Hey kids - read these poems for tomorrow. Please copy and paste them into a word document and bring it with you to class.
BLOODED
A half hour after the shots
the calls came through loud and clear.
My RTO handed me the receiver.
Congratulations. I was blooded.
The 1st and 3rd platoon leaders
radioed their approval. No longer
was I green like the jungle
in which I was buried.
Congratulations. I was blooded.
My platoon had recorded its first kill.
North Vietnamese regular. Pith helmet,
uniform, rubber-tire sandals
adorning a lifeless body.
One bullet cleanly through his forehead.
Congratulations. I was blooded.
The enemy was dead,
ambushed from behind a tree.
Odd there was no blood visible
draining from the body. Existence fled
when the bullet hit its target
but the only thing that bled
all over the jungle floor
was my innocence.
Congratulations. I was blooded.
PASSPORT
Poetry is news that happens
every time it’s read.
- Clayton Evans
A harvest of trees from Canada
brings news from around the world.
It arrives each morning on my doorstep –
my passport to other lands.
Sipping coffee I’m blinded
by the flash of a terrorist blast
in Israel. Blood runs everywhere.
My cup too slippery to hold.
I cradle it in my hands
to steady the quaking shaking
me awake. The Holy Land welcomes
me with its own brand of salvation.
Back across the ocean
I slip into Northern Ireland
unnoticed by Protestants and Catholics
who keep the same day holy
while believing the other side is wrong.
The IRA apologizes
for hundreds of civilian deaths
during 30 years of bombings.
Cries of "Why?"
drown out any celebration.
Coffee scalds my tongue.
Ink rubs off onto my fingers
but not enough fades to erase
my entrance into Iraq
where civilization’s parents
want to spank
their 21st-century offspring.
They say the only option left
is “holy war” against the West.
I refuse to wait for it to begin.
I turn the page and travel to India
while eating sausage and eggs.
Three Indian strike divisions
pull back from the border of Pakistan.
These new nuclear superpowers
toss the atom back and forth
like a cue ball they fear
will glance off the rack and disappear
into a corner pocket of oblivion.
Nowhere is there mention of the Taj Mahal.
Only Mecca’s call falls from minarets.
No rain in Spain today.
The country detains
three suspected terrorists
who would return the Alhambra
to its Muslim architects
centuries after expulsion
by beliefs in a different master builder.
I swallow the last piece of toast
dry like dust swirling at a bullfight
where only the matador dies.
It’s time to go to work.
On my way out the door
I toss the newspaper on the sofa.
Six alternatives for the downed
World Trade Center vie for acceptance
on the front page.
The global faith they profess is in money –
the seed growing more trees
in Canada which each morning provides
my passport to other lands.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Freedom Writers Writing Assignment: DUE WEDNESDAY
The Freedom Writers: Writing Prompts
Choose one of the following and write a rough draft of a one page response:
• Do you ever feel like you are “living a life you didn’t agree to”?
• What does Scott mean when he says “because I can’t be your wife”?
• What does it mean to love “the idea” of someone more than you actually love them?
• One of the students asks, “Why should I read books about people that don’t look like me? People that I don’t even know and that I am not going to understand because they don’t understand me!” How would you respond to that question?
• What does it mean to be “blessed with a burden”?
• Do you agree or disagree with the statement “silence will get you no where in life”?
• Ralph Waldo Emerson said “To improve is to change, and to be perfect is to change often”. Do you agree or disagree?
• What does Erin Gruwell mean when she says, “Don’t use me as another excuse as to why you can’t make it”?
• When Erin Gruwell is lobbying to teach her students their junior year, she’s asked by her adversary “what is it that you’ve actually accomplished?” In your opinion, what has she accomplished?
Choose one of the following and write a rough draft of a one page response:
• Do you ever feel like you are “living a life you didn’t agree to”?
• What does Scott mean when he says “because I can’t be your wife”?
• What does it mean to love “the idea” of someone more than you actually love them?
• One of the students asks, “Why should I read books about people that don’t look like me? People that I don’t even know and that I am not going to understand because they don’t understand me!” How would you respond to that question?
• What does it mean to be “blessed with a burden”?
• Do you agree or disagree with the statement “silence will get you no where in life”?
