Ginsberg and Whitman

SUBJECT: English
GRADE: High School
TECHNOLOGY: Internet, Word Processor
BY: Alicia Atsma

Howling at the Moon and Singing the Body Electric: Whitman and Ginsberg and the "American Tradition" in poetry.

Target Grade/Subject: Eleventh Grade/American Literature. Class Period: 90 minutes. Class Description: 28 students-capability range approx. 4th to 11th grade. Lower income, African American majority, with limited computer experience. In general, this student group sees poetry as boring, unrelated to their lives, and as something nearly always written in inaccessible, rhyming language. They have had little access to it outside the standard textbooks, and do not comprehend its relationship to other forms of artistic expression.

Objectives:

Students will view and read sites relating to Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg on the Internet/WWW.
Students will answer the questions asked within the interactive hypertext comparing Whitman's "Song of Myself" and Miller's painting "The Trapper's Bride."
Students will answer questions relating to Ginsberg's "Howl" and Munch's "Scream." Students will record answers using word processors in computer lab.

Materials:

Lab computers and Web sites listed below.
Worksheet listing needed Web sites and the questions relating to Ginsberg and Munch.

Lesson Description:

Class Discussion (Anticipatory Set)-Why do poets write poetry? (20 min.)

Why might American poetry be different from that of other countries?

Introduce Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg as poets whose work redefines and yet glorifies the America they write about.

Define "Beatnik": How do Whitman and Ginsberg fit this definition?

Introduce "Song of Myself" and "Howl"

Introduce the artwork their poems will be related to. How do poetry, art and music interrelate-what can they tell us about American culture and how do they adapt to it?

Audio: "I Sing the Body Electric" from the musical "Fame." What does this song mean?

Visual: Advertisement using "The Scream" (sometimes called "Howl") by Edvard Munch, in which the head becomes a light bulb.

Hand out worksheet for lab assignment. Go to computer lab.

Get students settled in. Lab instructor will provide basic instructions.

Lesson is self-guided-worksheet provides necessary information.

Teacher will observe and assist students as needed, monitoring their work using lab observation checklist.

Allow limited student conversation if it is lesson-related.

Evaluation Procedure:

Teacher will observe lab work, assessing on-task behavior levels using an observation checklist.

Teacher will collect printed question responses and check for:

Correct spelling and punctuation.

Number of questions answered.

Response reflects understanding of text and question. (Questions are subjective, opinion-based)

Howling at the Moon and Singing the Body Electric: The America of Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg

Log on to your computer.

First, open up Microsoft Word, then minimize it.

Get into Netscape. Click on the "Open" icon.

Type in the following address and click on the "Open" box: http://warthog.cc.wm.edu/CAS/english/whitman/temp/bio.html

Read Walt Whitman's biography, then open the following file: http://jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU/whitman/

Re-opening Microsoft Word, answer the questions relating a section of "Song of Myself" to the painting shown.

Now that you've gotten a taste of Whitman's writing, you're ready to look at Ginsberg. Open the following file and read his biography: http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/People/AllenGinsberg.html

Now open the following file and read a section of the poem "Howl": http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~slatin/20c_poetry/projects/gh/howl3.html

Without closing the "Howl" file, open the following file to view "The Scream," which we looked at in the classroom: http://library.usask.ca/education/munch.html

Answer the following questions relating the poem to the painting: Note: If you need more than one page for both sets of answers, put your name on each.

"The Scream"

A. What do you see in this painting?

B. What might be happening to the subject of the painting?

C. What are the subjects characteristics?

D. What possible monologue might fit the situation presented in the painting?

"Howl"

A. What type of scene is Ginsberg describing?

B. How is it like the painting?

C. How is it different from the painting?

D. What impressions does the poet convey through his "portrait"?

After you finish answering the questions, print out the responses and hand them in.