A. Engage the Learner - RL.7.4 (5 minutes)

• Repeated routine: Students respond to questions on Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 2.

• Once students have completed their entrance tickets, use a total participation technique to review their responses.

• Repeated routine: Follow the same routine as with the previous lessons to review learning targets and the purpose of the lesson, reminding students of any learning targets that are similar or the same as in previous lessons. 

MEETING STUDENTS' NEEDS 

As necessary, encourage students to work with a partner to develop a word bank or web of vocabulary they can use in their entrance ticket responses. Generating vocabulary will enable them to better write about the quote and its meaning.

For the entrance ticket, encourage students to work in pairs to first paraphrase the quote and then discuss it. Have a share-out to ensure that students fully comprehend the quote before writing about it. Also, encourage students to use the words in the questions to create sentence frames for their responses. As necessary, model doing so with the first question:

This quote suggests that we'll be reading about a poem that is about . . . 

This quote connects to . . . because . . . 

A. Read and Analyze Structure: “On Bully Patrol” – RL.7.5 (20 minutes)

• Review appropriate learning target relevant to the work to be completed in this section of the lesson:

“I can analyze how the structure of a poem contributes to its meaning.”

• Inform students that in this lesson they will begin analyzing the poem pairings in their anchor texts One Last Word by Nikki Grimes. Explain that in today’s lesson, students will reread “Hope” by Georgia Douglas Johnson as well as Grimes’ accompanying poem “On Bully Patrol.” Ask students to retrieve their copies of One Last Word and open to the poem “Hope.”

• Read “Hope” aloud for students. Ask for student volunteers to recall the themes they discussed for this poem. (Difficulties don’t last forever; no matter how difficult life is, there is always hope.) As necessary, display and review the Harlem Renaissance Themes anchor chart to help students recall the poem “Hope.”

• Inform students that they will now read the Grimes poem “On Bully Patrol,” which was inspired by “Hope.” Inform students that they will read the whole poem in this lesson, analyzing the first half of the poem now and the second half in the next lesson. In both lessons, they will investigate more closely the techniques Grimes used and how she borrowed from “Hope” to create her poem.

• Explain that students will read the poem several times through before analyzing it. Read aloud the full poem, asking students to close their eyes and listen. Remind students that today they will focus on the first half of the poem. Read the first six stanzas aloud a second time (from “My youngest limps home, feeble and frail” to “A bad habit is an ugly weed”), asking students to follow along. Finally, read the six stanzas aloud chorally as a class.

• Ask students to Turn and Talk with a partner about both poems and note any similarities they see between the two poems. (The highlighted words at the ends of the lines come from “Hope.” Both poems seem to be about overcoming difficult times.)

• Confirm for students that Grimes is using words from the poem “Hope” in “On Bully Patrol” to end the lines of her poem. Explain that this is a technique called the Golden Shovel, which they will look at more deeply after finding the gists of the stanzas they’ve read so far and understanding their meaning.

• Distribute copies of the Analyze Poetry note-catchers and Analyze Poetry note-catchers ▲ as necessary. The differentiated note-catcher supports students in writing about structure, figurative language, and themes with sentence starters. ▲ Note that this is the same note-catcher that students used to analyze poetry in Unit 1 of this module. As necessary, review what students should record in each section. Direct students to complete the sections on the title and poet.

• Ask students to Think-Pair-Share:

“Who is the speaker in this poem, and what is she discussing?” (The speaker is a mother discussing the difficulty her child faces, including facing racist insults at her school.)

“How is the poem organized—in stanzas, rhyming couplets, etc.?” (The poem is organized into stanzas.)

“What is the meaning of reproaches in line two? What is happening to the daughter in this stanza?” (Reproaches means “criticisms” or “harsh words.” The daughter is being picked on and made fun of in school.) 

• Add reproaches to the academic word wall, and instruct students to add the word to their vocabulary logs.

• Use a total participation technique to determine the gist of each stanza with the class. Record the responses on the board:

  • Stanza 1: the mother comforts her child, who has been insulted because of her race

  • Stanza 2: the mother remembers her own hurt at the hands of bullies

  • Stanza 3: the mother remembers losing her father, recalls that difficult times pass

  • Stanza 4: the mother recalls time her daughter was sick, who now “leap[s]”

  • Stanza 5: her eldest child is like her, stubborn and a perfectionist

  • Stanza 6: good traits take time, bad habits can come quickly

• Invite students to note these responses on their Analyze Poetry note-catchers.

