The Split cherry Tree - Task for part one

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Imagery

Imagery Definition

Imagery means to use figurative language to represent objects, actions and ideas in such a way that it appeals to our physical senses.

Usually it is thought that imagery makes use of particular words that create visual representation of ideas in our minds. The word imagery is associated with mental pictures. However, this idea is but partially correct. Imagery, to be realistic, turns out to be more complex than just a picture. Read the following examples of imagery carefully:

• It was dark and dim in the forest. – The words “dark” and “dim” are visual images.
• The children were screaming and shouting in the fields. - “Screaming” and “shouting” appeal to our sense of hearing or auditory sense.
• He whiffed the aroma of brewed coffee. – “whiff” and “aroma” evoke our sense of smell or olfactory sense.
• The girl ran her hands on a soft satin fabric. – The idea of “soft” in this example appeals to our sense of touch or tactile sense.
• The fresh and juicy orange are very cold and sweet. – “ juicy” and “sweet” when associated with oranges have an effect on our sense of taste or gustatory sense.

Imagery needs the aid of figures of speech like simile, metaphor, personification, onomatopoeia etc. in order to appeal to the bodily senses. Let us analyze how famous poets and writers use imagery in literature.

Imagery Examples in Literature

Example #1

Imagery of light and darkness is repeated many times in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. Consider an example from Act I, Scene V:

“O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear;”

Romeo praises Juliet by saying that she appears more radiant than the brightly lit torches in the hall. He says that at night her face glows like a bright jewel shining against the dark skin of an African. Through the contrasting images of light and dark, Romeo portrays Juliet’s beauty.

Example #2

John Keats’ “To the Autumn” is an ode rich with auditory imagery examples. In the last five lines of his ode he says:

“Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”

The animal sounds in the above excerpt keep appealing to our sense of hearing. We hear the lamb bleating and the crickets chirping. We hear the whistles of the redbreast robin and the twitters of swallows in the sing. Keats call these sounds as the song of autumn.

Example #3

In prose, imagery aids writers to accomplish a vivid description of events. Below is an example of an effective use of imagery from E.B. White’s “Once More to the Lake“:

“When the others went swimming my son said he was going in, too. He pulled his dripping trunks from the line where they had hung all through the shower and wrung them out. Languidly, and with no thought of going in, I watched him, his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled up around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of death.”

The images depicting the dampness of clothes, in the above lines, convey a sense of chilly sensation that we get from wet clothes.

Example #4

In “The Great Expectations” written by Charles Dickens, Pip (the hero of the novel) uses many images to describe a damp morning in a marsh:

“It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window… Now, I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass,…. On every rail and gate, wet lay clammy; and the marsh-mist was so thick, that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our village—a direction which they never accepted, for they never came there—was invisible to me until I was quite close under it.”

The repeated use of the words “damp” and “wet” makes us feel how rough it was for him in that damp and cold morning. The thick “marsh-mist” aids our imagination to visualize the scene of mourning in a marshland.

Function of Imagery

The function of imagery in literature is to generate a vibrant and graphic presentation of a scene that appeals to as many of the reader’s senses as possible. It aids the reader’s imagination to envision the characters and scenes in the literary piece clearly. Apart from the above mentioned function, images , which are drawn by using figures of speech like metaphor, simile, personification, onomatopoeia etc. serve the function of beautifying a piece of literature.

Verse Definition

Verse Definition

The literary device verse denotes a single line of poetry. The term can also be used to refer to a stanza or other parts of poetry. Generally, the device is stated to encompass three possible meanings, namely a line of metrical writing, astanza, or, a piece written in meter. It is important to note here that the term “verse” is often incorrectly used for referring to “poetry” in order to differentiate it from prose.

Verse Examples

Example #1 Daffodils by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

The above quoted stanza from William Wordsworth poem presents to the reader various examples of a verse. It can be noted here, that the use of the tool of verse adds a scenic element to the structure of poetry.
There are generally two types of verse namely free verse and blank verse.

Example #2 Free Verse

A free verse poem has no set meter; that is to say there is no rhyming scheme present and the poem doesn’t follow a set pattern. For some poets this characteristic serves as a handy tool for the purpose camouflaging their fluctuation of thoughts, whereas others think that it affects the quality of work being presented.

i. After the Sea-Ship by Walt Whitman

After the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds;
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship:
Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves—liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;

As can be seen from the stanza quoted above, there is an absence of rhyming effect and structure in each verse.

ii. Fog by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Here, it can be observed that there is no form or rhyme scheme present in the verses quoted above.

