What Is Poetry? Poetry Is Language at Its Most Distilled and Most Powerful. Rita Dove

• SWBAT______

• What is poetry?Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. ~Rita Dove
• Why do we bother to read and write poetry?To have great poets there must be great audiences too. ~Walt Whitman
• How are poems unique from other kinds of literature?Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.~Percy Shelley
• Is it ever possible to find the true meaning of a poem?I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.~Carl Sandburg

• (see worksheet)

• Let me show you how I do this. As I read, I pay attention to what the big idea or central topic of the poem is. This is the subject of the poem or the idea that the whole poem is about. Follow along with me as I read and see if you come up with the same idea I do for the central idea. (Read aloud “A Psalm of Life”. As you read underline life, soul, death, grave, dead and funeral each time you see them.)
• Hmm… this is a tough poem. There are some really big words in here, but I think I can still figure out what the central idea is and that will help me better understand the poem.
• Okay, you’ll notice that I underlined the word life a lot of times that seems to a very important idea to the poem, but I also underlined the word soul and noticed that it came up a lot of time along with a lot of words that have to do with death or a funeral or being dead. So what is the central idea? It has something to do with life and with death. I think it has to do with how we live our lives, but the idea of death plays into that, too.
• So I’m going to write How we live our life and in parenthesis (death) next to it as the subject, because I think that death has something to do with the subject.

• Okay so, now that I’ve gone back to through, I’m in a better place to figure out what the author is saying about life and about death. He starts out by warning us not to see “life as but an empty dream” Okay, so he wants us to know that life isn’t just about dreaming. It’s not a dream, but something more than that. Then in the next paragraph he tells us “Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not the goal.” Here is saying that life isn’t just about getting to the grave or to death. It’s for real. This is our only life. You really have to live it. This is helping me to see what the author is saying and understand a little bit more about the connection.
• I notice that later on he says, “Time is fleeting” meaning that there isn’t a lot of time and then later on he says, “Be a hero in the strife” meaning that we should work hard, or strive, to be a hero. (As you think aloud the above thoughts, jot down notes in the margins next to the lines you’ve underlined.)

• Okay, so I’m going to pause here because I have a hypothesis about what the author’s major statement about life and death is. He seems to be saying that life is short so we have to live life to its fullest. Take a look at the lines I underlined in the next stanza “Trust no Future… Act- act in the living Present” What do you think Longfellow is saying here? What does it have to do with the central message that I’ve come up with so far? Think for a moment. Now turn and share with your partner. What did you come up with?

• Review Criteria

• We are going to read through the last 3 stanzas, stopping at each one and you will decide with your neighbor if there are any lines that support the central idea.
• Now you are ready to try this with your partner on another poem, which is a song by The Black Eyed Peas, titled “Where is the Love?” As I play this song for you, follow along in your text and underline any words that help you figure out what the central idea or subject is.

1. Decide what the subject is.
2. Reread and underline any lines that help you understand what the Black Eyed Peas are saying about that subject.
3. Discuss what that line tells you about the subject and add notes next to the line showing what you decided.
4. Write down what the author’s claim about the subject is in a complete sentence.

• You’ve done some fabulous work analyzing two poems today and pulling out the central ideas of the poems and what the author has to say about those ideas. You are now ready to try this on your own. You are going to read “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes. Go through the same steps that we’ve gone through with the last two poems.

1. Read the poem and underline words that give you an idea of what the subject is.
2. Write down the subject.
3. Reread and underline any lines that help you understand what the author is saying about that subject.
4. Next to each line you underline write down what that line tells you about the subject.

• Not Yet Top Quality Exit Slip
• Vocabulary (see worksheet)

• (see above)

______November ______, 2011

Literature - Boskovski Own it!

Do Now:

1)______I have my blue pen and at least two pencilsout.

2)______My agenda is open and the homework is copied.

3)______Last night’s homework is on top of my agenda.

4)______My vocabulary packet is underneath my class packet.

5)______Everything else except my IR book is away.

6)Fill in today’s aim:

_ _

• What is poetry?Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. ~Rita Dove
• Why do we bother to read and write poetry?To have great poets there must be great audiences too. ~Walt Whitman
• How are poems unique from other kinds of literature?Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.~Percy Shelley
• Is it ever possible to find the true meaning of a poem?I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.~Carl Sandburg

7)Which quotation (or image) interests you the most? Why?

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8)Do you like poetry? Why or why not?

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9)What do you already know about poetry?

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10)What questions do you have about poetry?

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DO NOT GO ON.

Guided Notes

In poetry, authors often introduce us to a ______through important details.

The ______of a poem is the ______or ______the author wants us to ponder after reading the poem.

To find the ______, we must first find the ______and then identify what the author says about this subject. To do so, watch me ______.

[J1]

I Do/We Do:

A Psalm of Life
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Subject: ______

What does Longfellow say about life? ______

______

What pieces of evidence can help me explain this central idea to a reader?

Describe what the poem “A Psalm of Life” is mostly about[J2].

1

Where is the Love? By The Black Eyed Peas

What's wrong with the world mama?

People living like they ain’t got no mamas

I think the whole world’s addicted to the drama

Only attracted to the things that bring you trauma

Overseas yeah we tryin to stop terrorism

But we still got terrorists here livin

In the USA the big CIA the Bloodz and the Crips and the KKK

But if you only have love for your own race

Then you only leave space to discriminate

And to discriminate only generates hate

And If you hatin you're bound to get irate

Yeah madness Is what you demonstrate

And that's exactly how anger works and operates

You gotta have love just to set it straight

Take control of your mind and meditate

Let your soul gravitate to the love y'all

(Chorus)

People killing people dying

Children hurtin you hear them crying

Can you practice what you preach

Would you turn the other cheek?

Father Father Father help us

Send some guidance from above

Cause people got me got me questioning

Where is the love?(where is the Iovex3)(the Iove2x)

It just ain't the same all ways have changed

New days are strange is the world the Insane?

If love and peace so strong

Why are there pieces of love that don't belong

Nations dropping bombs

Chemical gases filling lungs of little ones

With ongoing suffering

As the youth die young

So ask yourself is the loving really strong?

So I can ask myself really what is going wrong