Week 53: College Reading and Writing: Krysten Hill
Week 53: College Reading and Writing: Krysten Hill
Krysten Hill: 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
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 is the role of potted plants in
this poem?
2. What is the importance of ritual?
3. How does this poem “heal” (Hill)?
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:
Brenda Hillman’s poem “The Family Sells the
Family Gun” tells the story of siblings getting rid of their father’s gun after
“his ashes...were lying” (87). The speaker questions what it means to own and
get rid of a gun in America, saying, “[w]e couldn’t take it to the cops even in
my handbag” (Hillman 88).
Work Cited Page (for today’s
poem)
Hill, Krysten. “Damn, I Need a Minute.” Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Tinderbox
Poetry Journal, 2018,
Exercise: Write a Response
What is this poem saying about potted
plants? Do you agree with Hill? Why or why not? What does this poem remind you
of? Do you relate to this poem’s message? Why or why not?
Exercise: Analysis
Question for analysis: What is the effect
of ritual in this poem? How does the poem teach the reader about the importance
of ritual? Closely examine the poem, write an analysis where you explore how
the poet reflects on the ritual care of potted plants to make a statement about
“healing from the inside out” (Hill).
Exercise: Imitation
Write a ritual poem. What rituals help
you get through the day, week, month? Maybe you come to poetry class every
Friday, maybe you always eat your vegetables first, maybe you brush your hair a
hundred times. You are the expert on
you. Use elements from Hill’s poem that you admire to make your own poem
stronger.
Homework:
- Summary of Poem
- Write a Response
- Analysis of Poem
- Imitation of Poem
About this class:
Your notebooks belong to you; you can
write first drafts in them, and make notes for yourselves. To turn in homework, revise your work in a
blue book or sheets of paper you can get from your instructor. 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.
Because, sometimes, survival looks like a
sunporch crowded with living plants despite
how much I’ve been told I can’t keep anything
alive. Every muscling green kniving
from the dirt, reminding me of my mama’s
cutting tongue, blade up, a warning with roots.
I’m learning to care for other living things
and myself. I overwater my aloe
and my liver. Forget my fern needs shade as
much as my heart needs to sleep
in the dark. Crowd my tomato plants the way I
choke on thoughts
of leaving myself. I kill them sometimes. I
try again next season.
I touch their new leaves when I can’t sleep.
Whisper my worry because
What will be left for
my children? Who will take cuttings and grow them in their own rooms
if this world is dead?
I
give them what I have—my voice, water, house in the winter. I fill my sunporch
with the living and the dead and talk to both.
I put soil on my tongue because I want to taste both.
I remember how my mama said I need a minute when she got home from
work, and gave her tired
to a chair, closed the door to the kitchen to
escape her screaming house, and talked
to her philodendron crawling up the wall. Like
my mama packed a room with plants
like gauze in a wound, I’m trying to know
healing from the inside out.
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