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:
          
  1. Summary of Poem                   
  2. Write a Response
  3. Analysis of Poem        
  4. 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.
 

Damn, I Need a Minute

by Krysten Hill

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.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Week 94: College Reading and Writing: Jericho Brown and Michael Skolnik