"My Mother Pieced Quilts"

Below is your assignment for Monday, April 13.

First reading of the poem "My Mother Pieced Quilts" . . .

1. Note the poet’s name.
2. Read the poem through once without taking notes.
3. Break the poem down into four parts for key word notes.
4. Make boxes for key word notes.

Second reading . . .

Read poem again and take key word notes.
The key word notes strategy involves writing down two or three words per box that summarize the big ideas of that section of the poem.

Answer the following questions about the poem . . .

1. Who is the speaker of the poem?
2. To whom is the speaker speaking?
3. Describe the speaker’s family.
4. Describe 4 sources of fabric for the quilts.
5. Reread lines 51-54. Who are “they”? In what way are they… armed? ready? shouting? celebrating?
6. Describe the theme of the poem.

A stylistic analysis of the sense of the poem . . .

1. Read the poem for the third time because the more times you read a poem, the more you will understand it.
2. Mark up your poem—identify and analyze elements of the poem based on the "sense" poetry terms we reviewed. In other words, identify similes, metaphors, personification, etc. and think about how that poetice devices enhances the meaning of the poem. We will discuss these sense terms in class.
3. Look at the list of sense terms in the blog post below.