STOP BAD FIT APPROACH TO Literature

After we talk through each element and you practice analysis for STOP BAD FIT on the below poem, request
the graphic organizer begin identifing these elements in your own text. Remember to think about the PURPOSE
and EFFECT. What does it do? How does it do it? And why is this important?

For both the analysis today and also the analysis of your novel, you MUST annotate for the highlighted terms.
In addition, you will need to select three other terms to look for

1. Symbol/Motif
What symbols/motifs are present in this story? How do these symbols/motifs create meaning—enhance
characterization, theme, etc.?

a) Bird (Symbol and motif): The Two birds in the story mean the difference between being someone who
has liberty in the world and the one that because of his/her anger has been caged or jailed.
b) Cage(Symbol): It can be a representation of how our own minds make us get trapped into infinite
thoughts of insecurity and rage.
c) Sing (Symbol): Sing can be the resource that some people might use to express their ban from liberty
and their need to be freed.

2. Theme
What major theme(s) is present in this story? How do you know?
Different perspectives of Freedom is the major theme in this story, it basically explains how two “birds” can
be both freed but act in different ways. One of the birds expresses his sense of aggressiveness and wishes
bad to others, because that bird might still not feel in liberty. While the other “bird” shows some benefits of
being mentally free such as “loats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.”

3. Organization
How is the story divided and structured? Does this structure have impact on meaning? Does the title of
the work relate to the passage? If so, how?

4. Progression
How does the story itself progress? Does the tone shift? Do characters develop? Do actions develop? Is
there some sort of change, transformation, epiphany, important event, or important interaction?
a) The story progresses in the development of certain examples of freedom and its comparison towards the
caged ones. As the story progresses both birds give examples of their perspectives from the positions
they are located. The free bird advances from enjoying nature to claiming what the bird can achieve and
complete, while the caged one describes its feelings of rage as a cry for help.
b) The important interaction is that there is no interaction between both birds, which can be interpreted as
someone who needs help but doesn't get the up they need.

5. Big Three
a. Speaker: Who is it? Is he/she reliable? Is there subtext in the dialogue?
i. The Speaker is in third person.
ii. The speaker is reliable because they are unbiased. They do not connect the caged bird to
the free bird.
iii. No, because since there isn't any dialogue between both main characters, therefore the
poem is spoken in third person by the speaker and it is not counted as subtext.
 b. Audience: Who is it? What is the intended effect of the poem on the audience?
i. This monologue is directed towards people with the urgency of freedom, people who
don't have the access to non judgemental assistance. The intended effect is for people to
see their reflection towards them.
c. Situation: What happened, why, where, when, how, etc?
i. One bird is enjoying freedom and the other is caged.
ii. Because that is how life works, in that scenario there is no motive.
iii. The story might be taking place in some green hills and in a forest downstream.
iv. There is not a specific time but it happens during the day because it says “Orange sun
rays.”
v. Seeing both perspectives of freedom and not-freedom.

6. Atmosphere
What is the mood of the story? Why is this important? Consider how diction, imagery, and tone
contribute to the overall mood of the poem. Does this change at any point? (hint—atmosphere is how
does it feel or make you feel?)

A. The mood of this poem is sort of mellow but hopeful at the same time. We have the perspective of the
bird who lives free and gets to enjoy life, and then we have the sufferment of the bird who lives in the
cage.

B. The mood is important because it makes us realize that both birds feel about the environment they live
in.

C. The mood goes back and forth between the free bird and the caged bird, and both moods they present are
opposite from each other. The overall mood of the free bird is happiness and relaxation while the mood
of the caged bird is captivity/ a desire for freedom and sufferment.

7. Diction
Does the author choose certain words for a desired effect? Is there any repetition of important words? Are
parts of the poem colloquial or formal?

