I have returned from the cornfields and box stores of the middle west.
There are several points I need to address.
1. There are a few of you form whom I do not have a functional email address. If you did not receive an email from me on Friday, June 13 please reply to me at jcook@gloucester.k12.ma.us with your email address.
2. I have made two changes to the comments. First, I have deleted our personal introductions. This saddens me. Many of your posts were witty. Some of them were honest and revelatory. Most of you used the comment box for the intended, class-building purpose. Second, I have changed the settings on the blog so now I will have to approve all comments before they appear on the blog. This, too, saddens me.
3. Start reading Invisible Man now if you haven't done so already. It's a long novel and is the one we will deal with first. I plan to hold our first session on the first Monday of July (7/7) in the morning (starting time to be announced). This gives you about three weeks to do the following work before the first session: do pre-reading research (see: "Before Reading" on the blog), read the novel, mark important passages and take notes (see: "While Reading" on the blog). During the first session we will discuss the work and you will ask lots of questions. Then you will do some writing in the comments box of the blog (see: "After Reading" directions on the blog). This "After Reading" work will be due by midnight of the Friday after the first session (7/11).
4. Tentative Dates for Summer Seminars
(By the seminar date you are expected to have completed the "before reading" and "while reading" activities--and, of course, you are expected to have read the book. "After reading" assignments must be posted by the Friday following the seminar even if you do not attend the seminar.)
July 7 Invisible Man ("After Reading" due 7/11)
July 21 Wide Sargasso Sea ("After Reading" due 7/25)
August 4 Translations ("After Reading" due 8/8)
August 18 Song of Myself ("After Reading" due 8/22)
These dates are tentative. Did I mention that they are tentative, provisional and subject to change?
5. Email me (jcook@gloucester.k12.ma.us) with any questions about any of the above, including particular questions about the books (especially Invisible Man). You can also post questions and comments (especially about Invisible Man). I'd love to find out what you are thinking about the Ellison's novel. For many of last year's students it was one of their favorites. (It will be especially important for students who cannot attend the July 7 session to discuss the novel with me and peers through email and the comment box.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Summer Reading
I'm leaving tonight for Illinois. Before I leave I need to say a few things.
1. When I return (some time around June 22) I will post the dates for our summer seminars.
2. Below I have posted what to do before, during, and after reading each of the summer reading books. (You will writing two responses to Invisible Man, Wide Sargasso Sea, and Translations; you will be writing three responses to Song of Myself.) Read the works in the order listed above. Getting going with Invisible Man now. We will deal with it at our first summer session. Enjoy!
3. The comment boxes are public. They can be read by anyone. Parents, other teachers, administrators, strangers, etc. Please use "school appropriate" language. (For example, the superintendent has taken an interest in our blogging.... Hello, Mr. Farmer.)
1. When I return (some time around June 22) I will post the dates for our summer seminars.
2. Below I have posted what to do before, during, and after reading each of the summer reading books. (You will writing two responses to Invisible Man, Wide Sargasso Sea, and Translations; you will be writing three responses to Song of Myself.) Read the works in the order listed above. Getting going with Invisible Man now. We will deal with it at our first summer session. Enjoy!
3. The comment boxes are public. They can be read by anyone. Parents, other teachers, administrators, strangers, etc. Please use "school appropriate" language. (For example, the superintendent has taken an interest in our blogging.... Hello, Mr. Farmer.)
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Before reading:
1. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man won the 1953 National Book Award for fiction. Here's his acceptance speech.
If I were asked in all seriousness just what I considered to be the chief significance of Invisible Man as a fiction, I would reply: Its experimental attitude and its attempt to return to the mood of personal moral responsibility for democracy which typified the best of our nineteenth-century fiction.
When I examined the rather rigid concepts of reality which informed a number of the works which impressed me and to which I owed a great deal, I was forced to conclude that for me and for so many hundreds of thousands of Americans, reality was simply far more mysterious and uncertain, and at the same time more exciting, and still, despite its raw violence and capriciousness, more promising.
To see
~~~~~~~
Invisible Man is at its heart an attempt to use imaginative language to grapple with some of the core questions about living in modern
~~~~~~~
2. Context: References to culture and history permeate Invisible Man, so it’s useful to know some
things before reading. Look up the following and record notes in your journal:
· Louis Armstong's "Black and Blue" appears in the Prologue. (Jazz, improvisation, syncopation are important concepts in the Prologue too.)
