"Immortality"; Work Session

Today was dedicated to working on the Slam and/or the Sestina.  For inspiration, we watched Rudy Franscisco present his poem, "Immortality" (you can find it on YouTube).

Remember, with the Slam poem, make sure you highlight and label all of the required elements before you share it with me.

SESTINA

We set the Slam poem aside temporarily and began work on the Sestina poem.  I passed out two handouts to help with the Sestina, so if you were absent, get those handouts from me upon your return to class.

 Due date: You have a choice: you can turn in either the Slam or the Sestina on Tuesday.

Slam Poem Writing Advice, "Love Poem Medley"

I collected the annotations on Shooter, and distributed a handout with some advice for writing poetry. If you were absent, you will need to get that handout from me as it is in a format that I can't link to my blog. 

We then watched Rudy Francisco present his slam poem, Love Poem Medley (you can see it on YouTube) and pulled out examples of conceit, allusion, pun, and imagery.

The rest of the class time was used for getting started on your slam poem.

Today is the absolute final deadline for the Nature of Man Synthesis essay.  Share whatever you have, even if it isn't finished; some points are better than none.

There is no HW tonight.

Limericks and Rhyme Scheme

What happened today: 1) I collected the Literary Terms handout, 2) I discussed rhyme scheme using limericks---this will be on the final BTW, so click on this link if you were absent, and 3) You had class time to work on annotating Shooter, which is due tomorrow.

Poetic Devices and Lit.Terms Handout

We finished Louder than a Bomb yesterday; if you were absent, most of the poetry can be found on YouTube.  Although all of the poetry is interesting, you'll really want to hear The Shooter by Lamar Jorden and Counting Graves by the Steinmenauts (this one makes me teary every time I hear it).

We'll be dissecting a couple of slam poems, so I handed out a list of terms to define or to find examples of.  See me for that handout ASAP.  It will be due on Tuesday as there is no school on Monday (to honor our veterans on Memorial Day).

Perfect Rhyme, Slant Rhyme, Internal Rhyme, "Shooter"

In your notebook, under the title Slant/Perfect Rhyme, create lists of perfect and slant rhymes for the following words: WONDER, BROWN, TOPIC.  A perfect rhyme has exact vowel sounds with different consonant sounds (rink/wick, gratitude/latitude).  A slant rhyme has a change either in the vowel sounds or the consonant sounds (how/row, lovely/funny).

Examples: WONDER (under-perfect rhyme; ponder-slant rhyme)

As a class, we watched the short slam poem A Love Letter from the Toothbrush to the Bicycle Tire and discussed the literary and poetic devices we could find within that poem.

I passed out a copy of the transcript to Shooter (from Louder than a Bomb).  The assignment is to annotate it and answer the questions.  Get a copy from me ASAP.  

DUE DATES: The Lit. Terms handout is due when we return on Tuesday; the "Shooter" assignment is due Wednesday.
 

CAHSEE Scores, Alliteration Packet, Louder than a Bomb

I passed out the CAHSEE scores for the English portion of the test; get the math scores from your math teacher.

I also passed out an Alliteration Packet which is due this Wednesday.  See me to get your copy.

Lastly, we started watching a documentary called Louder than a Bomb.  Click on this link for what you need to copy into your notebook under the title Louder than a Bomb.  It will take roughly 3 class periods to see the entire documentary; if you miss any of it, I think you can see it on Netflix or some similar movie site.