Discussion of Ode to the West Wind

in a 10th Grade Classroom

Travis Bristol
New York City, NY

Overview

This site documents a group discussion of Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ode to the West Wind that Travis Bristol organized for a poetry unit in his 10th grade English class in March, 2006. The unit began the week before with discussions of poems by William Blake, Charlotte Smith, and others from the Romantic period. Overall, one of Travis' key goals for his English course is to give his students the language to understand literature; in his poetry unit and the discussion of Ode to the West Wind Travis seeks to do this by introducing students to different literary devices and to help students go "from the very superficial meaning of what the poem might be saying to the metaphorical." The structure of the discussion builds on strategies Travis used in a unit on Othello which, in turn, was based on discussion strategies Travis learned from a website documenting the work of Yvonne Hutchinson. Travis gives each student three balls of paper to toss into the center of the room and tells them that no one can make a second or third comment until everyone else has made their first and second comment.   In an interview with an observer after the class, Travis reflects on his goals, how the day and discussion went, and how his teaching of group discussions has been evolving.