Monday, February 24 Mary Oliver response/ collecting Spoon River Anthology

IMPORTANT: Please turn in your poetry work on Margaret Atwood's Morning in a Burned House. This was the assignment from the Thursday before the break. After today, it is worth only 50 points.

1) In class: vocabulary handout on the words from the poems

we have read in class. (class handout / copy below)There is nothing new; and for that reason the quiz will be this FRIDAY, February 28. There will be no contextual sentences. You will have receive 5 points for every word you correctly define and identify the part of speech.

2) Everyone will collect Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology from the library today. I'm sending small groups at a time.

3) We are going to read / listen to Mary Oliver's poem The Summer Day. The poem is a metaphor for how important - and fleeting- life is, how we- grasshoppers- are instrinsically entwined with nature and, if we are mindful, will choose a path that will enrich our lives. After we review the poem, I would like you to take out your chromebooks, create a document with an MLA heading entitled The Summer Day and respond in approximately 200 words to the following question, which is the final couplet of the poem. Let the poem inspire your response.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

share, as usual, 2006630

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

******Vocabulary words from the poems we read.  Hand out on Monday, February 24…quiz on Friday, February 28

The quiz will consist of defining the words only and identifying the part of speech.

1.       cornice (noun)- a molding around a room just below the ceiling.  Cornices are often decorative.

2.       to surmise (verb)- to suppose or deduce  You may surmise that with little effort, you will not succeed.

3.       cindery (adjective)- ashy......Cinderella’s hair was gray and cindery from cleaning out the fireplace.

4.       incandescent (adjective) emitting a fiery light  His smile was incandescent, and his kisses ever-flowing.

5.       ominous (adjective)- threatening, something bad happening   A dark sky is an ominous sign.

6.       fawn (noun)- young deer  A mother deer might neglect its fawn, if a human touches it.

7.       to kindle (noun) – to light a fire or to awaken a thought  The poem kindled a latent thought.

8.       a plank (noun)- thin, long piece of timber  While iron is substituted for planks in buildings, once they were only wood

9.       attired (adjective)- dressed …How are you attired today?

10.   visage (noun)-face- His visage wore a trail of tears.

11.   to mock (verb)- to tease or laugh at.  To mock another individual is often a form of bullying.

12.   colossal (adjective)-extremely large     The sphynx is an ancient, colossal structure.

13.   sycamore (noun)- a tree    Deciduous sycamore trees grow large, shady leaves.

14.   rankish (adjective)-growing out of control.   The weeds were rankish, so it took several hours to tame them.

15.   to dapple (verb)- to mark with spots     The sun radiating through the leaves dappled the afternoon grass.

16.   katydid (noun)  - type of cricket   The chirping katydids sang to us as the moon rose.

17.   to begirt (verb)- to surround             A series of ponds begirt the farmer’s field.

18.   bayou (noun)- a marshy outlet in the southern US.  Crawdads and shrimp are fished for in Louisiana’s bayous.

19.   conviction (noun) – a firmly held belief   The conviction in his voice was poignant, as we affirmed out beliefs.

20.   spiritus mundi (noun) spiritual world    After World War I, many feared that the spiritus mundi had collapsed

21.   muscadine (nou n)- a southern grape         Muscadine grades are sweet and make a refreshing summer refresher.

to grope (verb) - to feel about blindly    Sometimes we feel like we grope through life, not knowing what’s to come.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               ********************************************

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