Close Reading of Barry Lopez’s “Gone Back Into the Earth”

(Reading as an Aesthetic Act)

Mary Ann ReillyBlueprints for Learning

04.29.13

Word/Phrase Can define it Heard of it Don’t know it Definition

box canyon A canyon with steep walls on 3 sides allowing access only though the mouth of the canyon.

terminal wall End boundary wall

cleft Split or crack

precipitous Very steep

languid Lacking vigor, weak

trill of a phoebe A fluttering or tremulous sound

immobile Fixed

In the extreme remove

remoteness

wade Walk in

Read.

“I am up to my waist in a basin of cool, acid-clear water, at the head of a box canyon some 600 feet above the Colorado River. I place my outstretched hands flat against a terminal wall of dark limestone which rises more than a hundred feet above me, and down which a sheet of water falls—the thin creek whose pooled waters I now stand. The water splits at my fingertips into wild threads; higher up a warm canyon wind lifts water off the limestone in a fine spray; these droplets intercept and shatter sunlight. Down, down another four waterfalls and fern shrouded pools below, the water splits into an eddy of the Colorado River, in the shadow of a huge boulder. Our boat is tied there.”

From Lopez, Barry. (1989). “Gone Back into the Earth.” (pp. 41-53). Crossing Open Ground. New York: Vintage Books.

Embody the Text (Groups of 5) Through…

1. Narrative pantomime: Create movements/dance that illustrate the text and as one or more in your group reads key sections of the text aloud, the rest will move with purpose.

2. Choral Reading: Reset the paragraph to be performed chorally. Think about how 5 voices would perform this and do so.

3. Use your bodies to create a tableaux that represents this opening paragraph. You may move into it, freeze, and move out of it.

4. Create a sound collage that represents what one might hear if standing where Lopez was standing. Sound collages are different sounds created with voice to make a dramatic effect and represent a feeling tone of a work.

Entering the Essay…

1. Read pages 41 - 43 (stop at “After lunch…”).

2. As you read, select one word, phrase or sentence that resonates and practice reading it.

3. When finished, copy the word, phrase of sentence into your notebook at the top of a page.

Entering the Essay…

1. Join the class circle and have with you your notebook, opened to the word, phrase, or sentence on a piece of paper.

2. One person will begin by stepping slightly into the circle and then reading aloud what s/he selected. When finished, s/he will step back into place.

3. Listen to what is read and if your selection connects to it, step into the circle and say your word, phrase, or sentence aloud. Do not raise your hand . Look around and take turns.

4. We will read aloud like this for 5 minutes.

Writing Off the Page…

1. Create a written response to the word, phrase, or sentence you copied.

2. Beginning with the quoted text, write a response that is one full page.

3. Date your entry.

Entering the Essay

1. (5 minutes) Talk with a partner and determine:• Where is Lopez?• Who is he with?• What is his purpose?• Reread the closing two sentences. What does he mean

here?

2. (5 minutes) Join with another set of partners and discuss your understanding of the closing two lines. What does he mean literally? Figuratively?

Sketching the Essay: Found Poems

1. Compose a found poem based on passages you have been assigned.

2. Read/reread the assigned text.3. Select descriptive words, phrases and lines from the text and then

arrange and format the excerpts to compose your own poem. 4. Place the poem you found/made on chart paper and place the

page #s on the chart paper5. Try to use no more than 50 to 75 words to capture the gist or

feeling of the selection you read. 6. You may add up to three of your own words.7. Title the work and then post it on the wall in the order it appears

in the essay.

Dwelling: Making Found Poems

1. pp. 43-44: After Lunch…the landscape opens.2. pp. 44-45: There are forty-one…intent on private thoughts.3. pp. 45-46 : On the second day…there is exploration.4. pp. 46-47 Each day we see of hear…seem so eerie.5. pp. 47-48 Two kinds of time...for each other have washed

out.6. pp.48-49:There are threats…The canyon seems like a

grandfather.7. pp. 49-50: One evening, Winter…what we had not imagined.8. pp. 50 -51: That last evening it rained…the translation of

what we had touched, began.

Dwelling: Gallery Walk of Found Poems

1. Beginning with the first poem, read each of the found poems.

2. What insights and understandings do you now have as a result of reading the found poetry. Consider how these poems, collectively, help you to understand the tenor of the essay.

3. What ambiguities remain?

Reading the End of the Essay

• Let’s return to the essay and read the ending, beginning on page 52, “I sat in the airport in San Francisco…”

Art Conversation

1. After you finish reading, engage in 20-minute art conversations discussing the sense you are making of the essay.

2. Art conversations are nonverbal dialogues that happen between two or more people. Seated with a piece of finger paint paper between the partners use finger paint as the medium through which they converse.

3. Consider color, line, movement as you and your partner create this visual conversation.

Follow Up Work

1. Now students are ready to reread the essay, mining for meaning through double entry notebooks.

2. HW: Ready 2 questions based on your readings of the text that will be used to guide our small group and whole class discussions.