Poetry

Poetry Unit, cont.

But Why?

GLO #5 Effective Communicator

Language

fun

speed

A Symbol

Personification

I Used to Love H.E.R.

-Common

Symbols in Speak

is using an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning

is the practice of attaching human traits and characteristics with inanimate objects, phenomena and animals

Figurative language

I met this girl, when I was ten years old

And what I loved most she had so much soul

She was old school, when I was just a shorty

Never knew throughout my life she would be there for me

On the regular, not a church girl she was secular

Not about the money, those studs was mic checking her

Literal language

About my people she was teaching me

By not preaching to me, but speaking to me in a method that was leisurely

So easily I approach

She dug my rap, that's how we got close

But then she broke to the West coast, and that was cool

Cause around the same time, I went away to school

And I'm a man of expanding, so why should I stand in her way

She probably get her money in L.A

And she did stud, she got big pub but what was foul

She said that the pro-black, was going out of style

She said, Afrocentricity, was of the past

So she got into R&B hip-house bass and jazz

Now black music is black music and it's all good

I wasn't salty, she was with the boys in the hood

I might've failed to mention that this chick was creative

Once the man got to her, he altered her native

Told her if she got an image and a gimmick

That she could make money, and she did it like a dummy

Now I see her in commercials, she's universal

She used to only swing it with the inner-city circle

Now she be in the burbs, looking rock and dressing hippie

...

Talking about popping Glocks serving rocks and hitting switches

...

Stressing how hardcore and "real" she is

She was really the realest, before she got into showbiz

...

Cause who I'm talking bout y'all is hip-hop

tradition

uses words in a way that is different from their most common meaning

uses words according to their most common meaning

power

9-10.RL.10 ...read and comprehend literature, including ... poems, in the band proficiently

9-10.W.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

e.g. hot (adj.)

having a high temperature

Be careful; the stove is hot

detail

Symbolism Exercise:

• Pick three of the images below:

• write a short description of what it is, then a detailed description of what it means to you

Personification Exercise:

• list 5 verbs that humans perform (things you do or have done)

e.g. urge

Topics:

• list 5 objects, animals, or ideas (things that are not human)

e.g time

• write 3 sentences where one of your things does that action (give it some context)

• A time that you learned something new that changed you in some way
• Something funny that happened to you (or family or friends)
• A time you got lost somewhere
• A difficult decision you had to make
• The end of a friendship or relationship
• A moment when you felt that you were starting to grow up

e.g. Time urged me to wake up another day and take another step.

Homework:

on the back of the brainstorm handout write a narrative poem (5 stanzas) that:

• fulfills all of the requirements of the blue sheet
• has 1 symbol
• has 1 personification

it helps us surpass the barriers of language by creating a new shared experience

write a narrative poem that uses

symbolism and personification

Goal: