Part A - Group Work (groups of 3 or 4); 7 - 10 minutes Each group will be assigned one of the following poems from the Echoes textbook: “Naming Myself” by Barbara Kingsolver (8) “Guilt” by Leona Gom (10) “The Woman I Am in My Dreams” by Maxine Tynes (16) “Where There’s A Wall” by Joy Kogawa (20) “puce fairy book” by Alice Major (36) “Refugee Mother and Child” by Chinua Achebe (41) “From Stone to Steel” by E.J. Pratt (71) (all poems are available online if you would like to print the poem - if you do not print the poem you will need to take notes in your notebook - these annotations will be submitted to show your thinking)
Create a presentation for the class (work shared equally) about the poem which includes: A creative reading of the poem A brief summary of the poem An assertion related to the social commentary your group discovered in the poem Each group member will present one point - using AXES (basically, each person becomes a body paragraph) Decide the best way to conclude your presentation Practice your presentation Each group will get one piece of chart paper to use as a visual for the presentation
The benefits of group work Whatever form the group work takes on your course, the opportunity to work with others, rather than on your own, can provide distinct benefits. 1. Increased productivity and performance: groups that work well together can achieve much more than individuals working on their own. A broader range of skills can be applied to practical activities and sharing and discussing ideas can play a pivotal role in deepening your understanding of a particular subject area.
2. Skills development: being part of a team will help you develop your interpersonal skills such as speaking and listening as well as team working skills such as leadership, and working with and motivating others. Some of these skills will be useful throughout your academic career and all are valued by employers. 3. Knowing more about yourself: collaborating with others will help identify your own strengths and weaknesses (for example, you may be a better leader than listener, or you might be good at coming up with the 'big ideas' but not so good at putting them into action). Enhanced self-awareness will both help our approach to learning and will be invaluable when you come to write your CV or complete job application forms. In order to maximize these benefits, you will need to manage your group work effectively.
GOAL A presentation that informs, inspires, motivates
Hints for a Successful Presentation Plan carefully Do your research Know your audience Time your presentation Practice your presentation Speak comfortably and clearly
What is Choral Reading? Choral reading is an interpretive reading of text, often poetry or songs, by a group of voices. Students may read individual lines or stanzas alone, in pairs, or in unison. Choral reading, sometimes called “unison reading,” requires repeated readings of a particular passage and it gives practice in oral reading. It is especially well suited to rhymes, poetry, and lyrics. The poems or passages can be “performed” for other students. Ultimately, though, enjoyment and learning should come out of the process of figuring out HOW to perform the poem rather than the performance itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp-VTHGIKWA
What reading skills does it help students learn and master? It helps students learn to decode. It develops effective and fluent read aloud skills. It improves sight vocabulary. It helps students learn to pronounce new words by hearing others reading aloud at the same time. It helps students understand rhythm, meter, patterns, rhymes and characters of a poem. It demonstrates the importance of oral tradition.
Variety is achieved through combining tone, volume, rate, and pitch: TONE: Tone refers to the emotional content carried by our voices. It is not the words themselves, but 'how' we say them. To speak expressively, is to fill or energize our words appropriately. VOLUME: How loudly or quietly you speak is called volume. When examining a poem, what volume would be appropriate in the reading of the poem? Will the volume vary during different parts of the poem? Where would it vary? WHY would it vary? RATE: The term rate refers to speaking pace. How fast or slow do you speak? Can you vary the rate? Do you know the effect of slowing deliberately? Speaking rate matters because how fast or how slow you speak alters the listener's perception of your topic. PITCH: To understand pitch, think of music. It has high and low notes as do people's voices. Everyone's voice has a natural pitch. Women's tend to be higher than men's and everybody has a pitch range: the number of notes we habitually use. When that range is very small, the effect is monotonous.
Key Terms Pronunciation: The way in which the words of a language are made to sound when speaking. Articulation: Use of tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs to make a sound. Often the concept is only used for the production of consonants, Intonation: The rise and fall of the voice in speaking. Some texts use “inflection” instead of intonation to indicate change in pitch Enunciation: The act of pronouncing words from the Latin word enuntiationem, meaning “declaration.” (antonym: mumbling)
Elision: makes two syllables one End Stop: When a break or pause comes at the end of a line or sentence, it is called an end-stopped line. Caesura: a rhythmical pause in a poetic line Enjambment: derived from the French word enjambment, means to step over, or put legs across. In poetry it means moving over from one line to another without a terminating punctuation mark.
A brief summary of the poem Read the poem Reread the poem Summarize in your own words Beginning, middle, end Be aware of shifts
As the term suggests, it is a comment on society, and not just a comment, but often a criticism. The criticism can be in the form of a comment on societal behavior or human nature, or can refer to a specific situation or trend in an area of the world at a particular point in time. Social commentary is the act of using rhetorical means to provide commentary on issues in a society.
