Canadian Pacific Railway Lesson Plan

Context: This is a 2 day poetry lesson plan for students in grade 9 (20-30 students, can be
adapted for different class sizes). Students have been studying Canadian poetry and are familiar
with the Canadian modernist poets and Imagist poetry.
Objective: To introduce students to the significance of the Canadian Pacific Railway in
Canadian history through poetry, and to provide students with new creative writing techniques.
General Learning Outcomes:
GCO 2: Students will be expected to communicate information and ideas effectively and clearly,
and to respond personally and critically
GCO 4: Students will be expected to select, read, and view with understanding a range of
literation, information, media, and visual texts
GCO 6: Students will be expected to respond personally to a range of texts
Specific Learning Outcomes:
2.1 - participate constructively in conversation, small-group and whole-group discussion, and
debate, using a range of strategies that contribute to effective talk
4.5 - articulate their own processes and strategies for reading and viewing texts of increasing
complexity
6.1- express and support points of view about texts and about issues, themes, and situations
within texts, citing appropriate evidence

Materials:

20-30 copies of the poems and question sheet (will vary according to class size)
50-60 pieces of paper with random words written on them (places, verbs, adjectives)
Three boxes, labelled PLACES, VERBS and ADJECTIVES

METHOD
Part 1: Analyzing the poems (15 minutes)
Ask students to work as pairs to analyze both poems. Do not reveal the title of the poem until
the following questions have been completed.
1.
2.
3.
4.

What are these poets writing about? How can you tell?
What is the tone of poem A? Poem B?
List three words from each poem that indicate the tone of the poem.
Sketch an image of the poem

Part 2: Class discussion (15 minutes)

Bring students together to discuss their answers as a class, and ask the students which poem
they liked more and why
Reveal the title of the poem
Ask the students if their answers have changed at all after knowing the title
Why is the railroad such a powerful symbol in Canadian poetry?
Part 3: Creative Writing Activity
Part 2 (20 minutes)
Place three boxes at the front of the class - one labelled places, one labelled adjectives and
one labelled verbs
Ask students to pick out one word from each box
The students must somehow incorporate the three words they have chosen into an imagist
poem that depicts the place they have chosen
The students will be asked to complete their imagist poems at home for the following lesson

Day 2
Part 1 (50 minutes)
Ask students to share their poems to the class and encourage students to give each other
constructive feedback. The students will take notes and will spend the remainder of the class
working on a final draft of their poems.

POEMS:
The Railway Station by Archibald Lampman
The darkness brings no quiet here, the light
No waking: ever on my blinded brain
The flare of lights, the rush, and cry, and strain,
The engines' scream, the hiss and thunder smite:
I see the hurrying crowds, the clasp, the flight,
Faces that touch, eyes that are dim with pain:
I see the hoarse wheels turn, and the great train
Move labouring out into the bourneless night.
So many souls within its dim recesses,
So many bright, so many mournful eyes:
Mine eyes that watch grow fixed with dreams and guesses;
What threads of life, what hidden histories,
What sweet or passionate dreams and dark distresses,
What unknown thoughts, what various agonies!
In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
PLAN B
Students can choose to analyze the poem Towards the Last Spike by E.J Pratt if they are not
enjoying analyzing the other two poems
Rather than picking words out of a hat, cut out the words from the railway station and ask
students to rearrange the words into their own poem to describe a different place
Encourage students to form sentences even if they dont make perfect sense - they can edit the
poem later to fix the grammar once the outline of their poem is in place