T.S. Eliot's Prufrock, Stephen Colbert, and Ben Folds (view)
Units included with this Open Author resource:
- Frontloading "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
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- Keywords:
- T.S. Eliot, Music, Poetry, Theme/central Idea, Podcast, Stephen Colbert
Summary
This is a 10-20 minute activity that frontloads T.S. Eliot's "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" using a Terry Gross interview with Stephen Colbert. In the interview, Colbert tells Gross about his fascination with the masks we wear. He then pulls in a favorite song of his - "The Best Imitation of Myself" by Ben Folds - to illustrate the concept of 'faking' identity. Next steps after this activity: reading and annotating the poem itself. This activity is an excellent example to use for teaching 'allusion.'