The Hangman Read-a-loud

Hangman Response

I thought that this poem was a metaphor for how people don’t stand up for each other. Each time there was another candidate to be hung the hangman got more and control over the people. The reason he got control over the people was because the villagers were getting weaker and more fearful. I think that when Maurice Ogden wrote: “I did no more than you let me do”. He was trying to tell that person that if the villagers had stood up then the hangman might have stopped killing. The hangman gained power as the villagers lost confidence. I think that Maurice Ogden was trying to show how one person with a lot of power can make people fear for their lives and then they can’t care for others.

Hangman Response

wow I thought this poem was amazing, Maurice Ogden did an excellent job oF making it sound so real. When i first read it I thought I was actually one of the characters in the poem. Also when the author Ogden used the words the gallows tree I immediately got a sensory image of the a man being hung by a string attached to a high post. Oh at the end of the poem stanzas 4, and in 8 stanza, the character says "I did no more than you let me do." I got so much at of that because each time the hangman hung someone nobody stood up they all kept being nice and he said if you're nice to me I'll hang you. so each someone got hung, at the end that guy did because was the biggest servant of all of them.

I loved how the author used so many sensory images,similes and metaphors. Like when the poet used metaphor "as hangman tallied his bloody score, and sun by sun and night by night, the gallows tree grew monsterous height." I also loved how the author made the poem like a story and kept the rhyme.

Hangman Response from Adina

This poem had a very strong moral that I think is important but it was a bit too gory for me. The poem talked a lot about the scaffold growing and growing. In the first part the scaffold is just the size of the courthouse door. In the second section it says “The Hangman’s scaffold had grown in size: Fed by the blood beneath the chute The gallows-tree had taken root”. The scaffold could not have grown by blood but I think it is a metaphor of evil taking root. The scaffold was the instrument of evil that actually killed the innocent people. It grew bigger as more villagers were hanged and nobody did anything. This brings me to my next point. This is a quote that I think is very relevant to the poem. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men to do nothing” (Edmund Burke 1729-1797). This is what exactly happened in this poem. At the beginning the Hangman says the scaffold is for the person that helps him the most. Everyone stands by while people are being hanged because they are afraid if they stand up for them they too will get hanged. Also they hope to be spared because they think they are different then the people how were targeted first. Then at the very end the narrator feels tricked because he thinks that he did not help the Hangman. The Hangman says he helped him by being a coward and not standing up for the other people.

Adina L.

response to hangman

When I first read this poem it reminded me of World War 2. It reminded me of world war 2 because when the hangman enterd the city and hung a man, they all thought he was a joke, just what they thought of Hitler. This poem is a long one. It is so layerd, so its difficult to understand the first time you read it. This poem is about a hangman that comes into this little town. The hangman approches a man and hangs him. None of the other villagers stood up to him and tell him to stop, but they ask him who is he you raise the gallows tree, and he replys he who serves me best. The first man he hangs is an alein. This man was not a real alien it was just a foerigner. Then he hung a Jew and then a black so on and so forth until there was only one man left and the hangman. So that night the hangman asked the one man to help him take down the gallows tree, but tricks him into hanging him but before the man dies he asks him why are you hanging me? "Not I for answerd straight and i told you true the scaffhold was raised for none but you! You served me faithfully. And before you knew it he hung the man. This poem is a rhyming poem and it has four parts.

Melody

Question for Mapping Worksheet

Mr. G you said we could use the road map instead of the topographic map. But what can we use instead of the shaded relief map? Thats the only map we need for the 1st sheet.

-Shakaed

I Found a Metaphor in Hangman

In the first stanza when Ogden says "smelling of gold and blood and flame" creates a perfect metaphor. Of course you cant smell gold and blood and flame, so it creates the mood and the feeling that is in the scene.
It also creates a mental picture, you can almost feel the mood of the scene.

-Aviva

"The Hangman" - response by Shakaed

The poem “Hangman” reminded me of World War 2 because at the beginning the hangman hung one man and all the townspeople thought he was a joke and would stop after one night. That is the same as Hitler because at the beginning everybody thought he was a joke and would never get elected. Guess they were wrong, huh?

I think the most important line in the poem was “I did no more than you let me do”. Which I think means that if the speaker would have stood up for all the people who had been murdered by the Hangman then he would’ve stopped. But I think that maybe no one stood up because they were afraid that they would get hung. I think that some one should’ve stood up because you should do what you think is right even though it may involve sacrifice.

-Shakaed

The Hangman response by Danny G.

