The Sound of Words: An Introduction to Poetry

Activities

Activity One: What's Behind the Door?

Students will begin the unit by practicing their recognition of audible tones that come from "behind the door" as Frost would say. This activity can be completed in one or two class periods (on a ninety minute block).

As preparation for the first activity, students should read two of Frost's essays, "The Imagining Ear," and, "The Last Refinement of Subject Matter: Vocal Imagination." Students will come to class with copies they have annotated while practicing close-reading techniques. Before discussing the articles, the instructor will play audio recordings of people speaking with tones that are recognizable—but words that are not. These recordings can be generated with the foreign languages teachers in one's school or compiled from other available resources. Students will recognize the tone that exists outside the denotation of the words.

Students will then go to their groups and discuss the Frost essays. They can practice the examples that Frost uses (like the changes in saying the word "no") to emphasize the fact that a particular word does not have an inherent tone; that tone is determined by context. They can also brainstorm and practice this same activity with words they come up with themselves. Other ideas include "hello," "yes," and, "oh." Groups will share their ideas with the class.

An enrichment component would require students to "eavesdrop" for homework and come in with five sentences, phrases or words that they heard people say with a distinctive tone. They would present words without any identification of the tone, and classmates would try to verbalize the phrases with the appropriate tone. A comparison of classroom performance with the initially observed scenario would allow for the beginnings of connection with the written context—why the classmate spoke the sentence with a different tone, where applicable..

Activity Two: Are You Listening?

The unit will continue with a transition to poetry. They will begin with "dialogue poems" to facilitate the transition between the vocalized sound and the intonation within a written context. This activity can be completed in one or two class periods.

As preparation for the second activity, students will practice close reading strategies and annotate Frost's poem "Home Burial." Students will work with partners to practice until they have a reading that they feel is most appropriate to the text. I would have my students work on this at the same time to avoid initial "stage fright" and nervousness interfering with the goals—yes, this will be a loud and chaotic day, and another instructor might want to change to better suit your class and school personality. When they have established their readings, I will ask them to identify the tones they used in the readings. They will then talk about what made them read those parts with that tone. They key here will be to force students into a text-based discussion—they can't just say, "Well, a woman who just lost a baby would be upset." No outside context allowed. .

At this point students may present their interpretations to the class, and the ways that the context contributes to the tone can be discussed and debated with the entire class, especially if there were differences in how the groups chose to read the parts. The final element of the discussion should focus on how the tone enhances the meaning of the text.

Activity Three: Sounds of Greatness

Having become more sensitive to language usage through their study of poetry, students will move on to the study of how the relevance of sound can also play a role in prose analysis. In keeping with my overall strategy, this is an activity is based on one that I have used before in the classroom. I am shifting the focus from a simple analysis of diction to a more encompassing look at how the sound of the passage, generated with some of the same techniques used in poetry, significantly impacts the tone and, by extension, the meaning of the text. While the activity itself can be completed in two to three class periods, the preparatory work will take significant time.

For one, students should have completed The Great Gatsby prior to the activity. In keeping with the focus on a close, text-based reading without outside interference, students will complete the reading independently. Although probably considered heresy to most high school English teachers, the novel will be presented to students without historical or biographical context. We will not discuss Fitzgerald or the Roaring 20s; we won't do any posters about fashion of the period; we won't listen to any music. Students will analyze the prose the same way we have been practicing the poetry.

Further, this activity would benefit from the prior completion of exercises from the "Sound and Meaning" chapter in Perrine, presented in detail in the strategies section. Most of the categories explained in that chapter are also found in Gatsby. Students will be more familiar with those strategies if they have completed the readings and exercises in the Perrine text.

The activity itself is modeled after the requirements of the AP English Language and Composition exam and certainly could be modified to particular needs of different classes. On the day of the activity, students will be directed to focus on one short passage from the first chapter of Gatsby. The passage begins, "We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space," and ends, "and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor."⁶² Students will analyze the passage in as much detail as possible, focusing on the identification of how the author uses poetic techniques to help establish a tone. They will, in turn, discuss how this tone contributes to the meaning of the text. At this point I am usually continuing to expand on what it means to discuss the meaning of the text, or the author's purpose. Students tend to focus on didactic or moralistic readings from their youth; they need continued practice in recognizing that a "theme" can be simply observational, emblematic of something that happens. Any technique they identify must be connected to the effect it creates in the passage, and how the establishment of that tone contributes to the author's purpose.

To begin, students will take the prose selection and write it in the fashion of a poem. They cannot eliminate or change any words. This manipulation of the text will encourage them to focus on a close reading of fiction that the comparable to the reading they have done previously with poetry. Using think-pair-share or another discussion group strategy, students can discuss the differences in how they chose to reposition the text. This should immediately focus them on some of the techniques identified I the Perrine text, particularly the way that the author emphasizes the words that are most important to the meaning. Why did they end a line where they did? Why break into a stanza? Any number of questions can guide them to thinking about what they saw—or heard—when they were looking at the text. The passage is also rich in other examples of the language generating sound. Students will identify examples of onomatopoeia in the "whip and snap of the curtains," along with other phonetic intensives, like the dresses that "were rippling and fluttering."."⁶³ They may also consider the juxtaposition of the euphonious words, like "buoyed,"⁶⁴ with those that are more cacophonous. Students may also notice how the author manipulates the speed of the text. When Tom Buchanan enters the room and shuts the windows, the sentence reads much faster as he kills the wind that was creating the movement and the "ballooned"⁶⁵ effect.

These elements should be discussed in conjunction with other stylistic techniques, not arbitrarily isolated as a singular facet of language. Students will recognize diction, imagery, and even metonymy. For example, they will notice the sea imagery and the "frosted wedding cake."⁶⁶ They also tend to focus on the use of color in the passage—the "rosy-colored space," the "wine-colored rug," and the "gleaming white against the fresh grass outside.""⁶⁷ Students will be asked to identify the tone of the passage, defending their choice with text. In keeping with the AP course requirements, I will then have them write a thesis that identifies how the author uses these elements to achieve his purpose. They may choose to focus on issues of expectations, class, the American Dream, or the passage of time. Any number of ideas would be acceptable as long as they can be defended with text.

An enrichment component can require students to recreate the activity independently, without so much guidance. Divide students into their discussion groups. Divide the novel into the required number of segments and assign one to each group. Each group can select one short passage and start from the beginning, analyzing the text and constructing a thesis that explains how the author uses the language to create the tone and the meaning of the text. They can outline how they would write a paper and present their findings to the class.