After HACE, back to Poetry!

Elevens: I began by creating a calendar on the board showing how much time is left and then gave you a calendar on paper showing your test dates. Then more poetry! I am nothing if not informative and consistent. I also handed back marked assignments and complimented a couple of students whose work was absolutely outstanding. You know who you are. Bravo.

Here’s what’s happening: I write the instructions on the board. I attempt to scare you into realizing it is almost June and your exams are a few short weeks away. I wander around explaining elements of analyzing a poem. I am doing this all day every day in every class. This should explain, at least in part, why I’m so weird. You try repeating this over and over and over and over on a daily basis to people who just want to run away and play in the sun.

If I didn’t see you today and give you a calendar of your life in June, I will tomorrow. The calendar tells you the following:

FOR ENGLISH 9, ENGLISH 10, AND ENGLISH 11, ALL POETRY ASSIGNMENTS ARE DUE FRIDAY JUNE 1st. THE DAY OF GRACE IS MONDAY JUNE 4. NO ASSIGNMENTS WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER THAT DATE.

ENGLISH 9:

• the Written Component of your Final Exam is Thursday June 7
• the Multiple Choice Component of your Final Exam is Tuesday June 5

ENGLISH 10:

• 1-1: Mock Provincial is Wednesday June 6
• 1-1: Written Component is Friday June 15
• 1-3: Mock Provincial is Monday June 3
• 1-3: Written Component is Friday June 15
• 1-4: Mock Provincial is Friday June 8
• 1-4: Written Component is Friday June 15

ENGLISH 11:

• the Written Component of your Final Exam is Thursday June 7
• the Multiple Choice Component of your Final Exam is Monday June 11

Tens

Here’s a review of everything I wrote on the board, with a few Do’s and Don’ts tacked on for good measure. (For those of you who chose the poem Pied Beauty, the picture at the left is Gerard Manley Hopkins contemplating all things dappled, brinded, and stippled. You should feel pretty smart. You are probably the only people in the room who know what those words mean.)

How to Analyze a Poem:

1. Read the poem.
2. Look up difficult or significant words. Look up the glosses. Look up info about the poet.
3. Read the poem.
4. Find every poetic device in your particular poem.
5. Read the poem.
6. Do point form notes about how the poet uses language to convey the meaning of the poem.
7. Read the poem.
8. Write two paragraphs (8 sentences minimum) analyzing the poem. Include lines from the poem you quote to make your point. First paragraph: How poet uses language. Second paragraph: Overall meaning of the poem.

DO:

• analyze the poem
• dissect the poem
• quote lines from the poem to prove your points
• make sure you understand the time period of the poem
• make sure you understand the background of the poet
• use the example I did for you as a template (Margaret Atwood’s It is Dangerous to Read Newspapers)
• remember to attach the poem to the analysis
• remember to write your name on the assignment

DON’T:

• write about whether you like the poem or the poet
• be vague and wishy washy
• talk “about” the poem with no references to actual lines in the poem!

11′s

It is now officially the end of the year.

9′s: You had a single block and you had Maureen and I wandering around ensuring you’d picked your poems and helping you recognize poetic devices.

If you go to Assignments 9, you can see the instructions yet again.

Tens

What I will always remember about this day is how you showed such compassion toward one another.

I gave out ten different poems to anyone who wanted them. They’re all appropriate for the Poetry Assignment. You can still find your own if you wish. Scroll down and find the ones I’ve already put on this blog.

11′s

Your written response was to look at one of three things: the theme of death or childhood or growing awareness/maturity in the poem. You were also to remember the cardinal rules of poetry analysis: Your feelings don’t count. Whether you like the poem or the poet doesn’t count. What counts is exactly what is in the poem and how the poet uses language and poetic devices to get meaning across. It’s a harsh world, this poetic analysis. But there you go. No more Shel Silverstein. This is SciencePoetry.

Above, you can see two pictures of Margaret Atwood that are straight out of the poem. She’s about four years old in the first one and seventeen in the second. Doesn’t she look like she’s plotting her escape in the teenage one?

9′s: We looked at exactly the same poem as the 11′s did: Boredom. First of all, you made a list of the things that make a person bored and then considered the elements of boredom. When do we get bored? Why do we get bored?

Then, we looked at the denotation of words (dictionary meaning), and how Atwood uses repetition to show her boredom. We dissected all of the pieces of the poem and then we figured out the meaning. That is exactly what you will be doing when you do the Poem Analysis.

11′s: Well, you’re not going to like I did a similar thing with you … or maybe you will. This was the memorable class where I read poems that exactly matched your current thoughts. How that happened was some strange form of alchemy, but there you go. Who understands the subtle shadings of a class/teacher dynamic?