Description
Overview
This is the reader response you will upload to Canvas in Reader Response 1 by Friday, end-of-day.
This is your chance to not only go in depth in some aspects of the texts discussed in class but also take valuable notes you can use later in your essays.
Instructions
Select either Option 1 or Option 2. In each option, answer questions A and B on time before week 4 when the general feedback is published.
Since you will submit as a text entry, please copy and paste the questions below with your answers. I will give you individual feedback once you submit your response.
Option 1. “Immigrants” by Pat Mora
wrap their babies in the American flag, 1
feed them mashed hot dogs and apple pie,
name them Bill and Daisy,
buy them blonde dolls that blink blue
eyes or a football and tiny cleats 5
before the baby can even walk,
speak to them in thick English,
hallo, babee, hallo, 8
whisper in Spanish or Polish
when the babies sleep, whisper
in a dark parent bed, that dark 11
parent fear, “Will they like
our boy, our girl, our fine american
boy, our fine american girl?” 14
Here is a link to a recording of the poem by Pat Mora (the first one is “Immigrants”) https://soundcloud.com/latinousa/pat-mora-reading-immigrants-la
A. Comprehension Questions on “Immigrants”
Read the poem aloud. Discuss your reactions to the poem. Did you notice anything unusual in the form, the words, or the spelling?
Make a list of what the emigrant parents in the poem do to Americanize their children.
What emotions do they feel? What do they wish for? What do they fear?
Make a list of the challenges faced by the children of emigrants from a particular country
B. Identifying Poetic Devices in “Immigrants”
What does the speaker of the poem imply when using a lowercase “a” for “american” in line 13?
Identify one instance of enjambment see the poetry glossary Poetry Glossary. Explain the enjambment. How does the enjambment affect the way you read the lines?
Option 2. “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing: 5
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made, 10
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go. 15
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them. 20
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across 25
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it 30
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, 35
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. 40
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.” 45
Here is a link to a recording of the poem read by the actor, Leonard NimoyThe Mending Wall – Robert Frost – Read by Leonard NimoyLinks to an external site.
Please note the title of the recording is different from the title of the poem. In your response, please use “Mending Wall” without the article.
A. Comprehension Questions on “Mending Wall”
Read “Mending Wall” aloud. First, read the poem all the way through and then read it again, stopping at lines where the voice and focus of the text change. Note these lines for your discussion
Begin by creating an outline and synopsis of the narrative of the poem. What is taking place in this poem? What are the speaker and his neighbor doing? How does the title of the poem relate to the action? You may look at the way Frost presents the argument, matching the neighbor’s saying (lines 27, 45) with his own stubborn belief,“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” (line 35).
Next, examine the dialogue taking place between the speaker and the neighbor. What are their perspectives? What arguments do they make directly to one another? How do lines 1–4 support the speaker’s point of view in the dialogue with his neighbor? Use examples from the text to support your answers.
B. Identifying Poetic Devices in “Mending Wall”
Identify one instance where Robert Frost uses the technique of personification in the poem. Explain what is personified. How the personification affects your understanding of the poem.
Cite one line in which Frost employs the use of repetition. How does this affect your reading of the poem as a whole?
Identify at least one use of simile. How does the use of simile fit into the poem as a whole?
Identify one instance of the use of metaphor. Explain the metaphor in your own words. What image does it bring to mind?
Identify at least one line that you think might be a use of irony by the speaker. Why do you think the speaker uses irony?
Works Cited
Frost, Robert. “Mending Wall.” poetryfoundation.org. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/ Links to an external site.Accessed 20 April 2019.
Mora, Pat. “Immigrants.” Southwestcrossroads.org.http://www.southwestcrossroads.org/record.php?num=865 Links to an external site.Accessed 20 April 2019.
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