"Hazel Tells LaVerne" -Katharyn Howd Machan (Fri 2/11)

Read "Hazel Tells LaVerne" on page 838.

Answer both questions, using textual evidence to support your response:
1.   What creates the poem's humor?  How does Hazel's use of language reveal her personality?  Is her treament of the frog consistent with her character?
2.   What is the theme?  Is it conveyed through denotative or connotative language?  Use textual evidence to support your response?

"Catch" - Robert Francis (Thurs 2/10)

Re-read E.E. Cummings's "She being Brand" on page 834 and rewrite your own version of "Catch" by Robert Francis on page 776.  Use E.E. Cummings's arrangement of words in "She being Brand" as your inspiration.  Try reorganizing the words and lines in "Catch" so that they look as if Cummings wrote the poem.

On "Hard" Poetry - Robert Francis (Wed 2/8)

Read On "Hard" Poetry by Robert Francis on page 808.

Explain in your own words the distinction between "hard" and "soft" poetry?  Base your answer on the essay by Robert Francis and provide textual evidence.

"My Way Home" - Kanye West (Tues 2/8)

 Read the following lyrics and answer the question below:


"My Way Home" - Kanye West

Yeah

I'm on my way home

They say home is where the hate is
My dome is where fate is
I stroll where souls get lost like vegas
Seen through the eyes of rebel glasses
Pray to god that my arms reach the masses
The young smoke grass in grassless jungles
Rubberband together in cashless bundles
We wear struggling chains
Divided only hustle remains
Making sense of it we hustle for change
Revolution ain't a game
It's another name
For life fighting
Someone to stay in they corner like Mike Tyson
Hypes fighting for hits to heighten they hell
Don't he know he only get as high as he fell
Show money becomes bail
Relationships become jail
Children are unheld
I wish love was for sale
Behold the pale
Horse got me trapped like r. kel', I bail and it-

Might not be such a bad idea if I never, never went home again
I'm on my way home
I left three days ago
But no one seems to know I'm gone
Home is where the hatred is
Home is filled with pain and it
Might not be such a bad idea if I never
Never went home again.

Question:

Paraphrase "My Way Home" and explain the meaning of this poem using textual support and literary devices to support your interpretation.

Soldier's Home (Thurs 2/3)

Read the selection on reader-response criticism (pp 2098-2100) in Chapter 51, "Critical Strategies for Reading," and consider the following:  Perhaps after having been away from home for a time, you have returned to find yourself alienated from your family or friends.  Describe your experience.  What caused the change?  How does this experience affect your understanding of Krebs?  Alternately, if alienation hasn't been your experience, how does that difference affect your reading of Krebs?

Soldier's Home (Wed 2/2)

The title, "Soldier's Home," focuses on the setting.  Do you have a clear picture of Kreb's home?  Describe it, filling in missing details from  your own associations of home, Krebs's routine, or anything else you can use.

Eveline (Tues 2/1)

1.   Why does thinking of her mother make Eveline want to escape?


2.   Read carefully the water imagery in the final paragraphs of the story.  How does this imagery help to suggest  Eveline's reasons for not leaving with Frank?