I was looking through my notebook where I scrabble out ideas so I won't forget them and I discovered two things of interest.
The first was the words UNSEEN POEM written at the top of the page, but there was nothing else on the entire page, so I guess that poem will remain unseen. :) I have no idea why I wrote that in my notebook. I am sure it was a genius idea that, alas, is gone forever.
The second was this idea for Odd Man Out. Full disclosure, I don't remember if I thought this up and wrote it down or if I heard the idea from somewhere and wrote it down. So here is the activity - give the students four poems with three of them being from the same author and one from a different author. Let them get into groups and analyze the poems and see if they can figure out which poem was written by a different poet. I figure I will start with this gem from the past:
Then I will give the group the first page of this handout: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bOSbo7rGxUW7bWnbBzATffoHzAQTN8SPcRnuxr_LSKo/edit?tab=t.0
The first page has three poems from Cavalier poet Sir John Suckling and the poem in the bottom right hand corner is from Cavalier poet Thomas Carew.
I can do it again later or int he same day with the second page which has three sonnets by Elizabeth Barret Browning and one from Christina Rossetti (the one in the upper right hand corner).
Feel free to borrow the handout and try it in your own class. Even if the kids are wrong, the practice at analyzing the poems will be worth it.