Week 32: College Reading and Writing: Nick Flynn and Ashlyn Melton

Week 32: College Reading and Writing: Nick Flynn and Ashlyn Melton

Flynn and Melton: 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 eighteenth poem and response today, starting on page 63.

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.     What does “you never know” imply?  

2.     What is significant about “it could have been cast into anything”? Why contemplate its other possibilities?

3.     Why does the speaker say, “I don’t know what I believe”?

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 (for today’s poem)

Flynn, Nick. “My Mother Contemplating Her Gun.” 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. How does Melton describe the action that killed her son?
2. Why does Melton refuse to call her son’s shooting death “an accident”?
3. According to Melton, who is responsible for her son’s death?

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: In Melton’s response to Flynn’s poem, she discusses the passivity in the language of shooting deaths by challenging the word “accident.” Nick Flynn’s mother died of suicide. Based on Melton’s strong belief that every shooting is a choice, write an analysis that explores the subtle way the speaker contemplates her own choice of having a gun. Rely on images in the poem to back up your argument.

Exercise: Imitation

Write a poem from someone else’s perspective in which they contemplate a choice they made.

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.