Example #3 Blank Verse

There is no rhyming effect present in a blank verse poem. However, it has an iambic pentameter. It is usually employed for presenting passionate events and to create an impact on the reader. Shakespeare was an ardent user of blank verse.

i. An Example of a Blank Verse Poem

Furball Friend

Sweet pet by day, hunter by night. She sleeps,
she eats, she plays. My feet, caught in white paws.
She’s up the fence, watching her prey – a bird.
Poor thing, better run quick, ’cause watch, she’ll pounce!
She’ll sweetly beg for fuss, but don’t be fooled.
’Cause one minute she’ll purr and smile, then snap!
She’ll spit and hiss – and oh – surprise! A mouse.
He’s dead. A gift. Retracts her claws. Miaow!
Figure of eight between my legs, looks up
at me and purrs. The sound pulls my heartstrings.
Her big blue eyes like dinner plates – so cute.
Cunning she is, she knows I can’t resist.
Curling up tight, we sleep entwined as one.
Despite her quirks, I would not change a claw
of her. Cheeky Sammy: my snow-white queen.

The poem quoted above depicts the use of blank verse throughout. Here, it is important to note that there is no rhyming scheme present. Also, it can be seen that there is presence of iambic pentameter throughout the verses.

Functions of Verse

The use of the literary term “verse” in a piece of writing has a pleasing effect on the reader’s mind. It is usually employed in poetry writing. The poets make use of the tool of verse in order to provide their poetry with a structure. It serves as an avenue through which writers project their ideas in the form of a composition having rhyme, rhythm and deeper meanings. The device provides the writer with a framework for poetry writing.

Stanza Definition

Stanza Definition

In poetry, a stanza is a division of four or more lines having a fixed length, meter or rhyming scheme.

Stanzas in poetry are similar to paragraphs in prose. Both stanzas and paragraphs include connected thoughts and are set off by a space. The number of lines varies in different kinds of stanzas but it is uncommon for a stanza to have more than twelve lines. The pattern of a stanza is determined by the number of feet in each line and by its metrical orrhyming scheme.

Stanzas Examples in English Poetry

On the basis of a fixed number of lines and rhyming scheme, traditional English language poems have the following kinds of stanzas:

• Couplet
• Tercet
• Quatrain
• Quintain
• Sestet

Let us make ourselves familiar with the above mentioned kinds of stanzas:

Couplet

It consists of two rhyming lines having the same meter. Consider the following couplet stanza examples:

Example #1

Alexander Pope wrote his Essay on Criticism in rhyming couplets:

“True wit is nature to advantage dress’d;
What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d.”

Example #2

Read the rhyming couplet at the end of Sonnet II by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

“Whether or not we find what we are seeking
is idle, biologically speaking.”

Example #3

A rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter is known as a heroic couplet. Initiated by Chaucer, heroic couplets are commonly used in epics and narrative poetry. Among the well known examples of stanza, we find Edgar Allan Poe’ssonnet To Science:

“Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given”

Tercet

A tercet comprises three lines following a same rhyming scheme a a a or have a rhyming pattern a b a. Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced tercet in 16th century.

Example #1

Read the following tercets from Wyatt’s poem Second Satire with a rhyming scheme a b a:

“My mother’s maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometimes a song of the field mouse,
That for because their livelihood was but so thin.

Would needs go seek her townish sister’s house.
Would needs She thought herself endured to much pain:
The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse…”

Example #2

Famous Romantic poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson employed tercets in his poem The Eagle with a rhyming scheme a a a:

“He clasps the crag with crooked hands:
Close to the sun it lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, it stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.”

Quatrain

It is a form of stanza popularized by a Persian poet, Omar Khayyam, who called it a Rubai. It has common rhyming schemes a a a a, a a b b, a b a b.

Example #1

Read the following example from Edward FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:

“Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter–and the Bird is on the Wing.”

Example #2

Thomas Gray employed Quatrain in his poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard:

“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.”

Quitain

Quintain also referred to as cinquain is a stanza of five lines which may be rhymed or unrhymed and has a typical stress pattern. Its invention is attributed to Crapsey.

Example #1

Below is an example of cinquain taken from Crapsey’s November Night:

“Listen…
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.”