· W.E.B. DuBois’s concept of “Double Consciousness” from Souls of Black Folk seems to inform a great deal of the novel and will inform our discussion of identity during the first term.
· Booker T. Washington seems to be the model for the Founder and the philosophy of the school that the narrator attends.
· Although Ellison denies using him as a model, Marcus Garvey is quite similar in some ways to Ras.
· A novel that seems to have influenced one of the motifs and some of the ideas in Invisible Man is Fyodor Dostoyevski’s Notes from Underground.
· Ellison uses a quotation from T. S. Eliot’s The Family Reunion and another from Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno as epigraphs.
· There are other historical and cultural references throughout the book. Some are direct. Most are indirect. Write down questions!
While reading
· In your journal make note of motifs (include page numbers and a brief note):
o Vision (invisibility, blindness, misunderstanding, sight, visibility,
understanding)
o Light and Dark
o Colors (white, black, red)
o Underground
o Other motifs that you discover (dreams, sex, violence, food, speech and speeches, music, family and blood)
· Also make note of passages (include page numbers and a brief note)
o that deal with the theme of the self, identity, and the self’s relationship with groups;
o that demonstrate Ellison’s particular use of language (imaginative, symbolic, experimental, musical, rhythmic, vernacular words choices and sentence structures);
o that show connections within Invisible Man, between Invisible Man and other things you’ve read (including the cultural and historical references you researched before starting to read), and between your own experiences, thoughts, and feelings and Invisible Man.
AFTER
· Post an open response (300+ words) in the comments below. Respond to a specific scene from the beginning (Prologue to New York City), middle (New York City to Brotherhood), and end of the novel (Brotherhood to end). (That means at least three scenes; a scene takes place in one location at one time) Show that you can link the novel’s particulars to the novel’s concepts. (That is the essence of AP writing.) Responses should be 300+ words each (about a page 12-point font, double-spaced). Your response should show an understanding of how Ellison develops one of the concepts listed below in each of three scenes you choose (one from the beginning, one from the middle, and one from the end of the novel):
o The theme of identity (individual identity, identity and groups, belonging and alienation);
o Motifs (invisibility and blindness, light and dark (white, black, red), speaking and speeches, music, family and blood, sexuality, violence)
o Ellison’s use of language (“the richness of our speech, the idiomatic expression, and the rhetorical flourishes from past periods which are still alive among us”)
o Ellison’s allegorical-tragic- comic-satiric-surreal-symbolic) style (He said, “leav[e] sociology and case histories to the scientists, [fiction should] arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale.”
Wide Sargasso Sea
before reading
Emily White writes, "The novel is Rhys's answer to Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë's book had long haunted her, mostly for the story it did not tell--that of the madwoman in the attic,
Jane Eyre will be the first novel we read in September but you might familiarize yourself with the general plot before reading Wide Sargasso Sea.
WHILE READING
· In your journal make note of some of the themes, motifs, and literary techniques found in Wide Sargasso Sea: happiness (the desire for, the elusiveness of); threat (the effect of living with threats); identity (racial identity, social class identity, national identity, family and self, name and self); madness (and complications of identity); sexuality and power; reality and dreams; fires, destruction; flowers, plants, nature; narrative perspective (point of view; how does perspective affect perception of identity, perception of reality)
· Also note connections between different parts of the novel; between the novel and other literature you have read, especially Invisible Man (or films you have seen); and between the novel and your own experiences, thoughts, and feelings.
Notice I have deleted the Wide Sargasso Sea prompts.
I have revised them and posted the new prompts on July 21 (above).
Translations, Brian Friel
Translations, Brian Friel
Here new.
Here new or used.
Here used.
BEFORE READING
This is a play about identity, place, culture, history, and language.
How does the time and place we live in shape who we are? (The play is about the west of Ireland in the 19th century, but we could ask the same question about living in Gloucester in the early 21st century.)
How does the local culture shape who are? How does the larger culture (of which the local is part) shape who we are? What happens when the immediate culture is at odds with the larger culture? Do the play's characters embrace the traditions of west Ireland or do they embrace the new British ways? And you? What is your relationship to local culture, mass culture, micro-cultures, subcultures?)
How does history shape who are? How does language shape who are?
