overhead as students share. (If students haven’t listed “drugs” or alcohol, be sure to add those.) Point out how their examples connect to the four screens of interpretation.
- Segue into the homework assignment for the next class period--reading about Samuel Coleridge, the Romantic writer synonymous with imagination. Students should read the biographical information on Coleridge in their textbooks. (In McDougal, Littell Literature: English Literature, this is found on page 453.)
- Ask student to respond in writing to the following prompt:
Write about the importance and/or size of your imagination. How has it changed since you were a kid? What has influenced it? Be sure to discuss things such as imaginary friends, monsters, superheroes, lying, etc.
- Play “Just My Imagination” by the Temptations while students write.
- Following writing, ask students to call out the five senses while you write them on the board or overhead: hearing, sight, touch, taste, and smell.
- In partner groups, ask students to write down examples of sensory images used while the partner reads his/her prompt. Repeat for the other partner. (two minutes).
- At the end of the two minutes, ask who found five, four, three, two, or one example of sensory images by the partner? Ask the partners how this affected the “picture” the writer created of his/her imagination. Be sure to note how these sensory perceptions create great imagery for the reader or listener, allowing him/her to vicariously relive the author’s/narrator’s experience.
- Put the lyrics to the Who’s “See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me” up on the overhead. Ask students to note examples of the senses while the song is being played.
- Invite volunteers to share their findings on sensory images in the Who’s song. Underline them on the overhead and identify the respective sense as students respond. Be sure to remind students of the mental pictures these images create.
- Now try this imagery hunt with “Xanadu” by Rush, a song inspired by Samuel Coleridge’s classic poem “Xanadu.” Rernind students what they read the previous night about Coleridge. Handing out a lyric sheet, ask students to work in groups of three to find sensory examples in this song as it is being played. They can underline and identify these in the manner that you did on the overhead for the Who song. (Give students no more than five minutes following the song’s end to do this.)
- Ask each group to share at least two different images with the class, noting the example phrase as well as which sense is represented. You could have an overhead of the song up and note each group’s examples on it.
- Ask students to comment on this song: What could it possibly mean? Why would a rock and roll band seek inspiration from such a dead, bald, white guy as Coleridge?
- Turn students’ attention to Coleridge’s famous work “Kubla Khan”. (You might note for fun that not only was Rush inspired by this poem, but so were the creators of South Park, who used an allusion to it in South Park: The Movie.) In McDougal, Littell Literature: English Literature, the editors provide an introduction to the poem that talks about the legend of this poem--how Coleridge, under the influence of opium as he was reading a travelogue about China, fell into a dream recreating images of the Mongolian emperor Kubla Khan. Upon awakening, Coleridge attempted to write down the dream in poetic form, only to be interrupted by a businessman from a nearby town. Later, he was unable to recreate the rest of the dream, instead leaving only a “fragment” of “a vision in a dream” (454).
- Before reading this poem aloud, ask student to give examples of other poets, musicians, and artists whose works were influenced by substances (for example, Kurt Cobain’s drug use influences the song “Lithium”, “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds” was supposedly influenced by the Beatles’ use of LSD, etc.)
- Ask for a student volunteer to read the poem out loud. Without comment, ask students to re-read the poem to themselves at least three more times, then do the following for the next class period:
- note specific