Weekly Outline
Week 1, 1/14 -- Introductions
Week 2, 1/21 -- What is literature? What is identity?
Week 3, 1/28 -- Narration, paper #1 due
Week 4, 2/4 -- Character, Setting, Symbol, Theme
Week 5, 2/11 -- Quiz #1, film
Week 6, 2/18 -- Poetry
Week 7, 2/25 - - Poetry, paper #2 due
Week 8, 3/4 -- Poetry
Week 9, 3/11 -- Poetry, paper #3 due
Week 10, 3/18 -- (out of class work on blog)
Week 11, 3/25 -- SPRING BREAK
Week 12, 4/1 -- Quiz #2 on poetry, Theory
Week 13, 4/8 -- Poetry paper #4 due, Theory, film
Week 14, 4/15 -- Theory
Week 15, 4/22 -- Theory, quiz #3
Week 16, 4/29 -- Paper #5 due
Week 17, 5/6 - Final Exam PARTY
I read the poem “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways” by William Wordswoth. At first I did not understand what the poem meant. After I read it a few time I got the grasp of what is was talking about. From what I had read, this poem is about a girl named Lucy that’s supposedly dead and know one knew where she was. A sonnet from the poem gave me a great visual image of what this is representing, “A Violet by a mossy stone half hidden from the eye! Fair as a star, when only one is shining in the sky”. This gave me a mental image that the girl Lucy was dead and was in some alter unvisere/Heaven and no one knew about her destination, I assume.
ReplyDelete-Hampton Schaffer
I chose the poem "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks. This story seems to be about a group of young men since they have skipped school to play pool and drink. They could possibly be dropouts or just skip school regularly. It does not specify, but it shows that they do not enjoy education and would rather party and stay up all night. When I first read the title "We Real Cool" I assumed it would be about children doing wild things to act cool. It is very similar to my thoughts. It reminds me of the quote "live fast, die young" which seems to be the same thought process as the young men in the poem. At the end, the final words are "We Die soon" which makes the reader feel they are not scared of death and just want to live in the moment.
ReplyDelete---Natalie Diciaula
I read “Death of a Young Son by Drowning” by Margaret Atwood. It is about a young boy who drowns in a raging river. The poem is organized into ten stanzas with about three lines in each one of them. The sentences continue from stanza to stanza without a whole lot of periods pausing the story. Atwood used a lot of words that give the poem a good rhythm without it being boring or hard to understand. She uses sentences like "His feet slid on the bank,/the currents took him;/he swirled with ice and trees in the swollen water" These lines in the poem describe exactly what happened to both boys, they help you understand what is going on with both the boys and how they found themselves drowning in the river. Suddenly the boys were there, and in a blink of an eye they were gone. The family searched for the boys throughout the day and into the night eventually finding them washed up on a bank.
ReplyDelete-Stephen Stroop
I chose to read Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll”. This poem was about a child who was raised to become a proper “lady” who was very happy in herself, until she grew up and was only viewed as a woman with a “fat nose on thick legs”. She detested these about her as everybody (no matter what she did to alter her appearance) judged her on those things, so she cut off her fat nose and thick legs, and she looked beautiful in the casket with her cute putty nose and long satin dress. This poem was about how serious body standards are toward women and how they can make an otherwise healthy woman hate herself for no real reason. This poem uses subtle rhyme and repetition throughout, and reads very casually, and has an almost happy tone, despite its dark story. This uses a very literal story telling to evoke sadness for the poor woman who felt she needed to rid herself of her imperfections that dominated her life for so long in order to become happy with herself. “Consummation at last” was said at her story, which truly was her only happy ending. She writes how every “girl child” has to make the transition into a full-fledged barbie doll at some point or another, whether they see themselves as perfect the way they are or not. Pg. 855 (older book) - Elizabeth Clemmons
ReplyDeleteI read the poem “The Changeling” by Judith Ortiz Cofer. This poem is under the section Exploring Gender. In the poem, the speaker talks about how she would dress up as a man and tell stories of her great adventures as a soldier. Her father was amused and would laugh while she was dressed up in costume. Her mother, however, strongly opposed this sort of play and would forbid her from sitting at the table while dressed like a man. The mother would force the daughter to change back into young girls clothes and braid her hair. The question at the end of the poem asks why the father is amused by her “transformations,” and why the mother forbids them. The father sees this as child’s play, while the mother possibly believes that a young girl should only dress and act as such. The speaker mentions in the poem that she would “return invisible, as myself.” This suggests that she feels that she does not like being a girl, and that being a girl makes her boring and unnoticeable.
ReplyDelete*Megan McNeely
William Wordsworth, “She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways”
ReplyDeleteThe title of this piece suggests that there is an air of mystery and privacy in the actions of the female involved. The first stanza suggests this is a girl who is un-liked for a specific reason. Perhaps she is ugly, or mentally-ill. She is loved by few yet even those few are unable to praise anything about her. The second stanza seems to be talking about her rather than what it literally implies. It suggests she is an attractive person in her own regards it is merely some oddities in her life that make her outcast. She was noticeable but not around other people. The final stanza says that wordsworth himself loves “Lucy”. But he was the only one who did love here. She was killed somehow but nobody knows how, and neither does anyone know.
