On Tuesday, we posted a few pieces from our work with Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. I have added those to this post, but I have added a few new pieces that I got to draft with my other classes in order to really draw out this idea of using the cinquain of a means of drawing deeper connections to the text to invite personal responses that approach the analysis we want our readers to be doing at the higher levels of learning.
I’m still working with the idea to clarify how it meets the CCS or other State Standards in an effort to codify vs. poetically-render my idea here for use in the classroom. But I cannot help myself. As much as I would try to claim otherwise, I am a poet at heart.
Using Garland Cinquain to Analyze a Character from a Book
Chapter Two of Their Eyes Were Watching God:
Tender
kisses with boys
can lead to big trouble;
it must mean you’re a woman now,
changing.
Married?
It’s too early.
She knows nothing of it.
Couldn’t she wait just a bit more?
Too young.
To want
to be a tree–
want what nature promised,
waiting for pollen–bumblebees.
Marriage.
Unknown.
How she got here–
the mysteries of she–
born of another tree and time:
Nanny.
Needful
for saftety now,
alone in the world
without a father or mother.
Girl.
Tender.
It’s too early
want what nature promised
born of another tree and time
Girl.
Using Garland Cinquain to Analyze a Character’s Feelings from a Moment in a Book
Chapter Five of Their Eyes Were Watching God
Big Train
south to Maitland,
with Jody by her side,
ready to go rule the world.
Moving.
Carry
her brand new dreams.
There’s a new town waiting,
everything she’s dreamed of inside.
New chances.
Arrive
to find little
more than roots and dirt roads–
less than what she expected.
Dismayed.
The speech
she wants to give
is quieted, quickly,
a voice as big as the world
building.
Ready
to speak out now.
She’s aching to be heard.
This is what a woman sounds like
silenced.
Big Train:
her brand new dreams–
more than roots in dirt roads–
a voice as big as the world
silenced.
Using Garland Cinquain to Explore a Minor Character (Symbolic) from a Book
***NEW PIECE***
Matt Bonner’s Mule
Skinny.
Most all raw-boned
Brutes are commanded daily.
Come up is seasoned with rawhide.
Worker.
Rib bones
used for scrub boards;
he’s fixed up for laundry,
clothes hanging on hock bones to dry.
Resigned.
Master
Waits with the whip;
there’s a field to be plowed.
Fighting inches in front of plows.
Submit.
Daily
mistreatment.
Always another job
to be done with an old mule’s back.
Nightly.
The feed
is the day’s wage
for the work that is done.
But tomorrows’ is not promised,
servant.
Skinny—
used for scrub boards.
There’s a field to be plowed,
to be done with an old mule’s back:
servant.
Using Garland Cinquain to Explore a Minor Character’s Role in Driving a Story Line
***NEW PIECE***
Logan—
lonely’s limit—
a story’s bit player
meant to last just one season:
husband.
The land
meant to protect
is simply a framing
of a young girl’s limitations,
the home.
The man
she wants to love,
he lacks the pretty bloom,
is hard to love the way he’s made:
burden.
Seasoned
like long winters
threatening her green time;
there is no springtime within him.
Ripened.
Fence rail,
the beckoning.
Simply a boundary,
like a page that comes to an end.
Chapter.
Logan—
meant to protect,
he lacks the pretty bloom.
There’s no springtime within him.
Chapter.
Using Cinquain to Analyze a Setting or People within a Setting
Fum’blin’
around time’s toes.
Porch-time interactions–
all ’bout da day’s nuttinness,
talking.
Stum’blin’
wit dey own thoughts,
arguin’ about dis-and-dat,
from da sun rise til da sun set
over.
Bum’blin’
wit opinions
playin’ da dozens
til someone gits reconciled
fin’ly.
Crum’blin,
the sun goes down
back inta da same earth,
and da sun pays ‘im rev’rence
passing.
Mum’blin’,
it’s beyond dem.
Each to dey own thoughts
words changed with the earth and wit the sky
Amen.
Fum’blin
wit dey own thoughts
til someone gits reconciled
and da earth pay ‘im rev’rence.
Amen.