Week 100: College Reading and Writing: Mark Doty and Pastor Michael McBride

Week 100: College Reading and Writing

Mark Doty and Pastor Michael McBride: 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 thirteenth poem and response in our book today, starting on page 42.

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.     What does Doty mean by “What happens fastest” (Doty 42)?

2.     What does Doty mean by “I believe it is the work / of art to try on at least the moment / and skin of another” (Doty 44)?

3.     What does Doty refuse when he says “for this hour I Respectfully decline. / I refuse it” (Doty 44)?

4.     What is the significance of the complexity of the poem?

Exercise: Questions for Comprehension of the Response

1.     Who is the repetition bringing out or showing us in the response?

2.     What does McBride say we are addicted to?

3.     What does McBride say we must do to defeat the “triplets of evil” (McBride 45)?

                                                                                                             

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:

Mark Doty’s poem “In Two Seconds” compares Tamir Rice’s life and death, starting from “the conception bed” to him “playing with a plastic gun in a city park” (Doty 43-44). The poem ends with a hope that Tamir’s killer “be visited every night of his life / by an enormity collapsing in front of him…” (Doty 44).

Work Cited Page (for today’s poem)

Doty, Mark. “In Two Seconds” 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: Where do we see creation and death in both Doty’s poem and McBride’s response? How are those concepts pitted against each other? Use quotation and in-text citation to support your answer.

Homework Assignment: Imitation

Write your own poem about two opposite concepts, like life and death, or being young and growing up, and how they engage with one another.

Homework:

1. Summary of Poem
2. Summary of Response
3. Analysis of Poem/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.