And, finally, and perhaps most importantly how do individuals create their own answers to all of these questions? How do individuals deal with geographic, cultural, historical, linguistic forces? Do we push back? Do we learn to cope? Do we flee? Do we cross borders? Our answers define our lives and can redefine place, culture, history, and language. This is the stuff of life--when life is lived consciously.
Now a bit of quick context:
The play is set in the 19th century in the west of Ireland.
At this time, the Irish (especially in the west) still speak Irish Gaelic (a language the Irish call, simply, Irish).
However, Ireland is still a colony of Great Britain, so the British set out on a project to anglicize the names of places in Ireland. ("Anglicize" means to translate into English words or English sounds. The name of your family may have been anglicized at some point in your family's history. We'll talk about this.)
The British want the Irish to speak English.
More context: you should be aware that the British win. Furthermore, despite the efforts of the Irish government after Ireland won independence in the early 20th century, English is still the predominant language on the island--although Irish (the language) is a mandatory subject in Irish schools and there are areas (mostly in the west) called gaeltachts where the dominant language is Irish. (In the States we call the language "Gaelic"; in Ireland they call it "Irish"; when speaking to USAmericans, I tend to compromise by saying "Irish Gaelic.")
WHILE READING (with help from teachit.co.uk 4047. doc)
* In your journal make note of the various "translations" in the play: translation is about language but also persons, places, things and conditions; translation is about movement, motion, things on the move and changing; translation is about crossing borders, moving something from one condition or position across a border to another position; translation is a kind of transformation. Think about translations, borders, and crossing borders (and languages). Note all of the translations in the play.
* Think about translation and power, which is to think about language, culture, and colonialism. Who controls the language? Who controls the culture? Who controls the translations and, therefore, the transformations? Where do you see Friel explore these questions in the play? (Mark passages. Make notes.)
Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o writes: "Language carries culture, and culture carries...the entire body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our place in the world.... Language is thus inseparable from ourselves as a community of human beings with a specific form and character, a specific history, a specific relationship to the world." When you lose the power over language do you lose the power over culture, identity, and self-definition? Where do you see Friel explore this question in the play? (Mark passages. Make notes.)
* Think about translation and connection. Translation can be an attempt to transcend the boundaries of language and culture. Translation can, therefore, be about creating new identities, new connections, new understandings. This sort of translation, transformation, border crossing can be renewing but also can be dangerous. Where do you see this in the play? (Mark passages. Make notes.)
AFTER READING
* Respond to the theme of "translation" on the blog (300+ words). Refer to specific passages. Close analysis of scenes and quotations is important. Show me you understand the particulars of the play and their relationship to the meaning and effect of the whole play.
* In a second response on the blog (300+ words), write a perfect reflection about the theme of "translation" in your experience of the world and/or observations of others in the world. Be specific. Be insightful.
Here new.
Here new or used.
Here used.
BEFORE READING
This is a play about identity, place, culture, history, and language.
How does the time and place we live in shape who we are? (The play is about the west of Ireland in the 19th century, but we could ask the same question about living in Gloucester in the early 21st century.)
How does the local culture shape who are? How does the larger culture (of which the local is part) shape who we are? What happens when the immediate culture is at odds with the larger culture? Do the play's characters embrace the traditions of west Ireland or do they embrace the new British ways? And you? What is your relationship to local culture, mass culture, micro-cultures, subcultures?)
How does history shape who are? How does language shape who are?
And, finally, and perhaps most importantly how do individuals create their own answers to all of these questions? How do individuals deal with geographic, cultural, historical, linguistic forces? Do we push back? Do we learn to cope? Do we flee? Do we cross borders? Our answers define our lives and can redefine place, culture, history, and language. This is the stuff of life--when life is lived consciously.
Now a bit of quick context:
The play is set in the 19th century in the west of Ireland.
At this time, the Irish (especially in the west) still speak Irish Gaelic (a language the Irish call, simply, Irish).
However, Ireland is still a colony of Great Britain, so the British set out on a project to anglicize the names of places in Ireland. ("Anglicize" means to translate into English words or English sounds. The name of your family may have been anglicized at some point in your family's history. We'll talk about this.)
The British want the Irish to speak English.
More context: you should be aware that the British win. Furthermore, despite the efforts of the Irish government after Ireland won independence in the early 20th century, English is still the predominant language on the island--although Irish (the language) is a mandatory subject in Irish schools and there are areas (mostly in the west) called gaeltachts where the dominant language is Irish. (In the States we call the language "Gaelic"; in Ireland they call it "Irish"; when speaking to USAmericans, I tend to compromise by saying "Irish Gaelic.")