-Joshua McGlone
I read "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks which is about seven adolescent pool players. These young men are not particularly interested in following the rules or going to school, but instead go about every day seeking pleasure through mischievous actions. The boys partake in skipping school, drinking, and staying out late to sing and listen to jazz. They do not seem to have a care in the world and choose to live moment by moment. Also, they don't care about the consequences they may face because of their actions. They are not fond of taking care of their responsibilities, but I think they know that eventually their care-free living will catch up with them. The title, "We Real Cool" symbolizes the pool player's idea that they are cooler than those around them because they're making decisions that others normally wouldn't.
ReplyDeleteThe poem "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks basically describes much of today's society. The boys in this poem are portrayed as finding pleasure in things that are not accepted by the people around them. It is a short poem which also represents the small minds of the boys being described, and their lack of seeing the bigger picture. Instead of caring about important matter, the boys find little importance in things such as school and health. Instead they'd rather skip it all and switch to a life of staying out light and drinking with each other. They are living what may seem like the easy life but will quickly become harder as reality sets upon them. This poem is unique because of its simplicity and short length but holds a greater meaning with less adjectives describing it.
ReplyDeleteI read “London”, by William Blake. It is organized into four stanzas with four lines each, and follows a rhyming scheme. It is from the point of view of a person walking around the streets of London and seeing how terrible the conditions are. He references seeing weakness and woe in the faces of everyone he sees, and hears infants crying and screaming. In only a few short lines, he effectively creates an image of sadness and depravation in the city. It uses the image of blood on palace walls and “midnight streets” to do this. There is a line about “mind-forged manacles”, which seems to imply that the people of London are forcing themselves into their sadness. The line makes me think about how people can get stuck in ruts of sadness and feel like we cannot get out. But in reality, a change of perspective on things would help us greatly. The poem is most effective in conveying the feeling of helplessness in a city.
ReplyDeleteAllison McDowel
"We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks. It is about seven teenage boys playing pool at a place called The Golden Shovel. They are doing drugs and/or drinking. They ditched school and ignorantly see themselves as being "cool." The people around them obviously do not approve of their actions. They are making mistakes too young and lack motivation to succeed so they resort to being bums. The main idea is that it may seem easy to live a simple, selfish, careless, and reckless life, but those years of leisure will amount to more of a hell on earth than ever expected.
ReplyDeleteAngela Beabout
The poem that I read was "to a daughter leaving home" by Linda Pastan. The poem describes a fathers feelings when reflecting on the past when he taught his daughter how to ride a bike. This poem is meant to touch the readers heart; especially a fathers or mothers that has personally experienced his feeling. By reading this poem it allows the reader to be able access memories and feelings that have been locked away in the back of their mind for some length of time. Even a poem that is based on something viewed by most as insignificant can make a huge impact on that minority that make that special connection. I admire poets because of the many simple messages they try to send through their writing in such a unique style.
ReplyDeleteJoseph Ledo-Massey
I read the poem “To The Ladies” by Mary, Lady Chudleigh. I thought it would be a poem about women empowerment or anything containing an inspiring message to women. The poem was about gender roles in society and women’s’ standing in the world. I think the poem clarifies what position it feels the women have by the line “Then but to look, to laugh, or speak, will the nuptial contract break.” I feel as if that line means women are supposed to seen and not heard and but doing anything other than that, they are stepping out of their place. The ending lines of the poem encourages women to value themselves and they “must be proud, if (they’ll) be wise.”
ReplyDeleteChristopher Bijou
Demetrius A. Jones
ReplyDeleteMark Shealy
ENC 1102
Feb. 23,2015
Death Of A Young Son by Drowning
The title almost sums exactly what the poem is about. The narrator is clearly the father, who has a son. The poem alludes the point that the sun may have even been born in a shallow spot in the same river. Older now, the boy plays along the bank and he is swept away. The narrator/father desperately try's to save his son but to no avail. The poem alludes to the chilling ice in the water and the rough currents. When they recover the body he is buried by the river.
I read the poem "Disabled" by Wilfred Owen, and enjoyed it (even though it was a sad poem, but I liked it more than the other poems). It was about a disabled veteran who lost his legs in combat, and was outside in a park (during winter, since the author mentioned it was cold). It upset the man to hear boys playing in the park, since it reminded him that he could no longer run around. At the end it mentioned he was in some kind of rehab (since he lost his legs).
ReplyDelete-Shane Parent`
DISABLED
ReplyDeleteThis poem really spoke to me because the message is surreal. The war veteran had his legs blown off in combat and he coveys the drab feelings and thoughts of of someone who experienced something so extreme. When he talks about how the women want nothing to do with him because of his disability it's heart wrenching because of his sacrifice for this country and yet it seems that there was a negative reward for his actions rather than positive. Also, he recalls how he wanted to go to war prior to combat and it's apparent that he regrets his decision not only because of his negative experience but the negative responses that he received as a result of his disability as well.
Dan Dearing