The Sonnet-Ballad' Lesson 1 of 5
In this lesson, we will learn about the excellent poem 'the sonnet-ballad' by black American poet Gwendolyn Brooks. We will listen to the poem and think about our first impressions.
Unit: ‘The sonnet-ballad’, Gwendolyn Brooks
Lessons:
5 lessons
The Sonnet-Ballad' and Gwendolyn Brooks: Who was she?
In this lesson, we are going to find out more about the life of Gwendolyn Brooks and consider how her life affected her writing.
The language story in 'The Sonnet-Ballad'
In this lesson, we will be investigating the language in the poem. We will need to figure out why Brooks used the words and phrases she did. What effect was she hoping to have on us as readers? You will have lots of opportunities to think about your own thoughts and opinions.
Structure in 'the sonnet-ballad'
In this lesson, we are moving on to explore the structure of the poem. Can we figure out how the poem has been put together? We will look at the punctuation Brooks has used in the poem and, most importantly, we will think about why Brooks has made those decisions.
Writing about 'the sonnet-ballad'
With this lesson, we have reached the end of our exploration of the poem. Now we are going to bring everything together and create some excellent pieces of writing which show off how much you know.
Units in English
Units in The sonnet through time
- The Oral Tradition
- Epic Poetry
- The Canterbury Tales: ‘General Prologue’
- The Refugee Tales: ‘Prologue’, ed. Anna Pincus and David Herd
- The Canterbury Tales: ‘The Knight’s Tale’, Chaucer
- Telling Tales, Patience Agbabi
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare (Introduction and Act 1)
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare (Act 2)
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare (Act 3)
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare (Act 4 & 5)
- The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin
- Sweetness by Toni Morrison
- Introduction to poetry
- Introduction to the sonnet
- ‘Sonnet 18’, Shakespeare
- ‘Death, be not proud’, Donne
- ‘If thou must love me’, Barrett-Browning
- ‘If we must die’, Claude McKay
- ‘The sonnet-ballad’, Gwendolyn Brooks
- Creative writing: short stories
- Creative writing: poetry
- Recapping the basics: simple sentences, statements, paragraphs, capital letters and past simple verbs
- Complex sentences, avoiding fragments and run-ons, capital letters
- Past simple tense, subordinate clauses, punctuating conjunctions and lists
- Writing accurate, correctly punctuated and paragraphed dialogue, using personal pronouns
- Avoiding fragments, fused sentences and comma splices. Using capital letters and writing in the past tense. Using multiple subordinate clauses, punctuating lists correctly when in a complex sentence.
- Paragraphing narratives for clarity, using possessive pronouns, using apostrophes accurately, structuring, writing and editing genre-specific narratives
- Introduction to Tragedy
- Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, Act 1
- Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, Act 2
- Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, Act 3
- Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, Act 4 and 5
- Introduction to the Romantics
- Romanticism and Nature
- Nature poetry: 'Sycamore Gap' Zoe Mitchell, 'A Sunset' Ari Banias, 'California Dreaming' Lachlan Mackinnon, 'Causeway' Matthew Hollis.
- Romanticism and Revolution
- Revolutionary and Protest poetry: ‘America’ Claude McKay, ‘Rosa’ Rita Dove, ‘Torture’/ ‘We alone can devalue gold’ Alice Walker, ‘Good Bones (2016)’ Maggie Smith, 'To the Indifferent Women' Charlotte Perkins Gilman, ‘Caged Bird’ Maya Angelou
- Oliver and the Workhouse
- Oliver Heads to London
- Oliver is Caught
- Oliver, Bill & The Maylies
- Oliver and the Consequences
- Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
- Creative writing: memoir
- Introduction to rhetoric
- Injustice: Pankhurst & Sojourner Truth
- Change: Michelle Obama & Lennie James
- Motivate: Churchill & Gandhi
- Writing rhetoric
- Shakespearean Comedy - The Tempest
- Language Skills - Fiction - Reading
- Language Skills - Fiction - Writing
- Language Skills - Non-Fiction - Reading
- Language Skills - Non-Fiction - Writing
- Grammar for Writing
- The Short Story
- Gothic Literature
- Fiction: Reading and Descriptive Writing
- Non-Fiction Texts and View Point Writing
- Jane Eyre
- Animal Farm
- Paragraphing non-fiction writing, including presenting a balanced argument