Aim: How can we use the poem, “This is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams as inspiration for our own poems?
Before the lesson:
Before the class started attempting the do now and analyzing the poems, we were briefly reminded of the blogging cycle and the blogging sheet. There are three students who would be blogging per cycle and in charge of capturing the lesson as best as possible. This would include the discussions that take place, the aim, the do now, and activities that happen throughout the class. It is also necessary to be mindful of the formatting, making sure it’s clean and easy to read so that the blogmasters wouldn’t have to do any “clean-ups” or make any corrections as they are not your editors. The blogmasters are only responsible for posting the work you have provided onto the blog for worldwide audiences. If you are taking notes as the lesson goes on, about 90% of the blog should have been completed throughout the period. The other 10% would include your reflection (How has this helped me? What am I learning from this? How am I going to apply this into the future), links, and pictures that would be helpful in understanding the materials. The class was then provided an example of a blog from the previous year.
Example of a blog: https://msjpetersonsblog.
A reminder that Parent-Teacher Conferences are coming up on 11/13/20.
Do Now: Think/Pair/Share. Describe a time when you or someone you know did something that was “technically wrong” and you should have felt sorry for it but you didn’t?
Before students started sharing their personal experiences, Ms. Peterson mentions that after hearing from a lot of classes, she notes that this particular situation happens a lot with siblings. The discussion first starts with a student sharing about how they had borrowed their sister’s clothing without asking. They knew they were in the wrong but did not feel sorry in the end. Ms. Peterson then shares that she’s had a colleague who’s dealt with a similar situation. She also mentions a story about how she was falsely framed for breaking something she has not. The “culprit” was then laughing and pointing fingers because they had known that Ms. Peterson was not the one in the wrong. After the discussion was over, the class would keep these ideas and situations in mind as the lesson continues.
Next, the class was introduced to a poem called “This Is Just To Say” by William Carlos Williams. This poem was published in 1934. The class read the poem together by utilizing the method of Spirit reading.
“This Is Just To Say” by William Carlos:
https://www.poetryfoundation.
The class would then learn about the coordinating conjunction we know as “but.” Even though the word itself was not utilized in the poem, the word could be implied or inferred to some extent. When you are to apologize to someone, and you follow up with the word but, it shows as a sort of justification that what you feel you did was “right” and that you are not truly sorry for what you have done. This example can be applied as context to the poem because the author is saying that he has eaten the plums but then he mentions the words “forgive me” and goes on to give an explanation as to why he has done what he did. So does he really want forgiveness for what he has done? The answer is no. The author feels that he is justified for what he did because the plums were “delicious,” “sweet,” and “cold,” resulting in him savoring every bite of it. In the end, the author is not upset about having eaten the plum at all.
On the next slide, there is some brief information about the background and the structure of the poem. The class would then spirit read the selection and proceed onto the slide that follows.
Brief information about the poem:
“William Carlos Williams wrote a quick note to his wife one morning, a 'passing gesture', and stuck it on the refrigerator before heading off to work. The note turned out to be a very short poem, “This Is Just To Say” and became one of his most popular creations when it was published in 1934.
The poem takes about 20 seconds to recite, has no regular rhythm or syllabic count, no rhyme, and lacks any punctuation, other than line-breaks. It is true to the poetic philosophy that Williams championed - away with convention, free the line, write poems about anything, be local, be American, no ideas but in things.”
Before reading the different variations of the theme that William Carlos introduces, we take notes on how the structures of these poems would be very different. While the poem that William Carlos had written had twelve lines and was short in size, the examples we were shown were moreover in sentence form. Additionally, William’s poem lacked punctuation while the examples do have to some extent, some pieces of punctuation. However, even though the structures are different there is a similarity in how the poems are being delivered. The class then spirit reads the selection before proceeding to the activity.
The variations:
“ 1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.
2
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.
4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!
-- Kenneth Koch”
The activity: See how many “This is just to say” poems you can create in “5” minutes. The poem does not need to match the same number of lines, only the concept.