Sestet

Sestet is a kind of stanza that consists of six lines. It is the second division of Italian or sonnets of Petrarch following an octave or the first division comprising eight lines.

In a sonnet, a sestet marks a change of emotional state of a poet as they tend to be more subjective in the second part of the sonnet.

Example #1

Read the following lines from Mathew Arnold’s The Better Part:

So answerest thou; but why not rather say:
“Hath man no second life? – Pitch this one high!
Sits there no judge in Heaven, our sin to see? –
More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!
Was Christ a man like us? Ah! Let us try
If we then, too, can be such men as he!”

The poet answers the rude inquirer passionately as soon as the sestet commences.

Function of Stanza

Stanza divides a poem in such a way that does not harm its balance but rather it adds to the beauty to the symmetry of a poem. Moreover, it allows poets to shift their moods and present different subject matters in their poems.

Simile

Simile Definition

A simile is a figure of speech that makes a comparison, showing similarities between two different things. Unlike ametaphor, a simile draws resemblance with the help of the words “like” or “as”. Therefore, it is a direct comparison.

We can find simile examples in our daily speech. We often hear comments like “John is as slow as a snail.” Snails are notorious for their slow pace and here the slowness of John is compared to that of a snail. The use of “as” in the example helps to draw the resemblance. Some more examples of common similes are given below.

Common Examples of Simile

• Our soldiers are as brave as lions.
• Her cheeks are red like a rose.
• He is as funny as a monkey.
• The water well was as dry as a bone.
• He is as cunning as a fox.

Simile inputs vividness into what we say. Authors and poets utilize comparisons to convey their sentiments and thoughts through vivid word pictures like a simile.

Simile Examples in Literature

Example #1

Written by Joseph Conrad,

“I would have given anything for the power to soothe her frail soul, tormenting itself in its invincible ignorance like a small bird beating about the cruel wires of a cage.”

The lines have been taken from Lord Jim. The helplessness of the soul is being compared with a bird in a cage beating itself against the merciless wires of the cage, to be free.

Example #2

In her novel To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf compares the velocity of her thoughts about the two men with that of spoken words.

“. . . impressions poured in upon her of those two men, and to follow her thought was like following a voice which speaks too quickly to be taken down by one’s pencil . . .”

She says both are difficult to follow and cannot be copied in words by a pencil.

Example #3

Taken from a short story Lolita written by Vladimir Nabokov,

“Elderly American ladies leaning on their canes listed toward me like towers of Pisa.”

This simile produces a humorous effect by comparing old women leaning on walking sticks with the ancient leaning tower of Pisa.

Example #4

Robert Burns uses a simile to describe the beauty of his beloved.

“O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.”

He says that his love is a fresh red rose that blossoms in the spring.

Example #5

Taken from the poem the Daffodils.

“I wandered lonely as a cloud
that floats on high o’er vales and hills.”

The poet envisions himself as a free lone cloud that floats in a blue sky above valleys and the mountains. By choosing this simile, Wordsworth describes his loneliness.

Example #6

A significant thing to consider here is that at times simile is drawn without using “as” or “like”. Consider the following example,

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate”

(William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18)

In the above example, we see a comparison being drawn between the poet’s darling and “a summer’s day” not using “as” or “like”. However, it is not a metaphor. The use of the word “compare” makes the comparison a simile.

Function of Simile

From the above discussion, we can infer the function of similes both in our everyday life as well as in literature. Using similes attracts the attention and appeals directly to the senses of listeners or readers encouraging their imagination to comprehend what is being communicated. In addition, it inspires life-like quality in our daily talks and in the characters of fiction or poetry. Simile allows readers to relate the feelings of a writer or a poet to their personal experiences. Therefore, the use of similes makes it easier for the readers to understand the subject matter of a literary text, which may have been otherwise too demanding to be comprehended. Like metaphors, similes also offer variety in our ways of thinking and offers new perspectives of viewing the world.

