AP English
Literature: Poetry Bootcamp
Ms.Kingsbury
Poetry is a major component of the AP English Literature
exam in May. To prepare for this,
you will be responsible to independently read and TWIST a selection of poems
from the VOICES anthology. Please
adhere to the following schedule.
YOU ARE REQUIRED TO WRITE IN THIS BOOK. The instructions for how you are to annotate these poems are
on the back of this paper.
Schedule of reading
& annotation:
Monday 1/7/13 Curiosity page
17-18
Portrait
of a Neighbor page
22
Humanity
I love you page
30
Tuesday 1/8/13 To
David page
31
O
by the by page
34
Wednesday 1/9/13 The
Picnic page
42
Gold page
48
Thursday 1/10/13 The
Sick Rose page
53
Constantly
Risking page
55
Friday 1/11/13 Poetry page
60
Auto
Wreck page
66
Fifty-Fifty page
71
Monday 1/14/13 When
Men is Gone page
81
Fantasy
for Those Who page
82
A
Sane Revolution page
84
Tuesday 1/15/13 Death page
92
Icarus
page
98
The
Secret page
116-117
Wednesday 1/16/13 Merry-Go-Round
page
11
Trees page
13
Who
Hurt You So? page
16
On Thursday 1/17/13, you will submit your marked up books to
Ms. Kingsbury for a HUGE grade. We
will also have a TEST (AP Style) on one of the poems from this list.
TWIST Handout
When a poem is placed in front of you, you must TWIST it up to understand its method and meaning.
These are the steps to TWISTing a poem:
1. Read the poem straight through one time.
2. Read it through again, underlining the words you don’t know. Get clarification on unknown words if possible. Attempt to determine definitions using context clues if you can. Otherwise, let the unknown words go. Time will be of the essence when you take the AP Exam.
3. Annotate the poem. You can do this simply by writing a thought/question/feeling next to each stanza.
4. Now start to TWIST the poem. To do this, you will look at Tone, Word Choice (Diction), Imagery, Syntax, and Theme. See the steps below.
5. Determine the tone of the poem. How do you hear the poet’s voice in your head? Choose determine if the poet is happy, angry, sad, or funny. Then sophisticate the word using your TONE HANDOUT.
Example: If the poet sounds sad, upgrade to morose.
Example: If the poet sounds happy, upgrade to jubilant.
6. Now look at the poem’s word choices (aka diction). Double underline words/phrases that are striking and establish the tone.
7. Look for imagery in the poem. What pictures pop into your head when you read it? List 4 images.
8. Look at the syntax of the poem. Syntax is the punctuation, line breaks, sentences structure, and rhyme scheme. Circle punctuation. Determine if the poem rhymes. Lots of punctuation usually = keeping control. No punctuation usually = breaking the rules.
9. Now determine the meaning of the poem. The meaning is the THEME, a one-sentence message that the poem is trying to convey. Write this down. Build your AP Exam Poetry Essay (also called Q1) around the THEME using TWIS as evidence of your claim. Example: The theme of the poem Titanic is that death should be a celebration of a person’s life.
When you get good at this, you will be able to TWIST a poem in 10 minutes or less!
