Remembering

Our memories are a rich landscape painted and blended like watercolors in a glass.  Each one is tied to and connected to one another.  At some point, the memoriesruntogether and faces, and names, and stories lose definition.  This week's blog comes to you from a classmate.  I do not know if they want their name shared, so I will hold it in my memory.   Ray Bradbury was a writer who touched my heart and spoke to my inner child.  His book Dandelion Wine will sit perched on my memory shelf and painted into my canvas for as long as I am permitted to remember.  When I buy new shoes, I am reminded of Douglas and his new summer tennis shoes.  When I think of age, I think of the dragon that swallowed a swan, and when I think of love, I think of the timeless nature of it and a blue envelope and lime-vanilla ice.  Each book we read becomes another color or shape painted into who we are as human beings, and as writers.  

I would like for you to listen and read this short tribute to Ray Bradbury by Neil Gaiman, "The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury." As you listen, I would like for you to think about what it is that you remember about an author you love.  What have they taught you?  What have you internalized?  Now, this is the hard part.  What do you remember and what are you afraid to lose from them?  Explain what that author asks you to remember.  Please feel free to include any quotes that help you remember so that we too can be part of your memory.  

Sonnet

We have looked at a couple of sonnets in class, and we have discussed the structure of the three types of sonnets.  Now, it is your turn. Find a sonnet online, in a book, or on an app.  It can be an older sonnet or it could be a more modern sonnet.  Analyze the sonnet, and then explain what type of sonnet it is.  Use your knowledge of sonnets to justify your analysis.  

Art

So often our minds are blown by what we see day to day.  Think about your childhood and how you use to draw with chalk on the sidewalk.  What did you draw?  How did you draw?  Why did you draw?  

Below are some links to sites that have 3-D chalk designs.  Choose one design and really look at it. What is the purpose of drawing such an image?  What are your initial thoughts on the image and the work put into it?  How is the artwork like a piece of literature?  

3D Joe and Max
Signs  (Scroll down past the artist bios to see the artwork)
Pulse 2.0

Or, you can try to find your own.  

Choice

Since we have begun blogging, I have been the one to post the poems.  For this week's blog, you get to choose.  

Choose a poem that you like.  The poem should have literary merit and it should have many layers.  With that being said, analyze the poem.  What literary devices
do you see this author using to convey meaning?  What commentary is being made?  The last part, explain why the poem resonates with you.  

You can choose any poet mentioned on the AP Site of reputable authors, look at American Academy of Poets, Poetry Foundation, Poetry 180.  

The World Around Us

We are firmly placed within the second quarter.  We have many texts behind us from poetry, to plays, to novels.  For this week, I want you to pull one piece that we have read so far this year, and I want you to connect it to something in the world.  

This connection could be a commercial, an animated movie, a comic, a song, a drama, a play, a sitcom... The opportunities abound.  Explain your choice from the class and then explain the choice from the world.  Finally, connect the two.  Be specific in giving the details so we may make sense and have a context.  This is about you being a student and a student of your world.  

Ethics

Read the poem "Ethics" by Linda Pastan found below.  
In your post, write a response to the poem in which you analyze the attitude of the speaker and the devices used to convey the attitude, keeping in mind the title.  Think about point of view, symbolism, imagery and diction.  

"Ethics"

In ethics class so many years ago
our teacher asked this question every fall:
if there were a fire in a museum
which would you save, a Rembrandt painting
or an old woman who hadn't many
years left anyhow? Restless on hard chairs
caring little for pictures or old age
we'd opt one year for life, the next for art
and always half-heartedly. Sometimes
the woman borrowed my grandmother's face
leaving her usual kitchen to wander
some drafty, half-imagined museum.
One year, feeling clever, I replied
why not let the woman decide herself?
Linda, the teacher would report, eschews
the burden of responsibility.
This fall in a real museum I stand
before a real Rembrandt, old woman,
or nearly so, myself. The colors
within this frame are darker than autumn,
darker even than winter - the browns of earth,
though earth's most radiant elements burn
through the canvas. I know now that woman
and painting and season are almost one
and all beyond saving by children.

Poetry

Anyone who writes poetry will tell you that it is more than a line, more than a literary device, and more than the sappy splashing of ideas on a page making an abstract idea emerge.  Poetry is about being human.  It is about emotions and language colliding on a page.  

Watch this TEDTalk on Why People Need Poetry.   Pull out three things that he says that support the necessity of poetry.  Explain what he says and then add one other reason that you think we need poetry.  (Yes, I know some of you may not think we need poetry.  Try anyway.) 

Layers

Prompt: Think of a book that has shaped the reader that you are.  How has that book impacted the way you take on text?  How has reading impacted you, your schooling, your outlook?  I have given you a glimmer into my reading world.  It is personal and it makes me a little vulnerable.  Please respect this glimmer.  Perhaps, you will see how out of the ashes of failure, knowledge can rise.


As a child I did not read much. Not because I did not want to.  Reading was hard.  I never really read until middle school. I decided that I wanted to get better at reading.  So, I went to the library, and I picked the book The Grapes of Wrath. This was a book I had heard of and the people in my world all spoke so highly of the text. I checked it out and took it home to read. The book was hard for a 6th grader and I only understood that it was about people who were poor and had to move. This book was returned, and I was a defeated reader. I could read all of the words. The problem, I lacked the ability to read the layers. 

