Monday, 11/29/2010

Math:  
Blue- Study Island,
Purple- Study Island  
Orange- Study Island




Science: 
6th- Study Island 
7th- Study Island 
8th- Study Island 


Humanities:
Orange Group - site work 
Purple Group - site work 
Blue Group - site work 



History:
Group 1 - site work
Group 2 - site work
Group 3 - site work

Studio 22:   Nothing Gold Can Stay
                           by Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost’s very short poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay" consists of four rimed couplets. The speaker makes an observation that on the physical/material level of existence there is a constant flux of loss—early subsiding to late, morning to night, joy to sorrow, and life to death.

First Couplet: “Nature's first green is gold”

As readers have come to expect with Frost, his speaker employs nature as the metaphorical vehicle to communicate his observed experience. The first couplet asserts that in nature before green appears a golden color exists; for example, the new leaves of many plants before they unfurl give off a golden glow. But then the speakers says that that golden color is the “Her hardest hue to hold.”

The speaker does not elucidate this claim, but the reader can immediately think of many contradictory examples to refute it: for example, the redbud tree first displays its reddish hue and the cherry blossom first displays it pinkish hue, and neither of them retain those colors. So it seems that as a color, gold is not really the hardest hue to hold.

But as a metaphor for youth or even wealth, one might concede that “gold” is indeed hard to hold. But then in nature the attempt to “hold” on to the early stages of the growing process is not valid. It is, indeed, the human mind that tries to hold on to youth and wealth, not the trees and plants.

Second Couplet: “Her early leaf's a flower”

In the second couplet, the speaker claims that in nature the flower appears before the leaf, but in reality only some trees undergo this phenomenon: as mentioned above the redbud tree and the cherry tree both have flowers before they have leaves. Other examples are the Bradford pear and forsythia.

But most plants do not sprout forth a flower before the leaves. Garden vegetables for example have leaves, then flowers, then fruit. And most flowers used for decoration have their flowers appearing well after the leaves have been established.

Despite these discrepancies, the validity of the speaker’s observation prevails. And even though he exaggerates by saying that the redbud flowers last only “an hour,” the reader understands that he is simply emphasizing brevity.

Third Couplet: “Then leaf subsides to leaf”

The early leaves subside and the new leaves appear; or the colorful flowers subside and the green appear, or the golden hued leaves subside and the green leaves appear. The point is that early presences give way to later ones.

Then the speaker alludes to the Garden of Eden to emphasize that even paradise cannot stay. And not only did it subside, but also “Eden sank to grief.” This statement puts an evaluation on the condition of mutation that shows the utter humanness of the speaker, who cannot help feel somewhat melancholy about the natural state of things: he would like youth to last longer, wealth to remain, gold to remain gold, and Eden to remain Eden.

Fourth Couplet: “So dawn goes down to day”

But the speaker is also a realist, and he knows his human folly of wanting to hold on to the fleeting will not change things one whit, so he remarks “So dawn goes down to day. / Nothing gold can stay.” Yet even this remark is not without its human sentiment, because he says “dawn goes down to day”: “down” becomes a value judgment, a negative directional that once again reveals the very human heart.

As much as the speaker would like to hold on to all those early glowing treasures, he knows he cannot, because “Nothing gold can stay.”