As I Lay Dying (Trying to Put It Together)

1. GROUP WORK: Put your group work (under the worm -- you'll know it when you see it) in the topmost black bin on the desk at the front of room 2207. Make sure all of the names of your group members are on the work. This work is due by the end of the school day Friday, February 27, 2009.

Directions:
1a. Physical Map of the Journey (on a sheet of blank paper); 1b Mark three points on the map and find a quotation that corresponds (in some meaningful way) with each of the three points. (The three quotations should be written on a sheet of lined paper.)

2a. Map of the character's relationships (on a sheet of blank paper); 2b Mark three points on the relationship map and find a quotation that corresponds (in some meaningful way) to each of the three points you have marked. (The three quotations should be written on a sheet of lined paper.)

3a. Graph of some aspect of As I Lay Dying (on a sheet of blank paper); 3b Find a passage in the book that uses imagery that for your group captures the essence or core of the work as a whole. Draw a picture of the verbal imagery. (The quote and picture should be on a sheet of lined paper.)

2. MAPS: Yesterday we talked about 2a and 3a in D-block. We talked about 2a in F-block. Next week we'll talk about the rest. To be prepared to talk about 1a and 1b check out this map from the University of Virginia. The As I Lay Dying map is based on this map (from the University of Virginia Special Collections Library) which Faulkner made almost thirty years after writing As I Lay Dying and which omits As I Lay Dying entirely. The creator of the As I Lay Dying map also refers to the second map on this page (from the University of Michigan library: I know it's hard to read) and argues that Faulkner has placed Armstid's place too far from the river and Tull's place on the wrong side of the river in the UMich map. (Tull's place appears in Faulkner's novel Sanctuary too and seems to be on the other side of the river.) What is the relationship between a reader's experience of reading a novel and all of this other stuff (maps made after the fact, comments by the author, books a Quidditch, etc.)?

3. MICROBLOGGING

4. Select a passage from As I Lay Dying for a passage analysis essay. Bring this passage to class on Monday, March 2, 2009.

5. A few comments: One of the choices I remember having to make in school, especially at the upper levels, is "who am I working for?" Am I writing to satisfy myself? Am I writing to communicate something to my teacher, thinking of her or him as a person, a thinker and feeler, rather than as a grader? Am I writing to represent as fully and as truthfully as possible my understanding of whatever I am studying? (Am I writing to get as close as possible to a truth?) Am I writing for a grade? Why am I doing this work? Who am I trying to please? I tried to get at this in f-block yesterday and I've tried to get at this question at other times in both classes.

I think it's worth talking about because it leads back to the question "why bother with literature?" and a broader question "why bother with art?" and "why bother to understand the world around us and our own nature?"

That said I have been unfair to Cash. I will attempt to be more fair to him (and to the truth rendered grotesquely embodied by Cash) when we talk more next week. (One could do worse than to start with his narration starting on 232.)

all the best,
Mr. James Cook

(P.S. I write and read and teach and do very many other things to provide an outlet for a Darl within.)