Week 54: College Reading and Writing: Maggie Smith
Week
54: College Reading and Writing: Maggie Smith
Maggie
Smith:
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. How is the speaker comparing herself to a
realtor?
2. What does the speaker mean by “a real
shithole” (Smith)?
3. What are some of the “thousand delicious,
ill-advised ways” you think the speaker has shortened her life (Smith)?
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)
Smith, Maggie "Good Bones," Waxwing magazine (Issue IX, Summer 2016)
Exercise:
Analysis
Question for analysis: What do you think
about the dishonesty the speaker reveals in the poem? Does dishonesty contribute to making the
world “at least half terrible”(Smith)?
Why or why not?
Exercise:
Imitation
Write a poem about useful lies; they could be
lies you have told, or lies you have been told.
Homework:
- Summary of
Poem
- 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.
Good Bones
Life is short, though I keep this from my
children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at
least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a
conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my
children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a
bird.
For every loved child, a child broken,
bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am
trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps
on
about good bones: This place could be
beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
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