Revise a poem for Wednesday, April 1. Choose one of the poems you've written this term that you like but that you think could be better. We will be reading some poems that famous poets revised. They are in your big packet. And we'll discuss ways of revising. Somebody famous once said, "I'm a lousy writer, but I'm a great re-writer."
Favorite Poem assignment is due Friday, April 3. Here is the website for the International festival of the Arts' Favorite Poem porject: http://www.artidea.org/view_page.php?id=69. And here is the website for the national project
Your "Favorite Poem" is due Friday, April 3. Here is the website of Favorite Poem Project started by the former Poet Laureate of the U.S. Robert Pinsky. You may find stuff on the website that will help you chose your poem and write about why it's your favorite. http://www.favoritepoem.org/videos.html. Here is a link to the International Festival of Arts and Ideas' Favorite Poem Project that we are taking part in: http://www.artidea.org/view_page.php?id=69
Assignment -- Write a poem that “owes something” to one of the poems in the “great poems” unit of the packet, which we’ll be reading this week. So, you want to choose a poem you like. Then write one of your own that in some way inspired by that poem. It could be the form of it, or the subject matter, or the attitude of it. For instance, you could write a poem about being awake in the middle of the night worrying, but not necessarily about death as Larkin does in “Aubade.” Or you could write a poem with the rhyme scheme of “Pied Beauty” or the sound of that poem – “Glory be to God for fresh-mown lawns and lemonade and Ellsbury stealing home!” The poem is due Friday, May 1. Assignment: Walt Whitmen-ish poem as described in Koch book. Due Friday, May 7. Assignment: Choose a poem or two from among those you've written this term and make a page for the class anthology. Font, etc. are up to you. Be sure to put your name on the page somewhere. You can use this chance to make final or further revisions on the poem. Bring in the page by Wednesday, May 20. We will be coming up with a title in class.
Assignment: For Wednesday, May 27, write a poem "after" W.B. Yeats. This means inspired by, modeled after Yeats' poems. The poem you write could be inspired by a topic he wrote about or in his style or even a form he used. So, for instance, you could write your own version of "To One Whose Work Has Come to Nothing," consoling a friend who's had a downfall -- lost a boyfriend or flunked something or slipped into a slump in baseball. Or you could write a poem after "The Song of Wandering Angus" which is in the voice of someone -- yourself? a friend? -- who like Angus briefly had some delight or hope in life, lost it, but dreams of finding it again. In short, you could write about someone who yearns for an ideal -- of beauty, truth, excellence, etc. "When You are Old and Gray" is another Yeats poem we've read that you could be inspired by. It's a poem about losing love but transforming the loss into poetry like spinning straw into gold. We read "The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner," which is about defying Time, which transforms us, sometimes unhappily. And we read "Easter, 1916," which is a poem about ordinary men who are transformed into methological beings nearly by an act of political bravery or rashness. We've read others of Yeats. too. You can find a lot of Yeats' poems by clicking here. (Three Yeats poems we'll be discussing are attached below.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2009-2010 ASSIGNMENTS START HERE: -- Read in Poem Packet (attachment on cover page for this course) : for Wednesday: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "The Forge." And for Thursday: "I Like a Look of Agony" and "When I Heard the Learned Astronomer." Also, please read in the other packet, the section called "Week One -- What Makes a Poem?" Read the "Introduction" (it starts, "There are many pithy and inspiring definitions of poetry. . . ") and also the "Discussion Points" at the end of Week One. These are questions about the poems you're reading, and our class discussion will touch on those questions. (P.S. Finish your summer reading books for the Day of Judgment is Come! Or whatever.) -- Summer Reading: 1) Be ready Tuesday, 9.8. 2)You will tell us the names of the two books you read. 3) You will choose one of them to talk to the class about. 4) What you won't do is tell the whole plot. Instead, say what it's about, in a sentence or two -- no more. Practice this at home. Is it a novel, a biography, an autobiography? If it's a novel, is fantasy, a thriller, or a just a novel? 5) Try to bring the book to show us what it looks like. 6) Say where you were when you read it -- on the living room couch? In the bathroom? In the back seat of the family car coming home from vacation? 7) Is it any good? Why or why not? 8) Be ready to read a short paragraph from it that gives us a taste of it.
-- The Sonnet: 1) For Tuesday, read about the sonnet in the packet and read two sonnets: ""When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eye's" by Shakespeare and "The Lover Remembereth Such . . . " by Stokesbury. 2) Write a "Shakespearean" or "English" sonnet (same thing) for Friday, 9.11. Folloow the directions in the packet -- "Mrs. Formica's Home Sonnet-Writing Kit." We will work on it some in class. Try to have a draft by Wednesday, so you can get help in class. -- In syllabus packet, for Monday, 9.14, read Introduction to "Week 2" and in poems packet, read "Come In" (Robert Frost) and "I Was Sleeping . . ." (Louise Erdrich). For Tuesday, read "The World is Too Much with Us" (Wordsworth) and "There's a Certain Slant of Light" (Emily Dickinson). For Thursday, "To Autumn" (John Keats). Write a poem with nature in it for Friday, 9.18. See attachment below for assignment sheet. If you bring a draft in, Wednesday or Thursday, we can help one another with them. -- College Essay Assignment for Sept. 25 (see attachment below) -- Reading for College Essay Assignment: for Tuesday: "The Gettysburg Address" and "The Discus Thrower" (attachment below); for Wednesday: "Shooting an Elephant" (attachment below). -- Sonnet Revision: Hand in revised sonnet by Friday, 9.25. Staple original to it. You must hand it in, revised or not, or you won't get credit for the assignment, as I haven't put the original in my grade book yet. --- Memorize Poem -- Due Friday, Oct. 2. See attachment below. ---- Write a "school poem" for next Friday, Oct. 9. See attachment below and handout-packet for reading. Be ready to chat about the poems in class. Make notes. I will be pissed if you don't. For Monday, read the poem on the front of the packet (it's called "At the Canal", but I left off the title.) and "First Grade" which is on the backside of the first page of the packet and is wee. For Tuesday, read "The Year I was Diagnosed. . ." and "Persimmons." For Wednesday, read "Among Children", "Theme for English B", and "Slacker". For Thursday, read "Accountability" and "Elegy for Jane," and "Mrs. Krikorian." -- Revise College Essay: This is an optional assignment. Revise your essay for a second grade by Friday, Oct. 16. Come see me if my notes on the first draft aren't clear or if you'd just like help. --Write a "crisis" poem for Monday, Oct. 19. See attachments below ("writing a crisis poem", "some crisis terms," "crisis poems,"and "crisis poem worksheet"). -- Write a poem that "owes something" to one of the "great" poems you "read" this week. See attachment below. If you want, instead of the "great" poems, you could choose to be inspired by use one of the two poems by Britain's current Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy that I have put in a separate attachment below. It's due Tuesday, Oct. 27 -- Write a poem in ballad meter. It is due Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009. An assignment sheet and a collection of ballads are attached below. -- Assignment on your poet. A little writing and a little presenting to the class. See attachment below. Due Nov. 12. -- Write a poem in free verse. It is due Tuesday, Nov. 24. See the attachment below. Type it. |