Sonnet

We looked at the different sonnet structures last week, and we discussed how the structure influences the content and how we read the poem.  For this week's blog, please go to either the Poetry foundation, Poetry Out Loud, or The Academy of American Poets and read through several different sonnets.  Once you find one that you like, put the sonnet in your post. Then, explain to us the following information:

1. What is the sonnet structure? Type of sonnet.
2. What is the sonnet about?
3. Why did you pick this sonnet?

Do not look up an analysis of the sonnet. You need to be able to figure this out on your own.  

Listen and write

     I never come at something with just my mind.  I experience the world with every part of my being.  I listen to music, read poetry,  watch film, engage with people with all aspects of myself. It can be exhausting, yet rewarding.  

     For this week's blog, I want you to think about one medium that you experience with all parts of you: mind, senses, emotion.   Then I want you to narrow it down to one piece.  What one piece affects every aspect of you?  You may think this weird or overly sentimental.  But, when we encounter the world with only one aspect of ourselves our interpretation is diminished.  
    This may be hard for some of you to narrow your choices down.  I have been trying to narrow my own down for the last several hours.  
 
     Once you have narrowed down your focus, provide us with the following information:

1. Describe it for us so we have a context.
2. If there is a link, attach it so we may view or listen. 
3. Tell us why it matters to you using specific references from it to reinforce your statements.

As this is a school site, keep it within the context of school expectations.  

      

Thinking caps

Think about what you love to do: make music, watch film, run, knit, code, wrestle, act...

How does the thinking you do for what you love transcend your passion and emerge in how you read and write?  Explain the thinking you do for what you love.  Then, show me that in poetic form as you write about how you read and write.  

Passage analysis

     This week you are reading three different excerpts: Yellow Birds, The Things They Carried and Redeployment.  The language in these texts capture and hold so much.  As a result, I want you to pick a paragraph that you think is very powerful.  
    Type the paragraph before you unpack it.  Then, I want you to unpack the language.  Pull it apart explaining what and how the language works to create meaning.  Use your literary devices to aid you in your thinking and analysis. After you have unpacked the passage, tell us why it matters? 

Stories: How do they last?

What we read sticks with us.  I will never forget how I felt reading Atlas Shrugged.  I sat in bed watching as this world unfolded itself in front of me and invited me to enter.  The first time I met John Galt, I fell.  All others were spoiled for me.  We engaged in an intimate conversation about the world, beliefs, and ideas.  When I read The Known World, I placed the book on my lap and sat quietly, sad.  When I read Dandelion Wine, I saw the future dragon eating the swan.  I was reminded of how fleeting life is, but the story remains.  


So, I want us too look at the power and longevity of stories.  Read through this piece from Brain Pickings.  If you have time, listen to Neil Gaiman's seminar.  His seminar is lovely.    

What makes a story stay?  What is said here that resonates with you?  Explain why.  Once you have explained what resonates with you, tell us what stories have resonated with you and why you think stories last.  For this blog you can explain yourself in one of three ways: through a story, a straight up explanation, or you may relay your ideas through poetry.  

Pick up lines

I am a book snob.  I read the first few pages of a book before buying it, and I will only read the book if it draws me in.  Drawing me in happens through the writer's rhythm, the vocabulary, the voice of the author, and the philosphical connection felt within those first pages. It could be likened to a kind of courting.   One of my favorite books, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, had me at the author's note: "This book was born as I was hungry"(VII).  I still close my eyes at this sentence.  To know that a book was created to satiate a hunger necessary for survival creates a physical response--I cannot help but close my eyes and lift my head in wonder.  Then, the first chapter solidified my desire to buy this book: "My suffering left me sad and gloomy" (3). The same holds true for Yellow Birds, The Things They Carried, and Atlas Shrugged.  

For this week's blog, I want you to think about what draws you to a book.  How do you settle in, accept the dance, and invest your time?  Once you have explained this, I want you to introduce us to a book whose pick up line was so inviting you could not refuse.  Explain how this first line influences the entire story and how it engaged you in conversation.  

Why do we read and write Poetry?

We will analyze the texts we read closely.  We will pull meaning from the texts we read.  We will answer questions, write papers, give debates, and discuss the texts we read.  All of this is done so that we can engage with words and ideas.  Through this engagement, we think.   

For this post, I am asking you to watch this clip from the movie, Dead Poet's Society.  It is one of my favorite movies.  In this scene, Mr. Keating will explain to his students why we read and write poetry and it is here that I want you to respond.  Your response should pull from the video what resonates with you. What speaks to you?  

Once you have explained what in this scene resonates with you, I want you to explain to all of us why you read and write poetry?  You are looking at about two paragraphs.

