Week 22: College Reading and Writing: Kyle Dargan and Daniel Webster


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

Week 22: College Reading and Writing: Kyle Dargan and Daniel Webster

Kyle Dargan and Daniel Webster: 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 eighth poem and response in the book today, starting on page 31. 

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.     Who is the speaker in this poem? Why does the speaker care so much about the farmer?
2.     What does the speaker mean “A young face is another young face”?
3.      What does the speaker mean that the “corpses may share the woods with the deer and the turkeys”?

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:

Kyle Dargan’s poem “Natural Causes” tells the story of a boy who purchases a gun “from a farm in Virginia” (31) from a farmer who “keeps his gaze down as to remember nothing of the boy’s face” (31). The speaker of the poem insinuates that the farmer has sold guns to other boys like this one, when they say, “His customers rarely return older” (31).

Work Cited Page
Dargan, Kyle. “Natural Causes.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 Webster say “Natural Causes” reveals?
  2. What does Webster mean when he says that the “absence of background checks and sales records means these sales entail little risk to sellers”?
  3. What does Webster imply when he says that gun seller investigations usually only occur when a “police officer is shot”?

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: While a lot of the poems we’ve read focus on the shooter or victim, Dargan’s speaker focuses on the gun seller. How do Dargan and Webster, in their respective pieces, hold the gun seller accountable? Using quotation from the text, what do you think they seem to be saying about who should be held responsible for gun violence? 

Exercise: Imitation
Write a prose poem where you tell a significant event using an obscure POV: a bystander at the event, a sibling, or a witness. You can write about something in your own life or something you’ve seen on the news.

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.

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