Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Exploring Metaphor In The Great Gatsby, Dan Gleason
Exploring Metaphor In The Great Gatsby, Dan Gleason
Dan Gleason
In this lesson, students engage with one approach to metaphor and then apply that learning to metaphors in Great Gatsby. To start, students learn about I. A. Richards’s definition of metaphor as the link between tenor (topic) and vehicle (way of thinking about it). They then generate some metaphors by randomly combining tenors and vehicles in order to understand how the parts interrelate. Finally, the class interacts with the messier, more beautiful face of metaphor by working through, in groups, some key metaphors from the novel. Students identify the components of each metaphor (tenor, vehicle) and also consider what subtle …
Name That Invention: Examining Connotation And Sound, Dan Gleason
Name That Invention: Examining Connotation And Sound, Dan Gleason
Dan Gleason
This exercise engages students with questions of diction, connotation, and sound patterns. Students discuss the field of product branding, and learn how much certain product names (e.g., Blackberry, Pentium, Swiffer) were considered in light their denotative, connotative, and aural elements. Then, in groups, students devise product names for four imagined products; afterward, as a class they debate the virtues of each name rate and choose a winner for each product. Such close attention to meanings, buried implications, and sound cues encourages students to adopt a very poetic form of word analysis, a skill that transfers nicely to more literary areas.
“My Life With My Cell Phone”: Creating A Magical Realist Story, Dan Gleason
“My Life With My Cell Phone”: Creating A Magical Realist Story, Dan Gleason
Dan Gleason
In this lesson students are introduced to the basic elements of magical realism, a genre that combines fantastical events with the mundane normalcy of life. Students examine Octavio Paz’s short story “My Life with the Wave” as an example of the genre. In the story, the narrator travels to the ocean and falls in love with a wave, whom he bottles and takes home with him; the two go on to both cherish each other and fight terribly. After discussing the story, students create, in groups, plot sketches for their own adaptations. Students might imagine relationships with cell phones, the …
America In Verse: The Laureate Project, Leah Kind, Dan Gleason, Erin Micklo, Margaret T. Cain
America In Verse: The Laureate Project, Leah Kind, Dan Gleason, Erin Micklo, Margaret T. Cain
Dan Gleason
The purpose of this project is to allow students to use their (developing) skills of poetic explication and close reading, combined with research and analysis, to discover and establish a solid case for a poet they will nominate as the next American Poet Laureate. Working in groups of 3-4, students will identify a published, living American poet who has not yet been designated a laureate. The project demands a wide array of skills as the students research bibliographic information on the poet: read and analyze the poet’s body of work and select one central poem to represent that poet; amass …
The Rhetorical Oracle: A Fun Introduction To Rhetoric, Dan Gleason
The Rhetorical Oracle: A Fun Introduction To Rhetoric, Dan Gleason
Dan Gleason
In this lesson students meet three key rhetorical schemes – anaphora, antithesis, and chiasmus – in a fun, engaging way. The students share some common concerns related to school (e.g., too much homework, not enough time with friends, bad grades on essays); after a student raises an issue, that student is given a slip of paper with a relevant (and rhetorical!) sentence or two to read aloud. With these rhetorical pronouncements, students hear the patterns of the three schemes in an engaging and personal way. The teacher can then follow up with a more detailed account of the rhetorical patterns.
Millie Dies In Style: Crafting Poems In Four Poetic Styles, Dan Gleason
Millie Dies In Style: Crafting Poems In Four Poetic Styles, Dan Gleason
Dan Gleason
This exercise helps students learn about poetic style by challenging them to write poetry in different styles. To make stylistic differences most obvious, students write about the same topic in four different ways (casual, formal, depressing, whimsical). Students write poems of 4-10 lines in groups, and then they share their writings with each other. Nearly any topic may be chosen, but the topic should be a bit unusual; I like to use the tragic tale of Millie, a fictional family dog that dies suddenly by falling down an open well, to generate interest. The exercise is a fun activity that …