• Ralph Waldo Emerson said “To improve is to change, and to be perfect is to change often”. Do you agree or disagree?
• What does Erin Gruwell mean when she says, “Don’t use me as another excuse as to why you can’t make it”?
• When Erin Gruwell is lobbying to teach her students their junior year, she’s asked by her adversary “what is it that you’ve actually accomplished?” In your opinion, what has she accomplished?
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Report to Deputy Dwight Shrute
Porphyria’s Lover Assignment
Pretend you are writing a letter to a psychiatrist or a deputy sheriff, like Dwight Shrute. In the letter, you are reporting the behavior of Porphyria’s lover – you want to tell how you suspect he is seriously demented and possibly insane. Find THREE quotes from the poem to use in your letter as evidence of his twisted nature, such as:
EXAMPLE:
As I was walking by Porphyria’s lover’s cottage, I glanced in the window and saw that he was “wrapping her hair three times around her neck”.
DUE THURSDAY - Typed, double spaced
Pretend you are writing a letter to a psychiatrist or a deputy sheriff, like Dwight Shrute. In the letter, you are reporting the behavior of Porphyria’s lover – you want to tell how you suspect he is seriously demented and possibly insane. Find THREE quotes from the poem to use in your letter as evidence of his twisted nature, such as:
EXAMPLE:
As I was walking by Porphyria’s lover’s cottage, I glanced in the window and saw that he was “wrapping her hair three times around her neck”.
DUE THURSDAY - Typed, double spaced
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Survey says...
Hey kids -
I've compiled all of your submitted survey questions into this survey. Please consider each question and choose one to develop tomorrow in a Dover Beach model poem.
Rate the significance of the following in terms of its influence on current culture and society:
1. The first African American president of the United States
2. The Rhianna/Chris Brown story / the Michael Phelps situation / the behaviors of under age entertainers such as Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan and their influence on today's teens and young adults
3. The current state of the economy
4. Global warming and its impact on weather, habitat and wildlife
5. The threat of terrorism stemming from the situation in the Middle East and the brewing situation in Mexico
6. The moral and ethical debate over issues such as stem cell research and abortion - are those issues personal or should the government be involved?
7. Genetically modified foods vs. organic foods
8. Pressure on today's students to not just achieve but to excel in all fields of study
7. The rising cost of college education and the pressure to attend a four year academic university - is it necessary for all students to go on to college?
8. How much control should parents have over their child's decisions and when should that control start/end?
9. Globalization and its benefits versus its downside, such as human trafficking
10. Our government's recent decisions: Socialist or Democratic?
I've compiled all of your submitted survey questions into this survey. Please consider each question and choose one to develop tomorrow in a Dover Beach model poem.
Rate the significance of the following in terms of its influence on current culture and society:
1. The first African American president of the United States
2. The Rhianna/Chris Brown story / the Michael Phelps situation / the behaviors of under age entertainers such as Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan and their influence on today's teens and young adults
3. The current state of the economy
4. Global warming and its impact on weather, habitat and wildlife
5. The threat of terrorism stemming from the situation in the Middle East and the brewing situation in Mexico
6. The moral and ethical debate over issues such as stem cell research and abortion - are those issues personal or should the government be involved?
7. Genetically modified foods vs. organic foods
8. Pressure on today's students to not just achieve but to excel in all fields of study
7. The rising cost of college education and the pressure to attend a four year academic university - is it necessary for all students to go on to college?
8. How much control should parents have over their child's decisions and when should that control start/end?
9. Globalization and its benefits versus its downside, such as human trafficking
10. Our government's recent decisions: Socialist or Democratic?
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Tennyson Monument. Isle of Wight. England.
Hey kids -
Sorry I posted this so late - please read the entire poem and annotate the first two sections - underline words and phrases you feel best reveal the speaker's attitude.
http://www.metalvortex.com/poems/ulysses-.htm
Sorry I posted this so late - please read the entire poem and annotate the first two sections - underline words and phrases you feel best reveal the speaker's attitude.
http://www.metalvortex.com/poems/ulysses-.htm
Friday, February 27, 2009
HOMEWORK for Monday, March 2nd
Hey kids -
Here is a link to an online version of "A Modest Proposal".
http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/swift/modest.html
Please read it in its entirety for Monday and be prepared to answer questions on its content.
