| Performance Indicators:
P.S. ELA-1 Language: Demonstrate command of the conventions of Standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. A. Notice and correct grammatical and mechanical errors in writing. P.S ELA-2 Reading Analysis: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain. A. Evaluate the relevant themes and synthesize how they are present in the novel in oral and written responses. P.S ELA-3 Reading Craft and Structure: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness or beauty of a text. A. Understand SOAPSTone: Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, Tone |
Compose a Shakespearean sonnet about the theme of love. Attempt to apply metaphorical language in your verse. The poem must specifically apply the sonnet’s prescribed form. You will submit the sonnet on turnitin. Do not use sonnet generator that application as well as similar applications are unoriginal and depict a grotesque image of your otherwise remarkable self.
Shakespearean Sonnet
The second major type of sonnet, the Shakespearean, or English sonnet, follows a different set of rules. Here, three quatrains and a couplet follow this rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The couplet plays a pivotal role, usually arriving in the form of a conclusion, amplification, or even refutation of the previous three stanzas, often creating an epiphanic quality to the end. In Sonnet 130 of William Shakespeare’s epic sonnet cycle, the first twelve lines compare the speaker’s mistress unfavorably with nature’s beauties. But the concluding couplet swerves in a surprising direction:
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Student Sonnet by Norah Harrison:
Far on the east coast of the state called Maine
Lies a sand shoreline, an ocean of salt
Beyond the cliffs and far beyond the plains
The beautiful Atlantic I exalt.
O, turquoise-tossed sea like a mirrored sky
You hold distant secrets beneath your depths
I can see my reflection in your eye
In your strong waves, only beauty is left.
Gorgeous, tumultuous, all-consuming
A deity of twisting storms and cold
Tides ebbing and flowing, tall waves looming
O, sea, to you prayed the heroes of old.
The everlasting ocean, dear to me
I adore thee, Atlantic, salted sea.
Sonnet Variations
Though Shakespeare’s sonnets were perhaps the finest examples of the English sonnet, John Milton’s Italian-patterned sonnets (later known as “Miltonic” sonnets) added several important refinements to the form. Milton freed the sonnet from its typical incarnation in a sequence of sonnets, writing the occasional sonnet that often expressed interior, self-directed concerns. He also took liberties with the turn, allowing the octave to run into the sestet as needed. Both of these qualities can be seen in “When I Consider How my Light is Spent.” Your composed sonnet must apply the Shakespearean form not the varied form.