Afrolatino Poetry + 

Connotation v. Denotation  

(#2 with unit option)

Katherine Ocampo-Mosquera, Afrolatinizamos Cohort 2023

Objective: 

Students will be able to identify the connotation and denotation of a poem. 

Class/Subject/Content:

High School Beginning of the Year Unit (English Language Arts)

English Language Arts Standards: (Based on New York State)

Standard 5: 

Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

Multilingual Learner Standards:

NYSESLAT Target of Measurement: Listening .9–12.1: Students can identify words, phrases, or sentences that signal important aspects of individuals or events, claims or counterclaims, evidence, multiple points of view, rhetorical devices, and/or the message or theme in grade-level spoken discourse.

NYSESLAT Target of Measurement: Reading .9–12.1: Students can identify words, phrases, or sentences that signal important aspects of individuals or events, claims or counterclaims, evidence, multiple points of view, rhetorical devices, and/or the message or theme in grade-level spoken discourse.

Topic/Unit:

Identity #1: How does race impact Identity?

Do Now:

What is denotation? What is the connotation? Can you think of examples of each: a denotation, and a connotation? 

I Do:

Mini Lesson #2: Connotation vs. Denotation mini lesson. Slideshow

Videos for Support: Connotation | Reading | Khan Academy

Model Examples: Introducing Melania Lyisa Marte, and her poem “Afrolatina”.

Word Document: Afrolatina poem (web version)

Video: Afrolatina poem

We Do:

Continuing to analyze the poem Melania Lyisa Marte, and her poem “Afrolatina”, and analyzing, and discussing few lines of the poem, and it’s connotation, and denotation.

Collaboration:

Partner Work: Students with a partner will be discuss an example from “Afrolatina”, and they will analyze, and discuss few lines of the poem, and it’s connotation, and denotation

You Do:

Individual Work: Individually students will analyze four examples of the poem, and its connotation, and denotation.

Differentiation:

Visual: Mini Lesson Video.

Verbal/Auditory: Audio version of the Poems.

Organizational: Mini Lesson about Structure. 

Metacognitive: Collaboration, and Individual work: Discussing and analyzing lines of the poem “AfroLatina” by Melania Lyisa Marte.

Kinesthetic: N/A

Exit Ticket: Students will analyze four examples of the poem, and its connotation, and denotation.

• What is diction?

• What is the connotation?

• What is denotation?

• Does this line have connotation or denotation or both? Explain.

Anticipated misunderstandings/misconceptions:
Confusing the definitions of connotation and denotations. Definitions and examples are provided in the mini lesson.

Suggestion: What is Melania Lyisa Marte really trying to say about the term “AfroLatina”? How does Melania Lyisa Marte see herself? How does she feel different from others, and the rest of society? Use examples of the poem to describe, and explain.

Word Document

Video

Text

Mini Lesson Slideshow