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AP LIT AND COMP
SOUND & SENSE An Introduction to Poetry
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SOUND L A N G U A G Ey AE xNp D erience A Sensor
Tues/Wed, 3/12 & 13 1&2 Poetry 101 3- Denotation/Connotation Ms. Knox Teaches
Tu/Wed, 3/19 & 20 4-Imagery 5-Figurative Language 1 6-Figurative Language 2
Th/Fri, 3/21 & 22
“[Poetry] exist[s] to bring us a sense of and a perception of life, to widen and sharpen our contacts with existence.” —Perrine
7-Figurative Language 3 8-Allusion 9-Meaning and Idea
Mon, 3/25
Ov e rview We will spend the next several weeks immersed in the experience of poetry as we seek to understand its nature and variety, its manipulation of language to influence meaning, some reasonable means for reading poetic forms with understanding, and a few primary ideas of how to evaluate poetry. As a class, we will cover all the chapters in this book in an expeditious and fun manner (emphasis on the F-U-N, fun!) Okay, I’m a word nerd. In small groups, you will grapple with assigned chapters, focusing on the terminology (learn it!) and how it is used to write and understand poetry (apply it!) Based on this sublime information and your exhaustive study of an assigned poem you will present a lively and enlightening interpretation of the poem, via a Keynote presentation. In your presentation, it will be important for you
nme g i s s A r Chapte
to not only demonstrate mastery of the given elements of poetry and your poem, but also to engage your audience. To help students make connections with this text and to understand it’s true meaning, you will couple to poem with a piece of published or original art and published or original music. The connection between the three pieces should be clearly explained and should help the class come to a greater understanding of the original poem - so don’t just throw pieces in. This is NOT simply show-and-tell. To receive the highest marks, you will need to directly and thoughtfully interact with your classmates, thoroughly guide them through the poem with a concerted focus on the elements from the chapter, as well as weaving in your other two pieces. Each day, you must come to class ready to participate in a college-level
10-Tone
Tu/Wed, 3/26 & 27 11-Musical Devices
Th/Fri, 3/28 & 29 12-Rhythm and Meter
Mon 4/1 13-Sound and Meaning
Tu/Wed, 4/2 & 3 14-Pattern
Th/Fri, 4/4 & 5 15 & 16-Evaluating Poetry (no lesson) Exam
Res pon s ibi l it ie s & P o e t ry As si g nme nt s 1.
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Preparation: Every student will read every chapter including all assigned poems, whether leading the presentation and discussion or not. Presenters will carefully and thoroughly annotate, analyze/TP-CASTT the poem, connect it to a piece of visual art and music, and a present all the information in a Keynote. Non-presenting students will annotate the assigned poem, keeping in mind questions 1 - 7,10,11, 12 and 16 on page 31 of Perrine. The original annotation will be added to during the presentation in a different color ink to show focus and learning and further your understanding of the poems and elements, so bring a different pen! Presentation Structure: The student-taught lessons will include: a. demonstrate mastery of chapter content through application to poetry analysis. Focus on the language of the poem and the literary techniques studied in the assigned chapter to complete a thorough study. b. interpret the overall tone and theme of the poem, and what each person should note to remember. c. use visuals and/or graphics to enhance the important points of the poem, as well as the visual art and music. d. engage students in an appropriate and meaningful way (ask for feedback, call on people, ask students to point out examples of X in the poem. Time Limit will be approximately 30 minutes per group. Be succinct, organized and ready to roll. Know how to turn on the projector and access your keynote. Evaluation will be based on clarity, obvious content mastery, clear and accurate understanding and articulation of the poem and it’s meaning, choice of visual art and music that makes sense and enhances student understanding of the poem, class engagement. Enthusiasm and preparedness are a must. Every student audience member must come to class with a positive attitude, a clear understanding of the chapters, ready to support your classmates and to learn. All notes will be taken on the poem, itself. No electronics necessary.
The AP Literature course suggests reading from the 16th through 20th centuries. In making poetry selections, I tried to consider the range of poems offered in the text, keeping in mind any gaps we may have in our own cannon of study for the year. I also considered some of the poets most often drawn from for the AP exam, and, of course, just poems I thought were truly amazing! Poets whose work frequently appears on the AP exam include: W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, William Blake, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Richard Eberhart, Robert Frost, Seamus Heany, John Keats, Philip Larkin, Archibald Macleish, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Theodore Rothke, William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Wallace Stevens, Alfred Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, Richard Wilbur, William Carlos Williams, William Wordsworth, John Updike, William Butler
Poems 3- Denotation/Connotation
“On My First Son” by Ben Johnson
4-Imagery
“The Forge” by Seamus Heaney
5-Figurative Language 1
“To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell
6-Figurative Language 2
“Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost
7-Figurative Language 3“in the inner city” by Lucille Clifton
8-Allusion
“Abraham to kill him” by Emily Dickinson
9-Meaning and Idea
“The Caged Skylark” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
10-Tone
“The Flea” by John Donne
11-Musical Devices
“Traveling through the dark” by William Stafford
Grazing Horses
Kay Ryan US Poet Laureate, 2008-9
Sometimes the green pasture of the mind tilts abruptly. The grazing horses struggle crazily for purchase on the frictionless nearly vertical surface. Their furniture-fine legs buckle on the incline, unhorsed by slant they weren’t designed to clime and can’t.
