The Poetry of Robert Frost
I am not a fan of studying a writer's life before I read their writing. After all, we don't do that with films. For example, the film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is due out soon, but do you really need to know about the life of Matt Reeves before you see the film?
In spite of the above paragraph, some background might be of interest. In a nutcase, Frost was American, from New England, and liked to portray himself as a Vermont farmer who wrote poetry that was grounded in "the sound of sense." The picture above is Vermont in fall. (I suppose I mean autumn. I was just trying to be American but then felt the need to qualify it with this parenthetical remark, lest you think I was alluding to a felix culpa fall from grace because some girl was in the process of giving a guy called Vermont (who was clearly a daytime soap star) an apple that made him realise he was nuddie.) Below is a brief video that is useful as an introduction.) "After Apple-picking"The Big Q for this poem is: how can I use critical texts to develop my understanding of the poem? The button on the right is one resource you will use.
We will start interpreting this poem in a number of ways. Each of the bullets below could be a potential "way in" to any text. These are the basic skills needed for Paper 1.
Homework this week - due Tuesday 13th May: Write about 2 - 3 paragraphs about "After Apple-picking" on your GoogleDrive document called Frost Response and Reflection. Discuss an image or an idea that occurs throughout the poem. Here are some examples:
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"Watch Frost recite his own poem. What does his voice emphasise? What difference, if any, does it make to have the poet recite his own work? Does it enrich your experience of the poem or does it not matter at all?
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The buttons below link to websites that may be useful for you.
The above button opens a YouTube video that is a satisfactory interpretation of the poem. It is not great and is a bit like a shopping list of stuff the teacher said. His next step is to come up with an over-arching thesis - a big idea that is the basis of his discussion. As an IOP or a Guided Literary Analysis (Paper 1), this is about a 4 at SL. He has a lot of good ideas and examples and yet, I still need to be convinced that this student understands the points he is making. Eg. at about 7 mins he talks of single syllables showing resolve but he should show HOW these short syllables show resolve.
Clck the button above to download a Word document which is a collection of extracts from critical texts about the poem "After Apple-picking." We will use this in class on Wednesday 6th May.
You can highlight bits on the Word document and cut text and paste it for this week's homework. If you prefer to read the text on a web page, click here to go to the University of Illinois. |