Waiting for Godot

As we finish with Waiting for Godot this week, we need to see it beyond the page and part of a genre. There are questions that we have as to its structure, its point, its purpose.  I would like you to read this explanation of Theater of the Absurd.  Apply the ideas to Waiting for Godot, beyond what the paper says.  Then I would like you to watch this video of Sir Ian McKellen discussing Godot. 

In your post, I would like for you to discuss how these two resources impact your understanding of the play.  Be specific.  What has shifted, changed, been brought to fruition, blown your mind? 

Cite specific examples and how they have shaped your thinking.  Quotes are needed.  Your response should be about two to three paragraphs in length.  You may reply to others statements as long as you do so respectfully.  

Last Blog

This is our last blog for the year.  There is something so sad about saying good-bye and finishing forever.  For this final blog, I want you to look back at the year.  Think about all of the texts that we have read.  Foster says there is really only one story.  What is it that all of these texts are trying to say?  What do they want us to contemplate? What do they want us to value?  What do they want us to think?  Each time we read something, we take in something different dependent on where we are at the time.  Be mindful of that when thinking about what they all say.  

In your last blog, explain what all of theses texts are saying that is the same.  Use the texts to support your arguments.  Once you have done that, then tell us how it speaks to you and your life.

  

Scene Analysis

Watch this scene from Hamlet.  Analyze the way the two characters interact with one another.  Watch their body language, facial expressions, and listen to their voices.  


How does this change the way you read the scene in your book? Does this change how you perceive either character?  

Explain your answers using evidence from the video and the text.  

Hamlet Poetry

"The Plays the thing..."
This is one of the greatest plays and we are going to really look at what is going on in this masterpiece. This week, you will write a 16 line poem and it will take one aspect from Hamlet and weave it throughout.

Don't look it up!  Think for yourselves.  When you allow others to interpret text for you, YOU give up on YOURSELF and the ability to think.  YOU are better than that.

An example using another text (Draft):




Candles get snuffed out and the darkness seeps in
to take over.  The wax freezes in its march, marking time
until the heat releases the next forward step.  The smell of extinguished light 
floats upward sticking to the walls, the mirrors, and the ceiling leaving footprints
that grey color over time.  For something gone,
it lingers--a reminder that existence, though brief,
once warmed this spot.  Took up space.  Breathed in and out.  Contributed.

"*1We do not read or write poetry because it's cute.  We read and write poetry
 because we are members of the human race."  We are members who are afraid 
that existence means nothing.  So, we follow the smoke through the air searching
for a voice--
for an identity--
for a place where we fit in.  We fail to see in the darkness...
Looking forward. Putting our sight on the "out there, over there, 
everywhere", gets us nowhere.  We think we are wicked, spiteful,
hidden.  We try on the voices of others to flesh out our own--
gain an audience, silence discontent.  

The spark that lights a candle is friction--ideas pressed
against others.  The light catches, and what once was hidden is illuminated.  
The fire dancing in the wind is not extinguished because what once 
had no shape, no hope, or no vision is found.  
What once was invisible becomes the light.  


*1Borrowed from Dead Poet's Society

Poetry

With this being National Poetry month, I want to give us a chance to write a poem.  Now, writing a poem is about the language.  It is about playing with language using those devices we have been learning all year long.  

So, here is your prompt.  Write a 16 line "Why does it matter poem?"  If you do not like this prompt, write a junk food poem.  Whichever poem you choose to write, remember it should have those devices we have been working with: symbols, metaphors, similes, anaphoras, alliterations etc.  

The example below is just my take on the prompt.  As long as the phrase, "Why does it matter" appears somewhere in your poem, it works.

Example:

Why does it matter that the shoes I wear are not
heels, and my jewelry is not a pearl necklace.  Why does it matter
that when I sing while driving, my voice is not amplified or streamed?
Why does it matter that books opened speak a language I understand,
and build with letters,
forming words,
making sentencesstrungtogether that hang across
page after page lighting up the silence?  Why does it matter that
when I am in public, I am quiet?  Not because I have run out of things to say
or my mind has powered down, but because sometimes knowing comes from
observing and listening?  Why does it matter that when the sun comes up
and the sky is streaked with red, orange, and blue,
I cannot help but think in poetry, and why does it matter that
sometimes my fingers cannot help but hold a pen
and watch as it skates across the page etching meaning
to make sense of the world.  Why does it matter?
It doesn't matter to anyone but me.

Hemingway

Below is an excerpt from “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway (1925).  

This prompt is a variation on a previous AP prompt:

“In many texts a character has a misconception of himself or his world. Destroying or perpetuating this illusion contributes to a central theme of the text.” Using the excerpt below,  explain how this  statement applies, and write a response in which you consider the following:

(1) What the character’s illusion is and how it differs from reality as presented in the text.

