Honors 10-29-2013

Thanks for all the birthday wishes today.  Always nice to receive those.  And in return, here is, perhaps, an answer to one of your wishes.  After giving it some thought and weighing what my options are, I have decided to postpone the in-class timed writing until Thursday.  We could have moved forward with a writing prompt, but it would have had to have been different from the one I was planning on giving you.  This will take us a day longer, but I feel you will be better prepared for what's to come.

Great discussion today on Mendelstam's poem.  Everyone was getting involved.  Everyone was offering insight into the deeper meaning of the piece.  As we said, not every interpretation is correct, but there is some wiggle room as long as it can be supported.  Always remind yourself to read the poem at least twice. Hey, I didn't understand the poem after one read either. Comprehension takes time.  Try to understand the poem in a literal sense. His fingers are worms...okay.  He's surrounded by half men...okay.  After you feel comfortable with that, look at how the poem might be interpreted in a metaphorical/symbolic/figurative way.  Again, his fingers are worms...why worms?  What do worms do?  What could the worms symbolize?  His fingers are always digging deeper, trying to uncover secrets, trying to wrap themselves around something...someone.   Talk your way through it.  Break the poem up into chunks.  Notice how I asked what certain parts meant: the ten paces; the Kremlin Mountaineer; the chicken-necked bosses.  If I tried to understand all that at once, I would be overwhelmed.  Small steps work.

I say all this not just for this poem, but also for other poems in the future that you will have to interpret on your own.  You need to go into your analysis of a poem with a plan.  Otherwise, you will get frustrated and give up before giving yourself a fair chance.

Back to the writing topic...As I said earlier, we didn't really get far enough to write tomorrow.  Instead, we will take a quick look at the end of the poem.  I'll share some background on Mendelstam.  (What can you bring to this conversation?  I'd love to sign some Archer cards tomorrow for any tidbits of info on him.)  We'll compare the poem and Animal Farm.  I have an intriguing quote from Mendelstam I want to discuss with you.  Here it is:

 -“I do not know how it is elsewhere, but here, in this country, poetry is a healing, life-giving thing, and people have not lost the gift of being able to drink of its inner strength. People can be killed for poetry here, —a sign of unparalleled respect —because they are still capable of living by it.” 

We'll go over some MUST-DOs for ANY timed writing.  I might even share the timed writing topic tomorrow....hmmmm....Finally, if time permits, we will start watching the Animal Farm video.  No, it's not just for fun.  We'll be doing some writing over it.  Hey, it's one of the Common Core State Standards.  See below:

8.RL.7	Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.

You can already guess what you'll be writing about there.

One more thing.  Keep in mind those Laws of Quote Insertion we went over today.  Recite them in front of the mirror.  Ingrain them in your brain.  Refer to them when writing papers of any length.  If you think about HOW you insert a quote instead of just inserting a quote, your writing will improve.

See you soon.  I have some birthday cake to eat.