Wednesday, May 11, 2011

5 paragraph essay

Bun
- Hook
- Introduction
Special Sauce
Toppings
Meat
Bun

Organization of ideas

2nd Biggest Idea
- smaller ideas in service of

leads to

Big Idea
- smaller ideas in service of

leads to

Big Idea
- smaller ideas in service of

leads to

Biggest Big Idea
- smaller ideas in service of

leads back to 2nd Biggest Idea

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Seamus Heaney Poems

Death of a Naturalist

All the year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods. (pieces of earth)
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell
.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampots full of the jellied
Specks to range on the window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles
. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.
Then one hot day when fields were rankWith cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods;
their loose necks pulsed like snails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades
, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

metaphor-
onomatopoeia-
simile-
alliteration-
negative-
anaphora-
caesera-
imagery-
oxymoron-


Churning Day
A thick crust, coarse-grained as limestone rough-cast,
hardened gradually on top of the four crocks
that stood, large pottery bombs, in the small pantry.
After the hot brewery of gland, cud and udder,
cool porous earthenware fermented the butter milk
for churning day, when the hooped churn was scoured
with plumping kettles and the busy scrubber
echoed daintily on the seasoned wood.
It stood then, purified, on the flagged kitchen floor.

Out came the four crocks, spilled their heavy lip
of cream, their white insides, into the sterile churn.
The staff, like a great whiskey muddler fashioned
in deal wood, was plunged in, the lid fitted.
My mother took first turn, set up rhythms
that, slugged and thumped for hours. Arms ached.
Hands blistered. Cheeks and clothes were spattered
with flabby milk.

Where finally gold flecks
began to dance. They poured hot water then,
sterilized a birchwood bowl
and little corrugated butter-spades.
Their short stroke quickened, suddenly
a yellow curd was weighting the churned-up white,
heavy and rich, coagulated sunlight
that they fished, dripping, in a wide tin strainer,
heaped up like gilded gravel in the bowl.

The house would stink long after churning day,
acrid as a sulphur mine. The empty crocks
were ranged along the wall again, the butter
in soft printed slabs was piled on pantry shelves.
And in the house we moved with gravid ease,
our brains turned crystals full of clean deal churns,
the plash and gurgle of the sour-breathed milk,
the pat and slap of small spades on wet lumps.


Heaney uses sensory imagery to convey the senses and feelings associated with the memory.
He uses similes and metaphors, adjectives and adverbs to make his descriptions more vivid and immediate in our minds.
1st stanza:
The poem begins with a detailed description of the four crocks in which the buttermilk is standing.
Likens the thick crust  that has formed on the milk to "limestone rough-cast".
Uses a metaphor to describe the crocks as "large pottery bombs", which gives evidence for the shape of these vessels.
The use of the adjective "plumbing" is unusual and has an onomatopoeic effect, imitating the sound of the kettle boiling.
The word "purified" gives a religious sense to the rituals that have been carried out to prepare for the transforming of the milk into butter.
2nd stanza:
Personifies the crocks- the milk coming from their "white insides" as if it is part of them
Hard, physical nature of the work is expressed in the phrase "slugged and thumped for hours. Arms ached. Hands blistered."
As others take turns they are soon "spattered" with "flabby" milk as it begins to coagulate (change to a solid or semisolid state).
3rd stanza:
The verb "dance" is used to describe the gold flecks of butter as they begin to form, this suggests a kind of celebration for the feat.
The metaphor "coagulated sunlight" describes the coagulation of the milk into butter and suggests the colour and warmth and glow.
The final simile in the stanza repeats this image of a golden colour, with the use of the word "gilded" emphasizing its richness.
4th (last) stanza:
The use of the word "stink" at the beginning of the final stanza is unexpected, but describes the ever lasting smell of the curd. This is emphasized further by the simile "acrid as a sulphur mine", graphically giving a sense of the pervading/ permeating nature of the smell in the house.
The ending of the poem creates a sense of a job well done and of satisfaction. Their minds are like "crystals", the churns are clean and the onomatopoeic effect of "plash" and "gurgle", "pat" and "slap" gives a satisfying sense of the butter being slapped by the butter spades and turned into slabs.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Death be not Proud:
DEATH, be not proud, though some have callèd thee          
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:      
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow  
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.        
From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be,                  5
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;         
And soonest our best men with thee do go           
Rest of their bones and souls' delivery!         
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,       
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;          10
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well       
And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
  One short sleep past, we wake eternally,     
  And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!       

Holy Sonnet 14
Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you 
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; 
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me and bend 
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. 
 I, like an usurped town to another due, 
 Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end; 
 Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, 
 But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
 Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov-ED fain, 
 But am betrothed unto your enemy 
 Divorce me, untie or break that knot again
 Take me to you, imprison me, for I 
 Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, 
 Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Paradox    
Self-conscious/Self-questioning
Metaphors/Similies
Abrupt Opening
Witty
Conceit
Biblical Allusions
Contradictions

paintings




Glossary

Glossary:

  • Metaphor- the transference of a quality from one thing to another.

  • Simile- comparison between two things using like/ as

  • Analogy- a relationship of resemblance or equivalence between two situations  

  • Conceits- comparison and contrast between a metaphysical quality and a tangible object

  • Alliteration- refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of a series of words and/or phrases.

  • Assonance- is the refrain of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences

  • Consonance- repetition of the same consonant two or more times in short succession.

  • Onomatopoeia- the formation of a word, as cuckoo  or boom,  by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent.
  • Anaphora- repetition of a word or words at the beginning of two or more successive verses, clauses, or sentences.
  • Caesera- a break, especially a sense pause, usually near the middle of a verse.
  • Oxymoron- a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect.

metaphysical poetry (page 4)

Metaphysical Poetry: Page 4
·         17th century English writers
·         Ex- Abraham Cowley, Richard Crashaw, John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell and Henry Vaughan
·         Used simple events and expanded them into broad abstract ideas
·         Unusual/ paradoxical images
·         Writers were intellectual
·         Wrote against the backdrop of revolutionary political developments:
o   Continuous internal conflict
o   The impeachment and beheading (1649) of King Charles I
o   The Civil War which followed this
·         Self-conscious/ self-questioning
·         Usage of metaphors
·         Abrupt opening
·         Witty
·         Conceits

jackson pollock

Jackson Pollock:
·         American painter
·         Major figure in the abstract expressionist movement
·         Struggled with alcoholism for most of his life
·         Best known for dripping and throwing paint
·         Would place the canvas on the floor since he believed that “paint has a life of its own” (would use sand and broken glass to do this) and he wanted to “engage the painting while in the thought process”
·         Would use “sticks, towels and knives” to apply the paint onto the canvas