Independent Reading

In the column on the right of the blog you'll find a place to post comments on your independent reading (the first book and background information). You should post at least four substantial comments between now and pumpkin time on Friday, January 7. Overall the comments should show a personal and analytical engagement with literature you have chosen and with the background reading. The comments should also show a willingness to interact with the other(s) reading the same material. I want lively posts that demonstrate care, attention, and insight.

You will also complete a quotation response journal with ten passages from the reading (one from the background and nine from the literature) and a response to each passage. For more on quotation response journals go here.

Reminder from the QRJ rubric: in order to get a "B" or higher you must make "thematic connection[s]" and "personal connection[s]"; you must ask "pertinent," "thought-provoking," and "insightful" questions; and you must include "[discussion of] literary devices": how the way the text is written contributes to its meaning).

Before Midnight

Kelly and Megan,
Comment here on Cinderella and Before Midnight by Cameron Dokey.

Ur-Narrative: The Chronicles of Narnia & Christian narratives

Tom and Moriah,
Comment here about The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and its relationship to Christian stories.

Bronte Sisters Authors Study

Kara, Leila, Emily C,
Comment here on Wuthering Heights and background information about the Bronte sisters.

Study of James Joyce's *Ulysses*

Sean and Emily P,
Comment here about the first three chapters (the Telemachiad) of James Joyce's novel Ulysses.

William Faulkner Author Study

Alea, Grant, Chelsea,
Comment here about The Sound and the Fury and background information on William Faulkner.

Italo Calvino Author Study

Ellie, Adrian, and Tori,
Comment here about If on a Winter's Night a Traveler and your background reading on Italo Calvino.

Kafka and the Turn from Modernism into Postmodernism

Louisa, Evan, and Andrew,
Comment here on Franz Kafka's short fiction and your background reading. (What are you reading for background?)

Beginning with *Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead": A Study of "Theater of the Absurd"

Ethan, Paige, and Jacklyn,
you'll comment here about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and "Theater of the Absurd".

Beginning with *Dubliners*: A Study of Irish Literature

Caroline and Elizabeth,
you'll comment here about James Joyce's Dubliners and your research into Irish literature.

John Steinbeck Author Study

Arica, Hilary, and Michelle,
You'll comment here about East of Eden and background research about John Steinbeck.

Ur-Narrative: Transformations and Grimms Fairy Tales

Josiah, Edan, and Mac.
You'll comment here on Transformations by Anne Sexton and Grimms Fairy Tales.

Independent Reading Project

Independent Reading Project


By the end of the day on Friday (12/17) give me a letter or write me an email telling me (1) what option you have picked (the options are explained below), (2) what you plan to read to get some background on your option (if it's a website give me the URL; make sure it's a reliable source), (3) what novel or play you plan to read first, (4) who else will be reading the same things. Make sure you interest at least one* other person in either section of AP English in your choice. Revision: it's okay if you agree on the novel/play but not the "option". (I'll call this the Louisa B revision.) Post ideas about what option you plan to choose and what texts you would like to read. Revision: I have posted the ideas I've heard. It's become obvious to me that I need to make it more explicit that some preliminary research on your part is necessary. Wikipedia is a useful tool for preliminary research (though you should not rely on Wikipedia research in scholarly writing). Solicit support for your idea. Make a pitch. On Thursday (12/16) I'll give you a chance to talk to each other about your ideas.
*Note: any more than four people will make the project unwieldy.

Option 1: Bildungsroman. You might continue your study of the Bildungsroman genre (1) by consulting several sources -- starting with this one -- to learn more about Bildungsromans and (2) by reading a couple bildungsromans in addition to the one's you've already studied.

Option 2: Ur*-Narratives (Sacred Texts, Myths, Fairy Tales). You might continue your study of how writers, poets, and other artists use older, archetypal stories -- Bible stories, Greek myths, German fairy tales, etc. -- to create new stories, films, poems, paintings, etc. (We've already studied how Joyce, several painters, and several poets have made use of the Daedalus-Icarus myth.) You will (1) investigate an ur-narrative (a myth, a fairy tale, etc.) and (2) explore how several writers (and perhaps filmmakers, poets, and visual artists) have made use of the original story. (You might modify the assignment to look at how a couple different myths/tales are used.)
*"Ur" is Germanic in origin. In English it is sometimes used as a prefix meaning "original" or "prototypical".

Here are a few books that are based on myths, sacred texts, or folk tales:
* Here's a link to a list of books based on Greek mythology.
* William Butler Yeats wrote several plays based on Celtic mythology and tales.
* Anne Sexton wrote Transformations, a book of narrative poems based on German fairy tales.
* John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden include many Biblical allusions. Grapes of Wrath allusions include The Book of Job, the story of Noah and the flood in Genesis, and the story of the Hebrews and the Promised Land (Numbers, etc.) East of Eden is built around the Cain and Abel story in Genesis.

Option 3: Author Study. You might continue your investigation of one of the authors we have studied so far this year: Calvino, Ellison, Rhys, Bronte, Joyce. Or you might want to study another major author. Your study will include an investigation of (1) the author's life and cultural context and (2) her/his literary output beyond what you have already read.

Option 4: Literary Movement. You might continue your investigation of a literary movement that we have touched upon this year: Romanticism, Gothicism, Victorianism, Modernism. Or you might want to study another literary movement. Your study will include an investigation of (1) the -ism and (2) representative literary works from the movement.

Option 5: Literature of a Culture. You might continue your investigation of the literature produced by a particular culture. The works we have read so far this year have come out of several cultural contexts: Italian, African-American, Anglo-Caribbean, English, Irish. Or you might to want to study the literature of another culture. You will (1) investigate the literature produced by the particular culture and (2) read representative literary works from the culture.

Option 6: Critical Lens. You might study literature using a particular critical lens: gender studies, critical race theory, queer theory, Marxist literary criticism, psychoanalytic (Freudian) literary criticism, archetypal literary criticism, ecocriticism, deconstruction, etc. (Click here for Wikipedia's "literary theory" page for more ideas.) You will (1) investigate the critical theory and (2) read literary works "through the lens" of the critical theory.

Option 7: Something else that you concoct and propose. This something else should have a research component and a literary component.

Not-for-College Memoir Essay

Not-for-College Memoir Essay

Write a non-for-college memoir essay 500 to 1000 words by the end of the school day Wednesday, December 22. The memoir essay is characterized by a living, intimate voice, vivid storytelling, and thoughtful reflection. It should be as Phillip Lopate writes, "a vivid, self-reflective tale," a "compressed" bildungsroman. I'll ask you to bring in a draft Thursday, December 16.

