Select three sonnets and show which form they are. Discuss how their content reflects the form.

I think in order to answer your question it is necessary
to start with the different sonnet
forms.

1. English (or Shakespearean)
   Sonnet - probably the most common studied in high school literature; 14
   lines made up of 3 quatrains and a rhyming couplet at the end; typical rhyme scheme ABAB
   CDCD EFEF GG or ABBA CDDC EFFE GG; written in iambic pentameter.  Examples: look at
   Shakespeare


2. Italian (or Petrarchan)
   Sonnet - 14 lines made up of one octave (8 lines)
   and one sestet (6 lines); the octave's rhyme scheme typically goes
   A B B A A B B A; the sestet's rhyme scheme usually has two or three rhyming sounds made
   up in a number of ways (C D C D C D; C D D C D C; C D E C D E); iambic pentameter. 
   Examples: look at Wordsworth


3. The Spenserian
   Sonnet - 14 lines made up of 3 quatrains and a rhyming couplet at the
   end; rhyme scheme looks like ABAB BCBC CDCD EE; iambic pentameter.  Examples: look at
   Edmund Spenser


4. The
   Indefinables - typically is 14 lines with some sort of rhyme scheme and
   attempts iambic pentameter but might be very loose.  Examples: any 14 lined poems that
   rhyme could be considered a sonnet.