Also, don't forget to complete The Office: Diversity Day Worksheet, due Monday. You can catch the rest of the episode at www.hulu.com
I found the following online; it's a little blurb about the episode and its satirical nature:
The Office: Diversity Day
"During its first three seasons, NBC's The Office satirized corporate America's bumbling attempts to change its own entrenched sexist, racist, and homophobic attitudes. Michael Scott is a comic representation of the hypocrisy of the American business environment; personifying both its urge to be seen as likable and tolerant and its longing to return to a time when it could freely run on a system of white male privilege.
A manager who became successful during a time when business shamelessly ran on the good ol' boy system, Michael cannot change his sexist and racist outlook to keep up with the corporate world's new need to seem inclusive. Yet, it is he who has to lead the diversity day training (where he requires all staff to say racially insulting things about whatever ethnic group is named on a card taped to the person's head) and oversee the sexual harassment awareness training (in which he constantly sexually harasses the office women).
However, no matter how diverse his staff or how many diversity training sessions he attends (or leads), Michael continuously fails to rewrite his sexist and prejudiced views of people. Michael treats every woman as a sex interest, a matron, or an emotional fluff brain and insults every minority by mimicking stereotypical representations of their ethnic group. He is constantly surrounded by women and minorities who are far more competent than he is, but he unfailingly adjusts his view of them to match his preconceived notions of a group to which they pertain. Part of the humor of the show comes from watching people decide how to react in the face of his egregiously incorrect views. We watch people react to Michael's misbehavior and recognize the decisions we make on a daily basis about when to let an offense go unmentioned and when we should protest."
Here is a link to an online version of "A Modest Proposal".
http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/swift/modest.html
Please read it in its entirety for Monday and be prepared to answer questions on its content.
Also, don't forget to complete The Office: Diversity Day Worksheet, due Monday. You can catch the rest of the episode at www.hulu.com
I found the following online; it's a little blurb about the episode and its satirical nature:
The Office: Diversity Day
"During its first three seasons, NBC's The Office satirized corporate America's bumbling attempts to change its own entrenched sexist, racist, and homophobic attitudes. Michael Scott is a comic representation of the hypocrisy of the American business environment; personifying both its urge to be seen as likable and tolerant and its longing to return to a time when it could freely run on a system of white male privilege.
A manager who became successful during a time when business shamelessly ran on the good ol' boy system, Michael cannot change his sexist and racist outlook to keep up with the corporate world's new need to seem inclusive. Yet, it is he who has to lead the diversity day training (where he requires all staff to say racially insulting things about whatever ethnic group is named on a card taped to the person's head) and oversee the sexual harassment awareness training (in which he constantly sexually harasses the office women).
However, no matter how diverse his staff or how many diversity training sessions he attends (or leads), Michael continuously fails to rewrite his sexist and prejudiced views of people. Michael treats every woman as a sex interest, a matron, or an emotional fluff brain and insults every minority by mimicking stereotypical representations of their ethnic group. He is constantly surrounded by women and minorities who are far more competent than he is, but he unfailingly adjusts his view of them to match his preconceived notions of a group to which they pertain. Part of the humor of the show comes from watching people decide how to react in the face of his egregiously incorrect views. We watch people react to Michael's misbehavior and recognize the decisions we make on a daily basis about when to let an offense go unmentioned and when we should protest."
Monday, February 23, 2009
Keats Homework Assignment
Hey kids - yes, that is the home of John Keats! Very exciting - I think he wrote "Ode to Nightingale" in the front yard!!!
Here is your assignment:
Read the poem (Google it).
Do the following:
1. Make a list of and identify all allusions
2. What is the speaker's mood in lines 19 and 20 and how is the mood revealed?
3. Compare the celestial images in stanza 4 to the earthly images in stanza 5 and determine the point of the contrast.
Enjoy - Due tomorrow, February 24th.
Here is your assignment:
Read the poem (Google it).
Do the following:
1. Make a list of and identify all allusions
2. What is the speaker's mood in lines 19 and 20 and how is the mood revealed?
3. Compare the celestial images in stanza 4 to the earthly images in stanza 5 and determine the point of the contrast.
Enjoy - Due tomorrow, February 24th.
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