Your essay should demonstrate several of the characteristics that Lopate sets forth in his essay "Are We Living through a Resurgence of the Essay?". In response to the question, what makes a first-rate essay Lopate writes:

* I [look] for a certain density of thought. A living voice. A text that would surprise me and take me through a mental adventure.

* I've been drawn to the analytical, the wry, the self-aware. . . . [I]t's a performance of extreme sophistication, the argument rising or falling on the basis of verbal nuance, persona pirouette, exposure of unconscious contradiction in oneself and others.

* [In the first-rate memoir-essay the reader gets] all the juice of a Bildungsroman is compressed into a vivid, self-reflective tale, minus the padding.

* There is nothing quite like the beauty of a worldly, meditative and amply mature sensibility going about its bee-like business of constructing meaning.

* [T]hese pieces champion an uneasy complexity and contradiction, just as they refuse glib accommodations.

* [T]he essayists . . . echo [an] opposition to easy answers, and help increase our capacity to face the unreconciled.

Look at "Memoir Essays a.k.a. Not-for-College Essays" for examples.

"The Dreamer Did Not Exist"

"The Dreamer Did Not Exist" by William Gessner

On Thursday and Friday we will create double-entry class notes (with observations, quotations, details on the left, ideas, reactions, questions, comments on the right) in response to David Gessner's "The Dreamer Did Not Exist".

On Monday Mr. Telles will guest lecturer about Ernest Becker, whose book Denial of Death is referenced in Gessner's memoir essay. Understanding Becker better will help us understand what Gessner suggests in his essay.

Before class time on Tuesday you will attempt to synthesize your understanding of Gessner's essay into a personal response. Your personal response should accomplish a few things: it should show that you understand how Gessner's essay works; it should demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of what Gessner's essay suggests about the human condition; and (here's the new part) it should respond to what Gessner suggests by supporting, challenging, or modifying his view. Post your response in the comment box below.

Six Poems: Five with Icarus & One with Daedalus

In your packet you have six poems that make use of the Daedalus-Icarus myth. All of the poems are modern but none of them use the myth in quite the same way.

Read all six poems and take notes using one of the three methods you learned earlier in the year:
SOAPSTone + Theme, TPCAST + Theme, or say-play-imply. (Use each method at least once.)

Speaker
Occasion
Audience
Purpose
Subject
Tone
Theme

Title
Paraphrase
Connotation
Attitude (theme)
Shift
Title again
Theme

Say (What does the poem literally say?)
Play (How does the poem play with language?)
Imply (What does the saying and playing imply?)

Tomorrow you'll use your notes in class. You won't be able to participate in the class work if your notes are not complete.

*A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man* Quotation Blogging

Step 1: Choose a thematic category from your group work and organize the accompanying set of quotations into chronological order from earliest in the book to latest.

Step 2: At the top of your comment write your first name and first initial of your last name. Also write the thematic category.

Step 3: (A) Type out the first quotation in its entirety. (B) Explain the context for the quotation. (What's going on in the novel before and after the quotation? How is the context significant?) (C) Explore everything you see as significant in the quotation. (Shed some light on all the strands you see there.)

Step 4: Repeat step 3 for each of the quotations in the thematic category.

Step 5: Write a paragraph that gives offers a bold, insightful conclusion about your insights into the thematic category and the quotations.

Step 6: Post your comments in the comment box by pumpkin time on Monday, November 22.

Thread Essay: parts in relation to the whole (consonantia)

"Rhythm, said Stephen, is the first formal esthetic relation of part to part in any esthetic whole or of an esthetic whole to its part or parts or of any part to esthetic whole of which it is part." (Joyce 183)

"Having first felt that it is one thing you feel now that it is a thing. You apprehend it as complex, multiple, divisible, separable, made up of its parts, the result of its parts and their sum, harmonious. That is consonatia." (Joyce 189)

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004.

***

To write this essay you will need to choose one of the threads that Joyce weaves through his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. We've discussed many threads and there are others we have not had the opportunity to discuss. You might reflect on your group work for ideas when choosing. Post the thread you have chosen in the comment box by class time on Tuesday, November 23.

You will then develop a well-organized essay in which you explain how the thread is significant in the work as a whole. Along the way the essay must deal with the thread's significance in each of the five chapters of the novel. The essay will be 1000+ words, twelve-point font, double spaced. It's due in class on Wednesday, December 1. Check out the "Part to Whole Example Essays".

Notes:

The thread might be something that is physically sensed -- seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched -- in Stephen's world.

The thread might be something -- a person, place, thing, sense -- with associations, connotations, correspondences that Joyce uses suggestively. The something might be used to embody meanings.

The thread might be a set of related somethings -- a set of words associated with birds, a set of words associated with water, a set of words associated with mouths -- that are used suggestively. There are also sets of fathers and sets of women (and language related to women, like a "maiden" moon). And several others sets.

The thread might be physically present in Stephen's world and/or it might be figuratively present in the narrator's language. For example there are literal birds, but there are also people who look like birds, people's whose names are birds, feelings that are described in bird related terms (soaring, swooning), etc. The same can be said of water and fire. Then some of the threads are figurative only -- nets, cages, mazes -- yet they're still threads.

The thread might be a suggestive pair of opposites like dry/damp, light/dark, hot/cold, live/dead, etc.

Instead of being something palpable, the thread might be a concept that is embodied in characters, events, thoughts, dialogue, descriptions, etc.: religion, nationality, language, art, sexuality, body-spirit divide, etc. All of these things are abstract though they are manifest in Stephen's world in concrete ways.

The thread might foreground literal and figurative images that embody (suggest, connote) concepts, or the thread might foreground concepts anchored in literal and figurative images.

So...What is your thread? How is it significant to the work as a whole?

This Is Your Brain on Metaphors

Here's a link to the article we talked about in class today.

The article claims that the structure of our brains causes physical sensations and abstract concepts to overlap (or, pejoratively, "to be confused"; or, positively, "to be synthesized"; or, poetically, "to correspond"). If this is true then metaphorical thinking is not something you learn in English class but something that's already part of your brain.

And not only is it part of the brain but it's built into language: "the kid is spoiled rotten" "dirty rotten scoundrel" "lousy book". These words refer both to abstract concepts -- the child whose morals are ruined by indulgent parents, the immoral jerk, the book of poor quality -- and to physical phenomenon that correspond with the concepts -- the spoiling of food and rotting of flesh, physical dirtiness and rotting flesh (again), something covered with lice. The concepts are entwined with (and colored by) physical manifestations and our physical senses. If the physical associations in the metaphor are alive (present in the mind) they intensify the feeling associated with the concept. Our thinking and feeling are entwined.