(2) How the destruction or perpetuation of the illusion develops a theme of the text.

     

Life of Pi

The below passage comes to you from Yann Martel's Life of Pi.  

Read this passage and analyze the tone.  Be sure to explain how the diction, imagery and figurative language all speak to the tone.  Then, what is his point?  Happy reading!  

"In zoos, as in nature, the best times to visit are sunrise and sunset. That is when most animals come to life. They stir and leave their shelter and tiptoe to the water’s edge. They show their raiments. They sing their songs. They turn to each other and perform their rites. The reward for the watching eye and the listening ear is great. I spent more hours than I can count a quiet witness to the highly mannered, manifold expressions of life that grace our planet. It is something so bright, loud, weird and delicate as to stupefy the senses.

I have heard nearly as much nonsense about zoos as I have about God and religion. Well-meaning but misinformed people think animals in the wild are “happy” because they are “free.” These people usually have a large, handsome predator in mind, a lion or a cheetah (the life of a gnu or of an aardvark is rarely exalted). They imagine this wild animal roaming about the savannah on digestive walks after eating a prey that accepted its lot piously, or going for callisthenic runs to stay slim after overindulging. They imagine this animal overseeing its offspring proudly and tenderly, the whole family watching the setting of the sun from the limbs of trees with sighs of pleasure. The life of the wild animal is simple, noble and meaningful, they imagine. Then it is captured by wicked men and thrown into tiny jails. Its “happiness” is dashed. It yearns mightily for “freedom” and does all it can to escape. Being denied its “freedom” for too long, the animal becomes a shadow of itself, its spirit broken. So some people imagine" (15-16).

Crime and Punishment in our World

The ideas present within the novel transcend not only the time it was written but lift themselves from the pages to manifest within pop culture.   What Dostoevsky was focused on still resonates with audiences today.  So, this week, pay attention to your world.  Listen to your music, watch your television, see your movies, and read your books.  Think about what point is being made and how it is connected to our novel, Crime and Punishment.

This is your opportunity to not only read our texts, but to read the world:)

Crime and Punishment

The following passage from Crime and Punishment.  In your blog this week, explain how the author's use of imagery, and figurative language characterize the two characters: Raskolnikov and the Pawn Broker.                           Remember to explain why it matters!

"The old woman was as always bareheaded. Her thin, light hair, streaked with grey, thickly smeared with grease, was plaited in a rat’s tail and fastened by a broken horn comb which stood out on the nape of her neck. As she was so short, the blow fell on the very top of her skull. She cried out, but very faintly, and suddenly sank all of a heap on the floor, raising her hands to her head. In one hand she still held ‘the pledge.’ Then he dealt her another and another blow with the blunt side and on the same spot. The blood gushed as from an overturned glass, the body fell back. He stepped back, let it fall, and at once bent over her face; she was dead. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of their sockets, the brow and the whole face were drawn and contorted convulsively" (1.7. 16).

Wilde

Aestheticism

According to The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms Aestheticism is a movement that started in Europe in the second half of the 19th century.

Supporters of this movement insist that there is a separation of art from morality.  Art needs no moral to have value.  Art for Art's Sake or L'art pour l'art

In literature--it was about praising the form with little authorial presence. 

Aestheticism is shown through this character--Cyril from Wilde's The Decay of Lying (1889):

• Art never expresses anything but itself.  It has an independent life, just as Thought has, and       develops purely on its own lines.  It is not necessarily realistic in its age of realism, nor spiritual in an age of faith.  So far from being the creation of its own time, it is usually in direct opposition to it, and the only history that it preserves for us is the history of its own progress.

This is a very brief explanation as to what this movement meant and just a glimmer as to Wilde's involvement.  In looking at this description, how does this change the way you see The Picture of Dorian Gray?  Can a piece of Artwork exist without any moral, social, or political value? Think about your speeches and the art pieces you incorporated when making your argument.  

Grammar

The semi-colon and the colon--

These two punctuation marks are giving people a run for their money.  So, because I have observed semi-colon and colon abuse, this week's blog will be an analysis of how we use these in our writing.

1. Your first assignment is to go to the Grammar Girl website and read the pages on how to use semi-colons and colons.  

2. Then you will explain how to use each mark in your own words with examples for each rule.  

3.  Your examples should be about Crime and Punishment or Dorian Gray.  

Poetry Analysis

Below you have a poem.  Analyze the poem.  In your analysis, explain the author's purpose and how the author conveys this purpose through the use of literary devices.  Pull two to three devices to address.  (Note--the structure:))   

Anthem for Doomed Youth

BY WILFRED OWEN

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

      — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

      Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; 

      Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

      And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

      The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.