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Poetry Prompt Revisited

Poetry Prompt Revisited. “Siren Song” and excerpt from The Odyssey. The Prompt: Write an essay in which you compare the portrayals of the Sirens. Your analysis should include discussion of tone, point of view, and whatever poetic devices (diction, imagery, etc) seem most important.

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Poetry Prompt Revisited

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  1. Poetry Prompt Revisited “Siren Song” and excerpt from The Odyssey

  2. The Prompt: Write an essay in which you compare the portrayals of the Sirens. Your analysis should include discussion of tone, point of view, and whatever poetic devices (diction, imagery, etc) seem most important.

  3. Taking apart the prompt • “Compare” implies contrast as well. • Your major goal was to specifically discuss how the sirens were being portrayed in each piece. You were to use the POV of the speaker to support/reveal this portrayal. • You were also supposed to look at how TONE affects each portrayal. By tone you could discuss Odysseus’ attitude towards the Sirens, their attitude towards him, and definitely the attitude of the speaker in the Atwood piece. That one was trickier because you CAN’T TRUST HER. Her real attitude is revealed in the last line of the poem, “It works every time.”

  4. Taking apart prompt continued • The other devices you should have paid attention to are imagery, perhaps mood and detail. • The ones you tried to use to ill effect were diction or enjambment. • POV means: who is speaking/1st person/ perspective of speaker…

  5. Common Errors • People got tone and mood mixed up. And get the correct focus of the tone: look at O’s attitude twds the Sirens and her attitude towards the sailors she lures, NOT O’s attitude towards his crew (unless it’s part of characterizing the Sirens) or Atwood’s attitude toward her Siren. • People focused more on O than the Sirens, unless they were characterizing the Sirens through him

  6. Didn’t answer the prompt in terms of HOW the Sirens were portrayed or ignored tone altogether. The rubric pulls words from the prompt; if they tell you to focus on tone, FOCUS ON TONE. • Listed (tone words) and identified POV (O and Sirens), but didn’t connect the dots in terms of how these things work together to create a portrayal of the Sirens. • Didn’t use quotes well or at all. This was a major problem. People had good ideas but no support or based a whole paragraph on one quote. • Said same thing 5X with different words, especially in closing paragraph

  7. Your topic sentences are plot-based and your closing sentences should have been your TS. It’s like you spent the entire paragraph describing something, and then at the end you said, “And so this contributes to the Sirens being portrayed as ____” INSTEAD of starting with what they are and then using the literary elements and quotes to get you there. • You defined how the Sirens are portrayed with the definition of what Sirens are: irresistible creatures who lure sailors to death with their song. We know. • You forgot who Odysseus is (b/c his POV is really important) or you wrote about the “audience” or the “reader” too much. It’s directed towards the sailors.

  8. Another BIG Issue • You were fooled by the Sirens…You completely missed the underlying meaning of the second poem. In BOTH poems, the Sirens are deadly ALTHOUGH in the 2nd poem she portrays herself as an unhappy victim…she’s totally lying. If you didn’t get this, your essay got a bit limited.

  9. Some ideas • Structure doesn’t have to be one paragraph about one poem and one about the other; it could begin w/a TS that addresses an idea in both poems, and then you have support from both pieces to discuss it. • Ideas of masculinity vs. femininity. Did you notice how one was aggressive, active, full of movement and force? But the siren herself was more subtle: seemingly passive, cunning, waiting to be “rescued”? • Both discussed same end result, but both had different ways of achieving those means and different ways of portraying themselves.

  10. A Checklist for your Thesis Statements • It presents an original, solid, supportable, and hopefully eloquent IDEA that is sufficiently limited • It answers the SO WHAT by saying something meaningful • It answers all parts of the prompt and doesn’t just rearrange the words w/nothing new • It’s at the beginning of the paper! • It reflects effective and precise language

  11. Now let’s look at some samples… This is the end of part ONE. We will look at samples on an upcoming day once I have time to retype the photocopies I made of your stuff! Stay tuned…

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