12-Rhythm and Meter
“To a Daughter Leaving Home” by Linda Pastan
13-Sound and Meaning
“Anthem for Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen
14-Pattern “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas 15/16-Evaluating Poetry
“When I have fears that I may cease to be” and “O Solitude!”
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final word on Evaluation.
You will receive four grades for this unit on poetry. 1.
One Presentation of poem, art, and poetic techniques (20)
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Daily class participation (20)
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Final Multiple Choice Exam (50)
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Final Timed Write. (25)
This study will directly impact your score on the AP Exam. It is fast and furious, but you will be amazed at how much you know by the end of the unit! I hope that is motivation enough to keep you working hard. This is a challenging unit!
This is the time to make AP Lit your top priority. The exams at the end of the unit will be rigorous and thorough. The good news is that you will be more than prepared if you devote yourself to this study. When you go on to college, this unit will prove invaluable, as well. Feel free to read ahead of the schedule if you know you will be busy on a certain day. If you know you will be absent on a day you teach, you must arrange for a swap with another student for that teaching day or earn a zero on the project. There are no make-ups for this unit. Excused or no, we need you here, ESPECIALLY if you know in advance! So take care of business!
There is no excuse for not giving this unit 100%, whether you are responsible for teaching or learning.
Poetry cannot afford to lose its fundamentally self-delighting inventiveness, its joy in being a process of language as well as a representation of things in the world. SEAMUS HEANEY, The Redress of Poetry
Poet Louise Gluck, May 17, 2007
Poems for Study and Explication On My First Son by Ben Jonson Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy ; My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy. Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay, Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. Oh, could I lose all father now ! For why Will man lament the state he should envy? To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage, And if no other misery, yet age ! Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, Here doth lie Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry. 10 For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such As what he loves may never like too much.
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The Forge By Seamus Heaney All I know is a door into the dark. Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting; Inside, the hammered anvil’s short-pitched ring, The unpredictable fantail of sparks Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water. The anvil must be somewhere in the centre, Horned as a unicorn, at one end square, Set there immoveable: an altar Where he expends himself in shape and music. Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose, He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter Of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows; Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and a flick To beat real iron out, to work the bellows.
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in the inner city by Lucille Clifton
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in the inner city or like we call it home we think a lot about uptown and the silent nights and the houses straight as dead men and the pastel lights and we hang on to our no place happy to be alive and in the inner city or like we call it home
To His Coy Mistress By Andrew Marvell Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, Lady, were no crime. We would sit down and think which way To walk and pass our long love's day. Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the Flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews My vegatable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. For, Lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate
But at my back I always hear Times winged chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found, Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song: then worms shall try That long preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust: The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chaped power Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.
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Fire and Ice by Robert Frost Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.
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Poems for Study and Explication, cont. Abraham to kill him – by Emily Dickinson
Though use make you apt to kill me, Let not to that self-murder added be, And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Abraham to kill him – Was distinctly told Isaac was an Urchin – Abraham was old -Not a hesitation – Abraham complied – Flattered by Obeisance Tyranny demurred -Isaac -- to his children Lived to tell the tale – Moral -- with a Mastiff Manners may prevail.
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10 Traveling through the Dark by William E. Stafford 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.
The Caged Skylark Gerard Manley Hopkins AS a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage Man’s mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells— That bird beyond the remembering his free fells; This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life’s age. Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage, Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells, 5 Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage. Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest— Why, hear him, hear him babble and drop down to his nest But his own nest, wild nest, no prison. 10 Man’s spirit will be flesh-bound when found at best, But uncumbered: meadow-down is not distressed For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen. The Flea by John Donne MARK but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is ; It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be. Thou know'st that this cannot be said 5 A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ; Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ; And this, alas ! is more than we would do. O stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, yea, more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is. Though parents grudge, and you, we're met, And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence? 20 Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee? Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now. 'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ; 25 Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me, Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
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By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car 5 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, 10 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; 15 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. To a Daughter Leaving Home by Linda Pastan When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle, loping along beside you as you wobbled away on two round wheels, my own mouth rounding in surprise when you pulled ahead down the curved path of the park, I kept waiting for the thud of your crash as I sprinted to catch up, while you grew smaller, more breakable
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Poems for Study and Explication, cont. with distance, pumping, pumping for your life, screaming with laughter, the hair flapping behind you like a handkerchief waving goodbye.
When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be by John Keats 20
Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,— The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
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Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
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Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 15 And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray, Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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O Solitude! by John Keats
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.
When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starred face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the fairy power Of unreflecting love—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,Nature’s observatory - whence the dell, Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell, ! 5 May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep ’Mongst boughs pavillion’d, where the deer’s swift leap Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell. But though I’ll gladly trace these scenes with thee, Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind, ! 10 Whose words are images of thoughts refin’d, Is my soul’s pleasure; and it sure must be Almost the highest bliss of human-kind, When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.
