Sunday, December 5, 2010

Poetry Daily Postings

Think of this as something between a short paper and a Bb discussion board posting:  a little less formal than the former, a little less casual and more thoughtful (with fewer typos) than the latter. 

So, read (ideally each day) the daily poem on Poetry Daily (http://poems.com/).  Choose your favorite poem for the week, and then write a short piece on why you like it, why you think it is successful, moving, interesting, effective--whatever it is the poem does to you that you like.  I assume that part of what you write about will be what emotional or intellectual effects it achieves (English teacher talk for “what it’s about”) and that part of what you write will involve discussing how it achieves those effects.  And I assume that you’ll need to do some careful close-reading of the sort we’ve been doing in class.  

How long is a “short piece”?  Well, this is one night’s homework, not a major assignment, so it’s what you can write in less than an hour, which will vary from person to person.  But, for most people that probably means a page and a half to two double-spaced pages.   More is fine, less than a page and a half will probably feel thin, but we’ll see.

In your posting, be sure to include the title and author and a link to the actual poem.

I’ve never given this assignment before, so we’ll see how it goes and make adjustments as needed as we go.

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