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Hi Sam,
Good question. I was intrigued by the connection between the plants described in the poem. I wonder if they might help develop the contrast between home and homeland. I decided to create a collage of the plant imagery described to better illustrate this juxtaposition. The contrast between the image of a sunflower, facing down because "it is too heavy to meet the sky", and the fecund and plentiful food-plant images in Vietnam is striking to me. I'm particularly interested in the idea that sunflowers - which have cultural connotations of happiness and joy - are used in a subversive manner, i.e pointed downwards, unable to look up.

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I wonder if the flowers and vegetation mentioned throughout the poem are connected?
Could the ‘growing inside’ reference to a womb in the last line, connect with the garden imagery earlier?
I am wondering how the mother actually feels about her past.

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I need to look up what ‘rickshaws’ are.
Who is ‘Wordsworth’?
What does ‘diaspora’ and ‘cerulean’ mean?

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All great questions, Sam. Wordsworth was a poet and one of the founders of English Romanticism. He is one the movement's most central figures and important intellects. Wordsworth is very commonly taught in schools, which is why Pham adopts the reference in relation to teaching. Do you find it interesting that Pham chose to reference a British (Western) intellectual in regards to teaching poetry, when he himself is a Vietnamese poet? Is is perhaps making a subtle comment on the Eurocentric nature of the school curriculum? Does this then further emphasise a movement of dislocation from the homeland?

A rickshaw is a two or three wheeled vehicle, powered by a bike, or even pulled. The more modern rickshaws are motorised. Attached is an image of a rickshaw in Ho Chi Min City, where the poem Mother is partially set, to give you a really clear image of what one looks like. In learning poetry, it's very important that we are able to conjure visual imagery.

‘Diaspora’ and ‘cerulean’ are more difficult concepts. We will explore these in more depth as a class next lesson.

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Was the mother a factory worker? Why do I think this?
I wonder why the line ‘I know now, as I did in my childhood wonder’ is repeated four times in the poem.
Do you think the mother’s grey hair has a symbolic meaning?
The lines and stanzas are all different in length.
What impact does this have?
Pham uses punctuation in an unconventional way. What effect does this have?

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Welcome to our reciprocal teaching Padlet for Vuong Pham's Mother. You will create three entries, one responding to each of the instructions along the top right: predicting, clarifying and questioning. Once you have completed these entries, write two response to other students from the clarifying and questioning entries. These responses may:
-Answer questions posed by the student.
-Extend upon ideas posed by the student.
-Use multimodal entries such as images, videos or voice recordings to support your answer.

Color code. Please observe and follow this colour coding formula so we can easily identify and categories entries. Yellow: instructions.
Blue: teacher modeled response.
White: student response.
Red: teacher feedback.
Green: peer to peer feedback.

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I don’t know what happened in Saigon that caused bloodshed.
What is a ‘halcyon-time’?

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Teacher modeled response     	                    

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Teacher modeled response     	                    

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Reading the title, I think the poem is about family and sacrifice. This is because in my own life and experience, I tend to associate the word mother with sacrifice.

We know from our learnings in the previous lesson that the poet Vuong Pham has an ancestral connection with Vietnam, so he might be exploring diasporic  and intercultural experience.

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Generating questions about the text at a literal, inferential and evaluative level.

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Identify unfamiliar references and vocabulary, difficult or unfamiliar concepts.

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Making predictions using what you already know and the title of the poem.