Pre-Seminar Activities

• Process:  Review seminar procedures and select personal goal
• Content:  1)Discuss figures of speech, especially metaphor and simile.  Figurative language helps readers see things in new ways.  Writers use these techniques to create vivid pictures with words to show their ideas.  Metaphor:  speaks of something as if it were something else.  X=Y.  Simile:  comparison of two unlike things which uses "like" or "as."
2)  Read examples; ask how two things are being compared.
• The fog was pea soup.
• He was all ears
• Carl Sandburg's Fog
The fog comes/on little cat feet/It sits looking/over harbor and city/on silent haunches/and then moves on.
3)  With partner, write original metaphor or simile, and label which it is.  Provide starters as needed.

Opening:  In either of the two poems, what simile or metaphor produces the strongest image?  (After round-robin answers, allow for explanation of choices.)

Core:

1.  What advice does Hughes offer in "Dreams"?
2.  How would Hughes answer his questions in "Dreams Deferred"?
3.  Is there a connection between the two poems?  If so, what is it?

1.  What dream are you working to make come true?
2.  Do Hughes' poems relate to your life now, several decades after they were written?  If so, how?

Process:  Assess personal goal.  Write briefly about seminar.
Content:  Select a writing topic.

1.  What thing(s) do you dream of being, doing, or experiencing in your lifetime?
2.  What personal dream of yours has been deferred?  Why?
3.  Describe your dream for our nation in the new millennium.