Words, words, words!

Thank you for responses last week. I am interested in how the language of the The Great Gatsby affects you as a reader. Please choose a passage from the novel and explain what affect the author's diction and use of figurative language has on you as a reader. Consider using the same questions on the How To Read a Poem worksheet to help you decipher your feelings. Thanks!

First Impressions?

We started reading one of the most famous books in American history this week, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Much has been written about this novel over the years, by many people,and now I would like to hear from you!

What are your first impressions? Do you find the story compelling? What challenges you? What do you like? Dislike? What do you think is going to happen?

Thanks!

Pablo Neruda (Again!)

You had wonderful responses last week. I would like to keep working on the same poem. Please respond in the comment box with steps four (a summary), five, and six from the "How to Read a Poem" worksheet.
Please refer to the post dated October 5th for the poem "If You Forget Me."

As always your response is due by Friday at 5pm. Keep up the good work, I look forward to your responses.

Poems!

Last week we read two poems, The Barred Owl and The History Teacher. Please provide a comment on your experience reading the poems. Be sure to mention the hand out you were given. Did it help you? Did it confuse you?

Read the following poem and apply the first three steps of your How to Read a Poem handout. Respond in the comment box.
Thanks!

If You Forget Me

I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine. Pablo Neruda