The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was an eye-catching read with many things to say about this Ballard, the main thing on my mind is that no matter how hard you struggled and fought to pronounce and recite the tricky old-time English words, you always had a drive to read the next line, and to find the rhyme within the stanzas’. Something I will always remember from this book was the Albatross, and how it hung around the Ancient Mariners neck as a symbol of sin.
— The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.” (Page 8 Stanza 7)
I had many questions about this stanza, I felt a significant change in the way I viewed the Ancient Mariner. Not only did he forgive the world around him, but it was just that, that released the sin weighted on his neck. Memorizing the 5 stanzas’ was not difficult considering it’s already in Rime, one thing would rhyme with the next which made the words easier to compare and contrast between the stanzas’. I think it was unrealistic to have such high expectations for a class of students, the most of whom were born and/or raised in non-English speaking nations. Applying the grading system incorrectly in this instance, with the bulk of the class receiving a 5 or lower, due to a small number of students exceeding expectations, is the reason for this.