Week Three with FELON, by Reginald Dwayne Betts

 We are Zooming into two jails each week! One week we meet with a group of 20 divided into 5 Zoom rooms for social distancing, the next we meet with a different group. I'm so happy so many people wanted to sign up for this class, and that we were able to buy everybody the book! 

“Blood History” by Reginald Dwayne Betts: Annotating, Summarizing, Analyzing, Imitating

Today we are reading the first poem in Felon, “Blood History,” on page 3. 

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

Exercise: Read and annotate

1. Read the poem out loud and underline any words you need to look up

2. Write any questions you have in the margins, the white space on the page

3. Put tricky parts into your own words in notes in the margins, the white space on the page

Optional Exercise: Questions for Comprehension

1. Betts’ friend “asked if [he] longed for a father. Had he said wanted, I would have/dismissed him” (3).  What’s the difference in those two words? How do you think the word “longed” changed an expected, automatic response to something deeper? There are a lot of ways to think about this, so don’t worry that there’s ONE right answer you have to figure out—there isn’t!

Optional Exercise: Summarize the poem

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

example summary, incorporating quotation and in-text citation: 

Reginald Dwayne Betts' poem "Blood History" recalls multiple conversations with friends that touched on the idea of a father (Betts 3). One asks if Betts “longed for a father,” another said “there is no/word for father where he comes from,” and a third “wondered why/ [he] named [his] son after [his] father” (3). 

Work Cited Page 

Betts, Reginald Dwayne. Felon. W. W. Norton and Company 2020 

Optional Exercise: Analysis

Question for analysis: How does naming a son after a father “turn your life to a prayer that no dead man gonna answer” (Betts 3)? 

Optional Exercise: Imitation.  

Write your own poem that reflects on multiple conversations. It can be about a single topic you’ve talked about with multiple people, or be more wide-ranging!