You Took Away the Oceans

This poem was written by Osip Mandelstam, a Soviet dissident who spent the last years of his life in a Soviet concentration camp. What does this poem mean?


You took away the oceans and all the room.
You gave me my shoe size with bars around it.
But where did that get you? Nowhere.
You left me my lips and they form words, even in silence.


What metaphors do you see in the poem?
Put them into your own words.

Check dictionary.com: What does dissident mean?
Check wikipedia.com: Find out two more facts about Osip Mandelstam.

You can either copy this assignment into your own blog and post your response there, or email it to me at mondayreading@gmail.com.

Introduction to The Mystery of Evidence

This class is designed to --

• introduce you to college reading and
  
• prepare you for the ACT exit test.

In order to accomplish those goals, we will focus on the concept of evidence --

• in ACT practice passages,
• in textbook chapters,
• in autobiographical narratives, and
• in mystery stories.

And by the time we get done, maybe evidence won't be a mystery any more after all.