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Notes on Vocab Protrude: Something always protrudes from or over something else. – The pencil protruded from his pocket. – The visor protruded over his face.

Notes on Vocab Prehensile: Made for grasping; usually used in connection with objects; it has no other form except the adjective form. – Thumbs make the human hand prehensile. – The head of a pair of pliers is formed so as to be prehensile.

Notes on Poetry The “voice” in a poem is called the speaker. What is being talked about in the poem is called either the subject or the situation. Remember ETF: – Experience the poem: what are your strongest initial impressions? – Trace impressions back to causes (look at the details). – Find other details that relate to those which created your first impressions (patterns).

What are we aiming for re: poetry? Our goal regarding poetry is to write a solid response. A “solid” response has the following features: – It makes a claim that shows the writer understands the poem in terms of speaker and situation and can correctly use basic literary terms like “tone”. – It uses details from the poem to support the main claim. – It explains how those details support the main claim. – An exemplary response is the one that will go “deeper” into the poem, accounting for nuance and ambiguity.

What are we aiming for re: poetry? “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost seems to be about the speaker’s frustrations around making choices whose outcome cannot be predicted. The speaker describes a situation in which a person is walking in the woods and comes to a fork that forces him to make a choice as to which way he wants to go. He chooses his path based on the fact that one path appears “grassy” and “wanted wear”, meaning that it hadn’t been used as much as the other one. At the end of the poem, the speaker seems doubtful about his choice; he says, “I shall be telling this with a sigh,” which is a sign that someone isn’t quite satisfied with something; perhaps he thinks the other path would have been better. Looking deeper into the poem, however, it becomes apparent that making an unusual choice cannot be the reason for the speaker’s doleful attitude. In the middle of the poem, he says, “the passing there had worn them really about the same”, and “both that morning equally lay/ in leaves no step had trodden black,” meaning that neither of the paths seemed very well worn. Therefore, the man’s sadness must have less to do with the fact that he made an unusual choice then that he had to make the choice blind.

Now you try! “My Papa’s Waltz” – Do ETF on the poem. – Write a short (35-65 word) response