When discussing immorality, the article observes, people tend to feel physically dirty so much so that they will often literally wash their hands (Lady Macbeth? Pontius Pilate?). If the language emphasizes the dirtiness and rottenness of the amorality then we'll feel the immorality that much more acutely.

& that's one of the things that literature does: induces us to feel ideas instead of just thinking them.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: chapters four and five

Due by class time on Monday, November 15. (I want to use the responses in class so it's important that you post before class.)

In the comment box below you will post a response (or responses) in which you use close reading to discuss the significance of passages from chapters four and five.

To generate ideas about significance you might think about these questions in relation to the final two chapters:

How does Stephen struggle to figure out who he is in relation to his environment? What are the different aspects of who he is and of his environment that are part of this struggle? Think about family, religion, nationality. How is each significant?

How does the way the story is written -- third person stream of consciousness narration, epiphanies, allusions, images, motifs, style, syntax, diction -- contribute to how the reader experiences and understands Stephen's process of identity formation?

How is the struggle related to becoming an artist, particularly a language artist? How is the struggle? How is the struggle related to the Daedalus-Icarus myth?

*******

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man online.
Click here to find chapter one with some good notes.
& here you'll find chapter two.
The home page for the enotes version of the book is here. You can use it to click on any of the five chapters or on "Reading Pointers for Sharper Insight" which mentions a lot of the elements -- epiphany, stream of consciousness, Daedalus & Icarus -- that I mentioned last week.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ch. 1, 2, & 3: Extending the discussion

Due by pumpkin time on Friday, November 5.

In the comment box below you will post a response (or responses) in which you use close reading to discuss the significance of passages from chapters one, two, and three.

To generate ideas about significance you might think about these questions in relation to the first three chapters:

How does Stephen struggle to figure out who he is in relation to his environment? What are the different aspects of who he is and of his environment that are part of this struggle? Think about family, religion, nationality. How is each significant?

How does the way the story is written -- third person stream of consciousness narration, epiphanies, allusions, images, motifs, syntax, diction -- contribute to how the reader experiences and understands Stephen's process of identity formation?

How is the struggle related to becoming an artist, particularly a language artist? How is the struggle? How is the struggle related to the Daedalus-Icarus myth?

*******

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man online.
Click here to find chapter one with some good notes.
& here you'll find chapter two.
The home page for the enotes version of the book is here. You can use it to click on any of the five chapters or on "Reading Pointers for Sharper Insight" which mentions a lot of the elements -- epiphany, stream of consciousness, Daedalus & Icarus -- that I mentioned last week.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Getting Started

Some notes on today's lecture/talk:

1. Due dates for reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Read chapter 1 (page 59 in the green & white editions, page 51 in the brown) by Monday, November first (All Saint's Day which would have been a day of Holy Obligation for Stephen).

Read chapter 2 (page 101 in the green & white editions, page 89 in the brown) by Wednesday, November third.

Read chapter 3 (page 127 in the brown) by Friday, November fifth.

Read chapter 4 (page 151 in the brown) by Monday, November eighth (last day of term one).

Read chapter 5 (page 225 in the brown) by Friday, November twelfth.

2. Things I mentioned and/or we discussed in A-block and F-block.

Jansenism is similar in some ways to Puritanism. Human nature is not only corrupt, it is depraved. Salvation can only be achieved through God's grace and only a small number of elect will be saved. Communion should be reserved only to those who prepare for the sacrament through piety, prayer, and confession. Officially Jansenism was condemned by the Catholic Church as heretical in 1655 but aspects of Jansenism, especially the emphasis on the inherently depravity of mankind and the need for confession to purify oneself in order to receive God's grace, remained influential in Catholic countries including Ireland.

Stream of consciousness narration: Joyce uses third-person, stream of consciousness narration in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

3. Things I mentioned and/or we discussed in A-block but not in F-block.

Beautiful Losers is a film about a loosely associated group of diy visual artists creating art in the 90s & 00s, inspired by such things as skateboarding, graffiti, vintage signs and advertising, punk and indie music, surfing, urban street life, etc. Why did we talk about it? I wanted to start having a conversation about what compels a person to begin making art of any kind. I wanted also to think about how art is a way of enacting a response to one's environment. (Side note: Alfred Mansfield Brooks said that an artist is not a special kind of (hu)man but each (hu)man is a special kind of artist. So I'm talking to you.) See also Kunstlerroman below.

Epiphany, as a holiday, as a literary term popularized by James Joyce, & etymologically

Madonna (virgin)-whore complex: a psychological condition in Freudian analysis that seems relevant to aspects of A Portrait and more generally to a culture that associates ideal women with purity.

The body/soul (also, body/spirit and body/mind) problem in Western Civilization from the Greeks after Socrates through Charles Olson and Western Civ's interest in Eastern philosophies and practice that approach the body/mind problem differently (or don't see it as a problem).

Side note: Thomas Aquinas's thoughts about the soul in relation to the body are particularly relevant to A Portrait.

4. Things I mentioned and/or we discussed in F-block but not in A-block.

Irish nationalist Charles Stuart Parnell and Kitty O'Shea (the namesake of a pub on Cabot Street in Beverly) and the Christmas dinner argument in chapter 1 of A Portrait.

5. Things I meant to get to but didn't in either block.

Some notes on Joyce and the novel: Joyce wrote the book in Dublin, Ireland, Trieste, Italy; and Zurich, Switzerland. He felt he had to flee the repressive atmosphere of Ireland in order to continue writing. Many of the things that happen to Stephen happened in some form to Joyce himself though they are fictionalized, stylized, and otherwise transformed, which makes the novel (loosely speaking) a roman a clef.

Daedalus (Dedalus) and Icarus (Here's a relevant excerpt of a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses.) (Here's a translation of the epigraph which comes from Metamorphoses and refers to Daedalus, who creates a labyrinth to entrap a Minotaur and later wax wings to escape from a tower in that labyrinth on Crete, an island : "And he sets his mind to work upon unknown arts." That trio of italicized words is significant to the novel. But there's a lot more too, especially the flying (and Icarus' falling). I wonder what you will notice as you read.

A novel of identity formation about an artist is called a Kunstlerroman.

That's enough for now.

"Question 3"-style Take Home Essay

Jane Eyre Question #3 Options Essay Due: Tuesday, October 26, 2010.