• Tell students that they will look more closely at the Golden Shovel technique Grimes uses in this poem by reading her brief essay at the beginning of the book.

• Instruct students to open their copies of One Last Word to the essay titled “Poetry Form.” Read the essay aloud while students follow along.

• After reading, ask students to Turn and Talk in a small group about how the essay relates to the poems they just read:

“Does the essay confirm the structural relationship between the poems ‘Hope’ and ‘Bully Patrol’ that you discovered?” (Yes, Grimes talks about how the Golden Shovel technique uses the whole poem or just a line to create the new poem. In “On Bully Patrol” she uses the whole poem “Hope” to end each line of the new poem.)

• Also, point out that each stanza has as many lines in it as there are words in the line from “Hope” that Grimes is using.

• Ask students to Turn and Talk about the following questions:

“Why does Grimes find this way of writing challenging? Why does she ‘love’ using this style?” (Grimes says it is challenging to write something “that makes sense.” But she also says she loves it “for that very reason,” because it gives her the chance to create “something entirely new.”)

“How does writing in this way help to connect present to past, and carry on the legacy of work from movements like the Harlem Renaissance?” (By actually using another writer’s words, Grimes helps these words live on to reach new generations of readers. She adds her own ideas and language to connect the ideas in the poems from the past to her life and work in the present.)

• Tell students that throughout the unit they will have the chance to respond to the poems they read by either creating a Golden Shovel poem like the one they analyzed today, creating an illustration, song, or dance, or writing a paragraph response to the poem. These responses will be part of their work tracing the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance in this unit.

• Display the first stanza of “On Bully Patrol” and point out how Grimes uses the words from the first line of the poem “Hope” to end each line of this stanza. Note that the poem has twelve stanzas and uses all twelve lines of the poem “Hope” as the ending words in each line.

• Ask students to form small groups to look more closely at how the structure of the Golden Shovel impacts the poem. Assign each group one of the first four stanzas to analyze and discuss. Explain to students that they will analyze stanzas 5 and 6 in more detail for homework. (Since there are likely more groups than stanzas, several groups will analyze the same stanza.) As they analyze and discuss their stanza, they can determine the meaning of unknown words using strategies such as context, word parts, and a dictionary.

• Ask students to Think-Group-Share about their assigned stanzas, focusing first on the structure of the stanzas.

“What is the speaker thinking about or doing in this stanza? How does the stanza develop ideas from the line it borrows from ‘Hope’?”

• • • Stanza 1: (The speaker is comforting her youngest daughter. Her daughter was bullied and felt “feeble and frail” and also full of “sorrow,” like the children in “Hope.”)

    • Stanza 2: (The speaker is recalling her own time being bullied. It connects to the line she uses because from “Hope” because her daughter is being bullied for being “too dark . . . too whatever,” but the speaker also remembers that the “light shines through.”)

    • Stanza 3: (The speaker is recalling that she lost her father when she was young. It connects to “Hope,” because the line mentions the world changing and how “all things pass away.”)

    • Stanza 4: (This describes the speaker’s daughter and how she is healthy now but was very sick once. It connects to the line from “Hope” in remembering that the dark “night” of her daughter’s illness didn’t last forever.)

• As groups share, invite students to note several examples of how the poem is structured on their note-catchers, along with a description of how the poem uses lines from “Hope” to structure its ideas. To support students who need more time or visuals to process, record responses on the board or a displayed copy of the Analyze Poetry note-catcher. Consult the Analyze Poetry note-catcher (example for teacher reference) as necessary.

• Ask students to Think-Group-Share:

“How does the meaning of your group’s stanza relate to the meaning of the line from the poem ‘Hope’?” (Responses will vary but may include: The stanza uses the same ideas in the line from “Hope,” but connects it to a new context, to children’s lives today.)

• Repeated routine: Invite students to reflect on their progress toward the relevant learning target.

