Lesson 2

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • “To Be of Use,” Marge Piercy, Penguin Random House, 1982

Materials

Tools

• Attending to Details Tool

• Responding to Questions Handout

• Vocabulary Journal

Reference Guides

• Academic Discussion Reference Guide
• Annotating and Note-Taking Reference Guide
• Questioning Reference Guide

Question Sets

• What Does It Mean to Live a Life Well-Lived?: Section 1 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Attending to Details Tool

• What Does It Mean to Live a Life Well-Lived?: Section 1 Question Set

• Vocabulary Journal

Activity 1: Read – Discuss

We will consider what it might mean to be of use to others and ourselves. Then we will listen to a reading of Marge Piercy’s poem “To Be Of Use.” as a class, we will use a set of guiding and text-specific questions to do a close reading of the poem’s first stanza.

Step 1

Access the poem "To Be of Use," published in 1982 by Marge Piercy. Examine the poem and briefly discuss its structure, written in four stanzas with no rhyme scheme or rhythm pattern. This type of poetry is often referred to as "open form" because it is not bound by any rules or preconceived patterns. In your Vocabulary Journal, write a short definition for open-form poem.

Note the title of the poem and, as a class, discuss what that title might suggest, considering these questions:

1. What might it mean to be of use to other people and the world around us?

2. What might it mean to be of use to ourselves?

Listen as the poem is read aloud, paying attention to visual images that come into your mind.

Step 2

Follow along as your teacher models how to closely examine the first stanza of the poem, using general guiding questions to focus your closer reading and help you pay attention to specific details in the text:

1. What words or phrases stand out to you as powerful and important?

2. What does the poem cause you to visualize?

Referring to the Responding to Questions Handout, which was introduced in the previous lesson, discuss what types of questions these are and what kinds of details they might cause you to look for.

Discuss the literary concept of an image and how imagery in a poem often causes you to see or feel something and is often the key to its meaning. Discuss a term often used in talking about a poem’s imagery and its effects on a reader: the term evocative and its related verb, evoke. Add these terms with short definitions to your Vocabulary Journal.

In response to the first question, make a class list of words or images that stand out in the first stanza.

Step 3

Follow along as your teacher introduces or reviews the Attending to Details Tool, which you can use to support your analysis of details in a text. This graphic organizer organizes a reading and thinking process that does the following:

• begins with a text-specific question

• prompts you to attend to or identify key details related to the question

• asks you to think about the details and their relationship to the question and to each other

• leads you to make a text-based observation in response to the question

Thus, the tool can help you develop responses to text-specific questions that are thoughtful and based on evidence from the text.

Your teacher will model the use of the tool, in response to the two guiding questions. From the class list of words and images that stand out in the first stanza, select three that seem to be particularly important in helping you visualize a scene depicted by the poet. Record them on the first row of the tool.

As a class, think about and discuss the relationships among the details and how they contribute to a visualized scene. Record notes on the second row of the class tool that respond to the prompt: “Describe what you think the words, phrases, and sentences mean and how they relate to the question.”

Using those details and your class analysis, discuss what they add up to in the final row of the tool, where you are prompted to make observations based on what you understand so far about the text. In this case, make observations that describe the scene Piercy depicts to express her thoughts about the people she likes best and what her poem causes you to visualize.

In your Learning Log, write a few sentences that summarize your observations about the poem in response to the guiding questions.

Step 4

Discuss the concept of a lyrical poem or essay: one that expresses personal emotions or thoughts (derived from the Greek word lyre—an instrument often used when presenting a poem orally). You will be reading many lyrical works in this unit. Add the words lyrical and lyric to your Vocabulary Journal.

Notice that the poet uses the pronoun “I” to suggest that it might be her voice speaking in the poem—a common convention in a lyrical poem.

Considering the words, images and other details you noted in the first stanza, discuss this general guiding question:

3. How do the author’s choice of words and images reveal her perspective and establish her voice in the poem?

Now consider a text-specific question that should cause you to reread the first stanza looking for specific words and images:

4. In the first stanza, what words and images does Piercy use to describe the people she says "I love the best"?

Note and discuss key phrases such as "dallying in the shallows" and "swim off with sure strokes." Develop a class definition for what the word dallying means or suggests, and add it to your Vocabulary Journal.

In your Learning Log, write a few sentences that summarize your observations about the first stanza of the poem in response to the guiding and text-specific questions.

Step 5

Discuss again the literary concept of a metaphor and specifically how the imagery in a poem is often used to represent an idea metaphorically. In light of this concept, discuss the following text-specific question, which should cause you to read between the lines and analyze the language and images you noted:

5. In the first stanza, what does Piercy imply are the characteristics she admires in people "who jump into work head first"? How do the metaphors she presents suggest this view?

Following this discussion, reflect on how the sequence of questions you have considered has guided your reading and interpretation of the first stanza of the poem, from what you first notice or visualize, to a sense of the voice and perspective presented in the poem, to its use of imagery, and finally to the meaning suggested when its images are seen as metaphors.

Update your notes and examples for the term metaphor in your Vocabulary Journal.

In your Learning Log, write a few sentences that summarize your observations about the poem in response to the text-specific questions.

