language and attention to music. Evaluate the students' photography based on creativity and adherence to the portrayal of different perspectives with different audiences.
Extensions:
Discuss ways to better enhance the quality of students' photography with the ARTSEDGE How-to: The Language of Photography.
Spend the next class period workshopping and discussing the students' work (see the ARTSEDGE How-To: The Better the Poem, the Better the Performance.)
Sources:
Print:
- Forche, Carolyn, ed. Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1993.
Web:
Authors:
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Theresa Sotto
Santa Monica, CA
