Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Let the Poetry Begin!

We're starting the next part of the AP Literature exam, and it is the poetry prompt! For some reason or another, many a student dreads poetry and querulously declares lack of understanding, its complicated syntax, or impatience to focus on language and not those big ticket items of character, conflict, setting, and plot. Poetry is a completely different beast from prose - and the way to mastering it all starts with patience. Yes, a "p" word that you know I don't have ready at will, but one that comes in handy with poetry.

Why does poetry "freak out" readers? Most likely, the cause stems from poetry's use of inversion to create meter and sound effects. At times, the subject is buried several words into a clause with all the descriptors, verbs, or objects mucking up standard sentence order. Solution? When diving into the poetic phrase, reorder the sentences into standard subject-verb-direct object form to understand meaning. Once you have meaning, you have theme and then all the other connective elements that make poetry beautiful.

How to approach the device issue? As with prose, poetry is still full of motifs, figurative language, paradoxes (a favorite of the AP Lit prompts for sure), and other common literary elements that were featured in our previous readings. (And, of course, there are always diction and tone shift to help with analysis.) However, if you want to boost up your poetic interpretation, you might want to go to poetic type, structure of stanzas, meter usage, sound patterns, and those quirky enjambments and caesuras. Look at all the poetry "stuff" that will be littering your brain for the next month (I guess, months) to come!

This has become an utter babble today! Overall, the main message is some of you will be strong at certain aspects of poetry and some of you will stick with the old standbys because it is not your favorite genre to pursue. In any circumstance, the plaintive "I don't know" or "I don't understand" are not phrases acceptable because on the AP exam, you have to connect to something and build an essay around it.

If you were absent today, you have the diagnostic poetry prompt to do. This is a 45 minute spectacle that can be made up in study hall (best choice), after school (second choice), or during class (if only option).

Tomorrow will start up Vocab Unit 4. I hate to disappoint my vernacular-lovers, but this is our last vocab unit for this semester. Gasp! We'll do 4 more in the spring. With all of the poetry terms about to infiltrate your lives, you will need your brain power on that memorization!

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