This is a suggested teaching schedule for a 10 day class study of the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Lesson plans and handouts can be downloaded individually by clicking on the name of the file in the schedule below. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view these files.
Audio Guide CDs are available only for the communities participating in The Big Read. If your community is participating, contact the lead community organization to receive a free Audio Guide CD. Non-participating communities can listen to the full audio online.
Day One
FOCUS: Word Choice and the Value of a Dictionary
Day One Lesson Plan [PDF]
Activities: Discuss the careful, studied choices poets make when selecting words and the value of understanding a word's various meanings. Look up words in the poem "Aftermath." Write an essay explaining the poem's literal and symbolic meanings.
Homework: From the Reader's Guide, read Longfellow's biography and timeline (pp. 4-6) and "Longfellow's Ballads and Lyric Poetry" (pp. 8-9). Read Longfellow's sonnet "Mezzo Cammin."
Day Two
FOCUS: Biographical Criticism and the Speaker of a Poem
Day Two Lesson Plan [PDF]
Activities: Discuss the ways an understanding of Longfellow's life enriches the reader's appreciation of the poem, "Mezzo Cammin." Write an essay reflecting on how these biographical details help us understand the poem's imagery and themes.
Homework: Read Longfellow's sonnet "The Cross of Snow."
Day Three
FOCUS: The Sonnet
Day Three Lesson Plan [PDF]
Activities: Discuss the structure of an Italian sonnet compared to that of an English sonnet. Write an essay on how the sonnet form adds meaning to “The Cross of Snow,” or have students re-write the poem using another poetic form.
Homework: Read Reader’s Guide essays “Introduction to Longfellow’s Poetry” (p. 3) and “Longfellow and Other Arts” (p. 14-15). Read “The Children’s Hour” and “The Bells of San Blas.”
Day Four
FOCUS: Figurative Language
Day Four Lesson Plan [PDF]
Activities: Discuss ways Longfellow employs simile, metaphor, and personification. List the words in “The Children’s Hour” associated with a castle invasion. Write two paragraphs on how a full understanding of the poem depends on the reader noticing both its literal and figurative qualities.
Homework: Read “A Psalm of Life” and “The Wreck of the Hesperus.”
Day Five
FOCUS: Form, Rhythm, and Meter
Day Five Lesson Plan [PDF]
Activities: Discuss form and meter. Practice scansion. Write an essay that examines contemporary songs and how they employ meter, rhyme, and rhythm.
Homework: Read “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport” and “My Lost Youth.”
Day Six
FOCUS: Allusions
Day Six Lesson Plan [PDF]
Activities: Examine important allusions in Longfellow’s poetry. Write an essay on how knowledge of Longfellow’s allusions can change the reader’s understanding of “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport.”
Homework: Read Evangeline’s prologue and Part the First. List the characters and some of their important traits.
Day Seven
FOCUS: Narrative Poetry, Meter, and Voice
Day Seven Lesson Plan [PDF]
Activities: Discuss the tradition of narrative poetry. Examine unrhymed dactylic hexameter and scan several lines of the prologue to Evangeline. Write a short essay on Longfellow’s use of the narrative form.
Homework: Read Evangeline, Part the Second and Handout One, “Longfellow and Multiculturalism.” Trace Evangeline’s journey across america.
Handout One [PDF]
Day Eight
FOCUS: Narrative Poetry and Characters
Day Eight Lesson Plan [PDF]
Activities: Discuss Evangeline’s quest to find Gabriel. In groups, discuss the places Evangeline travels and how these places influence the reader’s understanding of the poem. Write an essay on Evangeline’s character.
Homework: Read the Reader’s Guide essay “Longfellow’s Tales of a Wayside Inn” (pp. 12–13) and Handout Two, “The Landlord’s Tale: ‘Paul Revere’s Ride.'” Read the prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn; The Landlord’s Tale, “Paul Revere’s Ride”; and The Poet’s Tale, “The Birds of Killingworth.”
Handout Two [PDF]
Day Nine
FOCUS: Analyzing a Poem’s Context
Day Nine Lesson Plan [PDF]
Activities: Discuss the historical and social context of “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Write a short essay on how the bird in “The Birds of Kllingworth” might be historically significant and symbolic.
Homework: Read the Finale of Tales of a Wayside Inn.
Day Ten
FOCUS: What Makes a Poet Great?
Day Ten Lesson Plan [PDF]
Activities: Explore the qualities of a great poet. Discuss what Longfellow’s poetry can teach us about the concerns of his generation. Write an essay illustrating a central theme in Longfellow’s poetry.
Homework: Read Handout Three, “Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha.” Write a paragraph about Longfellow’s legacy in the twenty-first century.
Handout Three [PDF]
