Poetry

Students received a packet of poetic devices. We then analyzed 4 poems focusing on how sound impacts meaning.

The Bench of Boors

In bed I muse on Tenier's boors,
Embrowned and beery losels all;
A wakeful brain
Elaborates pain:
Within low doors the slugs of boors
Laze and yawn and doze again.

In dreams they doze, the drowsy boors,
Their hazy hovel warm and small:
Thought's ampler bound
But chill is found:
Within low doors the basking boors
Snugly hug the ember-mound.

Sleepless, I see the slumberous boors
Their blurred eyes blink, their eyelids fall:
Thought's eager sight
Aches--overbright!
Within low doors the boozy boors
Cat-naps take in pipe-bowl light.

Herman Melville


The Dance
In Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling
about the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess.
William Carlos Williams



Traveling through the Dark

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.

William Stafford




















Shut In Robert B. Shaw

Like many of us, born too late,
(like all of us, fenced in by fate),
the late October fly
will fondly live and die

insensible of the allure
of carrion or cow manure.
Withindoors day and night,
Propelled by appetite,

he circles with approving hums
a morning’s manna-fall of crumbs
hoping to find a smear
of jelly somewhere near.

In such an easeful habitat
while autumn wanes he waxes fat
and languorous, but not
enough to let the swat

of hasty, rolled-up magazine
eliminate him from the scene.
Outside, the air is chill.
Inside, he’s hard to kill.

Patrolling with adhesive feet
the ceiling under which we eat,
he captures at a glance
the slightest threat or chance,

and flaunts the facets of his eyes
that make him prince of household spies.
And as he watches, we,
if we look up, will see

a life of limits, like our own,
enclosed within a temperate zone,
not harsh, not insecure,
no challenge to endure,

but yet, with every buzz of need,
by trifles running out of speed.
One day he will be gone.
Then the real cold comes on.

Today we practiced writing outlines for the open response essay. Students received sample prompts.

Today we discussed Lucius Brockway and Mary Rambo from Invisible Man. Tomorrow we will practice for the open response.

Today students received their practice exams and calculated their own scores. We also spent the period completing character analysis worksheets for several characters from Invisible Man.

IM

Students are to finish reading Invisible Man over the break and keep notes on the following:

Chapter 11: Mother, Brer Rabbit and Buckeye
Chapter 12: Dumping slosh on the Reverend's head
Chapter 13: I am what I yam
Chapter 14: Cabbage, U.S. Constitution/Ballot:
Chapter 15: piggy bank
Chapter 16: 3 white men on black horses
Chapter 17: Soldier
Chapter 18: Filed steel from Brother Tarp
Chapter 19: White bed
Chapter 20: Foot races, Sambo Doll
Chapter 21: Two black pigeons rising above a white barn, Rotting cabbage
Chapter 23: Sunglasses, Rind and Heart
Chapter 24: Briefcase and running
Chapter 25: Oil and Milk

Prose

Today we spent time planning several essays.
Students were also given a notebook assignment for Invisible Man.

Students received the following handout:

Keep a notebook that contains analysis of each of the following examples. You may add others that you encounter.

Prologue
“What did I do to be so Black and Blue”
1369 light bulbs

Chapter 1
Briefcase
Brass tokens
Tattoo

Chapter 2
Founder’s statue
Red-tin apple
Log cabins

Chapter 3
Golden Day
Mechanical man
Mr. Norton’s illness

Chapter 4
White dividing line
Mr. Norton’s car

Chapter 5
Baptist church

Chapter 6
Leg shackle
Bledsoe’s fingers
Sealed envelopes

Chapter 7
Jim Crow

Chapter 8
Statue of Liberty

Chapter 9
Breakfast
Artifacts from college

Chapter 10
Optic White
Lucius Brockway


Students are to read through chapter 10 by Monday. Also, students are to add an analysis of the excerpt they received from Self-Reliance in regards to how it relates to IM's conversation with Mr. Norton.

Students are to read the sample essays they received and score them over the weekend.