For Tuesday, May 6

Just review your five full length works for Question 3 on exam.

For Wednesday, April 30

For this prompt:  Set your timer for 40 minutes; read; prepare, write.

2011 Poem: “A Story” (Li-Young Lee)
Prompt: The following poem is by the contemporary poet Li-Young Lee. Read the poem
carefully. Then write a well-developed essay in which you analyze how the poet conveys the complex relationship of the father and the son through the use of literary devices such as point of view and structure.

A Story

Sad is the man who is asked for a story
and can't come up with one.

His five-year-old son waits in his lap.
Not the same story, Baba. A new one.
The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.

In a room full of books in a world
of stories, he can recall
not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy
will give up on his father.

Already the man lives far ahead, he sees
the day this boy will go. Don't go!
Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!
You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.
Let me tell it!

But the boy is packing his shirts,
he is looking for his keys. Are you a god,
the man screams, that I sit mute before you?
Am I a god that I should never disappoint?

But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?
It is an emotional rather than logical equation,
an earthly rather than heavenly one,
which posits that a boy's supplications
and a father's love add up to silence.

Li-Young Lee

For the following prompt, prepare a thesis statement (INTERPRETIVE!) 

2011B Poem: “An Echo Sonnet” (Robert Pack)
Prompt: Read carefully the following poem by Robert Pack, paying close attention to the
relationship between form and meaning. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how the literary techniques used in this poem contribute to its meaning.

 

 AN ECHO SONNET

To an Empty Page

Voice: Echo:

How from emptiness can I make a start? Start

And starting, must I master joy or grief? Grief

But is there consolation in the heart? Art

Oh cold reprieve, where’s natural relief? Leaf

5 Leaf blooms, burns red before delighted eyes. Dies

Here beauty makes of dying, ecstasy. See

Yet what’s the end of our life’s long disease? Ease

If death is not, who is my enemy? Me

Then are you glad that I must end in sleep? Leap

10 I’d leap into the dark if dark were true. True

And in that night would you rejoice or weep? Weep

What contradiction makes you take this view? You

I feel your calling leads me where I go. Go

But whether happiness is there, you know. No

 

For Monday, April 28

Write a 40 minute essay, including your read and prep time, over "On the Subway" by Sharon Olds.

Select five (5) full length works to review for the open response question on the exam.  We will finish Antigone, so you will have that in your tool belt as well.

See you Monday.  I promise we will finish Antigone at the beginning of next week:)

For Thursday, April 24

Using the poetry packet I gave you on Earth Day, find the Wordsworth poem "The World is Too Much With Us."  You will annotate this poem as if you are going to write an essay for the AP exam.  Make sure that as you mark literary devices in the text-you write in the margin your interpretation of the ld's meaning to the poem as a whole.  Finally, write a dynamic thesis sentence that will propel a well-written essay over this poem.  Your thesis should be interpretive.  What is Wordsworth's argument~his purpose for changing the mind or actions of his readers?

Finally, read through Lord Byron's "She Walks in Beauty."  Be prepared for a discussion of this poem.

We will pick up with Antigone on Thursday~hopefully we will finish the play.

For Tuesday, April 15

BTW-Tuesday the 15th is Earth Day.  So, be prepared to "hug a tree" by writing a beautiful, lyric poem about the metaphors you see in nature:)  Bringing your teacher a flower is also a great way to celebrate!

Rather than reading in Antigone (I decided that is best done by reading aloud in class), you are responsible for reading The Ring of Time by E.B. White.  You are familiar with many of Mr. White's writings:  Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and maybe even Trumpet of the Swans.  This is an example of one of his most beautiful (I think) essays.

Here is a link to the essay:  http://www.mrrena.com/misc/rotime.php

Print the essay out
Annotate the essay as to White's use of literary device
Decide what literary devices you would discuss in a well-written essay.
     (a minimum of 2 ld's; 3 for an A)
Find two quotes per literary device that you will then interpret as to White's purpose

For turn in:  annotated essay; a list of literary devices you might use; four to six quotes plus interpretations

If you would rather write an essay over the reading for the practice (never a bad idea), I will reward your efforts.

Think about:
White's discussion on time~when do we transcend time?  how do we transcend time? Ultimately, can we transcend time?  Anything about aging?  EVEN EARLIER IN THE ESSAY:  What is the best part of the circus?  of life?

For Wednesday, April 16

On your own paper, answer the following questions from "The Moths" by Helena Maria Viramontes.

Antigone and Polynices

1.  As the narrator cares for her dying grandmother, she begins to ask herself, "when do you stop giving when do you start giving" (para. 12), continuing the repetition of the word "when" throughout the following paragraph.  What is the significance of this repetition for the fourteen-year-old narrator?  What might she be questioning in her own life?
2.  Trace the references to hands in this story.  How do you interpret the poultice balm of moth wings that Abuelita uses to shape the narrator's hands back into shape?  What is the significance of this act?
3.  What do the moths represent in the story? (make sure you use embedded quotations in your answer)

"the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls"
by e.e. Cummings
      

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls

are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds

(also, with the church's protestant blessings

daughters, unscented shapeless spirited)

they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead,

are invariably interested in so many things—

at the present writing one still finds

delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?

perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy

scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D

.... the Cambridge ladies do not care, above

Cambridge if sometimes in its box of

sky lavender and cornerless, the
 moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

 

Read and Think  About All 5 of the following questions.  Select two of the questions to answer on your own paper.

 

1.  What do you envision about the Cambridge ladies when you read that they "live in furnished souls" and have "comfortable minds"?  How is calling them "unbeautiful" different from calling them "ugly"

2.What does the allusion to Christ and Longfellow in the same breath suggest about the speaker's attitude toward the Cambridge ladies' beliefs?  What does the qualifying phrase "both dead" tell you about the speaker's own beliefs?

3. How does Cummings's playful use of syntax in "delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles? / perhaps" contribute to his commentary on the Cambridge ladies?  What effect does the inserted "is it" have on your sense of their commitment to political causes and philanthropy?

4.  How do you interpret the ellipsis dots in line 11?

5.  Why do you think the speaker compares the moon over Cambridge with "a fragment of angry candy"?  How can candy be angry?  What does the simile have to do with the Cambridge ladies?

For Fun:

 

Buffalo Bill 's

defunct

                     who used to

                     ride a watersmooth-silver

                                                            stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

                                                                                                                        Jesus

he was a handsome man

                                                            and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death

 

candy

For Monday, April 14

Read the short story "The Moths" by Helen Verimontes.  Be prepared to take a deep reading quiz!

Find three (3) e e cummings poems online.  Print them out.  Read them.  Come ready to discuss.
Get ready to look at syntax.