Words, (oh!), The Fish, and Mom.

Poets love words. They can spend days picking the right one.
Oh!

Why!?

"Stripped
day by day of all my garments,
dry naked tree,
in my solitary withered mouth
fresh words
will still blossom." ~~Alaide Foppa "Words"

Connotation - Emotion - Tone

Sound - Onomatopoeia - Alliteration - Assonance - Internal Rhyme - Repetition

Image - Symbol - Senses

Irony

First, The Fish, by Elizabeth Bishop:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22238

Questions:
1) How does the tone shift in this poem? Describe the speaker's feelings at the beginning, middle, end. What words reveal the movement in tone?

2) Question #2 in the book, p. 617.

3) Find examples of the following sound devices at work - alliteration, assonance, onomatopeia, and, for each, describe the effect on your understanding of the poem's central theme that even the ordinary, the ugly, the worn-out can be extraordinary and beautiful and inspirational?

4) What words stood out? Why? What were their connotations?

5) How does the imagery in this poem make you see/imagine the fish? You may answer with words, or you may draw.

6) What are the ironies of this poem? (What are the things that you do not expect?)

And, for mom: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178168

Bonus Assignment: write your mom a 10 - 20 line poem that describes what you have learned from your mother. Choose each word carefully. Type it up... give it to her for Mother's Day. Give it to me for a few bonus marks.

Thursday, May 10th

I'm away for a meeting today.
You have all day in the library to work on your first poetry response:

Topic:  Discuss how metaphor (or other comparisons) works in the poem you have selected. 500 words minimum.


Include:

• A Catchy Opening
• Background information/context
• Thesis Statement
• Body of support/ small integrated quotes
• Elevated vocabulary and formal tone
• A one sentence conclusion

You will hand in your annotations (answers to The Questions to Ask of Poem) and your response tomorrow.

The Character Project - Exit Survey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RKX3XM9

7 billion, the scale of the universe, and poetry begins.

1) Compositions!? 

2) How many people were on this Earth in the 1960?
1990?
October 31st, 2012?


http://www.google.ca/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=world+population

3) Our Universe, our information, our lives are expanding.... you live in an exponential world.

http://htwins.net/scale2/scale2.swf?bordercolor=white 

4) Why am I telling you this before we start poetry?
Think - Share with a Partner - Write on the Board

5) The Brick - browse - tell me what you see...

6) Review - Questions to Ask of a Poem and from last year: Tell all the Truth...

7) p. _____, Truth, by Gwendolyn Brooks

Style Checklist

Use this list to help you to edit your literary responses. Link to it here. Or, see it below (you have to be in Firefox or Chrome for it to work properly.

Night Questions

1. Describe Wiesel's community at the beginning of the story. How does young Elie view the world and his place in it?
2. What are some incidents that foreshadow the coming danger? Why doesn't the community believe it is in danger?
3. What if I told you that the current Canadian (federal) government manipulated the last election, lied to the public about billions of dollars of expenses, and muzzles scientists, insisting that they have "communication handlers"? What would you think? Is your democracy in danger? Shouldn't you inform yourself?
4. Even though it was 1944, and Nazi extermination of Jews had begun years earlier, the Sighet Jews had very few facts about it. Do you think it is possible today for a community to know so little? Explain.
5. When Elie arrives at Auschwitz and then at Buna, he describes things he will never forget. What scenes, ideas, feelings from the memoir do you  find unforgettable?
6. In the camps, Wiesel must struggle to remain alive and to remain human. In your opinion, how well does he succeed with his struggles?
7. Does Wiesel's one voice have more power to tell the story of the holocaust than any textbook, or list of statistics? Why?

Elie Wiesel and The Holocaust, The Horror - Discussion Questions

"Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies."

~ Elie Wiesel

I think that everyone in the world should read this memoir.
Why? Do you agree? Is there any adult who should not read it?

What words does the original cover image make you think of?

(Excerpt)

Imagine life before the WW1... what did life centre around? After World War One?

Why did the whole world change after World War Two?
What does the holocaust represent?
Why does Elie still assert that indifference is more significant than evil?
Why is evil a problem?
Why should we never forget? Why is "memory where our redemption is?"
Watch: http://www.ushmm.org/remembrance/dor/video/?content=whyweremember

Born September 30, 1928, Eliezer Wiesel led a life representative of many Jewish children. Growing up in a small village in Romania, his world revolved around family, religious study, community and God. Yet his family, community and his innocent faith were destroyed upon the deportation of his village in 1944. Arguably the most powerful and renowned passage in Holocaust literature, his first book, Night, records the horrific experience of the Jews:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

How does Night relate to the Character Project? 
What traits did/does Elie possess?

Your composition topics. DUE: Monday, the 30th.