WHILE READING (with help from teachit.co.uk 4047. doc)
* In your journal make note of the various "translations" in the play: translation is about language but also persons, places, things and conditions; translation is about movement, motion, things on the move and changing; translation is about crossing borders, moving something from one condition or position across a border to another position; translation is a kind of transformation. Think about translations, borders, and crossing borders (and languages). Note all of the translations in the play.
* Think about translation and power, which is to think about language, culture, and colonialism. Who controls the language? Who controls the culture? Who controls the translations and, therefore, the transformations? Where do you see Friel explore these questions in the play? (Mark passages. Make notes.)
Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o writes: "Language carries culture, and culture carries...the entire body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our place in the world.... Language is thus inseparable from ourselves as a community of human beings with a specific form and character, a specific history, a specific relationship to the world." When you lose the power over language do you lose the power over culture, identity, and self-definition? Where do you see Friel explore this question in the play? (Mark passages. Make notes.)
* Think about translation and connection. Translation can be an attempt to transcend the boundaries of language and culture. Translation can, therefore, be about creating new identities, new connections, new understandings. This sort of translation, transformation, border crossing can be renewing but also can be dangerous. Where do you see this in the play? (Mark passages. Make notes.)
AFTER READING
* Respond to the theme of "translation" on the blog (300+ words). Refer to specific passages. Close analysis of scenes and quotations is important. Show me you understand the particulars of the play and their relationship to the meaning and effect of the whole play.
* In a second response on the blog (300+ words), write a perfect reflection about the theme of "translation" in your experience of the world and/or observations of others in the world. Be specific. Be insightful.
Song of Myself, Walt Whitman
Song of Myself, Walt Whitman
Here or here new.
Here used.
Here free.
BEFORE READING
James E. Miller, Jr. of the University of Chicago writes:
“Song of Myself” portrays (and mythologizes) Whitman's poetic birth and the journey into knowing launched by that “awakening.” But the “I” who speaks is not alone. His camerado, the “you” addressed in the poem's second line, is the reader, placed on shared ground with the poet, a presence throughout much of the journey.
In the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, “Song of Myself” came first in the series of twelve untitled poems, dominating the volume not only by its sheer bulk, but also by its brilliant display of Whitman's innovative techniques and original themes. Whitman left the poem in the lead position in the 1856 edition and gave it its first title, “Poem of Walt Whitman, an American,” shortened to “Walt Whitman” in the third edition of 1860. By the time Whitman had shaped Leaves of Grass into its final structure in 1881, he left the poem (its lines now grouped into 52 sections) in a lead position, preceded only by the epigraph-like cluster “Inscriptions” and the programmatic “Starting from Paumanok.”
WHILE READING
• In your journal make note of Whitman's depiction of the self and its relationship with the surrounding world. (Think also about the relationship between Walt Whitman the poet and Walt Whitman the speaker of the poem.)
• Make note of the motifs Whitman uses while developing his ideas about the self in the world: the body and the spirit (“soul”), the individual and the group, the self and others (“I contain multitudes”), the self and nature, learning from encoded beliefs (“creeds”) or from experience, age and youth, male and female, life (procreating, sexuality, etc.) and death (dying and killing), activity (doing) and passivity (watching, observing, loafing, musing).
• Make note of Whitman’s use of language and poetic structure: lists, repetitions, parallel structures, etc. How do these formal elements contribute to Whitman's depiction of the self in the world?
• Consult this webpage which has some insightful notes on the poem.
AFTER READING
Go here.
Here or here new.
Here used.
Here free.
BEFORE READING
James E. Miller, Jr. of the University of Chicago writes:
“Song of Myself” portrays (and mythologizes) Whitman's poetic birth and the journey into knowing launched by that “awakening.” But the “I” who speaks is not alone. His camerado, the “you” addressed in the poem's second line, is the reader, placed on shared ground with the poet, a presence throughout much of the journey.
