Week 98: College Reading and Writing Joel Dias-Porter and Kiki Leyba

Week 98: College Reading and Writing

Joel Dias-Porter and Kiki Leyba: 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 eleventh poem and response in our book today, starting on page 33.

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.     How do you feel about how the speaker uses questions in the poem? What is their significance?

2.     What are the italics doing in the poem? What do they show us?

3.     What does the speaker feel about the nature poems at the end of the poem?

Exercise: Questions for Comprehension of the Response

1.     Who is the “you” in the first line of the response?

2.      What is different about the italics in the response versus the italics in the poem?

3.     How is the perspective in the response different from that of the poem? What effect does that change have?

                                                                                                             

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:

Joel Dias-Porter’s poem, “Wednesday Poem,” starts off by talking about getting to school to teach a lesson, but that “outside the classroom, things are too quiet” (Dias-Porter 33). The speaker finds out that one of their students, Maurice, “…got shot last night…” and that the other students “sit in a circle” (Dias-Porter 33). The speaker reminisces about Maurice, and the poem ends wondering about the future of students in a time “where it’s natural to never see seventeen” (Dias-Porter 34).

Work Cited Page (for today’s poem)

Dias-Porter, Joel. “Wednesday Poem” 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: In Dias-Porter’s poem, the speaker puts his nature book away because “which students could these pistils protect, / here where it’s natural to never see seventeen” (Dias-Porter 34). In contrast, Leyba uses the word “unnatural” to describe the horrors of gun violence. What are the words “natural” and “unnatural” doing in each piece? What is being described as “natural” and “unnatural”? Use quotation and in-text citation to support your answer.

Homework Assignment: Imitation

Write your own poem where you compare something you consider “natural” to something that is not.

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.