Identity & Names: Readings & A Return to the Workshop; The Cultural Poem

This morning we will learn a little bit about names...Let's watch:

• Horrible Histories: Victorian Names
• Rowan Atkinson: Dirty Names
• Black Sounding Names

If you could change your name what would you change it to? If you were to make a short film, podcast, or documentary about names, what would you create?

Name Generator
Make a list of names.

After our quick response, please read the following personal essay by Firoozeh Dumas "The F Word". Then we'll read a little poetry.

Cultural Poetry Draft Exercise:

• Elizabeth Bishop: "In the Waiting Room" (pg. 726-728)
• Gwendolyn Brooks: "The Mother" (pg. 750-751)
• Frank O'Hara: "Autobiographia Literaria" (pg. 779)
• Donald Hall: "My Son, My Executioner" (pg. 794)
• Lucille Clifton: "Homage to my Hips" (pg. 845)
• Carolyn Forche: "The Memory of Elena" (pg. 880)
• Askold Melnyczuk: "The Enamel Box" (pg. 888)
• Cathy Song: "Lost Sister" (pg. 889-891)

Write a cultural poem draft. There is no wrong way to write a cultural poem. Everyone's experience and subject matter will be unique. It's okay to get personal. Avoid over-dramatizing your poem. This is not a life or death situation in most cases, but a subtle understanding of your (or your speaker's) own place in the world. You may tell a story, use fictional elements like dialogue, or parts to suggest "chapters", use traditional phrases or family sayings or idioms, etc. Don't forget to polish your work with imagery!

What you'll need is a strong setting. How is your room (or a room in your house) a reflection of who you are and what your family values, for example? How is a family event unique for your family? Does it show the tense conflicts of those involved? How does the setting suggest the speaker as "part" of a tradition or culture? How is the setting significant to the speaker of your poem? If you can't answer this, make the setting significant.

TIPS/RULES/GUIDELINES:

• Allow your speaker to witness a single significant action, tradition, or cultural moment that is unique to you, your family or family members, your group, your "homies" or your own personal experience.
• Describe that moment using different kinds of imagery (choose at least one, but you can mix them: visual imagery, sound imagery, tactile imagery, gustatory imagery, kinetic imagery, olfactory imagery...)
• Allow your speaker to reflect on the meaning of this action. Your "volta" or turning point should come near the very end of your poem (if not the last shocking line...where your speaker realizes something significant--perhaps something now found that had been missing in one's life, a recognition of belonging, for example.)
• Your poem must be at least 10 lines in length. It can be longer than 10 lines.
• Proofread and title your draft.

Period 2: Please return to your workshops. Take the 2nd period today to continue commenting and critiquing your peers in your workshop groups. When you are finished commenting, please do 1 of 3 things:

• Revise and develop any of your reviewed pieces for your portfolio.
• Read your "homework", the essay "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" by Gloria Anzaldua. 
• Read The Namesake, chapter 6-7 for homework.

HOMEWORK: Work on your writing, read chapters 6-7 in The Namesake, and read the essay "How to Tame a Wild Tongue." We will discuss your reading next class.