How The Projects Make Stronger Readers And Writers

By Author: allan
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I find that Jaeger LeCoultre Replica when we move on to writing a more traditional appreciative and analytical essay on a shorter, contemporary poem, students have gained confidence in their ability to respond to a poem personally, with their senses and imagination, to relate individual moments to the whole, to read closely but accept some ambiguities—in short, to make meaning. Through creating the project and through hearing such a range of responses, each student has found his or her poem in the long, complex ballad that is "Mariner." And in writing about the effect of the projects on their reading of the poem, some find language that will give energy and clarity to their later analytical pieces. Clio, an outstanding painter and architect but initially a weaker writer of analysis, wrote:

The images that were strong in the poem were strengthened for me by the visuals and sounds from the projects, which lifted words off the page and gave new dimensions to the poem. I now can feel, see, and hear the Mariner's story when I re-read ...
... the words. The "Rime" grows more alive and has established its place in my mind. The black and white world of the page has been brilliantly colored. The waves of verse crash over me and break in yellow-green foam. Electrically colored sea snakes crawl on the dark ocean bottom. The albatross, starkly white in life, is tarnished by deep red stains. A tow marks the bird's heart.

"Yes, it's worth spending all this time on this poem," Sophia says. "In the projects, each of us saw and felt and brought out different things in the poem, and I really think all those things are there."
"And maybe that's one sign of a good, lasting poem?" I venture. "That each reader and each art form offered us a different lens?"

"Yeah, I guess," Jason says. "Sometimes when you're in school mode, it's easy to forget how literature and the other arts connect. The projects made the poem more alive for those of us who are visual or audio types. Things that may be difficult to wrap your head around in one form can be made clearer in the other."

"Especially if the thing is long and in really archaic words like festoons" Spencer adds. "Frances-ca's slam version was still using writing, but it helped me relate to the drive and edge that's really underneath Coleridge's words that maybe are harder for us to get nowadays. Plus her rhythm made me think more about how the meter of a ballad works, kind of Seiko Replica Watches drives the story on, and also how modern poets and rappers, maybe just as troubled as I guess Coleridge was, are still using rhythm and rhyme to express themselves."
"Time for one more comment. Well, Vic?"

"When I reread the poem," Vic says, "I saw it not just as a story or good images and sounds, but a net of emotions to be reflected on. I think Coleridge didn't want the poem to just be admired for its form and rhyme but wanted people to let it affect them and not be afraid to relate it to their lives in a deeper way."