WEB EXCLUSIVE Sophomores in English teacher Angelica Allen’s English II class finished their unit on English Romantic poets with research presentations on a poet and poem from that time period. 

“I think the benefit of doing a presentation like this is that it forces you to know the material inside and out,” sophomore Sara Ramelot said. “It helps you get better at your public speaking skills which will be helpful later in life.” 

The class started their project by reading small biographies of six famous English Romantic poets including William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, George Gordon who commonly known as Lord Byron,Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keets. After choosing a poet that interested them they annotated one of their poems for homework.

“I chose the poet William Wordsworth because his biography said that he was the most influential of the romantic poets so I wanted to see why his poems were so famous,” sophomore Bridget Mills said. “He also incorporated nature into a lot of his poems so I thought that would be interesting to read.”   

The class discussed why they choose each of their poets in class before splitting into groups to begin the project. For the presentation, groups had to research about the poet’s life, give background information on the poem and analyze of the poem.

“It was interesting learning about how certain poet’s lives can affect their poetry,” sophomore Cristina Jackson said. “By learning about the context of a poem, it can help find a whole other meaning.”

The poetry unit will lead into the next book the class is reading, “Frankenstein” which was written during this era by Shelley’s wife Mary Shelley. 

“Reading this poetry was interesting because it has lasted so long and stayed influential all this time,” Ramelot said. “I liked reading the English Romantic poetry so hopefully I will like Frankenstein as well.”