MEETING STUDENTS' NEEDS 

In Work Time A, after reading the poem “Hope,” allow students several minutes to examine the poem “On Bully Patrol” and Think-Pair-Share about what they notice. In the share, confirm that in “On Bully Patrol” Grimes ends each line with a word from “Hope.” Allowing students to grapple with and discover the Golden Shovel structure for themselves will increase their confidence and engagement with the poems and their shared structure and ideas.

Also in Work Time A, as necessary to support students in understanding Grimes’ essay on the Golden Shovel method, pause after reading each paragraph and allow time for students to jot down the gist. If they are unable to understand a paragraph enough to record a gist, they should Turn and Talk with a partner to figure out the gist of the paragraph together. Taking time to record gists will ensure comprehension.

In Work Time A, after reading the poem “Hope,” allow students several minutes to examine the poem “On Bully Patrol” and Think-Pair-Share about what they notice. In the share, confirm that in “On Bully Patrol” Grimes ends each line with a word from “Hope.” Allowing students to grapple with and discover the Golden Shovel structure for themselves will increase their confidence and engagement with the poems and their shared structure and ideas.

Also in Work Time A, as necessary to support students in understanding Grimes’ essay on the Golden Shovel method, pause after reading each paragraph and allow time for students to Turn and Talk to tell the gist, highlight keywords and phrases, and even illustrate the text in the margins. Review students gists, highlights, and illustrations before moving on to the next paragraph. Taking time to record gists and highlight the text will ensure comprehension.

Finally, in Work Time A and B, encourage students to use the Analyze Poetry note-catcher ▲. This resource includes sentence frames that support students in comprehension and writing about the structure, language, and themes in the poems.

B. Analyze Figurative Language: “On Bully Patrol” – RL.7.4 (10 minutes)

• Review appropriate learning target relevant to the work to be completed in this section of the lesson:

“I can determine the meaning of figurative language in ‘On Bully Patrol.’”

• Ask students to return to their stanzas to analyze the impact of figurative language in each of their stanzas. Post the examples of figurative language below or direct students’ attention to them in the text. Ask students to discuss how this figurative language develops an idea in their stanzas.

• Guide students to analyze the figurative language in their stanza by asking them to Think-Group-Share about the following questions:

“What is being compared? How is the abstract idea like the concrete object? What does this simile or metaphor show about the speaker and her family?”

•  If necessary, model answering these questions with the following figurative language from stanza 5: “My eldest, too like me, payment for the / pain I caused my mother because I was stubborn as oak” (1–2). (Her oldest daughter is compared to payment, and the speaker is compared to oak. Her daughter is like payment because she is as hard to raise as she was, so it’s like she’s being paid back for the trouble she caused her mother. The speaker was like oak, which is hard because she was difficult to raise, stubborn. This simile and metaphor show how she and her daughter are stubborn and tough.) ▲

• Responses will vary, but may include the following:

  • Stanza 1: “I shape my love like fingers, pluck the splinters of hate, one by/one” (6–7) (Love is compared to fingers, and hate is compared to splinters. Love can be like fingers to hold or help someone; hate can be like splinters because hateful words can painfully stick in our mind. Like fingers pulling a splinter, love can remove the painful hate and start the process of healing. This figurative language shows how the mother comforts the daughter and shows how badly the daughter has been hurt.)

  • Stanza 2: “I’ve seen the / scars they hide, each jagged as a red-rose / thorn.” (14–16) (Bullies’ scars are compared to thorns. Scars are like thorns because they are jagged and painful. This figurative language shows that the bullies who were mean to the speaker and her daughter were acting that way because they were hurt themselves.)

  • Stanza 3: “Thought I’d crack from the weight of the hurt, but time has / a way of teaching that life finds its / own balance.” (20–22) (Speaker is compared to something that can crack. Time is compared to a teacher. The speaker is like something that can shatter because she feels fragile. Time is like a teacher because, over time, we learn to live more in balance. This figurative language shows the pain she suffered when her father died, but also how time helped to heal her.)

  • Stanza 4: “Be grateful that darkness burns to ash in the flame of the day.” (33–34) (The darkness is the emotional pain that is being compared to something that can burn away. Emotional pain is like darkness because it makes people feel scared and sad, but it can burn away in the fire of daylight. Hope is like the flame of the day, powerful and full of light. This figurative language reminds the reader and her daughters that difficult times can eventually pass and turn into something better.)

