 examples and identify sensory imagery;
- note sound devices Coleridge uses in this poem, including alliteration, assonance, and onomatopoeia;
- write down any questions and comments about the poem.
- Ask students to reply to the following prompt:
What is your idea of a pleasure dome? What would it be built of and what would it be filled with?
- While students respond to the prompt, play the song “Welcome to the Pleasure Dome” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
- Encourage students to share their responses.
- Ask students to describe Coleridge’s idea of “Kubla Khan” and the pleasure-dome terms of imagery and sound devices (from their homework).
- Invite students to share the questions and comments about the poem that they were asked to note. Discuss these.
- How should we intetpret a poem like this? How does the notion of the interpretive screen work with this poem? How does the imagery affect our interpretation? Does one screen’s image become another’s symbol? The students’ task is to use at least one screen to offer an interpretation of “Kubla Khan”, constructing a NILA-formatted paper and a presentation with visual aids explaining how one particular screen would influence the interpretation (although students are free to offer multiple screens for interpretation, they must first use the screen they have been assigned).
To do so, students will count off in a 1-2-3-4 manner. The numbers correspond with the following screens:
Historical/experiential (Coleridge’s personal history, as well as world history, Chinese history, and events surrounding the Romantic era-students could begin by looking at the Coleridge timeline.
Psychological - perhaps from a Freudian/dream perspective-students may want to start with http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/schools/rta/brdO38/usr/sparrow/index/html
Literary (Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, The Oxford Companion to English Literature, and Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature are good starting places, as is http://www.uottawa.ca/~phoenix/homepg1.html
Spiritual/religious (Kathleen Raine’s “Traditional Symbolism in Kubla Khan” in Sewanee Review 72 (1964), as well as the literary encyclopedia noted in #3 will be useful)
- We will spend the next four days in the media center (combination library/computer lab) doing research on this assignment. This assignment (both the paper and the presentation) will then be due ninth day of this lesson. (See assignment/rubric for specific details.)
Days Five through Eight are research and writing days.
- From their research, students will share an encapsulated version of their interpretations with each other as we jigsaw groups of four so there is one person representing each screen per group. While the papers are evaluated by the teacher, students will evaluate these presentations using specific rubrics for this task. Additionally, students can do peer editing at this time within the group. The final papers are then due, along with the papers that have been peer edited, on Day Ten.
- Student papers on interpretations of “Kubla Khan” using interpretive screens are due today as are self-evaluations of the process of writing these (see handout).
- Homework from Day One (see #12).
- Homework from Day Three (see #12).
- Presentation of material to peers (student assessed--see Day Four #6 and attached rubric).
- MLA-formatted final draft and peer edited draft of screened and researched interpretation of “Kubla Khan” (see Day Four #6 and attached rubric).
“Sweet Dreams” recorded by The Eurythmics (Greatest Hits; Arista/BMG Records (UK) Ltd., 1991); lyrics and music by Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. BMG Songs Inc.
“Sweet Dreams” recorded by Marilyn Manson (Smells Like Children, Interscope Records, 1995); lyrics and music by Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. BMG Songs, Inc.
“Sweet Dreams” recorded by La Bouche (Sweet Dreams, RCA Records, 1996); lyrics and music by GA. Saray, M. Sonmez, M. Thornton, and R. Haynes, BMG Songs Inc.
“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” recorded by Iron Butterfly (In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida[reissue], Rhino Records, 1995); lyrics and music by Doug Engle. Cotillion Music In