Choose one of the following open-ended Questions from past AP tests. Use your understanding of Jane Eyre* to Address the prompt in a Well-developed, well-supported, and well-organized essay. (12-point font, double spaced, MLA format. Type the prompt at the top of your essay.)

2010. “Exile” Palestinian American literary theorist and cultural critic Edward Said has written that “Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted.” Yet Said has also said that exile can become “a potent, even enriching” experience.

Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from “home,” whether that home is the character’s birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the character’s experience with exile is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

2010, Form B. “Home” “You can leave home all you want, but home will never leave you.” —Sonsyrea Tate. Sonsyrea Tate’s statement suggests that “home” may be conceived of as a dwelling, a place, or a state of mind. It may have positive or negative associations, but in either case, it may have a considerable influence on an individual. Choose a novel or play in which a central character leaves home yet finds that home remains significant. Write a well-developed essay in which you analyze the importance of “home” to this character and the reasons for its continuing influence. Explain how the character’s idea of home illuminates the larger meaning of the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

2009, Form B. “Political or social issue” Many works of literature deal with political or social issues. Choose a novel or play that focuses on a political or social issue. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the author uses literary elements to explore this issue and explain how the issue contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

2008. “Foil” In a literary work, a minor character, often known as a foil, possesses traits that emphasize, by contrast or comparison, the distinctive characteristics and qualities of the main character. For example, the ideas or behavior of the minor character might be used to highlight the weaknesses or strengths of the main character. Choose a novel or play in which a minor character serves as a foil to a main character. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the relation between the minor character and the major character illuminates the meaning of the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

2008, Form B. “Childhood and adolescence” In some works of literature, childhood and adolescence are portrayed as times graced by innocence and a sense of wonder; in other works, they are depicted as times of tribulation and terror. Focusing on a single novel or play, explain how its representation of childhood or adolescence shapes the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

2006, Form B. “Physical Journey” In many works of literature, a physical journey - the literal movement from one place to another - plays a central role. Choose a novel, play, or epic poem in which a physical journey is an important element and discuss how the journey adds to the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

2005. “Outward conformity, inward questioning” In Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess "That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions." In a novel or play that you have studied, identify a character who outwardly conforms while questioning inwardly. Then write an essay in which you analyze how this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot summary.

2005, Form B. “Power” One of the strongest human drives seems to be a desire for power. Write an essay in which you discuss how a character in a novel or a drama struggles to free himself or herself from the power of others or seeks to gain power over others. Be sure to demonstrate in your essay how the author uses this power struggle to enhance the meaning of the work.

2004. “The question minus the answer” Critic Roland Barthes has said, "Literature is the question minus the answer." Choose a novel, or play, and, considering Barthes' observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers answers. Explain how the author's treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

2002. “Moral ambiguity” Morally ambiguous characters -- characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good -- are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

2000. “Mysteries” Many works of literature not readily identified with the mystery or detective story genre nonetheless involve the investigation of a mystery. In these works, the solution to the mystery may be less important than the knowledge gained in the process of its investigation. Choose a novel or play in which one or more of the characters confront a mystery. Then write an essay in which you identify the mystery and explain how the investigation illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

1998. “Wild thinking” In his essay "Walking," Henry David Thoreau offers the following assessment of literature: “In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking in Hamlet and The Iliad, in all scriptures and mythologies, not learned in schools, that delights us.” From the works that you have studied in school, choose a novel, play, or epic poem that you may initially have thought was conventional and tame but that you now value for its "uncivilized free and wild thinking." Write an essay in which you explain what constitutes its "uncivilized free and wild thinking" and how that thinking is central to the value of the work as a whole. Support your ideas with specific references to the work you choose.

1996. “Happy endings” The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings. "The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from their readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy ending, I do not mean mere fortunate events -- a marriage or a last minute rescue from death -- but some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death." Choose a novel or play that has the kind of ending Weldon describes. In a well-written essay, identify the "spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation" evident in the ending and explain its significance in the work as a whole.

1989. “Distortion” In questioning the value of literary realism, Flannery O'Connor has written, "I am interested in making a good case for distortion because I am coming to believe that it is the only way to make people see." Write an essay in which you "make a good case for distortion," as distinct from literary realism. Analyze how important elements of the work you choose are "distorted" and explain how these distortions contribute to the effectiveness of the work. Avoid plot summary.

1987. “Social change” Some novels and plays seem to advocate changes in social or political attitudes or in traditions. Choose such a novel or play and note briefly the particular attitudes or traditions that the author apparently wishes to modify. Then analyze the techniques the author uses to influence the reader's or audience's views. Avoid plot summary.

1985. “Pleasure and disquietude” A critic has said that one important measure of a superior work of literature is its ability to produce in the reader a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. Select a literary work that produces this "healthy confusion." Write an essay in which you explain the sources of the "pleasure and disquietude" experienced by the readers of the work.

1982. “Violence” In great literature, no scene of violence exists for its own sake. Choose a work of literary merit that confronts the reader or audience with a scene or scenes of violence. In a well-organized essay, explain how the scene or scenes contribute to the meaning of the complete work. Avoid plot summary.

1980. “Passion and responsibility” A recurring theme in literature is the classic war between a passion and responsibility. For instance, a personal cause, a love, a desire for revenge, a determination to redress a wrong, or some other emotion or drive may conflict with moral duty. Choose a literary work in which a character confronts the demands of a private passion that conflicts with his or her responsibilities. In a well-written essay show clearly the nature of the conflict, its effects upon the character, and its significance to the work.

1978. “Implausibility” Choose an implausible or strikingly unrealistic incident or character in a work of fiction or drama of recognized literary merit. Write an essay that explains how the incident or character is related to the more realistic of plausible elements in the rest of the work. Avoid plot summary.

* If you wish you may replace Jane Eyre with either Invisible Man or Wide Sargasso Sea. Let me know. Be prepared to explain your choice.

Preparing for Wednesday's Student Led Discussion about Charles Olson

Preparation:

1. Thursday (10/7) & Friday (10/8): Charles Olson's biography & themes (film & lecture).

Additional terms:

Polis: (from Greek) a city, a city-state and also citizenship and body of citizens.

Maximus: "Maximus" is a persona invented by Olson in the winter of '49-'50. The persona has two major sources: Carl Jung's archetypal figure "homo maximus" (greatest man/original man) and Maximus of Tyre, a second century A.D. Greek philosopher, whom Olson was interested in primarily because he was rooted in a city, Tyre, that Olson regarded as linked to Gloucester and because he moved out from that center to explore. (Some of this information comes from A Guide to The Maximus Poems by George F. Butterick.)


