Identify and apply a variety of appropriate reading strategies to make sense of a variety of print texts, to understand the human experience, and to develop ideas in written/oral responses. They will also write informative pieces that demonstrate independent thinking about the content and structure observed in poetry reading.
Task: You have become familiar with the poetry from several periods in literature. You are now ready to begin your first writing assignment related to the poetry. Listed below you will find the names and biographical sites of the authors from the periods you have studied. You should choose one author from each of the time periods. Visit each site and take notes about the author's life, works written, and other accomplishments. You should also take note of any interesting or unusual facts that you come across. You may also include brief poems or famous lines from the poems. You will be gathering information to prepare a feature article for a literature magazine that briefly discusses each author and highlights selected works. It should provide the reader with crucial information about writers from each of these periods. Your purpose will be to present information, but will also be to generate curiosity and interest in the authors and their poetry that you are highlighting.
You may also do your own web searches for these authors to gather additional information. You will simply choose Net Search from the Netscape window and type in the name of the author you wish to research and browse the sites listed to find more information and additional readings.
Your feature article should be at least 3 pages in length and have a clear focus, specific purpose and address a specific audience. Your ideas should be clearly developed and logically organized with effective transitions from one point to the next. The pre-writing strategy you choose to use will be up to you, but it should clearly outline the steps you plan to take in writing this article.
Always begin with an introduction that captures the reader's attention and remember your LEAD is the most important element in a feature article. You should also have a headline for your article.
After you finish the first draft, you should have a friend, parent, teacher or other relative read through the paper and conference with you about the effectiveness of the paper. You should get suggestions on how to improve your paper as well as make certain it is relatively free of grammatical, punctuation, and mechanical errors. Finally, produce a revised draft of this paper. It should be typed and double-space or written in columns or written in blue/black ink. It will be scored according to the KY Writing Assessment Holistic Scoring Guide.
Renaissance Poets
