I Need Help

I need help trying to figure out exactly what it is I am supposed to do over break. I am reading The Dubliners, and I read my book for the report, but I am not sure what to do for the assignment for Bartleby the Scrivener. I know we need to give the book talk, with:

Info

Brief Summary

Explanation of interesting ideas/ themes

Analysis of favorite passage

Visual

Delivery

I do not know how we are supposed to give a summary without re-telling the story, however. Is that not precisely what a summary is? If "do not re-tell" means "don't make your whole presentation the telling of the story," I can do that. I am just really confused....Help!

Poetry

I thought I was understanding poetry and how the literary terms were used in the poems and now I've realized I really don't. Writing this essay was extremely painful for me. Everytime I wrote something, I was automatically stopped by confusion partly by me and partly by the poems.

I have discovered that I am the type of person that has to talk things through with other people -- discussion. Whether I'm just listening or including my ideas, this is the only way I comprehend anything.

I can tell you what I think "I never saw a Moor" means and I can tell you what I think "'Faith' is a fine invention" means, but can I explain them? This essay has proven me completely wrong. I know I need to ask questions, but I don't know what questions to ask. When I sit in class, everything makes sense. When I sit at home staring at my blank word document, I feel overwhelmed.

Composers and Poets

As I was reading "The Tiger", I suddenly had this strange harmonious tune in my head and realized that I had sung a song based off of this poem in seventh grade. The same thing happened when I read "My mistress' eye" because the poem below it "Crossing the Bar" was one of the SSAA pieces at Honor's Choir this year. This has happened with about 15% of the poems I've had to read in high school. I find it helpful to have a song to go along with the poem because the tempo, key, and what time it's in show a lot about the poem. Also the length of the note help show which words should be emphasized. Just a little thing I found interesting as I was reading.