2. Friday (10/8) through class time Wednesday (10/13): Read, print out, and take active reader notes on the following poems from The Maximus Poems:

Maximus, to Himself
I, Maximus of Gloucester, to You
Maximus, to Gloucester: Letter 2
The Songs of Maximus: Song 1
The Songs of Maximus: Song 2
Maximus to Gloucester, Letter 27 [Withheld]
[For additional preparation you might listen to a discussion of "Maximus to Gloucester, Letter 27 [Withheld]" here.]

Also read, print, and take notes on the following essay (an essay which changed how a great many people look at poetry) by Charles Olson:

Projective Verse

3. Wednesday (10/13) bring print out of poems and notes to class. Participate in student led class discussion.

4. Wednesday (10/13) through pumpkin time Friday (10/15) post thoughtful, insightful, exploratory response(s) in the comment box. Extend the discussion. Respond to peers. Offer new insights. Engage with the poems and each other. (You might also respond to some of what has been written by Malden High School students here.) Note: Effective responses will likely be at (or longer than) Blogger's 4,000+ character maximum for comments.

Thanks to Mr. Ryan Gallagher for the Poetry Foundation links that will help the school save some paper.

Olson 100!

For those of you who would like to attend one or more of the Charles Olson centenary events and write about it to recover credit for missed blog posts or to replace a future blog post requirement can find the schedule of events here (Olson100.blogspot.com) and can post discussion thoughts in the comment box below.

You might also check out this -- where Malden High School students talk about Charles Olson and his poetry. It's especially interesting because the students have a lot to say about Gloucester and how Olson uses Gloucester in his poems.

Jane Eyre Chapters 28 to Conclusion

Great discussions in both classes (A and F) on both days (Monday and Wednesday).

I've been grading since three a.m. so I don't have much mental energy left for typing up the notes from the two discussions. If you need ideas from the discussions to spark your thoughts see me in class and I'll give you a photocopy of my notes.

Comment at least once on the Moor House through Ferndean section of Jane Eyre by pumpkin time (midnight) on Friday, October 1. I'll check out your comments Saturday morning before heading off to Mag Woods to coach my daughter's soccer team.

Thanks again for the excellent discussions in class. I look forward to hearing more from all of you in the comment box.

Extending the Discussion: Jane Eyre (chapter 1-16)

Today we had our first student-led discussions in A-block and F-block. Louisa B and Caroline B each performed the discussion leader role adroitly.

In the comment box I expect you to participate in extending the discussion beyond today's class.

Here are some of the things we've discussed already.
Both classes discussed Helen Burns in depth. In A-block there was discussion about Helen as a Christ-figure or, at least, a symbol of Christ-like virtue (humble, selfless beyond what is usual; ultimately "sacrificed" but accepting of this fate). It might be worth articulating exactly how Helen contribute to the novel, particularly to Jane's development. It was suggested in F-block that Jane "cools some of [Jane's] fire."

That fire (or passion) seen early in the novel was the subject of some discussion though a lot more could be said about Jane's response to the injustices of the Reeds, about the Red Room scene (and, as was mentioned in A-block, its Gothic elements), about Jane's indignation at the unjust treatment of Helen, etc. Both classes discussed the relationship between passion and restraint at some length; since it's one of the novel's key issues it's worth considering more, especially with regard to particular scenes and passages.

F-block talked about Brocklehurst and his hypocrisy. (This was mentioned in a different manner in A-block too.) We also talked about the competing versions of Christianity dramatized in the book. What does Bronte seem to suggest about these different versions of Christianity?

A-block discussed garden imagery. This imagery was related to issues of security and containment and to issues of life and death.

Both classes discussed the pacing of scenes (speeding up and slowing down the novel's events) & mentioned but just scratched the surface of the meaning behind the arrangement of the scenes (this could be expressed as "the significance of the plot logic"). Both classes also scratched the surface of the ways Bronte hints at what is to come through mood, tone, and the selection of detail.

Both classes talked about the significance of the narrative point of view: the Jane who is narrating has already experienced and observed everything that happens in the book. Jane is looking back and narrating. How is this significant?

Both classes discussed Jane Eyre in relation to elements of Wide Sargasso Sea: nature, rejection vs. acceptance, security and imprisonment, control (of others/of self), restraint (of others, of self), passion, etc.

The entire "Thornfield" section was not discussed much, though A-block discussed Thornfield briefly in relation to the significance of Grace Poole, laughter, and fire. Fairfax, Adele, and Blance were mentioned. How are they significant? How do they contribute to the bildungsroman? F-block mentioned Jane's relationship with Rochester and how its significant. I encourage to spend some time with the Thornfield chapters in your responses.

In your comments on the blog please refer to specific passages. When you do so please write down the chapter as well as the page number you are referring. Knowing the chapter will help because we don't all have the same version of the book. Use your first name, last initial, and class block to help me identify you.

I expect your responses to show an understanding of the relationship between text and meaning through the first sixteen chapters of the novel; to engage the ideas and questions brought up by other students and/or your teacher in class and/or on the blog; to extend what has been discussed in class and on the blog beyond the passages already discussed and the assertions already made.

Expanded Notes on Context for Understanding Jane Eyre

Biographical and Literary Context for Reading, Understanding, Discussing, and Writing about

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Here are some questions you should consider as you read Jane Eyre and some information to help you consider the questions. Be prepared to discuss some of this on Monday in relation to chapters one through sixteen.

I. The Author’s Biography & the Fiction of the Novel

Question: How are (the biography of) Charlotte Bronte and (the fictional autobiography of) Jane Eyre related?

Contextual Information:

Click here (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/brontbio.html) and here (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/brontetl.html) for skeletal biographies of Charlotte Bronte.

Click here (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/61brnt6.html) for a consideration of biographical elements in Jane Eyre. Other relevant biographical elements are alluded to in the aforementioned brief biographies and (if you have some familiarity with Bronte’s life) can be inferred as you read Jane Eyre.

II. Other literature and ideas of the time period in relation to the novel

Question: How is Jane Eyre related to other works literature written in English during the nineteenth century? In what ways does Bronte’s Jane Eyre share characteristics with Romantic, Gothic, and Victorian literature and in what ways does the novel deviate from other literature of the time?How is Jane Eyre related to social and political concerns in England during the mid-nineteenth century?

Contextual Information:

Here is some background on nineteenth century English-language literature that we can apply to Jane Eyre.

