Week 21: College Reading and Writing: Billy Collins and Nicole Hockley

Prof. Kate Glavin is taking over for the summer--this is one of her handouts.

Week 21: College Reading and Writing: Billy Collins and Nicole Hockley

Billy Collins and Nicole Hockley: Annotating, Summarizing, Analyzing, Imitating

to annotate: to make notes on something to help you understand it better

to summarize: to put something in your own words

to analyze: to consider a question on the text, providing supporting examples from the text

to imitate: to create an original piece of writing based on something you have read

We are doing the ninth poem and response in the book today, starting on page 28.  

Exercise: Read and annotate

1. Read the poem and response out loud and underline any words you need to look up

2. Write any questions you have in the margins or in your notebook

3. Put tricky parts into your own words in notes in the margins or in your notebook

Exercise: Questions for Comprehension of the poem

1.     How does nature (i.e., winter, birds) in the poem reflect or contribute to the mood or meaning?

2.     What does Collins mean when he writes  “History will never find a way to end” regarding the boy shooting at the statues?

3.     What is the significance of paper as “pieces of glass” in which the speaker can see “swarms of dark birds circling in the sky”?

Exercise: Summarize the poem

Write a paragraph summarizing the poem with quotations, in-text citation, and a Work Cited Page.

example too-short summary, incorporating quotation and in-text citation:

Billy Collins’ poem “Boy Shooting at Statue” begins with the speaker describing walking through an almost empty park where he sees a boy “running alone/in circles around the base of a bronze statue.” The speaker just watches as the boy runs in circles, using “his hand for a gun,”  lifting “his finger to the statue,” pretending to shoot (28-29).

Work Cited Page

Collins, Billy. “Boy Shooting at a Statue.” Bullets Into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence. Ed. Brian Clements et al. Beacon Press, 2017.

Exercise: Questions for Comprehension of the response

1.     What does Hockley believe sustains the conflict around the topic of gun violence?

2.     What does Hockley believe is the universal goal of this debate?

3.     Who does Hockley believe is responsible for the changes needed to prevent gun violence?

Exercise: Summarize the response

Write a paragraph summarizing the response with quotations, in-text citation, and a Work Cited Page.

Exercise: Analysis

Question for analysis: Collins and Hockley seem to be in agreement that that the history of gun violence in America keeps repeating itself.  Collins’ poem is set in winter, and Hockley refers to the non-action around this issue as a “long winter” (30). If the winter represents the political climate (or mood) around gun violence, who might the boy represent in this “polarized and divisive” topic (30)?

Exercise: Imitation

Write your own poem in tercets (stanzas of three lines each) where you use juxtaposition to emphasize the theme of the poem. For instance, Collin uses a seemingly innocent scene of a boy playing in a park to illustrate how common gun violence is in our culture and how desensitized we’ve become to it. Write a poem where you place two very different objects or people or places together to emphasize and draw attention to the point you want to make.

For homework, revise these in a blue book or on loose paper; do not turn in your notebook or rip out pages to turn in.

Homework:

1.     Summary of Poem

2.     Summary of Response

3.     Analysis of Poem and Response

4.     Imitation of Poem

About this class:

In this class, you are welcome to submit homework for a grade.  If it’s not strong enough to earn an A, I’ll give you some comments to help you revise it, and let you do it over again. You have as many chances as you want to complete and perfect the work in this class, and you are welcome to do more than one week’s worksheet for homework at a time; ask me for sheets you’ve missed.  Students who complete 15 weeks of graded assignments and a longer paper can qualify for college credit. When you get close to completing 15 weeks, I’ll help you get started on your longer paper.