One of William Shakespeare’s most beautiful love poems is Sonnet 18:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
My students’ favorite assignment this year was that sonnet. We read it, discussed it, and then wrote imitative sonnets “to a crush” similar to 18. We used figurative language, utilized the same rhyme scheme, and named it a number that was meaningful to us. If they felt comfortable the shared out the number and what made it meaningful, as well as the sonnet.
The students loved sharing their poems, they loved working on them, and they were so impressive! They really were lovely sonnets. They hung on my wall in the hallway and all the students liked trying to figure out who someone was talking about.
You can’t test that.
title one texas teacher—
“Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.” [Aristotle]
David Coleman knows how to construct a bullet list.
You understand how to teach.
CCSS = $tudent $ucce$$. title one texas teacher = priceless.
Krazy props.
😎
Thanks Krazy TA:)
wonderful
Diane, this is the Ministry of Truth. You are hereby ordered to cease and desist disseminating propaganda. If you want to post quality literature, we recommend excerpts from the Federal Review.
Consider this a warning.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this,
Indeed! Thanks, Diane! And happy Valentine’s Day to you!
I love those last lines, especially. When we read it in class aloud, it literally brings tears to the eyes it is so powerful.
Another. Edna St. Vincent Millay
Love Is Not All
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
Little is known of the origins of Valentine’s Day. The first mention of it as a special day for lovers appears, I believe, in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Parlement of Foules (Parliament of the Birds), in which the dreaming speaker is taken to a grove where Mother Nature has brought the birds together on this day to choose their mates.
309 For this was on seynt Valentynes day,
310 Whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make, . . .
365 What shulde I seyn? of foules every kinde
366 That in this world han fethres and stature,
367 Men mighten in that place assembled finde
368 Before the noble goddesse Nature,
369 And everich of hem dide his besy cure
370 Benignely to chese or for to take,
371 By hir acord, his formel or his make.
ther (there)
chese (choose)
make (mate)
fethres (feathers)
dide his besy cure (worked diligently)
Benignely (graciously)
formel (female)
Valentine
I got a valentine from Timmy
Jimmy
Tillie
Billie
Nicky
Micky
Ricky
Dicky
Laura
Nora
Cora
Flora
Donnie
Ronnie
Lonnie
Connie
Eva even sent me two
But I didn’t get none from you.
Shel Silverstein
This is a great one to act out with kid’s classroom Valentines.
My Funny Valentine
Lyrics by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers
My funny valentine
Sweet comic valentine
You make me smile with my heart
You looks are laughable, unphotographable
Yet you’re my favorite work of art
Is your figure less than greek
Is your mouth a little bit weak
When you open it to speak, are you smart?
Don’t change a hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little valentine stay
Each day is valentine’s day