Day Terms & Strategies Read & Discuss Assignment Tuesday The poems you collect today should have Indirect metaphor Repetition of some kind direct metaphor – comparing two things by identifying them both (The river is a snake, slithering through the canyon) indirect two things without identifying them both (The river slithers through the canyon) imagery—any language that appeals to ANY of the five senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, touch personification—giving human characteristics to something that isn’t human. simile—comparing two things by using a comparison word, as in “like” or “as” or “than,” etc. “Introduction to Poetry” “A Blessing” Choice: Write a poem about poetry using metaphors and similes like Collins does. Write a poem about an ordinary moment turned extraordinary using imagery like Wright does EITHER WAY: the poem needs to be at least fifteen lines, and should contain at least four words per line (can obviously be longer, but should not exceed one page). Wednesday Vernacular—the common language of the people rather than the “correct” English Speaker – the “narrator” in the poem. Even if it seems like it’s the same as the poet, we owe poets the courtesy of assuming they are different. connotation—the shades of meaning and associations we have with a particular word or set of words. denotation—the dictionary definition of a particular word or set of words STRATEGIES “Look Who’s Talking” asks you to read the poem and pay attention to “Mother to Son” “Fireworks” Key discussion question: how does Hughes use CONOTATION rather than just denotations in his poem? Write a 15-20 line poem for which the speaker is either UNRELIABLE (like “Fireworks”) OR totally and clearly DIFFERENT from yourself (like “Mother to Son”). Bonus if you can find a way to rely, as Hughes does, on our connotations of words rather than simply on the denotations. this
who the speaker is—often if you can figure out who is talking, you can make better sense of the poem. you may want to USE THE TITLE to help with this. “Reading Sentences/ Chunking”—this strategy asks you to read the WHOLE SENTENCE instead of stopping at the end of each line. Sentences are still the unit of meaning in poems, even though the line breaks can distract us from that. If you get confused, try pretending the poem is just a regular book, and read the whole sentence. Thursday alliteration – repetition of initial consonant sounds, like “Sally sells seashells” onomatopoeia – words or phrases that sound like what they mean, like “fry to crisp strips” because “crisp strips” sounds like the sound made by frying consonance – repetition of consonant sounds ANYWHERE in a word, like sells seashells“ assonance – repetition of vowel sounds ANYWHERE in a word, like “move over moon!” Introduce the idea of a catalog poem. A catalog poem consists of a list of images that is meant to communicate an overall impression. It’s sort of the opposite of a grocery list. In a grocery list, each item is important, because you want to get all of them when you’re at the “Daily” Work” Key Discussion Questions (in addition to or in place of ordinary ones) –you may turn this into the assignment for tonight and give them time to WRITE a catalog poem on Friday if you prefer. Identify what the items in “Daily” are and what they have in common. Try to express the overall impression that the list gives us. Write a sentence on the bottom of “Daily” that describes how the list in “Daily” is different than the list in “Woman Work.” Go through both poems and identify the sonic devices (see above) that you Ask students to a catalog poem in which the images work together to create a unified impression. They may directly “imitate” “Woman Work” if they’d like to. “I’ve got homework to do, science projects to glue, (etc)”