If all of the elements of this lesson plan are employed, students will develop the following powers, skills, and understanding:
- 1
Understand Walt Whitman's importance as perhaps the most significant American poet, and his influence on subsequent generations, specifically the Beat generation.
- 2
Understand and be able to discuss Whitman's ideas about individualism and democracy, in religious, political, and literary contexts.
- 3
Understand how the Civil War affected Whitman's writing and create sophisticated analyses of his elegies for Abraham Lincoln.
- 4
Appreciate free verse poetry.
