We finished going over today the poem “Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry.” An annotated copy is below.

We also completed the list of actions for understanding a poem:

1. Read the poem (including the title)
2. Make sure you understand all the words (no guessing/inferring).
3. Read the poem again (including the title)
4. Mark 2-3 words per line that you think are the most significant; read the poem by only reading those words
5. Read the poem again (including the title)
6. Clear up ambiguity:
   1. Pronoun/antecedent ambiguity
   2. Ambiguity arising from words with multiple meanings
   3. Work on syntactical difficulties (rearrange and regroup chunks of the poem)
7. Read the poem again (including the title)
8. Make a summary of the poem (what’s happening in the poem)
9. Read the poem again (including the title)
10. Analyze the title (as needed: Shakespeare’s sonnets are named “Sonnet 1,” “Sonnet 2,” “Sonnet 3,” and so on, so it’s not necessary there)
11. Read the poem again (including the title)
12. Put it all together

I meant to include the notes from today, but I’m writing this update at home, and those notes are at school, so I’ll add them to the next update.