Week 90: College Reading and Writing: Jimmy Santiago Baca and Antonius Wiriadjaja

Week 90: College Reading and Writing: Jimmy Santiago Baca and Antonius Wiriadjaja

Jimmy Santiago Baca and Antonius Wiriadjaja: 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 second poem and response in our book today, starting on page 3.

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 form doing for the poem?

2.     What is the length of the poem doing for the poem? Where does it bring the reader?

3.     How is it “harder to have hope” (Baca 6)?

Exercise: Questions for Comprehension of the Response

1. What happened to Antonius?
2. Who helped him? What happened to them?
3. Why doesn’t Antonius want us to think of the people in this story as “them”?

                                                                                                             

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 Jimmy Santiago Baca’s poem “Morning Shooting,” Baca remembers a shooting outside his house and how he and his wife responded. While 911 said “Let the bitch die,” and the neighbors plan to build a wall “rimmed with knife blades,” Baca imagines the shot man “on his way to work” as a baby and young person (Baca 4-7). Finally, he reflects on Trump’s “war on immigrants” during a walk, thinking of this “day of all-out launching of racism” (Baca 8-9).

Work Cited Page (for today’s poem)

Baca, Jimmy Santiago. “Morning Shooting” 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: Which of these, the poem or the response, did you find more emotionally affecting? Why? Quote both texts in your work.

Exercise: Imitation

Write your own poem or short prose piece about something that makes you angry. Choose elements of the poem by Baca or the prose piece by Wiriadjaja to help shape your piece. For example, you may choose to put your poem across multiple pages with short lines, like Baca, or end with a prayer, like Wiriadjaja.

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.