Romantic Era in English-Language Literature

(around 1770 to around 1870)

Historical Context

“…the Romantic period, beginning in 1798, the year of the first edition of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge and of the composition of Hymns to the Night by Novalis, and ending in 1832, the year which marked the deaths of both Sir Walter Scott and Goethe. However, as an international movement affecting all the arts, Romanticism begins at least in the 1770's and continues into the second half of the nineteenth century, later for American literature than for European, and later in some of the arts, like music and painting, than in literature. This extended chronological spectrum (1770-1870) also permits recognition as Romantic the poetry of Robert Burns and William Blake in England, the early writings of Goethe and Schiller in Germany, and the great period of influence for Rousseau's writings throughout Europe.

The early Romantic period thus coincides with what is often called the "age of revolutions"--including, of course, the American (1776) and the French (1789) revolutions--an age of upheavals in political, economic, and social traditions, the age which witnessed the initial transformations of the Industrial Revolution. A revolutionary energy was also at the core of Romanticism, which quite consciously set out to transform not only the theory and practice of poetry (and all art), but the very way we perceive the world. Some of its major precepts have survived into the twentieth century and still affect our contemporary period.”

Imagination

“The imagination was elevated to a position as the supreme faculty of the mind. This contrasted distinctly with the traditional arguments for the supremacy of reason. The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate "shaping" or creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even deity….Imagination is the primary faculty for creating all art. On a broader scale, it is also the faculty that helps humans to constitute reality, for (as Wordsworth suggested), we not only perceive the world around us, but also in part create it. Uniting both reason and feeling (Coleridge described it with the paradoxical phrase, "intellectual intuition"), imagination is extolled as the ultimate synthesizing faculty…Finally, imagination is inextricably bound up with the other two major concepts, for it is presumed to be the faculty which enables us to "read" nature as a system of symbols.”

Nature

“While particular perspectives with regard to nature varied considerably--nature as a healing power, nature as a source of subject and image, nature as a refuge from the artificial constructs of civilization, including artificial language--the prevailing views accorded nature the status of an organically unified whole. It was viewed as "organic," rather than, as in the scientific or rationalist view, as a system of "mechanical" laws, for Romanticism displaced the rationalist view of the universe as a machine (e.g., the deistic image of a clock) with the analogue of an "organic" image, a living tree or mankind itself…Romantic nature poetry is essentially a poetry of meditation.”

Emotion & the Self

“Other aspects of Romanticism were intertwined with the above three concepts. Emphasis on the activity of the imagination was accompanied by greater emphasis on the importance of intuition, instincts, and feelings, and Romantics generally called for greater attention to the emotions as a necessary supplement to purely logical reason. When this emphasis was applied to the creation of poetry, a very important shift of focus occurred. Wordsworth's definition of all good poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" marks a turning point in literary history. By locating the ultimate source of poetry in the individual artist, the tradition, stretching back to the ancients, of valuing art primarily for its ability to imitate human life (that is, for its mimetic qualities) was reversed. In Romantic theory, art was valuable not so much as a mirror of the external world, but as a source of illumination of the world within. Among other things, this led to a prominence for first-person lyric poetry never accorded it in any previous period. The "poetic speaker" became less a persona and more the direct person of the poet. Wordsworth's Prelude and Whitman's "Song of Myself" are both paradigms of successful experiments to take the growth of the poet's mind (the development of self) as subject for an "epic" enterprise made up of lyric components. Confessional prose narratives such as Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and Chateaubriand's Rene (1801), as well as disguised autobiographical verse narratives such as Byron's Childe Harold (1818), are related phenomena. The interior journey and the development of the self recurred everywhere as subject material for the Romantic artist. The artist-as-hero is a specifically Romantic type.”

The Romantic Hero {"Byronic Hero"}

The Romantics asserted the importance of the individual, the unique, even the eccentric….The hero-artist has already been mentioned; there were also heaven-storming types from Prometheus to Captain Ahab, outcasts from Cain to the Ancient Mariner and even Hester Prynne, and there was Faust, who wins salvation in Goethe's great drama for the very reasons--his characteristic striving for the unattainable beyond the morally permitted and his insatiable thirst for activity--that earlier had been viewed as the components of his tragic sin. (It was in fact Shelley's opinion that Satan, in his noble defiance, was the real hero of Milton's Paradise Lost.)

In style, the Romantics preferred boldness over the preceding age's desire for restraint, maximum suggestiveness over the neoclassical ideal of clarity, free experimentation over the "rules" of composition, genre, and decorum, and they promoted the conception of the artist as "inspired" creator over that of the artist as "maker" or technical master….Although interest in religion and in the powers of faith were prominent during the Romantic period, the Romantics generally rejected absolute systems, whether of philosophy or religion, in favor of the idea that each person (and humankind collectively) must create the system by which to live.

The Commonplace & the Alien

The attitude of many of the Romantics to the everyday, social world around them was complex. It is true that they advanced certain realistic techniques, such as the use of "local color" (through down-to-earth characters, like Wordsworth's rustics, or through everyday language, as in Emily Bronte's northern dialects or Whitman's colloquialisms, or through popular literary forms, such as folk narratives). Yet social realism was usually subordinate to imaginative suggestion, and what was most important were the ideals suggested by the above examples, simplicity perhaps, or innocence. Earlier, the 18th-century cult of the noble savage had promoted similar ideals, but now artists often turned for their symbols to domestic rather than exotic sources--to folk legends and older, "unsophisticated" art forms, such as the ballad, to contemporary country folk who used "the language of commen men," not an artificial "poetic diction," and to children (for the first time presented as individuals, and often idealized as sources of greater wisdom than adults).

Simultaneously, as opposed to everyday subjects, various forms of the exotic in time and/or place also gained favor, for the Romantics were also fascinated with realms of existence that were, by definition, prior to or opposed to the ordered conceptions of "objective" reason….

In the Lyrical Ballads… Wordsworth and Coleridge agreed to divide their labors according to two subject areas, the natural and the supernatural: Wordsworth would try to exhibit the novelty in what was all too familiar, while Coleridge would try to show in the supernatural what was psychologically real, both aiming to dislodge vision from the "lethargy of custom."

