LESSON PLAN FOR TEACHING POEMS

Form/Level : Form 2 - High English Proficiency
Drama Technique: Group Mime
Time: 80 minutes

Language forms expected to be generated at each stage of the lesson:

Stage 1 & 2
- Talking about facts
a) Describing facts
b) Stating facts
c) Confirmation of facts

Stage 3
- Eliciting Information
a) General
b) Help or advice
c) For identification
d) For explanation
e) For clarification

Stage 4
- Giving Directives

Stage 5, 6 & 7
- Suggesting
a) Making suggestions or proposals
b) Rejecting suggestions and making proposals
c) Accepting suggestions or proposals
- Commenting on other people's actions a) Neutral
b) Favourable
c) Unfavourable
- Expressing agreement and disagreement<

Procedure:
Stage 1 (Pre Mime)
- The class is divided into groups of siix students.
- Each group is given a copy of a differrent poem
- Students are told not to reveal the pooems to the other groups.
- All the poems given to the students arre descriptive and have elements dealing with the environment or with human activity. (The poems are not adapted.)
The poems to be used in this lesson are as follows:
1. I wondered lonely as a cloud - William Wordsworth
2. Desert Places - Robert Frost
3. Stopping by woods on a snowy evening - Robert Frost
4. To a locomotive in winter - Walt whitman
5. The pruned Tree - Howard Moss
6. The Dance - William Carlos William

Stage 2
- Inform students that they have 5 minutes to read and discuss the poem.
- They sit together in any corner of thee classroom. Tables and chairs are not required and students may sit closely together on the floor.
- In the meantime the teacher goes arounnd to each group and answers any questions that students may need to ask in understanding the poem.

Stage 3.
- Inform students that after discussing the poem they have to write a paraphrase of the poem based on their groups interpretation. They are given 5 minutes to do this.

Stage 4
- After 5 minutes inform the students thhat they have to dramatise the poems using miming techniques. (Teacher may have to elaborate and provide examples if students are not familiar with such techniques.)
- Every detail of the poem can be mimed or simulated according to students imagination and creative skills. Students can play roles as trees, snow, a locomotive, a horse, a house, the woods or even rolling clouds.
- Inform students that each group will ddramatise the poem while other groups watch and guess which poem is being enacted.
- During the performance one student froom the group will read out the paraphrase that they wrote earlier.
- Students are given twenty minutes to ppractise their performance.

Stage 5
- All the groups come together and sit in a circle leaving a space in the middle for the performance.
- Each group is given a copy of all the 6 poems to be presented.
- They are given five minutes to read annd familiarise themselves with the poems.

Stage 6 (Presentation)
- Allow each group ten minutes for presentation.
- While the performance goes on one membber of the group reads aloud the paraphrase done earlier if possible in conjunction with the action.
- The other groups watch the performancee and at the end try to guess which poem was performed.

Stage 7 (Conclusion)
- After each performance the group members briefly state how they felt playing their respective roles and whether the performance had helped them to understand the poems betters.
- The class is allowed to question the ggroup that performed the poem concerning the roles they played and the theme of the poem.
- They are also allowed to make suggestiions or proposals
- Allow 5 minutes for questions and answwers before proceeding to the next groups performance

References
Collie, Joan & Stephen Slater, Literature in the Language Classroom
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1987
Kennedy, X.J and Dana Gioia, Literature - An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama
New York: Harper Collins College Publishers Inc. 1995
Maley, Alan & Alan Duff, Drama Techniques Language Learning
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1982
McRae, John, and Malachi Edwin Vethamani, Now Read On - A Course In
Multicultural Reading. London: Routledge. 1999