AGENDA 9/18

Vocab activity: quickly revise one sentence in your vocabulary notebook to give it more context. Share out 5 responses from the class. Reminder: fixed vocabulary packets due Friday!

Review paraphrases of stanzas from "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Then, examine Stevens' craft in a few of the stanzas together. What choices does he make, what tone does he create, and what literary devices does he use? Find a favorite stanza--what "work" does Stevens put into that stanza in terms of tone, word choice, and literary devices? Share out.

Introduce "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Identity" poem assignment. Students should consider themselves and all of the "roles" they play--how might you be viewed from myriad perspectives?

Each stanza needs to be from a different perspective and convey a clear tone (feeling: e.g., sad, proud, frustrated, mysterious, joyful, etc.).

In addition, your poem (somewhere in the 13 final stanzas) must include these Special Requirements:

• One stanza needs to include a simile, metaphor, or personification.
• One stanza needs to include a repeated sound (rhyme, consonance, assonance, or alliteration).
• One stanza needs to repeat one particular word or phrase to create an effect.
• One stanza needs to ask questions.
• One stanza needs to include sensory details (sights, sounds).
• One stanza needs to include a reference to a famous book, poem, song, movie, fictional character, or real historical person.

HW:  Begin drafting the first two stanzas of your poem, due at the beginning of class tomorrow. Continue to make progress toward 300 pages of independent reading, due 10/3. Revised vocabulary packets due Friday.