The class was then granted five minutes to independently create poems of their own with similar concepts. After the five minutes are up, we compare how many poems everyone has written in order to gain points for their team. With the most being five poems, thirty points were awarded to team six and the point masters had recorded the points. Moving on, the class learns about using imagery in poetry. We are provided with a video on imagery that would aid us in our understanding of it. The goal of the video is to expand our knowledge of imagery to not just the basics.
Link to video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
After the video ended, the class was asked a question,
“What’s the key takeaway from what the narrator in the video has pointed out in her description?
What’s the key takeaway that we should be getting about imagery?
The class later concludes that the key takeaway is that imagery involves all five senses and not just what you see like what a lot of people believe. Most people, when asked for the definition of imagery, describe it as something that helps make a picture in our mind. This definition is limiting because that’s not what imagery actually does. Ultimately, it could be described as the end goal of what happens but it is only because it evoked your five senses that caused the image to surface. For example, one of our first lessons of the school year was based on pizza and imagery related to it. The short texts we read used words such as “aromatic,” “basil,” “ooey-gooey cheese” to create the image of pizza inside of our heads. In the end, this happens because our senses were exposed, in this case to pizza, to the smell and taste before based on our memories. In conclusion, imagery is a lot more than something that makes an image in our head; it is something that awakens our senses if done correctly.
Following this revelation, the class is provided with some poems that utilize imagery and our five senses to paint a picture in our head. Spirit reading is done.
Examples of the poems:
“the clouds collapsed,
they’re touching the ground
trying to come alive,
but they can’t.
Images from a landscape are used to indicate hopelessness,
My heart was warm,
Like the swelling waters of the ocean,
Just basking in the first rays of morning sun
Natural images (ocean and sun) are used to express joyfulness
I felt the end of something great,
Like when you take the last bite of birthday cake,
And all that’s left is a few powdery crumbs on your frosting streaked dish
Images of birthday cake are used to create feelings of melancholy and sadness”
At this point, we as readers can definitely relate to the poems above in some ways. After mentioning this brief connection, the class proceeds to spirit read a poem called “Fast Break” as written by Edward Herschel.
Link to the poem: “Fast Break” by Edward Herschel
https://www.poetryfoundation.
After spirit reading the poem, the class was asked the following questions.
“From a structural standpoint, what do you notice about the structure of the particular poem? What things stand out to you about the way it was structured?”
The answer is that the poem is a very long run-on because of the lack of punctuation. There is only one period throughout the poem and the structure is just two lines straight through with a few commas here and there. The class is then split up into their groups and put into break out rooms to utilize the TWIST strategy in order to get the gist and them of “Fast Break.”
For homework, we are assigned to write a poem about a pastime we feel most passionate about. The poem is free versed and should use diction and imagery. The poem should be at least 20 lines long.
Reflection of the day’s lesson:
Through this lesson, I have learned about free-verse poems and imagery. Free-verse poems are very irregular in terms of structure, rhyme, and length. For example, “This is just to say” written by Edward Herschel is a freestyle poem that has a very different structure as compared to other poems. The poem is written as if in sentence format and there is no punctuation used. Additionally, there is no rhyme nor rhythm throughout the poem. Learning to read free-verse poems can be important because it helps in identifying and understanding the message the author wants to convey. Additionally, it can help students in becoming good readers by classifying different types of poems Other than learning about free-verse poetry, we were also taught about imagery. Although we usually think of imagery as something related to giving the readers a mental image, it is more than that. Imagery is something that involves all five senses being evoked in order to help the reader understand what the author is describing. Although it is in fact related to mental images, in the end, there is a lot more to imagery than what most people think. This is important because knowing the true meaning of imagery is vital to being a good reader because writers use imagery all the time to describe things so that the reader can understand and relate. To conclude, learning the structure of free-verse poems can help students familiarize themselves with its concept while learning the definition of imagery can aid in understanding and relating to the author’s words and descriptions.
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