Aim: How do poetic elements create a thematic effect over the course of a poem?
This Tuesday was an in-person day, so there was only me (Loezee), Tempestt and Joseph.
Do Now:
For the Do Now, our small group had to independently brainstorm 6 words that we would associate with “identity.” I personally thought of the words “personality,” “physical features,” “habits,” “your ID,” “fingerprint,” and “personal information.” After about 3 minutes of thinking, Ms. Peterson started the discussion by asking us what words we wrote down. We took turns in order (Tempestt, Joseph, then me). Joseph mentioned something about a person’s opinions about topics and Tempestt said something along the lines of “physical appearance.” As for me, I suggested “your ID.” After this, Ms. Peterson talked about the fingerprint and how she gave us a clue on what we could’ve written as one of our words (I actually got the clue and wrote down “Your fingerprint”!).
Poetic Devices:
The new poetic devices that were taught today are Cacophonous (“bad sound” that's a mixture of the letters p, b, t, d, g, k, ch-, sh-, and etc.), Euphonious (soothing sounds that’s a mixture of the letters l, m, n, r, softer f or v, w, s, y, th-, wh-, and etc.), rhythm (the pattern or the beat of syllables), and extended metaphors (a metaphor extended throughout all the lines or just several lines of the poem).
Each device was accompanied by a video that was watched after the spirit reader finished reading.
As another example of an extended metaphor, this poem was read. In this poem, a poem was compared to an apple through the use of an extended metaphor.
Next, we watched an interesting video about “theme”. Ms. Peterson said that this video would wake us up, and she was right! The youtuber, D4Darious, talked in an aggressive and excited voice as he explained what a theme is (the meaning, life-lesson, or the moral of the story with no character names or plotlines).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIuKNVny9cM
Identity Poem:
This poem (that was spirit read by us) basically covered the two different stereotypes society groups people into. One group of people are the “flowers,” and the other are the “weeds.” The “flowers” are described as beautiful, but extremely dependent people while the “weeds” are the strong, independent people. Based on some of the lines in the poem, like “I’d weather be a tall, ugly weed, clinging on cliffs,” we can assume that the author prefers to be unique to themself and free of society’s stereotypes.
We had to take annotations on this poem of anything that stood out to us. Personally, the line “I’d rather smell of musty, green, stench than of sweet, fragrant lilac. If I could stand alone, strong and free, I’d rather be a tall, ugly weed,” stood out to me because it really made me motivated to be unique to myself rather than looking at trends on social media and wanting to be like everyone else.
Think/Pair/Share:
With our group, we had to fill out a chart about the poem, “Identity” using the format TWIST (tone, word choice, imagery, style, and theme).
At first, my group was a little shy to share what they wrote so our group discussions were quiet and took a while, but we were able to communicate what we wrote. The chart above is what I wrote, which is also the general idea of what my group thinks.
The general theme of the poem that we discussed is that people should be more unique and independent to themselves because if you’re too dependent on others, you might get taken advantage of (“I’d rather be unseen, and if then shunned by everyone, than to be a pleasant-smelling flower, growing in clusters in the fertile valley, where they’re praised, handled, and plucked by greedy human hands.”)
Reflection:
In this lesson, I learned new poetic devices and ways to break down themes (TWIST). Cacophonous and Euphonious can be used to express the tone of the poem and rhythm can be used for readers to read the poem smoothly. Extended metaphors can be used to compare objects/creatures to further emphasize the theme/meaning of the poem (like how Julio Noboa Polanco compared weeds and flowers to two different types of people in his poem “Identity”). With these new techniques, I can understand poems better, or even write my own poems in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment