DO NOW: TOSSED TERMS
To review the literary elements that students will encounter in Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night," a "Tossed Terms" activity provides a more engaging, hands-on means of definition recall. In this format, the pre-selected literary elements - metaphor, point of view, simile, metaphor, imagery, and oxymoron - are inscribed on the six sides of a cube. The boxes are tossed around a tight group of students. Prompted to define the literary element on which they catch the box, students clarify for one another previously learned, domain-specific vocabulary. Familiarizing and equipping students with the necessary jargon prior to engagement with the text will allow the poem's discussion and analysis to revolve around - and be grounded in - a shared language.
|
|
1. 2:03-2:43 [Webber]
2. 6:53-8:03 [Steers] 3. 14:51-16:29 [Steers] 4. 24:25-25:46 [Webber]* 5. 28:47-29:50 [Steers] 6. 34:11-34:41 [Both] 7. 37:52-39:35 [Both] * Scene in the above video |
Venn Diagram
TV SHOW FOIL CHARACTERS Grey's Anatomy Season 10, Episode 4: "Puttin' on the Ritz" Air Date: Thursday, October 10, 2013 In this episode of the television series, Grey's Anatomy, Dr. Miranda Bailey captures the opinion Dylan Thomas voices in his poem, "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night." With two patients confronting death for different reasons - one by choice as he refuses treatment, one due to terminal cancer - the episode casts foil characters to highlight the two opposite approaches one can take when facing the end of his life. Dr. Bailey shines through - by echoing what Thomas urges in the poem - via her condemnation of the former approach and praise of the latter. After watching the compiled excerpts, students will compare and contrast Mr. Gene Steers and Dr. Richard Webber, recording the similarities and differences in a Venn Diagram.
|
Close Reading for Literal Comprehension and Literary Elements
As shown below, students will annotate the poem - through both whole-class and small-group discussions of it. Students will be asked to decode vocabulary, to identify and decipher similes, metaphors, symbolism, imagery, point of view, and oxymoron, and varying types of comprehension questions throughout the process.
SUMMARY
The elderly should not slip peacefully and willingly into death, but should fight to live their last moments. Smart men acknowledge death's inevitability. But haven't done anything grand yet, so they fight. Good men know that the actions that death will cut short would've been great/beautiful, so they fight to live last moments. Wild men who partied their life away, grieve the realized transiency by fighting. Even when death weakens men, men can still use what they do have left to fight against death. Narrator pleads to his father - who's on his death bed - to fight against death rather than submit to it and go calmly. |
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Dylan Thomas Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. |
LITERARY ELEMENTS
Command sentence. Sunset = 1 day. Metaphor for lifetime. Sunset = death. "Dark" = cont. death metaphor Imagery of wave crashing to shore = death metaphor. Green = life symbol. Cycle of sun in sky = sunrise to sunset. Grave = pun = dying or serious men? Oxymoron. Simile = eyes/meteors. Vocab: Gay = happy. Addressed to father of narrator. "Sad height" = death bed. Inference: Calm tears = going gently? |