*
Introduction
Sept. 26, 2013
* Let’s start with a poem: ”One Art”
* Text and Context: Elizabeth Bishop
* Academic Writing: what and how
*
*
*
Objectives
Academic Writing: Skills
Academic Writing: Process
* Another Poem: “Sestina”
* Next Week
*
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
*
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It‘s evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
*
* Content – Theme: What is the theme of this poem?
What does loss mean, and how is it “an art”?
* Content – Development of Ideas: has the speaker
changed his/her ideas, attitude and tone from stanza
to stanza? Is she an honest speaker?
* Form -- Anything special about the language used in
this poem? Or poetic form? Anything poetic techniques
used (e.g. rhymes and refrains)? How does repetition
function here?
*
*
Visual Presentations
Elizabeth Bishop in Brief
M. Mark
reads and
responds to
"One Art"
One
Art
From Voices
& Visions
One Art
*
Displacement in Life:
*born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1911;
*her father was dead when she was 8 months old, and
her mother institutionalized when she was five.
*Spent her childhood in Nova Scotia with her
grandparents
*Forced to move to Boston, MA to live with her
paternal grandparents. Later rescued by her aunt.
*Bishop traveled extensively in Europe and lived in
New York, Key West, Florida, and, for sixteen years,
in Brazil
*Ref. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SJEylT-4GI
*
*Highly crafted poems, going through several revisions
*Displacement as a major theme.
*e.g. “One Art” and “Sestina” --objectify her losses
and turn them into recognizable aesthetic forms
(repetition, sestina, metaphor and metonymy). 
aestheticization or distanciation as a way of
displacement. This displacement is actively done,
but not permanent.
*
*
Villanelle:
• a nineteen-line poem with two repeating rhymes
and two refrains.
• The form is made up of five tercets followed by
a quatrain. The first and third lines of the
opening tercet are repeated alternately in the
last lines of the succeeding stanzas; then in the
final stanza, the refrain serves as the poem's
two concluding lines.
• Using capitals for the refrains and lowercase
letters for the rhymes, the form could be
expressed as: A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1
/ a b A2 / a b A1 A2.
reference
* 1) training basic skills in academic English, with a
focus on literary studies: developing basic skills in
academic writing about literature through a
sequence of short exercises, while developing
awareness of one’s own strengths and deficiencies;
* 2) practicing different modes of critical
writing such as text analysis, critical review and a
medium-length research paper.
* 3) learning the basics of citation according to MLA
style for research papers.
*
1) structure: developing a major argument,
making an introduction, drawing a conclusion,
paragraphing, as well as outlining;
2) text analysis skills: paraphrasing, synthesizing,
presenting and citing and analyzing texts
3) other analytical skills: definition, comparison,
classification, illustration.
4) features of academic writing (objectivity,
hedging, precision and explicitness)
*
A. Choosing Topics
* Preliminary Steps: Be an Active Reader, Identify Your Audience,
Raise Questions about the Work, Narrow Your Topic
* Search Strategies: Focus on the Work’s Conventions (Its Formal
Qualities), Use Topoi (Traditional Patterns of Thinking), Respond
to Comments by Critics, Draw from Your Own Knowledge
* Brainstorming: Talking and Writing Strategies, Talk Out Loud
* Pre-Writing: Make Outlines, Freewrite, Brainstorm, Create
Graphic Organizers, Make Notes, Keep a Journal
B. Drafting
C. Revising and Editing
D. Documentation and Research
*
A. Choosing Topics
*Preliminary Steps:
Be an Active Reader – Many repetitions in Bishop’s poems
Identify Your Audience – informed reader
Raise Questions about the Work – Why does she repeatedly talk
about “home” and house and losing them?
Narrow Your Topic – The use of repetition in “One Art”
*Search Strategies:
Focus on the Work’s Conventions (Its Formal Qualities) –villanelle
Use Topoi (Traditional Patterns of Thinking – Cause & Effect,
Definition, etc.)
Respond to Comments by Critics,
Draw from Your Own Knowledge
*
*Brainstorming: Talking and Writing Strategies, Talk Out
Loud
*Pre-Writing: Make Outlines, Freewrite, Brainstorm,
Create Graphic Organizers, Make Notes, Keep a Journal
Major Premises: Repetition is meaningful; displacement
hurts.
Main Argument: Bishop uses repetition to try to accept loss
and master its “art,” but significant losses in life cannot
be art nor mastered.
1)
Acceptable losses
2) Inevitable losses
3) Losses which one cannot get over with.
*
1) training basic skills in
academic English, with a
focus on literary studies:
test questions as a
diagnostic test, short
exercise in class and
discussion starters.
2) practicing different
modes of critical writing
analysis, exposition,
critique, and research
paper.
3) learning the basics of
citation
MLA style sheet will be
introduced.
*
*
“Sestina”
*
Sestina: 1. a highly structured poem consisting of
six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet. (6 x 6 + 3)
2. The same set of six words(house, grandmother,
child, stove, almanac, tears) ends the lines of each
of the six-line stanzas, but in a different order each
time.
3 These six words then appear in the tercet as
well.
reference
*
September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.
She thinks that her equinoctial (春(秋)分時的) tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,
*
It's time for tea now; but the child
is watching the teakettle's small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac
on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.
It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.
But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.
Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
*
1. The six elements—and rhymes—that are repeated are:
house, grandmother, child, stove, almanac,
tears. Why are they important? How do they take on
different meanings as the poem develops?
2. The main characters in this poem are the
grandmother and the child. How do they each look at
“tears”—their own tears or the tears that get
associated with the other elements?
3. What can be the meanings of the following kinds of
tears? Equinoctial(晝夜平分時的 ) tears, tea as dark
brown tears? A man with buttons like tears, and
moons which fall like tears?
4. What about the almanac, tea kettle and Marvel Stove
mentioned in the poem?
5. How does the poem end? Do the two characters get
over their tears?
*
Grandmother
Housekeeping, hide her tears
 equinoctial(晝夜平分時的 ) tears 
almanac  tea as dark brown
tears Takes care of the child
 sings to the marvelous stove
Marvel Stove and Almanac Reality:
Home?
Where are the parents?
Child
1.daily routines and temporal (daily
and seasonal) changes
2.The kettle sings and the rain
dances  produce tears
3. “plant” tears 
teakettle’s small tears  Marvel
Stove Rigid house + winding path
 Flower bed 
Inscrutable house
* Do you think that the poem is a sad story or a story of
survival?
* When we deal with a loss or other kinds of trauma, how
can daily routine, chores (housekeeping, for instance),
and actions such as painting and writing help?
*
* Monday noon – an analysis of “One Art” or
“Sestina” submitted to EngSite.
* Read one text analysis of either
“Sestina” before class.
*
“One Art” or