Tag Archives: poetry

The Weekly Text, 23 October 2026: A Pair of Learning Supports on Annotating Text

In my final couple years of co-teaching high school English Language Arts class, I was disappointed that students rarely read entire books (although I had the good fortune to work with two English teachers who did assign entire books), and therefore seldom performed any substantial interpretive work on what they did read–which was and is, I expect, short passages from novels. Students annotate these texts, but don’t really write anything insightful about them. Still, given how little students read these days, they struggled with adding interpretive notes–i.e. annotating–even these short texts.

So I developed this learning support on annotating for analogy, allusion, metaphor and tone, and this one on rhetorical analysis for ethos, pathos, and logos.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

William Carlos Williams

“William Carlos Williams: (1883-1963) U.S. poet. Trained as a pediatrician, Williams spent a lifetime writing poetry and practicing medicine in his hometown of Rutherford, New Jersey. He is noted for making the ordinary appear extraordinary through clear and discrete imagery and powerful evocation of the world of common objects, as in the fresh impressions of the sensuous world expressed in ‘The Red Wheelbarrow,’ from Spring and All (1923). Paterson (1946-58), a five-part long poem, evokes a complex vision of modern American life. His other poetry includes Pictures from Brueghel (1962; Pulitzer Prize). His numerous prose works include essays, a trilogy of novels, short stories, drama, and autobiography.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Cultural Literacy: T.S. Eliot

Although I expect he is not much taught at the secondary level (where, nonetheless, I first encountered him), here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on T.S. Eliot. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and four comprehension questions. A short, symmetrical, and almost thorough introduction to this important, if controversial, twentieth-century poet.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Aestheticism

“Aestheticism: Generally, a term applied to a way of perceiving things that was common among the writers and artists of the 19th century who adhered to the doctrine of art for art’s sake. The movement, or cult, was largely influenced by German romantics, particularly Goethe. Because of the quest for beauty and the insistence that art should serve no moral or didactic purpose, it was related with the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Parnassians. Major exponents of aestheticism in America were Edgar Allan Poe and Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Cultural Literacy: Verse

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on verse; this is a full-page document with a reading of four relatively straightforward sentences, with the fourth sentence, a bit longish, possibly posing a challenge for emergent or struggling readers, and four comprehension questions. Otherwise, this is a simple yet elegant exposition of the concept of verse.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Heptameter

“Heptameter: In prosody, a line of verse containing seven metrical feet in any meter. It is usually identified together with the name of the meter: for example, iambic heptameter.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Battle of Agincourt

“Battle of Agincourt: (1415) A battle in northern France. The English army defeated the more numerous, better armed French. It is the setting for Shakespeare’s Henry V and Michael Drayton’s ‘The Battle of Agincourt‘ (c1605).”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Cultural Literacy: Dog Eat Dog

Moving on through my differentiated and supported materials folder, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom dog eat dog. I suspect you can find this document, in a simpler version, elsewhere on this blog. I developed this version of this worksheet to accompany a reading of the Langston Hughes poem “Let America Be America Again” which puts this idiom to work.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

James Russell Lowell with a Somehow Timely Assessment of Democracy

“Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.”

James Russell Lowell

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

Cultural Literacy: Emma Lazarus

Last but not least for Women’s History Month 2026, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Emma Lazarus. She wrote, as you may know, “The New Colossus,” the poem that visitors to the Statue of Liberty find at her base. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences, and the poem itself, and three comprehension questions.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.