30 January 2012

Today we’ll meet in the lab to work on Task 4 and on your Sestina.  A reminder that Task 4 is due by the end of the trimester, but your Sestina is due tomorrow.

In terms of ground rules for the sestina, let me offer a few guiding lights:

• USE evocative words as your end words (specific nouns, active verbs).  This actually helps the poem to have some movement.
• DO NOT USE end words that are pronouns (he, she, you, this, that), articles (the, a, an) and weak verbs (to be, to have)

Think about rink keeper–fury, pleasure, hockey, Esposito, slapshots.  Or think about Elizabeth Bishop’s sestina–house, grandmother, child, stove, almanac, tears.  These are not cop-out words!  :)

27 Jan 2012

Today we did vocabulary

• siphon – tube – siphon – to use a tube to remove some gas or liquid from another container
• son – sound – resonate – sound echoes inside of something (thanks Arthur W)
• spec, spic – look, see – spectator – one who watches
• spir – breathe – respirate – to breathe
• spont – by one’s own force – spontaneous – describes an activity undertaken for no particular reason but whim
• tang, tact – touch -tangible -capable of being touched

and then finished our discussion of “Rink Keeper’s Sestina.”  Monday we’re in the lab. I’m going to ask you to write a Sestina of your own for Tuesday.  Be WARNED…

 

26 January 2012

Today we shared our observations and chunks on “Rink Keeper’s Sestina.”  Tonight, please do steps 3 & 5 (interpret & apply).

Also, we brainstormed a list of what a sestina is based on “Rink Keeper’s Sestina.”  Now, look at another sestina (p 4 in your packet contains Elizabeth Bishop’s “Sestina”) and add to or subtract from your definition accordingly.

See you tomorrow.

25 January 2011

Today we will finish our discussion of the critical reading essays (Nabokov, Perrine, Agassiz) and try to compress these into our critical reading skills lists (the back of your journal).  

Then, I’m going to introduce a visual method of studying text–one that promotes inductive, fish-gazing, stay-in-the-flashlight, detail-fondling interpretations.  And we’re going to practice that visual method on a poem called “Rink Keeper’s Sestina.”

Your journal prompt for this poem is simple:  Based on your observations of this one sestina, what is a sestina?

I’m eager to see what you come up with.  No Googling, no peeking, no clues, no comparing with other poems (even sestinas, at least not yet).  You’ve got yourself and the fish poem and your writing utensils.  Bon chance!

PS) The bold print above is just a small hint of the kinds of metaphors and skills you might have added to your critical reading skills list by the end of the day today.  :)

24 January 2012

Today is our writing day.  I will offer some preliminary instruction on turning your proposals into drafts, and here is a copy of these Memoir Instruction Notes.

I will also pass out a Sustained Narrative Example and a Vignette-style piece.  I hope these will help, too.

Lastly, here is a brief handout on the Fine Art of Punctuating Dialogue.  I think many of you will need it!

23 January 2012

Today we’ll start with silent reading and then we’ll begin a large group discussion of the essays you read for class today.

19-20 January 2012

19 January – Large group discussion of MLK Jr’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

20 January – Please read three essays I passed out yesterday (see below).  Journal about and prepare to discuss them on MONDAY our usual writing day has been moved to TUESDAY next week.

• Laurence Perrine “The Nature of Proof in the Interpretation of Poetry”
• Vladimir Nabokov “Good Readers, Good Writers”
• “The Student, the Fish & Agassiz”

The prompts for Perrine and Nabokov are typed on the front of the packet that contains both essays.  The prompt for Agassiz is a bit more simple: How might this parable work as a metaphor for critical reading.

There is a massive typographical error in one paragraph, the one in which he interprets Emily Dickinson’s poem.  It should read: The poem is a description of a sunset. The “ships of purple” are clouds. The “seas of daffodil” are skies colored golden by the setting sun. The “fantastic sailors” are the shifting colors of the sunset, like old-fashioned seamen dressed in gorgeous garments of many colors brought from exotic lands. The sun sinks and the wharf (the earth where the sun set- the scene of this colorful activity) is still. Thanks to Maisie H for pointing it out to me! A corrected version of the essay is available online at this site.

1st WARNING:  Many students feel Nabokov is arrogant and Perrine is pedantic.  That’s normal.  Try to work around your feelings so that you can access what they’re offering us.  It really is good stuff, despite them strutting their feathers a little (okay a lot).
2nd WARNING: Nabokov, Perrine and Agassiz will now occupy a similar place to Foster.  This is NOT an assignment to skimp on.  If you don’t know this stuff, and “know it good,” the rest of our time together this year is going to be difficult, and your final journal interview impossible.