Monday, January 26, 2009

Objectives:
After this class, students will be able to:
1. manage their time to meet deadlines.
2. annotate and analyze poetry.
3. learn how to TWIST a poem as a strategy for the AP Exam.

Agenda:
1. Students will receive and sign Ms. Kingsbury's National Board Certification video taping permission slip. 50 points. Due ASAP.

2. Students will receive their 3rd marking period independent reading list and essay topics. Due 3/13/2009. 200 points. See previous postings for full information.

3. Students will receive the unit sheet of poetry and short stories for Till Death Do Us Part: A Study In Love. Due 2/2/2009. See previous postings for full information.

4. Students will look closer at poetry analysis this week. Students will learn how to understand a poem through the TWIST method. Today we will focus on the poem Titanic.

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.

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.
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.

Homework: Students will finish TWISTing the Titanic poem and turn in for a grade tomorrow.