The Romantic (Hero) & Society

In another way too, the Romantics were ambivalent toward the "real" social world around them. They were often politically and socially involved, but at the same time they began to distance themselves from the public. As noted earlier, high Romantic artists interpreted things through their own emotions, and these emotions included social and political consciousness--as one would expect in a period of revolution, one that reacted so strongly to oppression and injustice in the world. So artists sometimes took public stands, or wrote works with socially or politically oriented subject matter. Yet at the same time, another trend began to emerge, as they withdrew more and more from what they saw as the confining boundaries of bourgeois life. In their private lives, they often asserted their individuality and differences in ways that were to the middle class a subject of intense interest, but also sometimes of horror….Unfortunately, in many ways, this distance between artist and public remains with us today.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/rom.html

Adapted from an adaptation of A Guide to the Study of Literature: A Companion Text for Core Studies 6, Landmarks of Literature, ©English Department, Brooklyn College.

Gothicism

1764 to 1820+

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole was published in 1764; the publication of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was first published in 1818 (though a revised edition was published years later) and Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer was published in 1820.

But its influence can be seen throughout “Romanticism” in England and the United Stated and into the literature of the present day.

History and Defining Characteristics

The Gothic begins with later-eighteenth-century writers' turn to the past; in the context of the Romantic period, the Gothic is, then, a type of imitation medievalism. When it was launched in the later eighteenth century, The Gothic featured accounts of terrifying experiences in ancient castles — experiences connected with subterranean dungeons, secret passageways, flickering lamps, screams, moans, bloody hands, ghosts, graveyards, and the rest….By extension, it came to designate the macabre, mysterious, fantastic, supernatural, and, again, the terrifying, especially the pleasurably terrifying, in literature more generally.

Closer to the present, one sees the Gothic pervading Victorian literature (for example, in the novels of Dickens and the Brontës), American fiction (from Poe and Hawthorne through Faulkner), and of course the films, television, and videos of our own (in this respect, not-so-modern) culture.

…

Influence on later literature

More pervasive signs of Gothic influence show up in some of the most frequently read Romantic poems — for example, the account of the skeleton ship and the crew's reaction ("A flash of joy . . . And horror follows") in Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (NAEL 8, 2.430)

The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Norton Topics Online

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/romantic/topic_2/welcome.htm

More

More information about relevant gender issues, literary connections, political context, social context, religious context, scientific context, biographical context can be found here (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/eyreov.html).

Victorianism

“For much of the last century the term Victorian, which literally describes things and events in the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), conveyed connotations of "prudish," "repressed," and "old fashioned." Although such associations have some basis in fact, they do not adequately indicate the nature of this complex, paradoxical age that was a second English Renaissance. Like Elizabethan England, Victorian England saw great expansion of wealth, power, and culture. (What Victorian literary form do you think parallels Elizabethan drama in terms of both popularity and literary achievement?)”

…

“More than anything else what makes Victorians Victorian is their sense of social responsibility, a basic attitude that obviously differentiates them from their immediate predecessors, the Romantics. Tennyson might go to Spain to help the insurgents, as Byron had gone to Greece and Wordsworth to France; but Tennyson also urged the necessity of educating "the poor man before making him our master." Matthew Arnold might say at mid-century that

the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.

but he refused to reprint his poem "Empedocles on Etna," in which the Greek philosopher throws himself into the volcano, because it set a bad example; and he criticized an Anglican bishop who pointed out mathematical inconsistencies in the Bible not on the grounds that he was wrong, but that for a bishop to point these things out to the general public was irresponsible.”

George P. Landow, Professor of English and the History of Art, Brown University

http://www.victorianweb.org/vn/victor4.html

Session #4: Wide Sargasso Sea

1. I began session #4 by asking if any of you had questions about the Invisible Man web assignment. Then I framed our discussion of Wide Sargasso Sea with the following questions: how does the way the book is written -- with two different very subjective, sometimes contradictory, often ambiguous narrators -- affect the reader's experience of the book and the meaning the reader makes while reading? & speaking of meaning, what does the book suggest about the relationship between identity formation and one's family and cultural experiences? We spent most of the rest of the session exploring these questions through the lens of quotations you pulled out of the book. Along the way we also explored possible comparisons with identity formation and environment in Invisible Man and other books and films. In the end we developed an assignment to show our understanding of the meaningful similarities and differences between Invisible Man and Wide Sargasso Sea.

2. Post-session assignment: Write a sentence or two expressing five meaningful, insightful, supportable ways that IM and WSS are similar and/or different.

Examples that do not meet expectations for the college level:
In both books the narrators move from one place to another.

In both books the narrators are secluded.

In both books the authors refer to dreams.

Examples that do meet expectations for the college-level:

Although the narrators in both novels move from home (the American South for the Invisible Man and the Caribbean for Antoinette) to a strange new place (New York for the Invisible Man and England for Antoinette), the Invisible Man is ultimately able to understand himself in relationship to his environment whereas Antoinette is never able to construct a new identity that can function successfully in her new environment.

Or,
The Invisible Man chooses seclusion in his apartment whereas Antoinette is forced into seclusion. The Invisible Man is therefore free to use his chosen seclusion to better understand himself in relation to society, and then free to choose when to re-enter society, whereas Antoinette is imprisoned in a dream-like, distorted reality from which she can only break free with self-destructive violence.

Or,
Jean Rhys and Ralph Ellison both construct real scenes that are experienced by the protagonist as dreams in order to expose the absurdity of the world's in which the protagonist's must live. In both novels the absurdity raises the question: is it the protagonists who are insane or is it the environments that are insane?

Your five statements will be due by Thursday, September 2. That next week we will, in class, begin constructing giant Venn diagrams out of your statements.

3. Reminders: as part of the school-wide summer reading program, you need to complete a quotation response journal on something else -- anything else -- that you have read this summer. Have fun with this. I am not grading this assignment; I will simply make sure you have met the basic requirements. If you turn write down ten quotations with ten responses of several sentences each you will get full credit.

Check the side bar of this blog for all the assignments.
You will receive a zero for any summer work that is not turned in by the end of the school day on Thursday, September 2. (For very practical purposes I need to have it all before the Labor Day weekend so I have a chance to look at it all and organize it all before the real onslaught of the school year begins after Labor Day.)

Session #3: Invisible Man (chapter 12 through Epilogue)

1. In Monday's session (August 2) we used the time to explore how scenes, events, motifs, characters, etc. from the first half of the novel related to those in the second half of the novel.

We began this process by discussing what we considered to be thematically important episodes from the prologue through chapter 11. I wrote these episodes on the board, including the events, characters, setting, images, and sometimes allusions associated with the episode; though we discussed a lot more than I was able to write down.

We then discussed what we considered to be thematically important episode from chapter 12 through the prologue. As with the first part of the session, I wrote these episodes on the board, including the events, characters, setting, images, and sometimes allusions associated with the episode; once again we discussed a lot more than I was able to write down.