Examples of metaphor

Common Speech Examples of Metaphors

Most of us think of a metaphor as a device used in songs or poems only, and that it has nothing to do with our everyday life. In fact, all of us in our routine life speak, write and think in metaphors. We cannot avoid them. Metaphors are sometimes constructed through our common language. They are called conventional metaphors. Calling a person a “night owl” or an “early bird” or saying “life is a journey” are common conventional metaphor examples commonly heard and understood by most of us. Below are some more conventional metaphors we often hear in our daily life:

1. My brother was boiling mad. (This implies he was too angry.)
2. The assignment was a breeze. (This implies that the assignment was not difficult.)
3. It is going to be clear skies from now on. (This implies that clear skies are not a threat and life is going to be without hardships)
4. The skies of his future began to darken. (Darkness is a threat; therefore, this implies that the coming times are going to be hard for him.)
5. Her voice is music to his ears. (This implies that her voice makes him feel happy)

Literary Metaphor Examples

Metaphors are used in all type of literature but not often to the degree they are used in poetry because poems are meant to communicate complex images and feelings to the readers and metaphors often state the comparisons most emotively. Here are some examples of metaphor from famous poems.

Example #1

“She is all states, and all princes, I.”

John Donne, a metaphysical poet, was well-known for his abundant use of metaphors throughout his poetical works. In his well-known work “The Sun Rising,” the speaker scolds the sun for waking him and his beloved. Among the most evocative metaphors in literature, he explains “she is all states, and all princes, I.” This line demonstrates the speaker’s belief that he and his beloved are richer than all states, kingdoms, and rulers in the entire world because of the love that they share.

Example #2

“Shall I Compare Thee to a summer’s Day”,

William Shakespeare was the best exponent of the use of metaphors. His poetical works and dramas all make wide-ranging use of metaphors.

“Sonnet 18,”also known as “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day,” is an extended metaphor between the love of the speaker and the fairness of the summer season. He writes that “thy eternal summer,” here taken to mean the love of the subject, “shall not fade.”

Count That Day Lost - Reflection

Count That Day Lost - Reflection

Look though all of the work you have done in this unit and answer the following questions:

1. Did you like the poem? Explain your answer in at least two sentences.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. As part of this unit of work you were taught a higher-order thinking skill (HOTS) – Explaining Patterns. 

How did your teacher teach it?
How did you apply it to the poem?
How could you use it in your life?
How did the HOTS help you to better understand the poem?

In what way did learning the poem in this way (learning about the HOTS and the literary terms) help you understand the poem? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Count That Day Lost - Analysis and Interpretation:

Count That Day Lost - Analysis and Interpretation:

Explicit instruction of HOTS : Explaining Patterns

Watch the YouTube:  M.C. Escher http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk3mnZwBnZw&feature=related

How did the pattern begin? _____________________________________________________________________

What patterns did you identify while watching? _____________________________________________________________________

What is the final pattern that you see? _____________________________________________________________________

Application of HOTS (Explaining Patterns) to the students’ lives

What kinds of patterns can we find in our lives? _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________

How can being able to find and explain patterns help us in our lives? _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________

Application of the HOTS (Explaining Patterns) to the text

1. Identify the words that repeat themselves throughout the poem.

2. If you have already taught alliteration, you can spiral it with this poem. Find the use of alliteration in the first line of the poem: (sit at set of sun, worse than lost).  Show how alliteration helps create unity in the poem.

Additional Analysis and Interpretation questions

1.       Why are there some short lines in the poem?

2.       The word ‘cost’ is usually used for buying and selling. How does this word relate to the message of the poem?

3.       Why do you think that the rhythm stays the same in the poem, but the rhyme keeps changing? Why do the short lines rhyme with each other and not with the long lines before or after them?

Additional Application of HOTS (Explaining Patterns) to the text

Analysis and Interpretation: Literary terms

Rhyme and rhythm patterns  

Rhyme Scheme: Underline the last word of the line. Give a small letter in sequence of the “a, b, c” for each rhyme.

For example:

Hush little baby don’t say a word,	a
Papa’s gonna buy you a mocking bird.	a
If that mocking bird won’t sing,	b
Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.	b
If the diamond ring turns to brass,	c
Papa’s gonna buy you a looking glass.	c

Task: Identify the rhyme pattern of the poem. (Teacher models first stanza and has students identify the pattern in the second stanza.) 

Rhythm: Many poems use rhythm to emphasize meaning. When we scan poems for rhythm we give a symbol ˇ for unstressed syllables and a symbol    ́for stressed syllables.

In our poem the rhythm sounds like this:

ta TA ta TA ta TA ta Ta

We then divide the line into equal parts and count the number of ‘feet’.  (A “foot” is a unit of rhythm in poetry.)

So if we take our line we get:

ta TA/ ta TA/ ta TA/ ta TA

Now scan the syllables of the poem and see what rhythm pattern appears.

