October
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ELA 20: Oct 1 “Warren Pryor” poem and blog overview…
- The reminder was given that the formal paragraph assignment on symbolism in the story “The Rink” was due (extended, actually) yesterday. Only one person handed that in by the end of the day. If anyone is still intent on completing that paragraph assignment, I will give them a new topic but same activity. They will start from scratch and have as much time as we originally did. This way it’s fair for those who completed it on time and fair for those who want to work instead of receiving a zero.
- We talked about the reality that parents often sacrifice things for their kids. Each generation wants better for their children than they, themselves, had. I gave the example of my own family, on my dad’s side. I am the first grandchild on one side to graduate high school in a long line of generations, but also the first to convocate from University, with two degrees, and the first to have risen to such a high standing in what we consider social status. A man in my geneology line, somewhere way down that line, would likely be pretty proud that one of his offspring managed to come to such a point, but it certainly wasn’t easily attained and came at the expense of not only my own efforts but the sacrifices my parents and grandparents gave to help me achieve that success. That same sacrifice is the topic in the poem, “Warren Pryor”.
- We did an intense analysis / study of the poem, working through the steps to reading a poem first and then answering several different questions or highlighting parts of it that stood out. One such example of something observed worth mentioning is that the ending of this poem is extremely similar to the ending from our previous poem, “The Piano”, in that the main characters in both poems, the sons, end with intense rage with no resolution. Also, as in “The Piano”, the author of “Warren Pryor” does a good job of using punctuation to allow for long-winded descriptions of the dream-like sequences of what the parents have given to sacrifice for Warren. It all abruptly ends, though, with a short, curt, four-word sentence at the beginning of the final stanza: “And he said nothing.” These poems both fit this unit but have similarities between them, which is handy and helpful repetition.
- Students had some time to complete one paragraph summary in response to a question from the sheet. Then we spent a bit of time talking about the blog project that they will be starting on tomorrow. I showed them a student example of a blog and the parts for each post they will be required to include. We’ll have computer time tomorrow and I’m anxious to see how they each approach the task!!