Poetry Introduction Pre-Reading Exercise



Poetry Introduction Pre-Reading Exercise

1. Quickwrite:

a. Make a list of things you do during an ordinary day. What is the first thing you do in the morning? What is the last thing you do before going to bed? What is your favorite part of the day? Then, we will share.

b. Write down any information you can recall about Maya Angelou.

2. What are the characteristics of how poetry is organized? Jot down some answers, and we’ll brainstorm as a class.

3. Consider the following lines, words, and phrases from a Maya Angelou poem. Write a brief summary of what you think the poem will be about based on these words. We’ll compare and discuss our summaries as a class.

I’ve got the children to tend

Clothes

Garden

Company

Chicken

Clean

Sick

Cool

Fiercest wind

Fall gently

Let me rest

You’re all that I can call my own

4. Now, read the poem. Note where the words from activity 3 appear in the poem. Let’s see if your predictions were correct!

“Woman’s Work” by Maya Angelou

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|I've got the children to tend |

|The clothes to mend |

|The floor to mop |

|The food to shop |

|Then the chicken to fry |

|The baby to dry |

|I got company to feed |

|The garden to weed |

|I've got shirts to press |

|The tots to dress |

|The can to be cut |

|I gotta clean up this hut |

|Then see about the sick |

|And the cotton to pick. |

| |

|Shine on me, sunshine |

|Rain on me, rain |

|Fall softly, dewdrops |

|And cool my brow again. |

| |

|Storm, blow me from here |

|With your fiercest wind |

|Let me float across the sky |

|'Til I can rest again. |

| |

|Fall gently, snowflakes |

|Cover me with white |

|Cold icy kisses and |

|Let me rest tonight. |

| |

|Sun, rain, curving sky |

|Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone |

|Star shine, moon glow |

|You're all that I can call my own. |

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5. How close were your predictions to what the poem was really about? Let’s talk about these. How would knowing the title have changed your predictions? Looking at the title of a piece of literature is a good start to understanding what you are about to read.

6. Consider the following words and lines from another poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, entitled “Daily.”

These shriveled seeds we plant

Soil

We fold

We slice and fry

I address

The hands are churches that worship the world

7. Now, taking the title into account also, write a brief summary of what you think the poem will be about. We will share these, and then we will read to find out who is closest.

8. Read the following poem. Pay attention to where the words from question 7 appear in the poem. How close were your predictions?

Daily

 

These shriveled seeds we plant,

corn kernel, dried bean,

poke into loosened soil,

cover over with measured fingertips

 

These T-shirts we fold into

perfect white squares

 

These tortillas we slice and fry to crisp strips

This rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowl

 

This bed whose covers I straighten

smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket

and nothing hangs out

 

This envelope I address

so the name balances like a cloud

in the center of sky

 

This page I type and retype

This table I dust till the scarred wood shines

This bundle of clothes I wash and hang and wash again

like flags we share, a country so close

no one needs to name it

 

The days are nouns:  touch them

The hands are churches that worship the world

 

 ~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~

9. How close were your predictions? Did reading Maya Angelou’s poem help you to predict what this poem would be about? If so, why? We’ll discuss these responses as a class.

10. Let’s think about context. What is context. These words I pulled from the poems were taken out of context. Did that change their meaning? Did these words mean different things for you when put back into the context of the poems. Look for specific examples. We’ll also talk about this as a class.

11. What culture do you think these two women are writing about? What words give the cultures away in each poem? Do you think their work is the same even though they are of different races and different places? Explain, using lines from the poems as evidence.

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