A Course of Study in SchoolBy: Rita Joe

By: Alessia Iuorio and Samantha LaMantia

Rita Joe Bio

• Historical Context:

-She began to write when she was 40 years old, and she wrote in a time period when there was still prejudice towards Aboriginals

Bio Continued

• Influences:- What mainly influenced her to start writing

was her troubled past- She lost her mother and spent her childhood in

foster care, residential schools and she was abused

Bio Continued

• Period Which the Poet Lived:

-She grew up in a time period where the government mistreated Aboriginal children and forced them to go to residential schools

- She began and ended writing in a more recent time period where there was still prejudice towards Aboriginal people

Type of Poem

• A Course of Study in School is a free verse type of poem, because it is unrhymed and there is no set pattern that is followed.

Theme of Poem

• The major theme of this poem is the education of Aboriginals.

• Rita Joe is comparing the teachings from thousands of years ago to the present day, and how the best teachers are the elders who pass on lessons from generation to generation.

• Rita is comparing her elders teachings of story telling to the modern teaching styles of writing notes on the board.

Definitions

• Accentuate:

means make more noticeable. • Slanted:

Slope or lean in a particular direction. • Syllable:

A unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word

Poem Analysis

For a long time I read your word Epizenxis

A slanted voice who thought it was correct. Dissonance

Apostrophe.

the poet is referring to someone who is not there, and has maybe died.

I read it and held my judgementsRemembering my elders request. Apostrophe, Image“Wait a whileWe have been waiting five hundred years.Someday they will listen.”

Analepsis.This is a flashback of what she learned when she

was a child, and what her elder told her to do.

Imagery. I picture elders waiting around a bond fire for 500 years.

Today I voice what is in my heart Formula

I am a teacher. Imagery

On the blackboard I write Mi’kmaq words.

The children read as I accentuate

The spoken syllable of my tribal language

Imagery.

I can see a teacher writing new Mi’kmaq words on the blackboard in front of the class and the students reading and copying down what is on the board.

Again and again Repetition

I voice what is in my heart. Formula

The tribal language my parents used. Apostrophe

Analepsis.

Again she is remembering something else she learned in her past.

Voicing the curriculum prepared by myself is not hard. Formula

I was born into this world.

Self-government only opened the door to determination.

Formula.

In 3 different verses the poet repeats a line, and the word ‘voice’ is repeated 3 times.

Ode:The poem has this device because it is about a serious topic

of the Aboriginal teaching and also the stanzas are irregular.

Tone:The poet and the speaker have the same attitude towards the

subject of the poem. The tone of the poem is informative and the speaker is telling her about her experiences.

Atmosphere:

The mood this poem gives off is a positive, and somewhat serious to what happened in the past and what’s happening in the present.

Devices Throughout Poem

End-Stopped:

There is punctuation separating the verses, which are usually periods.

Exemplum:

The poem is her story to the teachers of Mi’kmaq in Eskasoni , N,S telling them about what she learned and passing on the lesson to them.

Lyric:

In the short poem the poet is talking to the reader, and is expressing her feelings on how she felt when she was learning about the Aboriginal culture and how she felt when she was teaching it.

Rhyme and Diction

• Rhyme: There is no rhyme scheme in this poem. • Rhythm: The rhythmic pattern is a rising or ascending rhythm because the

stress falls on the final syllable of each foot.• Diction: The vocabulary used in the poem is simple, and the words are

easy to understand. The words used in the poem are also ordinary words that we see and use every day. There are only a couple of complex words such as slanted and accentuate. The vocabulary used in the poem also has a literal meaning to what the poem is saying

Sound Devices

• Euphony:

The poem flows to create a pleasing sound and the tone matches the wording. Also the poem has repetition, and proximity of words which creates the flow of sound patterns.

• Resonance: For a long time I read your word

A slanted voice who thought it was correct.

This line has a variety of sounds that adds richness in the poetic texture.

Questions

1. Why did the poet decide to have no rhyming scheme?

2. What is the reason behind the poet using simple diction?

3. Why is the poem specifically written for the teachers of Mi’kmaq in Eskasoni, N.S?

4. Is there a reason why the poet used a lot of repetition of words?

5. Why are there lines of dialogue in the poem?