Annotation Exercise

For your "composition" for next week, I am asking you to work with a group of your fellow students to annotate one of the three poems we will be reading for that day. We will be using the "Poetry Genius" site to gather and present our annotations.

The goal of this assignment is for you to hone the skills of literary analysis you will need for the explication de texte due later this month, by practicing them outside of the confines of a formal paper.

Group #1: À une passante
Groups #2, 3: Le Cygne
[Group 2 will annotate part I, Group 3 will annotate part II]
Group #4: Spleen (LXXVIII)

Each group member must write at least two annotations by Thursday October 10, 12pm. Annotations must be written in clear, grammatically correct French. On Thursday afternoon, I will review your annotations – I will either approve them, or suggest revisions. You are responsible for revising your annotations by the final due date: Friday, October 11 at class time. On Friday in class, each group will present its annotated poem.

Here are some possibilities for annotations:
* Point out an example of a key poetic term we've learned in class and discuss its use and effect in this poem
* Provide visual illustrations (links, images, or multimedia) to help clarify something mentioned in the poem that is not immediately obvious. When possible, use images from "wiki commons." If you must use images from elsewhere, give proper credit.
* Identify a connection with another poem by Baudelaire. Provide a link.
* Comment on aspects of the structure, meter and form of the poem
* Add some well-researched background information about a reference in the poem (citing your sources)
* Comment and expand on each other's annotations (constructively, of course).

Guidelines for annotating:
* Try to highlight only a very short piece of text -- ideally just a word or a phrase, and no more than a line or two.
* Do not simply paraphrase what the poem already says. An annotation should add something to our reading of the poem.
* If there are other annotated versions of a given poem on the Rap Genius site, please do not recycle the annotations of others.