Week 95: College Reading and Writing Brian Clements and Po Kim Murray
Week 95:
College Reading and Writing
Brian Clements
and Po Kim Murray: 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 eighth poem and response in our book today,
starting on page 25.
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: Respond to Poem
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:
Questions for Comprehension of the Poem
1.
This poem is in four sections, each one
stanza long. What do they have in common?
2.
What do the specific details do to this
poem?
3.
What happens to the repeating .22 in
the poem?
4.
What does Clements mean when he
concludes “After that, a lot of other things happened, / but it doesn’t really
matter what”?
Exercise:
Questions for Comprehension of the Response
1.
What is the Newton Action
Alliance?
2.
Who is on the two sides
Murray sees in this debate?
3.
What does Murray say he
knows?
Homework Assignment: Summarize the Poem
Write a
7-9 sentence 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:
Brian Clements’ poem “22” goes through four stories from his
life; the first is about a co-worker “my girlfriend ran off with “who “carried
a .22,” the second about a pimp “pointing a .22 semiautomatic” at his head, the
third about deaths in the life of his “best friend in sixth or seventh grade,”
and the fourth about a school shooting that his wife survived (Clements 25-26)
Work Cited Page
(for today’s poem)
Clements, Brian. “22” Bullets Into Bells: Poets and
Citizens Respond to Gun Violence. Ed. Brian Clements et al. Beacon Press,
2017.
Homework Assignment: Summarize the Response
Write a 7-9
sentence paragraph summarizing the response with quotations, in-text citations,
and a Work Cited Page.
Homework
Assignment: Analysis
Question for analysis: Clements and Murray have very different
relationships to what they say “matters.” Clements implies what matters in his
conclusion “After that, a lot of other things happened,
/ but it doesn’t really matter what” (Clements 26). Murray makes plain “what
mattered” and who it mattered to (Murray 27). Using quotation from the text,
what do you think matters here, and why?
Homework
Assignment: Imitation
Write your own poem telling a series of related
stories. Clements’ poem is four stories about gun violence; you could write
four stories about cooking, hanging out with friends, being alone, etc. Use
Clements’ technique of using specific detail in each story.
Homework:
- Summary of Poem
- Summary of
Response
- Analysis of
Poem/Response
- 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.
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