Week 37: College Reading and Writing: Hass and Williams

Week 37: College Reading and Writing: Hass and Williams

Robert Hass and Jody Williams: 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 twenty-third poem and response in the book today, starting on page 75. 

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 the poem begin? And how does it end?

2.     What does the speaker imply when they say, “Bbecause if killing large numbers of people/ with sophisticated weapons is a sign of sickness”?

3.     Describe the effect the long listing in this poem has on its tone?

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)

Hass, Robert. “Dancing.” 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 weapons has Williams been around?
2. How are killer robots different to Williams than these other weapons?
3. What does Prometheus do in Williams’ version of the myth?

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 her response, Williams would like to rewrite the myth of Prometheus so that he steals “gunpowder, nuclear weapons, and the makings of killer robots and bury them deep in a cave on Mt. Olympus. To save human beings from ourselves” (80). Why do we need to be saved from ourselves and how is this message also reflected in Hass’s poem? Use examples from both the poem and the response to support your answer.

Exercise: Imitation

Write a poem about something you heard on the radio. Connect it back to your life. Use a list in your poem.

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.