Week 72: College Reading and Writing: Dean Rader and Joe Quint

Week 72: College Reading and Writing: Dean Rader and Joe Quint

Annotating, Summarizing, Imitating, Analyzing, Synthesizing

to annotate: to make notes on something to help you understand it better

to summarize: to put something in your own words

to imitate: to create an original piece of writing based on something you have read

to analyze: to consider a question on the text, providing supporting examples from the text

to synthesize: to connect two or more texts in your own writing

We are on page 138 of the book today.

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 sentences into your own words in notes in the margins or in your notebook

Exercise: Questions for Comprehension of the poem

1. What is the narrator’s “plan” in the poem (Rader 138)?

2. What is the role of place names in the poem?

3. How does punctuation work in this poem?

Exercise: Questions for Comprehension of the response

1. Is there a call to action? Who is it aimed at?

2. What keeps the speaker going in his work?

Exercise: Summarize the poem

Write a paragraph summarizing the poem in your own words, with quotations, in-text citation, and a Work Cited page.  Don’t include your opinion, just summarize the poem.

Example too-short summary, incorporating quotation and in-text citation:

Dean Rader’s poem “Self-Portrait in Charleston, Orlando” tells the story of a world in “which I imagine I see across the map of motion” (138). The poem ends “wondering if all life is somehow loaded into the chamber of a rifle” (Rader 140).

Work Cited Page

Rader, Dean. “Self-Portrait in Charleston, Orlando” Bullets Into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence. Ed. Brian Clements et al. Beacon Press, 2017.

Exercise: Summarize the response

Write a paragraph summarizing the response in your own words, with quotations, in-text citation, and a Work Cited Page.  Don’t include your opinion, just summarize the response.

Example summary, incorporating quotation and in-text citation:

Joe Quint’s response to Dean Rader’s poem “Self-Portrait in Charleston, Orlando” begins with the admission that in his line of work “it’s easy to get jaded...hardened” (142). He goes on to explain that for him “[t]he one piece that hasn’t changed...is my amazement at the strength and resiliency of these people” (Quint 142). He concludes by sharing that for “these people” he “will always be humbly grateful” (Quint 142).

Work Cited Page

Quint, Joe. “Response to ‘Self-Portrait in Charleston, Orlando” Bullets Into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence. Ed. Brian Clements et al. Beacon Press, 2017.

Exercise: Synthesizing Analysis

Question for synthesizing analysis: We have inherited a world with gun violence that we see on the news every day. What are some strategies you see here for not becoming numb to this legacy? How do you deal with living in a world where gun violence feels inevitable? Remember to use quotations from the poem to make your points, and cite them!

Exercise: Imitation

Write a bridge poem. A poem that flows from one event to another. In each of our lives, we live day to day but are also connected to what we see on the news. Take four events from the week and connect them in poem form. Use elements from Rader’s poem that you admire to make your own story stronger.  

For homework, revise these in a blue book or on loose paper; do not turn in your notebook or rip out pages to turn in.

1.         Summary of Rader

2.         Summary of Quint

3.         Synthesizing Analysis

4.         Imitation

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.