unit 3: lyric poetry 1
meeting 1: identifying shifts with richard wilbur
In today’s class, we’ll look at 3 poems from 20th-C American poet Richard Wilbur: “The Writer,” “Advice to a Prophet,” and “The Death of a Toad”. Our goal in all 3 poems is to identify tonal shifts and purposeful movements on the part of the speaker.
We’re going to travel lightly for now in terms of literary terminology, sticking just to structure, tone, diction, and syntax, as well as imagery and figurative language.
“The Writer” “Advice to a Prophet” “The Death of a Toad”
We’ll work “The Writer” together as a group; you’ll tackle “Advice to a Prophet” with a partner; then, for homework, you’ll read “The Death of a Toad” on your own.
HW: Read “The Death of a Toad”. Mark it up as we did in class, identifying any tonal shifts and movements in the poem. On the bottom of the page, write a thesis for a poetry analysis responding to the following prompt: Explain how formal elements, such as structure, tone, syntax, diction, and imagery reveal the speaker’s response to the death of the toad.
Additionally, be aware that tomorrow you’ll attempt your first MC quiz over one of the three poems from today.
meeting 2: introduction to ap-style multiple guess
In today’s class, we’ll take a sample multiple choice set on Richard Wilbur’s “Advice to a Prophet.” The quiz will not count for a grade, but I still want to see the scores to see where we’re at. Working through the questions should help attain a greater understanding of the poem as well.
After, we’ll look at “The Death of a Toad.”
meeting 3: Meter in three renaissance sonnets
It’s Sonnet day, everyone’s favorite day. We’ll revisit the basics of meter and scansion, how sonnets normally work, where usually to find the volta, and why they’re normally highly figurative.
We’ll begin as a class working a Sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney, probably written in the 1580s; then, I’ll give you time in pairs to work through one of John Donne’s “Holy Sonnets” from 1633; lastly, you can expect another MC set on one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
“Astophil and Stella 72” “Batter my Heart” Shakespeare Sonnet ???
meeting 4: PA: ai’s “the man with the saxophone”
Official class roster
Today we will practice working a poem featured on the exam two years ago. We’re going to use the chart we used when we practiced for the first FRQ1 on Inferno, turning more of the responsibility over to you before coming together as a large group to see how you did.
The prompt: In Ai’s poem “The Man with the Saxophone,” published in 1985, the speaker encounters a man playing a saxophone. Read the poem carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how Ai uses literary elements and techniques to convey the complexity of the speaker’s encounter with the saxophone player at that particular time and place.
meeting 5: v&SC Q5 + sample FRQ1 responses
After today’s quiz, we’ll read three sample FRQ responses on “The Man with the Saxophone” in preparation for next class’s FRQ.
meeting 6: TIMED FRQ1
due DATES
syllabus
cyclical vocabulary and sentence composition assignment
CURRENT TEXTs TO HAVE DAILY
fall semester units
Unit One: Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment
Unit Two: Dante’s Inferno
Unit Three: Moby-Dick, Chapters 1-22
Unit Four: Lyric Poetry 1
Unit Five: Short Fiction 1
Unit Six: Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Unit Seven: Moby-Dick, Chapters 23-46
Moby-dick central
Click for full reading schedule and assignments
You’re undertaking the reading of the greatest work of American fiction and one of the world’s greatest works of art. It’s a project that’ll span the entirety of the year, completing the reading outside of class and in addition to your other regular assignments. It’s an undertaking to read this novel, to be sure, but it need not be arduous if you’re disciplined.
An undertaking, yes, but that does not mean you should simply set it down and walk away when you hit a tough or a boring chapter. It’s a rewarding book to those who work the hardest and put in the time it requires. This section of the course page provides you the tools you’ll need to work the novel through to its completion.
Here is a handy document you might consider printing and having with you while you read: Allusions in Moby-Dick
You may find it useful to use the audio recordings from The Big Read; each chapter has a special guest reading it. Listening along will help, especially at the beginning. The readers are (mostly) excellent at capturing the tone of each chapter. As you read, seek out and consider the following concepts:
Water meditations and man's attraction to water, Ishmael's curiosity about and tolerance for human motivation, The quest, The nature of God and man, Finding and losing the self (Narcissus), Parallels between land and sea, Civilization and "savagery", cannibalism, Biblical echoes and references: Jonah, Job, Ahab, Elijah, Ishmael, etc., Monomania and madness, the value of religion, the value of community
“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own.”