December
11
ELA 20: Dec 11 Two poems from parent perspectives…
- We started the class with a quick review of the figurative language used in poetry. Students wrote a copy of the same notes in their books along with the examples for each.
- Then we looked, again, at the poem we started yesterday. They were reminded that, when reading poetry, your best practice is to read through the poem entirely twice, then paraphrase each stanza (break the poem apart into pieces and gain a firm understanding bit by bit), and then look at the whole again to see it more clearly.
- I underlined portions of this poem and asked students, individually, to consider each of the phrase and write on their page the significance or true meaning behind the phrase. Then we discussed these all.
- I showed them a picture of a former student of mine to help them understand a line from the poem. The father looked in the yearbook and saw a “sullen face [he] didn’t recognize”. The idea that a parent wouldn’t recognize their child’s yearbook picture doesn’t make sense. The reality, though, is that the father didn’t recognize the person that son was becoming. As their children grow up, they become so much their own person that parents, at times, can’t seem to connect or understand them anymore.
- We did a quick read through of the next poem and students said they recognized it. They wrote the transitions from the poem on their own page and then were dismissed for the day. We’ll look at the questions for both poems tomorrow and move on to our next assignment soon.
- To remind, as well: any late essays will be accepted until this Friday after which the topic will be switched and they will have to begin again.