Mentor Text: The Deer by Ama Codjoe
Techniques:
- Building a metaphor using imagery
Background –
Making sure I meet my deadlines to share something with you all often adds an extra thing or two to a busy day.
But I am really glad I do it.
I’m three days into a new semester, teaching two sections of something I taught last semester, and my 11/12 split Lit class. I’m always rebuilding that course, and this year is no exception.
And here’s the thing, as I moved down my to-do list today, before I got to doing this for you, I had to plan the next couple of days in that class. Tomorrow, we’re using something that I first shared here, and I’m glad I met that deadline.
And as I got to the last thing on the to-do list, and prepped for Mentor Text Wednesday, I pulled out the most recent Best American Poetry, because I knew I’d flagged numerous possible poetic mentor texts.
Ama Codjoe’s poem ‘The Deer’ is an amazing poem. So good, in fact, that I might be rewriting tomorrow’s lesson plan for Lit to use what I’m sharing with you tonight.
How we might use this text:
Building a metaphor using imagery – The beginning of this poem is just a wonderfully crafted piece of imagery. In fact, it almost feels ekphrastic in nature, sharing this moment with the deer.
There’s probably a good lesson about poetic intent here as well, discussing why she chose to present this as one single stanza, instead of splitting it when she writes, “By now, you know it was love I walked toward.”
But that’s not what happens. There’s a hard pivot into the metaphor that’s being presented – the deer as love. That word choice as that shift happens, “By now, you know…” As if the reader was already thinking that, looking for the figurative meaning in the poem.
Maybe that’s why I feel this poem works so well as a mentor text, because it pulls off that trick very much like one of our young writers might. That shift from imagery to metaphor is a whiplash shift – and that is often a hallmark of young writers. But Codjoe imbues it with a confidence – as if there were no other choice, nothing else that deer could represent, and it was so obvious that it was a metaphor for love that we were already thinking it. It’s bold, and I love it.
I think I love mentor texts that model ways to turn the clunky things our writers do into beautiful, intentional decisions. Pieces that give us lots of avenues to discuss writer’s intent, to look at the choices a writer makes, and really consider how our writers can make similar decisions in their own writing.
What places are your go-to sources for mentor texts when you have a deadline to meet? What pieces do you have that model turning clunky writers’ moves into things of beauty?
Leave a comment below or find me on Twitter @doodlinmunkyboy!
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