Activity 2: Read – Discuss – Write

Using the questions and process we considered in the previous activity, we will now work in reading pairs to closely examine additional stanzas of the poem “To Be Of Use.”

Step 1

Join with a reading partner to examine another section of the poem, either stanzas two and three (together) or stanza four, as assigned by your teacher. Consider a parallel set of questions for your stanza assignment as you read, annotate, and discuss your section of the poem.

Begin by considering the same guiding questions that you used as a class during the previous activity:

1. What words or phrases stand out to you as powerful and important?

2. What does the poem cause you to visualize?

3. How do the author’s choice of words and images reveal her perspective and establish her voice in the poem?

On your own, read and annotate your section of the poem. Think about words and images that stand out to you, then about how those textual details begin to communicate the poet’s perspective. Compare your annotations and observations with those of your reading partner.

Together, use an Attending to Details Tool to record and think about key details in your stanzas. Develop an initial observation based on those details.

In your Learning Log, write a few sentences that summarize your observations about your section of the poem in response to the guiding questions.

Step 2

With your reading partner, consider and discuss two text-specific questions that are connected to your assigned part of the poem:

Stanzas 2-3:

1. In stanzas 2 and 3, what words, images, and comparisons does Piercy use to describe the people she says "I love" and "I want to be with"?

2. How do the two comparisons in stanzas 2-3 further develop your understanding of how Piercy views people who are "of use"?

Stanza 4:

1. In stanza 4, Piercy says that "the work of the world is common as mud." What two outcomes—for mud and for work—does she contrast in lines 1-4 of the stanza?

2. What does Piercy state and imply are the similarities between "Greek amphoras," "Hopi vases," and "things worth doing well"? How does the final comparison of the poem—combined with its title—lead to your understanding of its meaning?

After coming to some shared observations and responses, individually add a few sentences to your Learning Log that summarize your thinking about your stanza.

Step 3

With your partner, consider how you have used questions to do a deeper reading of your part of the poem. Review the steps from the Responding to Questions Handout. Which steps did you follow, and which ones did you miss?

Now look at the responses you summarized in your Learning Log. Do a self-assessment of your responses, using the Responding to Questions Checklist from the Responding to Questions Handout.

How well does each response do the following:

• address what the question is asking

• cite specific and relevant details from the text

• make valid connections among key textual details and thoughtfully analyze their relationships

• demonstrate a meaningful, insightful, and accurate reading of the text and an analysis of its evidence

• communicate in one or more clear, direct, and complete sentences

• use academic concepts and vocabulary that are related to the response, when relevant

• have a clear explanation that can be defended, but also refined, when discussed with others

Based on these questions, and what you determine to be strengths and areas of improvement for your response, revise the sentences you wrote so you can present and explain your response to other students.

Activity 3: Discuss – Write

We will join with another reading pair who examined a different section of the text, present our responses to our section’s text-specific questions, then compare responses for similarities and differences.

Step 1

Join with another reading pair who examined a different section of the text (forming a four-person discussion team).

Using the summary sentences you recorded in your Learning Log, present your responses to the first two guiding questions, which were the same for both reading pairs. Compare your responses for similarities and differences based on the stanzas you examined.

Step 2

Using the summary sentences you recorded in your Learning Log, now present your responses to the text-specific questions each team considered for stanzas 2-3 or stanza 4. Begin by reading each question and explaining how you analyzed it using the Responding to Questions Handout.

Then share the responses you wrote and compare the understandings of the poem you have developed based on the stanzas and questions you considered. In your Learning Log, record the summary sentences the other reading pair presented to you, which address a different stanza than you analyzed.

Step 3

As a team, discuss what your examination of the poem’s four stanzas adds up to in terms of the poem’s meaning and use of imagery and metaphors to convey it.

Write a team statement or claim about the poem’s meaning in response to this final question:

1. How does Marge Piercy characterize the people she loves best? What are the qualities that make them "be of use"?

Record this final claim in your Learning Log.

Share and compare your claim with other teams in the class. Discuss why the claims are similar or different.

Activity 4: Write

We will write a short reflective narrative in which we summarize how we developed understanding of the poem “To Be Of Use.” then, we will reflect on how the poem might be a compass we are interested in following as we think about our paths in living a life well-lived.

Step 1

In your Learning Log (or another means assigned by your teacher), write a short reflective narrative in which you "tell the story" of how you used questions to develop a deeper understanding of the poem "To Be of Use." A reflective narrative is a form of personal writing in which you recount what you did, thought about, and learned within a task you have completed, in a sequence that matches the process you followed. You will be writing other reflective narratives throughout this course.

Use the summary sentences you wrote in response to guiding and text-specific questions to build your narrative. Discuss to what extent your responses address the questions from the Responding to Questions Checklist on the Responding to Questions Handout.

Step 2

Reflecting not only on what you have done and learned but also its meaning for you as you think about the Central Questions and the guiding questions, add a short paragraph to your reflective narrative that responds to these questions:

1. How does "To Be of Use" have meaning within your quest to live a life well-lived? How might you apply its ideas in your own life and your writing?

2. To what extent should you consider the poem and its metaphors a compass you can carry as you undertake your journey in the world?