8. Figurative Language
Is there figurative language in this poem? What kinds? What effect does it have?
Metaphor Simile Personification Hyperbole Foreshadowing

9. Imagery
Does the author appeal to your sense of sight? Smell? Taste? Touch? Sound? How does s/he do this?
What effect does it have?
a) The Author does appeal to my sense of sight, it clearly creates a sketch in our minds of how the forest,
hills, and colors look like. The author also appeals to our sense of sound, when he says that the caged
bird sings as a possible representation of cry for help, we can distinctly imagine how those chirps sound,
creating a birdsong.
b) This has a more direct impact on the reader, because by how well the actions are described it is easier for
us to understand and appeal our senses towards the narration. Also it gives the reader more power to
introduce creativity in creating and designing the imagery in our minds.

10. Tone
What is the attitude of the speaker, author, or narrator, and how is the tone revealed? Some example
tone words: pessimistic, light-hearted, flippant, fearful
(hint—tone is: how does it sound?)
Instructions 9th, 10th, 12th:
With your book group, please annotate the below poem for the STOP BAD FIT elements:

Caged Bird
BY MAYA ANGELOU
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind   
and floats downstream   
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks

down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and   
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings   

with a fearful trill   
of things unknown   
but longed for still   
and his tune is heard   
on the distant hill   
for the caged bird   
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams   

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream   
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied   
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings   

with a fearful trill   
of things unknown   
but longed for still   
and his tune is heard   
on the distant hill   
for the caged bird   
sings of freedom.
Maya Angelou, “Caged Bird” from Shaker, Why Don't You Sing? Copyright © 1983 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division
of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Source: The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House Inc., 1994)
 11th

Different Ways to Pray

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
There was the method of kneeling,
a fine method, if you lived in a country
where stones were smooth.
The women dreamed wistfully of bleached courtyards,   
hidden corners where knee fit rock.
Their prayers were weathered rib bones,
small calcium words uttered in sequence,
as if this shedding of syllables could somehow   
fuse them to the sky.

There were the men who had been shepherds so long   

they walked like sheep.
Under the olive trees, they raised their arms—
Hear us! We have pain on earth!
We have so much pain there is no place to store it!
But the olives bobbed peacefully
in fragrant buckets of vinegar and thyme.
At night the men ate heartily, flat bread and white cheese,   
and were happy in spite of the pain,   
because there was also happiness.

Some prized the pilgrimage,

wrapping themselves in new white linen   
to ride buses across miles of vacant sand.   
When they arrived at Mecca   
they would circle the holy places,   
on foot, many times,
they would bend to kiss the earth
and return, their lean faces housing mystery.

While for certain cousins and grandmothers

the pilgrimage occurred daily,   
lugging water from the spring
or balancing the baskets of grapes.
These were the ones present at births,
humming quietly to perspiring mothers.
The ones stitching intricate needlework into children’s dresses,   
forgetting how easily children soil clothes.

There were those who didn’t care about praying.

The young ones. The ones who had been to America.   
They told the old ones, you are wasting your time.
      Time?—The old ones prayed for the young ones.   
They prayed for Allah to mend their brains,
for the twig, the round moon,
to speak suddenly in a commanding tone.

And occasionally there would be one

who did none of this,
the old man Fowzi, for example, Fowzi the fool,   
who beat everyone at dominoes,
insisted he spoke with God as he spoke with goats,   
and was famous for his laugh.

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Different Ways to Pray” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon:
Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author.
Source: Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Far Corner Books, 1995)
AP

"The Story of An Hour"

Kate Chopin (1894)
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to
her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half
concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in
the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently
Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its
truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend
in bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to
accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's
arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would
have no one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank,
pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her
soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with
the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler
was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her
faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and
piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except
when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep
continues to sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain
strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on
one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a
suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did
not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky,
reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was
approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as
her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered
word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under hte breath: "free, free,
free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They
stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed
every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and
exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would
weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never
looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter
moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she
opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There
would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women
believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a
cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment
of illumination.

And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could
love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she
suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for
admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are
you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."

"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that
open window.

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and
all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It
was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish
triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped
her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at
the bottom.

Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a
little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the
scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at
Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.