Similarly to most everyone else, I also really enjoyed discussing one specific poem in a small group. I really appreciated that instead of trying to answer a question we were creating our own. I feel like this put a lot less pressure on our discussion which enabled us to take it wherever we wanted. I also felt like I was able to contribute more “out there,” half-formed ideas in the small group which can be intimidating when talking with the whole class.
In high school small group work was a nightmare for me. It was generally a situation where my group didn’t take it seriously and I didn’t have the social power to compel them to. Thank you everyone for being invested in understanding the poems! That was an invaluable piece of class for my understanding of this style of poetry.
I enjoyed being able to talk with the entire class in person on Tuesday, and even though I was virtual on Thursday I felt like spending a good chunk of time dissecting the poems was really valuable.
I really enjoyed our conversation in small groups on Thursday about specific poems. I felt like I was able to dive deeper into the meaning of the poem and what the author was trying to communicate. Like some other people have said, sometimes reading a lot of poetry at once is overwhelming and I get flustered, so breaking down just one was really helpful for me and I felt like I could get a better understanding of the poem.
I love analyzing poems in this class and I hope we can do this every week. All I want to be able to do is understand poetry. I find even the simplest of poems so complex and misunderstand the majority of them. However, I love talking about them in this class and how we go line by line to unpack what we think the poems are communicating. Although the idea of writing an essay on a poem seems quite daunting, I am excited to dig at it and see what meanings I can string together.
I really enjoyed how we took some time in class to talk about Ukraine. I think that it is really important to acknowledge real world situations and not have our class/Middlebury become even more of a bubble. Having that discourse about current events is impactful because it allows us as a class to hear how our peers are feeling. It is also great when we take a minute to sit in silence or do a free writing activity to collect and center the class before we begin.
I often get overwhelmed trying to analyze poetry. In highschool I was taught to break down rehortical devices, create strong and obvious theses, and look at literature in the context of the audience and not as a work of art. Trying to break these habits has been very diffucult thus far, but one strategy we employed this week has definatly helped. Pulling and discussing indivudal lines from the poems has really helped me to understand the works we read more profoundly. Using the tool of only looking at one line at a time, I felt the message of the poem to be more clear, and it soothed the anxiety and overwhlem I often feel when studying works of poetry. I feel this was my biggest takeaway from this week, and will help me as we start to form our first essay.
I also get easily overwhelmed when analyzing poetry. A strategy that my group used on Thursday was discussing the first line and last line of the poem in depth. This really helped in terms of getting a grasp of what the poem was about.
I agree with Ruthie in that I loved the discussion surrounding “Staying Quiet”. I was able to see things from a perspective I hadn’t seen before, and gain new insights into the poem that they noticed that I had not. I think taking the time to talk about the power of a single world was pretty incredible.
I thoroughly enjoyed my discussion with Sierra, Rowan, and Eliot on “Staying Quiet” by Hieu Minh Nguyen. The poem acts as a powerful insight into the problematic emotional repercussions of labeling someone “beautiful.” It also details the want and need to be seen as beautiful due to society’s emphasis on it. Although I still don’t know whether it’s a story of sexual assault or objectification or both, I think the questions we thought up are excellent and important. Furthermore, I enjoyed watching and discussing “Sin Nombre.” It was interesting to take an analytical-perspective while watching the film. I never noticed how techniques such as camera angle and lighting are used in the same ways that repetition and juxtaposition are used in literature. This is a new skill I will be using in the future.
Similarly to most everyone else, I also really enjoyed discussing one specific poem in a small group. I really appreciated that instead of trying to answer a question we were creating our own. I feel like this put a lot less pressure on our discussion which enabled us to take it wherever we wanted. I also felt like I was able to contribute more “out there,” half-formed ideas in the small group which can be intimidating when talking with the whole class.
In high school small group work was a nightmare for me. It was generally a situation where my group didn’t take it seriously and I didn’t have the social power to compel them to. Thank you everyone for being invested in understanding the poems! That was an invaluable piece of class for my understanding of this style of poetry.
I enjoyed being able to talk with the entire class in person on Tuesday, and even though I was virtual on Thursday I felt like spending a good chunk of time dissecting the poems was really valuable.
I really enjoyed our conversation in small groups on Thursday about specific poems. I felt like I was able to dive deeper into the meaning of the poem and what the author was trying to communicate. Like some other people have said, sometimes reading a lot of poetry at once is overwhelming and I get flustered, so breaking down just one was really helpful for me and I felt like I could get a better understanding of the poem.
I love analyzing poems in this class and I hope we can do this every week. All I want to be able to do is understand poetry. I find even the simplest of poems so complex and misunderstand the majority of them. However, I love talking about them in this class and how we go line by line to unpack what we think the poems are communicating. Although the idea of writing an essay on a poem seems quite daunting, I am excited to dig at it and see what meanings I can string together.
I really enjoyed how we took some time in class to talk about Ukraine. I think that it is really important to acknowledge real world situations and not have our class/Middlebury become even more of a bubble. Having that discourse about current events is impactful because it allows us as a class to hear how our peers are feeling. It is also great when we take a minute to sit in silence or do a free writing activity to collect and center the class before we begin.
I often get overwhelmed trying to analyze poetry. In highschool I was taught to break down rehortical devices, create strong and obvious theses, and look at literature in the context of the audience and not as a work of art. Trying to break these habits has been very diffucult thus far, but one strategy we employed this week has definatly helped. Pulling and discussing indivudal lines from the poems has really helped me to understand the works we read more profoundly. Using the tool of only looking at one line at a time, I felt the message of the poem to be more clear, and it soothed the anxiety and overwhlem I often feel when studying works of poetry. I feel this was my biggest takeaway from this week, and will help me as we start to form our first essay.
I also get easily overwhelmed when analyzing poetry. A strategy that my group used on Thursday was discussing the first line and last line of the poem in depth. This really helped in terms of getting a grasp of what the poem was about.
I agree with Ruthie in that I loved the discussion surrounding “Staying Quiet”. I was able to see things from a perspective I hadn’t seen before, and gain new insights into the poem that they noticed that I had not. I think taking the time to talk about the power of a single world was pretty incredible.
I thoroughly enjoyed my discussion with Sierra, Rowan, and Eliot on “Staying Quiet” by Hieu Minh Nguyen. The poem acts as a powerful insight into the problematic emotional repercussions of labeling someone “beautiful.” It also details the want and need to be seen as beautiful due to society’s emphasis on it. Although I still don’t know whether it’s a story of sexual assault or objectification or both, I think the questions we thought up are excellent and important. Furthermore, I enjoyed watching and discussing “Sin Nombre.” It was interesting to take an analytical-perspective while watching the film. I never noticed how techniques such as camera angle and lighting are used in the same ways that repetition and juxtaposition are used in literature. This is a new skill I will be using in the future.