Walt Whitman
Le Cox
Vinton-Shellsburg High School
American Literature
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Summer 2009
http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/doc-content/images/walt-whitman-m.jpg
Walt Whitman is one of the most important and influential American poets. Whitman’s writing underwent extensive revision over the years. In this lesson, those revisions and his creative process will be explored through the use of primary sources: the notebooks and journals he kept over the course of his life.
Overview/ Materials/Historical
Background/LOC Resources/Standards/ Procedures/Evaluation/Rubric/Handouts/Extension
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Objectives |
Students will: · Read and evaluate primary sources (manuscripts and photographs) to better understand Whitman’s life and poetry · Discover one poet’s writing process and compare it to their own · Compare different versions of a poem and be able to analyze them for imagery, content, literary forms, and “effectiveness” · Compare and contrast Whitman and Dickinson (their life and poetry) |
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Recommended time frame |
2–3 days (I’ll be teaching it in the midst of Huckleberry Finn and other Civil War–era materials.) |
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Grade level |
11–12 |
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Curriculum fit |
American Literature |
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Vinton-Shellsburg
Schools Learning Standards Back to Navigation Bar |
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LA Standard 1
– Write effectively for a variety of purposes. LA Standard 2 – Read a variety of materials for understanding and appreciation. LA Standard 5 – Gather
and use information from a variety of resources. |
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Day One: ·
Students break into pairs—each group is
given a page from one of Whitman’s original notebooks or a photograph of
Whitman. Using analysis forms, students will analyze the page/photo and
report back to the larger group the information that they found about the
person. ·
Using the information they’ve gathered as
the basis, combine it with notes from the PowerPoint
to fill in gaps about Whitman’s life and experiences. ·
Watch section from Ken Burns’ The Civil War – “Now Fix Me” (Episode
6 – Chapter 7). ·
Students write a journal assignment (5
minutes writing). – How do they think Whitman’s writing will be affected by
his time in the hospitals of the Civil War? ·
Assign reading of poems from “Drum-Taps” to
be read for tomorrow’s class. Day Two ·
Discuss the poems, their reactions to them
and how Whitman’s poems matched their hypothesis from yesterday. In the midst
of this discussion, make sure to cover literary devices employed by Whitman;
i.e., parallelism, repetition, free verse, etc. ·
Hand out different versions of excerpts
from Leaves of Grass – Choose one
to look at in class. ·
In their pairs, note the differences found
in the versions. ·
Discuss as a class the differences and how
those changes affected the pieces. ·
Assign rest of poems to read overnight and
their responses. Day Three ·
Discuss their responses and compare and
contrast Whitman, his poetry, and his life with Dickinson (which we have
covered earlier in this unit). |
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Have the students write a poem in the Whitman style after looking at Civil War Battlefield photographs. |
Historical Background
I teach Walt Whitman in the midst of teaching the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. During this unit we also cover other Civil War–era writers including Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, and others. By the time we get to this unit, students are familiar with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Transcendentalism because we read some of his essays in the unit preceding this one. Our American Literature class is 12 weeks long and we cover from pre-contact to about 1900.
Resource Table from LOC
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Description |
Citation |
URL |
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Washington, D.C. Patients in Ward K of Armory Square Hospital. |
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-B8171-7822 |
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Washington, D.C. Patients in ward of Harewood Hospital; mosquito nets over beds. |
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-B8171-1008 |
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Walt Whitman in his later years. |
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LOT 12038 |
http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/ |
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Page 67 from 1862 notebook. |
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Thomas Biggs Harned Walt Whitman Collection, page 67. |
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ |
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Page from 1862 notebook to use as example in directions before assignment. |
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Thomas Biggs Harned Walt Whitman Collection, page 104. |
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ |
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Page from 1862 notebook — use as one of the handouts. |
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Thomas Biggs Harned Walt Whitman Collection, page 113. |
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ |
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Page from 1862 notebook – use as one of the handouts. |
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Thomas Biggs Harned Walt Whitman Collection, page 138. |
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ |
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Page from 1862 notebook – use as one of the handouts. |
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Thomas Biggs Harned Walt Whitman Collection, page 165. |
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ |
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Read this one with the poem “The Noiseless Patient Spider” – comparing the notes with the published one |
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Thomas Biggs Harned Walt Whitman Collection, page 189. |
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ |
Image |
Description |
Citation |
URL |
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Diary entry from Antietam. |
Whitman, Walt. “Hospital Notebook ‘At Antietam,’” Manuscript Division Library of Congress, #24A. |
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Portrait of Walt Whitman between 1860–1865. |
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-BH82- 137 |
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Portrait of Walt Whitman. |
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-USZ62-57849 |
http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/ |
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Walt Whitman, three-quarter length portrait, facing front, as a young man, dressed in rural attire for frontispiece of Leaves of Grass. |
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-ppmsca-07 |
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Letter from Emerson to Whitman that he uses in 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. |
Letter, Ralph Waldo Emerson to Walt Whitman extolling Whitman’s poetry, 21 July 1855. (Charles E. Feinberg-Walt Whitman Collection) |
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Abraham Lincoln, half-length portrait, seated, with pencil and spectacles. |
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs LC-USZ61-204. |
http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/ |
Handouts