Tenor and Vehicle

Tenor and Vehicle

We began by looking at the first question for the new article of the week. Early in the piece, there is a challenging sentence that we went over: I have become consumed with an alarming possibility: that neither the polls nor the actual outcome of the election really...
Tonal Shift: “The Lanyard”

Tonal Shift: “The Lanyard”

We went over “The Lanyard” today, beginning with Collins reading the poem at a poetry festival. Students were surprised to hear the audience laughing at certain points. We mapped out when exactly they laughed and realized a certain pattern: This led us to...
Tone Continued: “The Lanyard”

Tone Continued: “The Lanyard”

Today we continued working with tone, and we stuck with Billy Collins’s work, reading “The Lanyard” today. We began by building a little background knowledge about Proust’s madeleine: That completed, we focused on understanding the first three...
Tone 3: Finishing “Forgetfulness”

Tone 3: Finishing “Forgetfulness”

Today, we went over a new poem: Billy Collins’s “Forgetfulness.” The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read,...
Tone 2: Forgetfulness

Tone 2: Forgetfulness

We finished up looking at tone in “My Papa’s Waltz,” determining that there was a somewhat-nostalgically playful tone in the poem. Afterward, students worked on Billy Collin’s poem “Forgetfulness.” Because of the time required at...