Pop Sonnets: A Unit Plan (editable)

Looking for a way to liven up Shakespeare for your students? Look no further than pop sonnets.

All credit for the idea must be given to Erik Didriksen who created the Pop Sonnet Tumblr a few years back where he would take a popular song and write it as a Shakespearean sonnet. Check out his Tumblr at https://popsonnet.tumblr.com/.

Now your students will have an opportunity to use Didriksen's pop sonnets as mentor texts to create their own pop sonnet of a song of their choice. This activity is highly engaging since students have a lot of ownership over their song choice and it only takes about 2 weeks to complete the unit in total.

This unit contains a Google Docs version of ALL of the documents I used in the unit.

In this unit plan, you will find:

1. INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITIES

• Notes: Sonnet Article #1
• Notes: Sonnet Article #2
• Digital Notes Sheet
• Sonnet 18 & Pop Sonnet Example (Fresh Prince)
• Name that Song-et game (+ song list)

2. POP SONNET

• Song proposal
• Song Sign-Up
• Define and Paraphrase Digital Document (EXAMPLE)
• Rough Draft (EXAMPLE)
• Peer Revision: Directions
• Peer Revision Sheet
• Final Draft Directions 

3. RUBRICS

• Pop Sonnet Rubric [Option A]
• Pop Sonnet Rubric with Iambic Pentameter [Option B]
• Pop Sonnet Rubric (Option C)

This product gives you detailed plans of how I used this in my own classroom, but there is always room for modification and additions as you'd like.