Week 88: College Reading and Writing: Aziza Barnes and Judi Richardson

Week 88: College Reading and Writing:Aziza Barnes and Judi Richardson

Aziza Barnes and Judi Richardson: 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 third poem and response in our book today, starting on page 11.

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 are some of the things you think about when you hear this speaker saying “the / body does its job just one / function to release what can’t stay” (Barnes 11).

2.     Why are the brain and heart “a big town” (Barnes 11)? Why are the kidneys “hot spots like Vegas” (Barnes 11)?

3.     What are some of the things you think about when you hear this speaker talking about “a clog at the 3^rd / counter” (Barnes 11)?

4.     Why does it matter the things “he was ordering” were “things that don’t feel like food” (Barnes 11-12)?

5.     What does the title have to do with anything?

Exercise: Questions for Comprehension of the Response

1.     What does Judi Richardson want you to know about her daughter?

2.     What does she want you to know about “this country” (Richardson 13)?

Exercise: Summarize the poem

Write a paragraph summarizing the poem with quotations, in-text citation, and a Work Cited Page.

Example Summary: Too short, but incorporates quotation and in-text citation:

In Aziza Barnes’ poem “I Could Ask, But I Think They Use Tweezers,” Barnes pulls together a shooting at McDonald’s and its aftermath at an emergency room. Her comparisons between the “brain” and “heart” and a “big town” let us imagine the body as a place with a “clog” like the McDonald’s counter (Barnes 11-12). She remarks bullets are more dangerous now than they were in the “good-ole-days” and that if cloth gets stuck in the wound “well you have to get that out too” (Barnes 11-12).

Work Cited Page (for today’s poem)

Barnes, Aziza. “I Could Ask, But I Think They Use Tweezers,” Bullets Into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence. Ed. Brian Clements et al. Beacon Press, 2017.

Exercise: Write a response to this poem. What are your first impressions? How do you connect or disconnect to the subject and speaker? Does the poem remind you of anything from your own life and experience?

Exercise: Summarize the response

Write a paragraph summarizing the response with quotations, in-text citations, and a Work Cited Page.

Exercise: Analysis

Question for analysis: What’s the effect of the form of this poem, its lack of punctuation and paragraphs, its unusual spacing? How do you read it differently than you read the response? How do you read it differently than a newspaper article or other things that you’ve read? Quote the text in your work.

Exercise: Imitation

One of the things Barnes does in her poem is to consider the effects of a bullet, the big ways it impacts a body even though “the bullets are small” (Barnes 12). Write your own poem about the larger effects of something small—forgetting to eat, or losing your temper, or oversleeping, or whatever you think of. Choose elements of the poem by Barnes to help shape our piece. For example, you may choose to spread your poem out on the page, or skip punctuation for effect.

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.