Along the way I began drawing lines connecting the various episodes. We connected similar characters. We connected episodes that repeated certain images -- eyes, for example -- and other motifs -- boxing, for example.

Finally and most importantly we kept asking, what does it all mean? How does Ellison use the individual episodes and the connections between them to suggest something about the relationship between identity and environment?

2. A Part-to-Whole Web (a.k.a. mind map) (instead of an essay) THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!

The Process and the Question
In the last part of class we devised an assignment that addressed my question: what could each of you do to show that you understand how the parts contribute to a whole? How can you show that Ellison's choices as a writer (the parts) -- his choice of individual events, of the order of events, of the (sometimes strange) descriptions and details, of the repeated images, of the characters and characterization, etc. -- fit together to suggest something about how a person might grow and change in response to experiences within social environments (the whole)?

The Web, part one: the center
We decided that each student would make a web. At the center of the web will be a robust paragraph (100 words to 300 words or so), explaining in your own words, you understanding of what Ellison's novel is all about. What exactly do you think he is suggesting in the novel?

(Hint: think about the dynamic (i.e. changing, developing) relationship between identity and environment in the novel. Think about influence. Think about choice. Think about innocence (naivete, ignorance, blindness) and experience (knowledge, understanding, insight). Think about responsibility and irresponsibility.)

This "introductory" paragraph will explain your "big idea," your "bold, insightful assertion" about the novel's meaning. Spend some time with this. The GHS schoolwide rubric says that in order for such paragraphs to be considered proficient they must be clear, supportable, debatable, and insightful; the ones that are advanced will also be sophisticated and/or original . (Warning: Do not turn to the internet looking for an answer. Those of you who have attend sessions know that I read these and even know a few that most of you do not know. Rely on your own interpretive skills, your own heart and mind. However for those of you who missed the class sessions. You might go to this well-made video introduction to help you start thinking about some of the big questions raised by the book.)

The Web, part two: the threads
Then you will connect the central paragraph to interpretations of how at least four passages in the novel support your "big idea," your "bold assertion," your "central insight". The passages you choose must adequately represent the whole of the protagonist's journey from the pre-college fight & speech to college to his early days in New York to the Brotherhood to his underground existence in an apartment on the outskirts of Harlem. (Let me make it clear that four is a minimum and to create a thoroughly convincing web you might need to refer to more passages.)

These "interpretations" need to show two things: an understanding of the passage itself and an understanding of the connection between the passage and the "big idea". How you show your understanding of the passage and your understanding of its connection with the "big idea" is up to you.

To show your understanding of a passage what will you do? Will you write a paragraph (in the manner of a standard essay) explaining how the passage supports the central paragraph? Will you quote the passage in one font and offer an explication (an unfolding of meaning) in relation to your big idea by using another font? Will you create a picture that shows an understanding of the passage (and its relationship with the central paragraph)? Will this picture show symbolic understanding as well as literal understanding of the passage?

To show the connections what will you do? Will you draw lines? Will each connecting line include a sentence linking the passage with the big idea? Will you use a "footnote" or "endnote" system in which you put numbers in your central paragraph that will lead to numbers which offer explanations of how passages support the central paragraph? Will you create Powerpoint slides to show connections?

And, finally, will you go beyond? Will you show not only how the big idea is connected with passages but also how the passages are connected with each other? What else might you do to show the relationship between the parts of the novel and your understanding of the whole?

Note:

I know some of you are thinking, just tell me what to do! This is too vague.

My response is this: part of AP English Lit & Comp is learning how to be a critical and creative independent reader and writer. I want you to show me that you don't need to be led by the hand but can come up with appropriate, innovative solutions to challenges. In this case I've given you a few parameters (write a central assertion of a, connect that central assertion to an understanding of at least four passages). I've given you some examples of how you might complete the assignment. I've left the rest up to you.

The Web, part three: teaching your peers
You will be creating a physical object -- a web -- and you will be called upon to explain the web at some point during the first several days of the school year.

Due Dates
The physical "web" in whatever form you create is due the first day of class (8/30).
The "teaching your peers" part of the assignment will take place during the first several days of class in the fall.

Grading
Advanced webs will offer an insightful, sophisticated, perhaps original understanding of the novel as a whole. This overall understanding will be linked to persuasive, nuanced understanding and interpretation of how at least four passages drawn from key moments throughout the novel support the understanding of the whole. These webs may go "beyond" the parameters of the assignment in some significant, meaningful way.

Proficient webs will offer a clear, thoughtful, plausible, understanding of the novel as a whole. This overall understanding will be linked to an adequate understanding and interpretation of how at least four passages from the beginning, middle, and end of the novel contribute to the whole. The webs are generally considered to have succeeded in fulfilling the assignment but not to have exceeded expectations for a student entering an introductory college-level course at a competitive college or university.

Webs that need improvement may not offer a clear or plausible understanding of the novel as a whole. The central paragraph may point out themes but may not offer interpretation or insight as to the meaning of the themes in the novel. These webs refer to at least four passages but may not adequately show an understanding of the passage or of how the passage contributes to the work as a whole. The understanding and connection of some passages may be effective The passages may not be drawn from the beginning, middle, and end of the novel. In general these webs do not meet the expectations for a student entering an introductory college-level course at a competitive college or university.

Webs that receive warning status may include the weaknesses cited above but also fail to adhere to the basic parameters of the assignment. They may show little to no understanding of the novel or of the passages.

Any web that includes language or material taken directly from another source will receive a zero.


3. Complete a quotation response journal (10+ quotations and responses) for Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys before the next session (August 16). (Note: I decided not to assign supplementary readings until after the final session.)

Here's a list of the work already due:

1. Invisible Cities quotation response journal (due July 6)
2. Invisible Cities "quotation" essay (due July 19)
3. Response to choice of AP Summer Anthology readings for Invisible Cities (due in the 7/6 comment box by July 12)

4. Invisible Man (Prologue through chapter 11) quotation response journal (due July 19)
5. Invisible Man (Prologue through chapter 11) part to the whole essay (due in the 7/19 comment box by August 2 if you did not attend session 2 or 3)
6. Invisible Man (chapter 12 through Epilogue) quotation response journal (due August 2)

Here's a list of currently assigned work:
7. Invisible Man Parts to Whole Web (due first day of class August 31)
8. Wide Sargasso Sea quotation response journal (due at or by session #4 August 16)

Summer work to come:
9. Wide Sargasso Sea: post-session work
10. Response to AP Summer Anthology Readings for Invisible Man/Wide Sargasso Sea (bildungsromans)