Lesson Plan: Writing a Shakespearean Sonnet

Author: B.Wu, Murry Bergtraum HS, New York, NY

Subject: English

Grade Level: 9-12

Overview: This lesson is designed to assist students in understanding one type of lyric poems, English Sonnet. Through the study and analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 tilted "When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes". By studying the form of sonnets, students can understand the English Sonnets more effectively in their future reading if them, and they ill also have the tools to compose a sonnet of their own.

Objective:

  1. To explore the meaning of Shakespeare's Sonnet 29
  2. To learn the form of Sonnets
  3. To learn to compose your own sonnets

Materials: Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 & 18(see handout of the collection of Shakespeare's Sonnets)

29 

	When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, 
	I all alone beweep my outcast state,
	And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
	And look upon myself and curse my fate,
	Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
	Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
	Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
	With what I most enjoy contented least;
	Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
	Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
	Like to the lark at break of day arising
	From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
	  For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings
	  That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as man can breath, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 
Procedures and Activities:






Begin the class by putting students in groups of four, and each group will have copies of Sonnet 29 & 18
Ask each group to read the sonnets to themselves, discuss to  find out at least three common characteristics shared by the two sonnets (15 minutes).
15 minutes later ask one representative from each group to report to the class the common characteristics of the two sonnets. The teacher will write down the answer on the blackboard.
When all groups are finished reporting, the teacher circles the relevant answer, and adds more accurate information about English Sonnets.
Read Sonnet 29 to illustrate the prescribed form of the English sonnet.
Discuss the meanings of each quatrain, and the couplet of Sonnet 29(the main idea of the sonnet is that in periods of despair and sorrow the thoughts of those you love are a source of strength and sustenance).
List the speaker's catalogue of complaints in the first two quatrains (8 lines).
What does the speaker remember in line 10?
What image describes his mood in line 12& 11?
Compare the speaker's thoughts in the first eight lines of the sonnet to his thoughts in the last 6 lines. How has his perspective changed, especially in the last two lines?
Is the transition in the speaker's mood realistic or sincere? Who or why not?

Summarize the lesson:
A sonnet is a lyric poem with a prescribed form. 
Lyric poetry -- which takes its name from songs accompanied by the lyre -- is distinguished from dramatic and narrative poetry. Although the boundaries are flexible, most lyric poems are fairly short, and are often personal. Examples include the sonnet, the elegy and the ode.
A sonnet has 14 lines, and the lines are always iambic pentameter, that is,they consist normally of ten syllables with every second syllable accented.
The rhyme scheme for an English sonnet is abab, cdcd, efef, and gg. We indicate rhyme schemes in poetry by assigning a letter of the alphabet to each rhyme sound. 
An English sonnet has three quatrains (stanzas of four lines) followed by a couplet (two lines in iambic pentameter ended with the same sound).
In each quatrain, normally a question will be raised, and the couplet usually draws a conclusion or presents a solution to the problems outlined earlier in the poem.
Assessment: Interpret sonnet18 by using the class notes.
Follow-up activities: Following the discussion about the sonnets, students will learn to write their own sonnets.

 
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