Can authors speak to each other across works, genres, and centuries? Study the conversation between Christopher Marlowe in his poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" and the responses by Sir Walter Raleigh and William Carlos Williams in a literary analysis unit. Tenth graders read the first eight lines of Marlowe's poem and discuss how they set up a central theme before exploring the poem's organization for homework.

Concepts

close reading, christopher marlowe, literary analysis, reading comprehension, annotation, poetry, poetry analysis, central ideas, literary themes, textual evidence

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Additional Tags

english language arts

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Instructional Ideas

• Bring to a poetry unit or a curriculum focus on close reading
• Incorporate into a British Literature class to introduce learners to Christopher Marlowe
• Have your class write their responses to Marlowe's poem, either in the structure as the other responses or in their poetic structure or prose

Classroom Considerations

• Self-assessment chart focuses on all 10th grade Common Core standards addressed in the unit, not just in the current lesson
• The first lesson in a seven-part unit

Pros

• Encourages critical literacy skills, including annotation, close reading, and connecting themes across genres
• Closely aligned to the Common Core standards for high school
• Provides multiple versions of the auxiliary materials for downloading and editing ease, including all three poems

Cons

• None

Common Core

RL.9-10.1 RL.9-10.2 W.9-10.9.a L.9-10.4.a