For example, the anti-war songs of many American folk singers in the 1960's were social commentaries. These songs were written to express and communicate the views of the American public about various facets of the Vietnam War, including the US’s participation in the war and the treatment of veterans upon their return home (the latter sentiment is expressed in the lyrics of the Bruce Springsteen song mentioned above).
Types of Social Commentary Social commentary can be direct and literal, or conveyed in a figurative means through symbol, image, and story, leaving the interpretation of the message up to the reader or viewer. A direct form of social commentary can be seen in sermons or political campaign speeches written to appeal to the listener’s sense of morals and justice about a given situation in society. Comedian George Carlin uses a direct method of social commentary, employing humor as a vehicle for his criticisms of religion, government, racial issues and gender politics.
Social Commentary in Poetry Although the words on the page are silent, you can hear the voice of the poet when you read a poem because of the poetic devices that heighten your consciousness of words and their sounds.
Pithy and powerful, poetry is a popular art form at protests and rallies. From the civil rights and women’s liberation movements to Black Lives Matter, poetry is commanding enough to gather crowds in a city square and compact enough to demand attention on social media. Speaking truth to power remains a crucial role of the poet in the face of political and media rhetoric designed to obscure, manipulate, or worse.
Poems expose grim truths, raise consciousness, and build united fronts. Some insist, as Langston Hughes writes, “That all these walls oppression builds / Will have to go!” Others seek ways to actively “make peace,” as Denise Levertov implores, suggesting that “each act of living” might cultivate collective resistance.
Think about ... What can you tell about how the poet feels about the issue he or she addresses? What makes you say that? What do you notice about the language the poet uses to convey his or her message about the social issue? What poetic devices has the poet used? Discuss why the device may have been chosen in each case. Does it help to convey the meaning? Help set the tone? Enhance the emotion of the poem? Or something else?
Voice is the person behind the words that speak out to the audience. Voice is imagery, tone, patterns of sound, rhyme, rhythm, and diction. Voice is the powerful words on a page that form a relationship with you and the writer. Voice is personality and resonance flowing in print. Voice is the writer's lively, powerful words on the page, speaking to the reader to form a relationship.
The voice in the poem can be the voice of the poet, voice of an imaginary person, voice of a personified object, or voice of an abstraction. The voice of the speaker can be lively, inspiring, engaging, emotional, and interesting.
Shifts in Tone A poem's tone is the attitude that its style implies. Brian Patten's "A Blade of Grass" has a tone of sad acceptance toward the loss of childlike wonder that could have accepted the blade of grass, for example; "The Happy Grass", by Brendan Kennelly, has instead a hopeful tone toward the prospect of peace that the grass represents, tempered by an awareness that there will be graves on which the grass will grow. Tone can shift through a poem: 'A Barred Owl', by Richard Wilbur, has a first stanza with a comforting, domestic tone, and a second that insists this kind of comfort plays a vicious world false. The shift in tone is part of what is enjoyable about the poem.
Tone How to use this term: U. A. Fanthorpe's "The Master of the Cast Shadow" begins in a tone of admiration for the painter's skill, but moves into a tone of unease toward the way that skill hides the history behind the images.
An assertion related to the social commentary your group discovered in the poem
Each group member will present one point - using AXES (basically, each person becomes a body paragraph ;
Decide the best way to conclude your presentation Synthesize. Synthesizing involves combining ideas to create new ideas and understandings of the material. Lasting Impression.
Part B - Individual Work (Summative Evaluation) Based on the poem you worked on in your group you will complete the following: Write a Reader-Response Literary Criticism (as in Unit 1, you may use first person but keep your tone academic) maximum five paragraphs (not including the conclusion); Select one literary theory (from Unit 1) that you feel is an appropriate lens to look at the poem through. Write a literary criticism for the poem. Formal, academic writing (no first person) with a maximum of five paragraphs not including the conclusion. DUE: _______________________(all components - no straggling in) *Annotations/ notes, rough work, and hard copy due in class on due date; *Electronic copy submitted to D2L on due date; *Late work will be deducted ⅓ of a level per day up to 50% of the final mark.
Literary Theory Review Literary theories were developed as a means to understand the various ways people read texts. The proponents of each theory believe their theory is the theory, but most of us interpret texts according to the "rules" of several different theories at a time. All literary theories are lenses through which we can see texts. There is nothing to say that one is better than another or that you should read according to any of them, but it is sometimes fun to "decide" to read a text with one in mind because you often end up with a whole new perspective on your reading.
Literary Theory Our Focus...for this unit... Reader Response Criticism Post Colonialist Criticism Historical Criticism Feminist Criticism Postmodernist Criticism Archetypal Criticism