• During the sharing, invite students to note several of these instances of figurative language on their note-catchers. To support students who need more time or visuals to process, record responses on the board or a displayed copy of the Analyze Poetry note-catcher. Consult the Analyze Poetry note-catcher (example for teacher reference) as necessary.

• Ask students to Turn and Talk:

“What are some themes that are emerging in this poem?” (Difficulties will eventually pass; life moves in cycles; memories help us put things in perspective.)

• Remind students that they will analyze the fifth and sixth stanzas for homework.

• Once students have finished reading and analyzing the poem, ask students to Think-Pair-Share:

“What habits of character did you see in this poem? Who demonstrated them? What did they look/sound like?” (Responses will vary, but may include: The speaker demonstrates perseverance as she recounts the difficulty she experienced and how she overcame it while passing on advice to her daughter about how to do the same.)

• Repeated routine: Invite students to reflect on their progress toward the relevant learning targets.

MEETING STUDENTS' NEEDS 

After students read and analyze figurative language in “On Bully Patrol” in Work Time B, invite students to participate in a Mini Language Dive to interpret figurative imagery that compares mean habits to weeds that grow out of control and to analyze repetition of sounds and structures (RL.7.4). This Mini Language Dive also helps students address L.7.4b by giving them an opportunity to examine a word (devilishly) whose multiple affixes give clues about its meaning.

Finally, in Work Time A and B, encourage students to use the Analyze Poetry note-catcher ▲. This resource includes sentence frames that support students in comprehension and writing about the structure, language, and themes in the poems.

A. Discover Golden Shovel (10 minutes)

• Review appropriate learning target relevant to the work to be completed in this section of the lesson:

“I can analyze how the structure of a poem contributes to its meaning.”

• Invite students to work in small groups using a line or excerpt from “On Bully Patrol,” such as the one below, to brainstorm a brief stanza or poem that uses the words of this line as the last words of each line in the new poem or stanza to express a similar message or idea:

  • “Notice, traits of beauty tend to inch along in growth.”

• Remind students that the purpose of writing this poem is just to explore the Golden Shovel technique and that they will not be assessed on their poems. Circulate and support students as they grapple with this structure.

• After several minutes, ask for volunteers from student groups to share what they’ve written using the Golden Shovel technique.

• Ask students to Turn and Talk about how the line they chose influenced the poems they drafted:

“How did the line you chose influence your language choices? How did it influence what the poem was about?” (Using the line made it difficult to come up with words that would fit well in the poem. The words also made it so that what we wrote about ideas that were similar to that line.)

• Distribute Homework: Analyze “On Bully Patrol,” Part I ▲ as necessary. The differentiated homework supports students in writing responses with sentence frames. ▲

• Invite students to reflect on the habits of character focus in this lesson, discussing what went well and what could be improved next time.

MEETING STUDENTS' NEEDS 

Students may be reluctant at first to write a poem, especially one that uses a line from another's poem. Other students may have experience with writing poems in English or other languages. Ask these students to share their experiences with the class. As necessary, prompt these students with questions such as

Why do you write poems? What do poems help you express or say? How do you write poems? What advice do you have for others just starting out writing poems? How will you start writing this Golden Shovel poem?

If students feel comfortable, they can model writing a Golden Shovel poem, showing how they write poetry. Drawing on students' previous experiences increases their confidence and engagement with classroom activities.

Students may be reluctant at first to write a poem, especially one that uses a line from another's poem. Other students may have experience with writing poems in English or other languages. Ask these students to share their experiences with the class. As necessary, prompt these students with questions such as

Why do you write poems? What do poems help you express or say? How do you write poems? What advice do you have for others just starting out writing poems? How will you start writing this Golden Shovel poem?

If students feel comfortable, they can model writing a Golden Shovel poem, showing how they write poetry. Drawing on students' previous experiences increases their confidence and engagement with classroom activities. 

If a student doesn't feel comfortable modeling, draw together students who need heavier support to model writing a Golden Shovel poem. Then encourage them to write their poems in their home language or using words from both their home language and English.