Introduction

Sept. 26, 2013

* Let’s start with a poem: ”One Art”

* Text and Context: Elizabeth Bishop

* Academic Writing: what and how

* Objectives

* Academic Writing: Skills

* Academic Writing: Process

* Another Poem: “Sestina”

* Next Week

The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster. 

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master. 

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master. 

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. 

 —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied. It‘s evident the art of losing's not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

*Content – Theme: What is the theme of this poem? What does loss mean, and how is it “an art”?

*Content – Development of Ideas: has the speaker changed his/her ideas, attitude and tone from stanza to stanza? Is she an honest speaker?

* Form -- Anything special about the language used in this poem? Or poetic form? Anything poetic techniques used (e.g. rhymes and refrains)? How does repetition function here?

Visual PresentationsElizabeth Bishop in Brief

Displacement in Life:*born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1911; *her father was dead when she was 8 months old, and her mother institutionalized when she was five.*Spent her childhood in Nova Scotia with her grandparents *Forced to move to Boston, MA to live with her paternal grandparents. Later rescued by her aunt. *Bishop traveled extensively in Europe and lived in New York, Key West, Florida, and, for sixteen years, in Brazil

*Ref. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SJEylT-4GI

*Highly crafted poems, going through several revisions

*Displacement as a major theme.

*e.g. “One Art” and “Sestina” --objectify her losses and turn them into recognizable aesthetic forms (repetition, sestina, metaphor and metonymy). aestheticization or distanciation as a way of displacement. This displacement is actively done, but not permanent.

Villanelle:

•a nineteen-line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains. •The form is made up of five tercets followed by a quatrain. The first and third lines of the opening tercet are repeated alternately in the last lines of the succeeding stanzas; then in the final stanza, the refrain serves as the poem's two concluding lines. •Using capitals for the refrains and lowercase letters for the rhymes, the form could be expressed as: A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2. reference

*1) training basic skills in academic English, with a focus on literary studies: developing basic skills in academic writing about literature through a sequence of short exercises, while developing awareness of one’s own strengths and deficiencies; 

*2) practicing different modes of critical writing such as text analysis, critical review and a medium-length research paper.

*3) learning the basics of citation according to MLA style for research papers.

1) structure: developing a major argument, making an introduction, drawing a conclusion, paragraphing, as well as outlining; 2) text analysis skills: paraphrasing, synthesizing, presenting and citing and analyzing texts3) other analytical skills: definition, comparison, classification, illustration. 4) features of academic writing (objectivity, hedging, precision and explicitness)

A. Choosing Topics

*Preliminary Steps: Be an Active Reader, Identify Your Audience, Raise Questions about the Work, Narrow Your Topic

*Search Strategies: Focus on the Work’ s Conventions (Its Formal Qualities), Use Topoi (Traditional Patterns of Thinking), Respond to Comments by Critics, Draw from Your Own Knowledge

*Brainstorming: Talking and Writing Strategies, Talk Out Loud

*Pre-Writing: Make Outlines, Freewrite, Brainstorm, Create Graphic Organizers, Make Notes, Keep a Journal

B. Drafting

C. Revising and Editing

D. Documentation and Research

A. Choosing Topics

*Preliminary Steps: Be an Active Reader – Many repetitions in Bishop’s poems

Identify Your Audience – informed reader

Raise Questions about the Work – Why does she repeatedly talk about “home” and house and losing them?

Narrow Your Topic – The use of repetition in “One Art”

*Search Strategies: Focus on the Work’ s Conventions (Its Formal Qualities) –villanelle

Use Topoi (Traditional Patterns of Thinking – Cause & Effect, Definition, etc.)

Respond to Comments by Critics,

Draw from Your Own Knowledge

*Brainstorming: Talking and Writing Strategies, Talk Out Loud

*Pre-Writing: Make Outlines, Freewrite, Brainstorm, Create Graphic Organizers, Make Notes, Keep a Journal

Major Premises: Repetition is meaningful; displacement hurts.

Main Argument: Bishop uses repetition to try to accept loss and master its “art,” but significant losses in life cannot be art nor mastered.

1)Acceptable losses

2)Inevitable losses

3)Losses which one cannot get over with.

1) training basic skills in academic English, with a focus on literary studies: 

test questions as a diagnostic test, short exercise in class and discussion starters.

2) practicing different modes of critical writing 

analysis, exposition, critique, and research paper.

3) learning the basics of citation

MLA style sheet will be introduced.

“Sestina”

Sestina: 1. a highly structured poem consisting of six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet. (6 x 6 + 3)

2. The same set of six words(house, grandmother, child, stove, almanac, tears) ends the lines of each of the six-line stanzas, but in a different order each time.

3 These six words then appear in the tercet as well.

reference

September rain falls on the house.

In the failing light, the old grandmother

sits in the kitchen with the child

beside the Little Marvel Stove,

reading the jokes from the almanac,

laughing and talking to hide her tears.

 

She thinks that her equinoctial ( 春 ( 秋 ) 分時的 ) tears

and the rain that beats on the roof of the house

were both foretold by the almanac,

but only known to a grandmother.

The iron kettle sings on the stove.

She cuts some bread and says to the child,

 

It's time for tea now; but the child

is watching the teakettle's small hard tears

dance like mad on the hot black stove,

the way the rain must dance on the house.

Tidying up, the old grandmother

hangs up the clever almanac

on its string. Birdlike, the almanac

hovers half open above the child,

hovers above the old grandmother

and her teacup full of dark brown tears.

She shivers and says she thinks the house

feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

 

 

 

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.

I know what I know, says the almanac.

With crayons the child draws a rigid house

and a winding pathway. Then the child

puts in a man with buttons like tears

and shows it proudly to the grandmother.

 

But secretly, while the grandmother

busies herself about the stove,

the little moons fall down like tears

from between the pages of the almanac

into the flower bed the child

has carefully placed in the front of the house.

 

Time to plant tears, says the almanac.

The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove

and the child draws another inscrutable house.

 

 

 

1. The six elements—and rhymes—that are repeated are: house, grandmother, child, stove, almanac, tears.  Why are they important?  How do they take on different meanings as the poem develops? 

2. The main characters in this poem are the grandmother and the child.  How do they each look at “tears”—their own tears or the tears that get associated with the other elements? 

3. What can be the meanings of the following kinds of tears?  Equinoctial( 晝夜平分時的 ) tears, tea as dark brown tears?  A man with buttons like tears, and moons which fall like tears?

4. What about the almanac, tea kettle and Marvel Stove mentioned in the poem?  

5. How does the poem end?  Do the two characters get over their tears? 

Grandmother Housekeeping, hide her tears equinoctial( 晝夜平分時的 ) tears almanac tea as dark brown tears Takes care of the child sings to the marvelous stove

Marvel Stove and Almanac

Reality: 1.daily routines and temporal (daily and seasonal) changes2.The kettle sings and the rain dances produce tears3. “plant” tears

Child teakettle’s small tears Marvel Stove Rigid house + winding path Flower bed Inscrutable house

Home?Where are the parents?

*Do you think that the poem is a sad story or a story of survival?

*When we deal with a loss or other kinds of trauma, how can daily routine, chores (housekeeping, for instance), and actions such as painting and writing help?

*Monday noon – an analysis of “One Art” or “Sestina” submitted to EngSite.

* Read one text analysis of either “One Art” or “Sestina” before class.