Web Quest Lesson Plan

Introduction
Students have explored the Big Idea of Nature and the Imagination. In this lesson, they will explore different dreams in literature and read poems that are based on dreams or that use imagery from nature. After reading through excerpts from literature and poems on two Web sites, students will choose a poem or excerpt, analyze the sensory details used, and describe how the writer expresses these details.

Lesson Description
Students will read selected Dreams in Literature <http://www.dreamtree.com/Culture/Literature.htm> and Lyrical Ballads <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/ballads.html> and then choose their favorite. They will analyze the sensory details used in that poem or excerpt and describe how the writer expresses these details.

Instructional Objectives

1. Students will use the Internet as an information resource.
2. Students will read several excerpts and poems by different writers.
3. Students will choose their favorite, analyze the sensory details used in that poem or excerpt, and describe how the writer expresses these details.

Student Web Activity Sample Answer
My favorite poem is “Lines Written in Early Spring” from Lyrical Ballads. The use of the phrase “a thousand blended notes” enables me to picture, and almost hear, a meadow full of birds singing. “The budded twigs spread out their fan to catch the breezy air” is very visual and tactile, enabling me to picture a spring tree full of buds, reaching out to the sun’s warmth and I can close my eyes and feel a spring breeze on my cheeks. The language that the writer uses is straightforward and not metaphorical—it is the writer’s use of descriptive language and adjectives that enables the reader to be there in the meadow during a timeless spring season.