The Hangman poem reminded me of Hitler because the Hangman was killing all different races and different types of people for no reason, which is exactly what Hitler. There is also a big moral to the poem that I didn't understand at first but then it made a lot more sense. The moral is, is that if you think you are doing nothing at all, you are still doing everything by doing nothing. What I mean by that, is that in the poem the Hangman was killing people, and everyone was watching but not doing anything to stop him. They all thought that they were doing nothing by watching him and not acting. But since they were not stopping him, they were then doing him a favour by not stopping it, which was doing something.

Danny G.

Paragraph on "The Hangman"

This poem reminded me of World War 2 when I read it. It reminded me of World War 2 because in the war Hitler killed blacks, Jews and people who were different from him. In the poem the Hang man killed the same people as Hitler did. This poem also reminded me of World War 2 because in the war there were many countries that didn’t join the war until later on and didn’t let Jews into their country. They were being bystanders. In the poem the town’s people were also being bystanders because they didn’t stop the Hangman from killing the other people.

The Hangman Sensory Images

Stanza # 1 Sensory Images:

-“Smelling of gold and blood flame”

-“The scaffold stood by the courthouse side, only as wide as the door was wide; with a frame as tall, or a little more, than the capping sill of the courthouse door. “

-“The hangman judged with the yellow twist of knotted hemp in his busy fist.”

-“We passed those eyes of buckshot lead.”

-“Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye”

-“And he stepped down and laid his hand on a man who came from another land,”

-Aviva

Hangman Paragraph

Hangman is the most powerful poem I have ever read. With so many sensory images, "Hangman" lets you make your own movie inside your head. It is so condensed that you could white a paragraph for every line in the poem. Even the fifth time I read it i still found out things I never knew before.

Jacque

The Paragraph for the Poem Hangman

I thought that this poem relates to Hitler, because when Hitler became powerfull everybody thought that he was a joke. Just like the Hangman who everybody thought that he was just goingg to kill the man from outer town. After the hangman murdered the man from outer town everybody thought that he was going to leave, like Hitler. I thought that the hang man killed everybody because, because he wanted everybody to be just like him, like Hitler when he wanted everybody to be perfect.

“The Hangman, by Maurice Ogden”.

This poem made me think, remember and never forget. This poem was one big metaphor to me. The Holocaust in disguise, people were being killed. Nobody said it was wrong. Bystanders/ most of the world during the Holocaust/ the towns people. What a shame. The Victims/ Blacks, Jews, Disabled, Gays/ The infidel, Jew, Black, alien one and eventually the whole town plus the speaker.

We read a perfect example of how people can quickly become powerful and how we have to act before that power gets to us.

A lesson.

So many hidden meanings and riddles, that it just intrigues me more to read the poem over and over again.

Sick and disturbing mental pictures drive me away from the poem.

I have to know about my past and to make sure that I don't live one day without thinking of those people who died to make my life better today. Jews, non-Jews. I have to be aware and not let myself slip like the town's people in Ogden’s poem.

With this I conclude by saying that “The Hangman” was the best poem I have ever read. I recommend that everybody should read it. All Races, Religions, grannies, grandpas, moms and dads.

Marc L. 6A

Hangman

I thought that the poem hangman had alot of sensory images and used a lot of metaphors too. There were a lot of words I didn't understand but altogether, it made me look back and remember what had happend to all of us.


~nini~

Hangman

Wow guys, I'm speechless about the poem hangman that we read yesterday! I think we should do some resherch on Maurice Ogden and see if he wrote any other poems

2nd stanza/draft of horse poem

When I was free,

I used to run like the wind.

Galloping through the tall green grass.

Letting the wind go through my tail,

And rustle between the hairs of my

Mane.



Playing games in the dry canyon walls,

to finding new places and adventures

through out my area.



I was the leader of the heard.

And with that job came responsibility.

A lot of it.




Hope you like it, please comment:), I maybe change the last bit


Nini

Note about the maps

6A: The maps for the assignments can be a little difficult to read because of the shading. The information that you need is there, though. You can use the road map instead of the topographic map, as it is easier to read. Please only do the first side of the worksheet.

-Mr. G.

Mapping Paragraph

The world is divided in lots of lines called latitude and longitude. Latitude goes sideways and longitude goes up and down. As an example, the equator is 0 degrees latitude and the prime meridian is 0 degrees longitude. Another part of mapping is the hemisphere. Hemisphere is made up of to words, hemi and sphere. Hemi means half and and sphere is a 3D circle. By using the equator and prime meridian, we divide the world into four quaters, north, south, east, and west. Maps are made to scale each in on map represents one mile on earth.

By Jonah

Comment On The Hangman Poem

I think this poem is like getting pick on. There is a bully, a victim, and a by stander. The bully picks on the kid then the kid gets hurt. The bully then picks on the by stander. It is like Karma.