Today in first and fourth periods we explored the poetic form known as the villanelle. We evaluated the patterns in poems such as “The Waking” and “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” to determine the rules for villanelles. Then we took a look at Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” and paraphrased it in a final step toward understanding the villanelle.

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.

First period’s paraphrase thus far:

Losing is a skill that isn’t hard to master.
So many things seem like they want to be lost
that losing them isn’t really a disaster (because they want to be lost).

You should lose something every day.
You should learn to accept the frustration of losing your door keys and the frustration of wasting time.
Losing is a skill that isn’t hard to master.

Then you should practice losing things of more significance,
like places and names and your destination.
Losing these things is no big deal (disaster)

Fourth period’s paraphrase thus far:

It isn’t difficult to master the skill of losing things.
So many things seem like they want to be lost
that losing them isn’t really a disaster.

You should try to lose something every day. You should accept the frustration
of having lost your door keys or having wasted time.
It isn’t difficult to master the skill of losing things.

Then you should try losing things of greater significance,
like places and names and where you meant
to go. Losing these things isn’t a big deal/disaster.

Second and seventh periods continued working on standard RL5: “Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style.” We compared two passages, one from Anne’s original diary:

Monday, June 15, 1942

Our lives were not without anxiety, since our relatives in Germany were suffering under Hitler’s anti-Jewish laws. After the pogroms in 1938 my two uncles (my mother’s brothers) fled Germany, finding safe refuge in North America. My elderly grandmother came to live with us. She was seventy-three years old at the time.

After May 1940 the good times were few and far between: first there was the war, then the capitulation and then the arrival of the Germans, which is when the trouble started for the Jews. Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to use street-cars; Jews were forbidden to ride in cars, even their own; Jews were required to do their shopping between 3 and 5 P.M.; Jews were required to frequent only Jewish-owned barbershops and beauty parlors; Jews were forbidden to be out on the streets between 8 P.M. and 6 A.M.; Jews were forbidden to attend theaters, movies or any other forms of entertainment; Jews were forbidden to use swimming pools, tennis courts, hockey fields or any other athletic fields; Jews were forbidden to go rowing; Jews were forbidden to take part in any athletic activity in public; Jews were forbidden to sit in their gardens or those of their friends after 8 P.M.; Jews were forbidden to visit Christians in their homes; Jews were required to attend Jewish schools, etc. You couldn’t do this and you couldn’t do that, but life went on. Jacque always said to me, “I don’t dare do anything anymore, ’cause I’m afraid it’s not allowed.”

And another from the play’s version of the diary:

Monday, the sixth of July, nineteen forty-two.

Dear Diary, since you and I are going to be great friends, I will start by telling you about myself. My name is Anne Frank. I am thirteen years old. I was born in Germany the twelfth of June, nineteen twenty-nine. Amy family is Jewish, we emigrated to Holland when Hitler came to power. My father started a business, importing spice and herbs. Things went well for us until nineteen forty. Then the war came, and the Dutch capitulation, followed by the arrival of the Germans. Then things got very bad for the Jews. You could not do this and you could not do that. They forced Father out of his business. We had to wear yellow stars. I had to turn in my bike. I couldn’t go to a Dutch school any more. I couldn’t go to the movies, or ride in an automobile, or even on a streetcar, and a million other things. But somehow we children still managed to have fun.

We compared and contrasted the two versions, finishing up what students began as homework.

Finally, we worked on a short summary of one of the differences we discovered:

Homework

• English I Honors: 
  • Finish paraphrasing “One Art”;
  • find the meaning of “Write it!” in the final line;
  • and describe the poem’s lyric moment (i.e., what the poem is about).