In the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, “Song of Myself” came first in the series of twelve untitled poems, dominating the volume not only by its sheer bulk, but also by its brilliant display of Whitman's innovative techniques and original themes. Whitman left the poem in the lead position in the 1856 edition and gave it its first title, “Poem of Walt Whitman, an American,” shortened to “Walt Whitman” in the third edition of 1860. By the time Whitman had shaped Leaves of Grass into its final structure in 1881, he left the poem (its lines now grouped into 52 sections) in a lead position, preceded only by the epigraph-like cluster “Inscriptions” and the programmatic “Starting from Paumanok.”
WHILE READING
• In your journal make note of Whitman's depiction of the self and its relationship with the surrounding world. (Think also about the relationship between Walt Whitman the poet and Walt Whitman the speaker of the poem.)
• Make note of the motifs Whitman uses while developing his ideas about the self in the world: the body and the spirit (“soul”), the individual and the group, the self and others (“I contain multitudes”), the self and nature, learning from encoded beliefs (“creeds”) or from experience, age and youth, male and female, life (procreating, sexuality, etc.) and death (dying and killing), activity (doing) and passivity (watching, observing, loafing, musing).
• Make note of Whitman’s use of language and poetic structure: lists, repetitions, parallel structures, etc. How do these formal elements contribute to Whitman's depiction of the self in the world?
• Consult this webpage which has some insightful notes on the poem.
AFTER READING
Go here.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Welcome
Gloucester High School 2008-2009 AP English students this is your blog.
You will be spending a lot of time here over the next twelve months.
1.
Please introduce yourself in the comment box below.:
STEP ONE
Click on comments.
STEP TWO
If you do not yet have a Google Account click on "Sign Up Here"
Follow the directions for creating a Google Account. (You can use any valid pre-existing email address to create a Google Account.)
If you do have a Google Account write your username (your user name is your email address!) and password.
STEP THREE
Write a comment introducing yourself to the class.
STEP FOUR
If you have any problems with commenting come see me in 2207 ASAP. Also, if you have not yet given me an email come see me.
2. At the end of the week I will post the summer reading assignments. I suggest that you print a copy out a copy of the directions for yourself. I also suggest that you get the books as soon as possible: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, Translations by Brian Friel, and Song of Myself by Walt Whitman.
Notes on the books: The two novels--Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys--are widely available. You could buy a new copy, a used copy (visit local used bookshops; or, use AbeBooks), or take the book out of the library. I recommend that you have your own copy but I realize that may not be possible. Translations by Brian Friel is a bit more difficult to find but I found several used copies through AbeBooks, as well as new and used copies through Amazon. The Bookstore (on Main Street in Gloucester) will also order books for you. Song of Myself by Walt Whitman can be bought for $2.50 (not including shipping) through Dover Books. Whitman's poem can also be found on the internet in several places including here with excellent notes and commentary. Finally, the poem can be found within Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, which is very widely available and includes many fine works in addition to Song of Myself.
3. Finally, sometime next week (after the AP teachers have had a chance to get together) I will post the summer meeting times.
You will be spending a lot of time here over the next twelve months.
1.
Please introduce yourself in the comment box below.:
STEP ONE
Click on comments.
STEP TWO
If you do not yet have a Google Account click on "Sign Up Here"
Follow the directions for creating a Google Account. (You can use any valid pre-existing email address to create a Google Account.)
If you do have a Google Account write your username (your user name is your email address!) and password.
STEP THREE
Write a comment introducing yourself to the class.
STEP FOUR
If you have any problems with commenting come see me in 2207 ASAP. Also, if you have not yet given me an email come see me.
2. At the end of the week I will post the summer reading assignments. I suggest that you print a copy out a copy of the directions for yourself. I also suggest that you get the books as soon as possible: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, Translations by Brian Friel, and Song of Myself by Walt Whitman.
Notes on the books: The two novels--Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys--are widely available. You could buy a new copy, a used copy (visit local used bookshops; or, use AbeBooks), or take the book out of the library. I recommend that you have your own copy but I realize that may not be possible. Translations by Brian Friel is a bit more difficult to find but I found several used copies through AbeBooks, as well as new and used copies through Amazon. The Bookstore (on Main Street in Gloucester) will also order books for you. Song of Myself by Walt Whitman can be bought for $2.50 (not including shipping) through Dover Books. Whitman's poem can also be found on the internet in several places including here with excellent notes and commentary. Finally, the poem can be found within Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, which is very widely available and includes many fine works in addition to Song of Myself.
3. Finally, sometime next week (after the AP teachers have had a chance to get together) I will post the summer meeting times.
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