This book needed to be peeled back piece by piece. As a 6th grader, this was not my goal. I just wanted to read something good. I went back to the library and grabbed a book that was in the adult section, like the previous book, but further down the alphabet of authors.  That summer, I read all kinds of books that would be considered beach reads. These books taught me to unravel characters, to identify patterns in plot, to pick up on archetypes--I did not know that word then--to differentiate between sentence structures that worked and ones that did not, and to know what good writing sounded like.  

My uncle who was and is an advocate for the classics questioned my book choices. My response, "I'm a teenager who reads. That should be enough." That summer, through these books not deemed by those who dub books as having literary merit, I turned into a reader. It was this door that became my wardrobe leading to Narnia. Words and their power awoke within me a new language hidden behind my own ignorance. It was here that those layers I could not peel back before began to emerge. I could look at text and pull each layer back. Each layer revealed something about the text and it revealed something about me as a reader: constant reading and attention to language made me smarter in all aspects of my learning. I realized that no one is just born a good reader. It takes time, patience, and a willingness to wrestle with what is not understood. Once this happened, this ability to take on text created a hunger in me that only reading could satisfy. 

I read constantly: books, poetry, magazine articles, news articles, professional development texts, essays, and the like. Since then, I have come to terms with Steinbeck. His books are nourishment for any
reader. But, I have him to thank. Without his text being a struggle for a young ambitious reader, I do not think I would be where I am today.  His text taught me to look at text as ever changing.  Though I am older, and his words are the same, the meaning I glean from our conversation is forever changing.  I just need to be willing to look.    

Parents and Children

Analyze the passage below and answer the prompt.  The passage comes from Toni Morrison's book, The Bluest Eye. 

How is the complex nature of parent child relationships illustrated through Morrison's use of figurative language?  What does the reader ultimately come to understand about this father and daughter?

Your response should show a slow and patient unpacking of the text.

Morrison—The Bluest Eye: 61

My daddy’s face is a study.  Winter moves into it and presides there.  His eyes become a cliff of snow threatening to avalanche; his eyebrows bend like black limbs of leafless trees.  His skin takes on the pale, cheerless yellow of winter sun; for a jaw he has the edges of a snowbound field dotted with stubble; his high forehead is the frozen sweep of Erie, hiding currents of gelid thoughts that eddy in darkness.  Wolf killer turned hawk fighter, he worked night and day to keep one from the door and the other from under the windowsills.  A Vulcan guarding the flames, he gives us instructions about which doors to keep closed or opened for proper heat, lays kindling by, discusses qualities of coal, and teaches us how to rake, feed, and bank the fire.  And he will not unrazor his lips until spring.

Mindset

One of our greatest fears besides public speaking or walking down the street in our birthday suits is failure.  Most people see failure as hitting bottom or as a loss of status.  Some see it as a bruise on the ego, a blemish on the slate we try so hard to keep so polished.  But, failure is more than all of those.  

This video, The Power of belief,  is going to introduce you to a term called mindset.  There are two types--fixed and growth.  Watch this video and determine what mindset you are. 

 Then, think of how you allow your own internal dialogue to sabotage or to empower you.  Does your internal dialogue foster one type of mindset over another?  Does your mindset change or is it consistent?  Explain how your mindset works to help you achieve or halt your progress.  The last thing I want you to consider is how you can change your mindset? 

This post should be about you reflecting on your mindset, and it should be done in about two paragraphs.   

The Way We Read

The way we read is personal to each of us.  It is indicative of the way we think, the way that we process information, and the way we engage with the thoughts of others.  It is an intimate relationship, the comments between a reader and a writer.  It is a conversation that exists as King would say as a result of "telepathy" or a conversation that simply tells the writer, "I hear you."  

I cannot read without a pen anymore.  The inability to read and mark in my text is as though someone has tried to silence my voice.  So, I often find myself cradling a book as I walk through the house searching for a pencil or pen so that the conversation may begin.  I can hear your chuckles or even perhaps your doubt.  But what I tell you is true.  To read without marking on the page, in the margins or between the lines is akin to pushing the mute button on your own voice.

Your assignment this week is to go to this link from Brian Pickings (click the title). Read the page and then listen to Billy Collins read his poem titled "Marginalia."  Think about the tracks you leave on the page.  How do you read a text?  Are you passive?  Do you pose questions?  Do you truly engage the author?  

In your post, explain  how you read?  Describe your markings, what they mean, and how you make sense of the text.  Be honest with yourself and the group. If you do not mark anything while you read, explain why you choose to be passive.  Really think about this.  Then describe how you chose to mark up your books for summer reading.  This should be about two solid paragraphs: one for the way you read and then one for your summer reading.  Then in one to two sentences, pull a favorite line from "Marginalia" and explain why you like it.  

Enjoy listening to Billy Collins.  

Mirror

Analyze this poem without using any other sources or consulting any other person's opinion.

Analyze the poem to determine how the author uses point of view and figurative language to provide commentary on women in society.

Your post should be two to three paragraphs in length with quotes to back up your argument. Your thinking should be your own.

Should need to refresh how to analyze poetry click here.  Choose the writing about literature link:) 

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful ‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

-Sylvia Plath