Superb Sonnets

Combine poetry and reading comprehension with an engaging writing assignment. Readers of The Winter's Tale craft a sonnet in the voice of one of the characters in Shakespeare's play.

It's that time of year to consider how Shakespeare selects his images and structures his Sonnet 73 to develop the meaning of the poem. Class members examine the rhyme scheme, the indented lines, the conceit, and the images used in each...

What was the relationship like between George and Martha Washington? To protect their privacy, Martha Washington destroyed all her husband’s letters after his death so historians have little evidence of their lives together. Two letters...

Students are given information about two popular sonnet forms-English and Italian. They are given the rules for writing a sonnet. Students are asked what type of sonnet they would use. They are each given a sheet of paper and asked...

This lesson focuses on the sonnet including the definition, the history, the types of, and meters. It features the three types of sonnets: Italian/Petrarchan Sonnet, English/Shakespearean Sonnet, and Spenserian Sonnet. It describes the...

What is 14 lines long, written in iambic pentameter, and follows a predetermined rhyme scheme? Introduce scholars to the sonnet, one of the most famous of the fixed-form types of poetry, with a 10-slide presentation that includes the...

Use the ideas here for a Valentine's Day activity (or anytime you study sonnets) with your 11th graders. Demonstrate how to analyze a love poem by conducting a think aloud about Shakespeare's Sonnet 29. Then small groups analyze Sonnet...

Pupils analyze close readings of poems, looking up words in the dictionary, and discussing the major parts of dictionary definitions, including word origin and parts of speech. They examine sonnets, then compare/contrast their findings.

"Sound Experiments" drive this lesson plan. Sonnet analysis is accompanied by readings based on specific emotions. At this website, there are several links full-text sonnets by such authors as Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Longfellow, and...

Detailed background information on Shakespeare's sonnets and the sonnet cycle with comparisons between the Italian and English sonnet form. Includes the story of the sonnets with a breakdown/synopsis by narrative patterns and groupings....