For each text:
Marginalia (margin notes) and Journal for the written texts
1. Look up all the words you don’t know for sure and write the definitions in the margin.
3. Once you have finished each piece, choose ONE piece of figurative language and discuss, in 2-3 paragraphs, HOW that piece of figurative language or rhetorical strategy helped you to understand the central idea of the piece. (You will need to identify a central idea too…)
(How do I determine the central idea of a text?
Subject + What the author says overall about the subject = Central Idea)
Summary and Journal
1. Chunk the text (stanza divisions work naturally for poetry; paragraphs work well for short stories; natural pauses and transitions work well for TED talks).
2. After reading each chunk, write a one sentence summary of that portion of the text.
3. After completing the summaries, put the sentences together for a full summary of the text.
4. After writing a clear and representative summary of the poem or story, write a journal response. You can react to a line from the poem or story, write to the author, write about a theme or idea in the poem or story, or write about personal / societal connections to the poem. Each journal entry should be at least a page long, handwritten. (Even for the one sentence pieces-- so MANY questions arise from those.)
Whenever you describe something by comparing it with something else, you are using figurative language. Using figurative language is an effective way of communicating an idea that is not easily understood because of its abstract nature or complexity. Writers of prose and poetry use figurative language to elicit emotion, help readers form mental images, and draw readers into the work.
Simile: A simile uses the words “like” or “as” to compare one object or idea with another to suggest they are alike.
Metaphor: The metaphor states a fact or draws a verbal picture by the use of comparison. A simile would say you are like something; a metaphor is more direct - it says you are something.
Personification: A figure of speech in which human characteristics are given to an animal or an object.
Alliteration: The repetition of the same initial letter, sound, or group of sounds in a series of words. Alliteration includes tongue twisters.
Hyperbole: An exaggeration that is so dramatic that no one would believe the statement is true. Tall tales are hyperboles.
Idioms: According to Webster's Dictionary, an idiom is defined as: peculiar to itself either grammatically (as no, it wasn't me) or in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements.
Allusion: An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference to another literary character, historical event, work of art, etc.
Symbolism: Symbolism can take different forms. Generally, it is an object representing another, to give an entirely different meaning that is much deeper and more significant. Sometimes, however, an action, an event or a word spoken by someone may have a symbolic value. For instance, “smile” is a symbol of friendship. Similarly, the action of someone smiling at you may stand as a symbol of the feeling of affection which that person has for you.
“Nicholas Was…”
·
Neil Gaiman
…older
than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.
The
dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but
conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals,
when they were not actually working in the factories.
Once
every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During
the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the
dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into
time.
He
envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was
harsher.
Ho.
Ho.
Ho.
And the Ghosts
·
Graham Foust
they
own everything
Snow
·
David Berman
Walking through a field with my little brother Seth
I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.
He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.
Then we were on the roof of the lake.
The ice looked like a photograph of water.
Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.
I didn't know where I was going with this.
They were on his property, I said.
When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.
Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.
We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.
But why were they on his property, he asked.
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