Task: Mark the stressed and unstressed syllables in the first stanza.

from this 

Count That Day Lost

Analysis and Interpretation  -  HOTS

COMPARING and CONTRASTING  - find similarities (comparing) an differences (contrasting) and draw conclusions

When we compare and contrast things we can use the following words:  

Both of the stories are about animals: a dog, a fox and a crow. They are similar in the issue of being greedy and its results: positive or negative. They also teach us a lesson for life.

The two stories are different in some points. The dog lost his food because of his greed. On the contrary to the dog, the fox fulfilled his wish.

Applying HOTS to the text

1.     A stanza is a group of lines which form a unit in a poem. The poem Count That Day Lost consists of two stanzas. Compare and contrast them. How are the stanzas alike? How are they different?

Consider the following points:

a.     The subject

b.     The structure

c.      The rhyme scheme

2.     Why do you think the poet divided the poem into two stanzas?

3.     How does this division reinforce the message of the poem?

Applying the targeted HOTS to your lives and other areas

1.      Classroom discussion: Where do we apply the HOTS of Comparing and Contrasting in real life? Give your examples.

 Think and respond in writing:

	How was your life
	Before	now
getting a driving license	I rode my bike or walked on foot.	I drive wherever I need to go.
having a girl/boy/true friend	I was bored. I didn't have anyone to tell my problems.	I feel glad .I have someone to share .with my difficulties
getting pocket money from your parents	I couldn’t buy things which I wanted.	I can buy some of the things I want and it makes me happy.
Having Bagrut exams	I wasn’t under a high pressure.	I am under a high pressure.

Think of your own example and add it to the table.

Further Analysis and Interpretation

    LITERARY TERMS: RHYME and RHYME SCHEME

1.    Definition of Rhyme: Rhyme is the use of words with a similar sound,

   often at the ends of lines of poetry.

   For example:

            The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

            But I have promises to keep

            And miles to go before I sleep,

a. Give examples of rhyming words:

            Pale   - vale ,sale ,tale 

            Sound -    Ground, round, bound

            Get     -    bet, let, met

b. Listen to the poem on YOUTUBE. What rhymes have you heard?

Write down a few rhymes:

Sun-done, find-kind, went-spent, trace-face, cost-lost, small-all

                                                             

c. Read the poem again and mark rhyming words in the 1^st and 2^nd stanzas.

             Stanza 1- sun-done, find-kind, went-spent                                             

             Stanza 2-day-nay, all-small, trace-small, cost-lost

2.   Definition of a RHYME SCHEME: The RHYME SCHEME of a poem is the pattern of rhymed words with in a stanza or through the poem. It is easy to figure out the rhyme scheme by giving all the words with the same sound the same letter.

            I once saw a mouse     a

            That lived in a house    a

            But never a cat            b

            That lived in a hat        b

a.     Give a certain letter in sequence of the a, b, c, d for each rhyme in

The poem "Count That Day Lost".

 Count That Day Lost

If you sit down at set of sun                          a

And count the acts that you have done,       a

And, counting, find                                              b

One self-denying deed, one word                   

That eased the heart of him who heard,

One glance most kind                                          b

That fell like sunshine where it went --            c

Then you may count that day well spent.         c

But if, through all the livelong day,                     a

You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay --          a

If, through it all                                                         b

You've nothing done that you can trace             c

That brought the sunshine to one face--             c

No act most small                                                    b

That helped some soul and nothing cost --         d

Then count that day as worse than lost.              d

b.     What is the rhyme scheme/ pattern in the 1^st stanza?

The pattern is in the order of the lines.

c.      What is the rhyme scheme / pattern in the 2^nd stanza?

The pattern is not in the order of the lines.

3. Discuss the following questions:

a. What does the speaker consider a "day well spent"? What does the speaker consider a day "worse than lost"? Explain.

"A day well spent"-is a day when you did something good for someone else, a day when you cheered someone and gave him even one positive word.

A day that "worse than lost"-is a day when you didn’t do anything good for someone around you, you didn't help anyone and you didn’t bring the sunshine to someone's face.

b.     What is the message of the poem? Do you agree? Explain.

The message of the poem is that life without helping others around you is worthless. Only if you do good deeds for the community you "gain" the day. On the contrary, if you don’t do anything good or say some encouraging words to the people around you, you waste your day.

I agree with the message because I know and feel that there is a lot of importance and effect of how people response and act to each other.

If you get a little help and some encouraging words when you need them, you may feel that they brought you the sunshine to your life.