For Tuesday, March 4

Read all of Chapter 1 (or section 1) of Heart of Darkness.  Use your study guide as a guide~peruse the questions before you read~probably just a few questions at a time.  If it helps you to write stuff down, I would recommend you do it.  This novel is one of your best bets for question 3 of the exam.  It is also an exercise in the study of prose, as well as, poetry since it is so dense.  I encourage you to find the beauty and richness in the language of this read even though it is difficult.

Remember:  You may watch The Serpent's Kiss for extra credit.  If you have netflix, go for it.  If you do not have netflix, phone a friend.  As an alternative, as soon as my copy comes in, we can watch together (not during class, but maybe during our off period or something)

.  After you view the film, set an appointment with me to discuss it.  If you watch with a friend, we can all meet together.

For Friday, February 28

 

T. S. Eliot-Fragmentation

Andrew Marvell-Metaphysical-Neo-Classical

Joseph Conrad-Impressionist Literature

The paintings above are examples of impressionism.  Impressionism was also a trend in literature during the early 1900s.  Here is a description below.

Impressionist Literature-Modern

Why the blurriness?

*For modern novelists, the messiness and confusion and darkness of experience is interesting.

•Rather than trying to simplify and abstract a particular meaning from experience, novelists tend to wallow in the multiplicity of ideas and meanings and sensations that experience can provide.

•Novelists are in the business of recreating and communicating the rich complexities of the experience itself.

•Their purpose is to get the reader to re-live an experience, with all its complexity and messiness, all its darkness and ambiguity.

Read Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad.  If you are reading in your textbook, you will read through the first paragraph of page 373.  If you are reading in another text, you will read about 14 paragraphs.  The last sentence you will read is:  "'I suppose you fellows remember I did once turn fresh-water sailor for a bit,' that we knew we were fated, before the ebb began to run, to hear about one of Marlow's inconclusive experiences."

Now create a picture (with crayolas or colored pencils) that captures the setting of these first paragraphs in Heart of Darkness.

For Wednesday, February 26

Answer six (6) of the  following questions regarding "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."  (That equals one question a night until I see you next.)  Write in paragraph form/complete sentences.  Try to think of your answers as quotation sandwiches:  set up context, cite the poem, interpret your citation.  Dig deep and this will be an excellent exercise in analytical thinking and writing.

SKILL FOCUS:  DETAIL
1.  How does Eliot set the tone in the poem's first stanza?  Look carefully at both the figurative language and the concrete details.
SKILL FOCUS:  IMAGERY


2.  Eliot depends on the emotional associations of his images, what he called the "objective correlative," to reveal aspects of Prufrock's personality.  In the first stanza, what emotions do you associate with images such as "patient etherized on a table" or "one-night cheap hotels"?
SKILL FOCUS:  DETAIL/IMAGERY/FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
3.  Prufrock is a deeply self-conscious character.  Explain the various ways that characteristic is developed in lines 37-72.  Consider especially lines 55-58, in which Prufrock imagines himself pinned like a specimen to a wall.  (You could probably write an entire essay on the associations made between Prufrock's physical descriptions and their connection to his emotional state.)
SKILL FOCUS:  REPETITION
4.  From line 37-87, twelve lines begin with "And."  What does the repetition of this conjunction suggest about Prufrock's mental state?  Consider in your study of repetition the word "known" in lines 49-49.
SKILL FOCUS:  SYNTAX
5.  What is the effect of the semi-colons and ellipses in lines 111-121?  What do they tell you about Prufrock's state of mind?
SKILL FOCUS:  SYNTAX
6.  Eliot uses the technique of enjambment, or run on lines.  An example is in the lines 5-9:  "The muttering retreats / Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels / And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: / Streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent."  How does this technique help create the alienating quality of the city scene that's set in the first 22 lines.
SKILL FOCUS:  ALLUSION
7.  In line 111, Prufrock readily admits he is no Hamlet.  What might have led the reader to believe that Prufrock and Hamlet share characteristics?  (Be specific)  What characteristics of Hamlet does Prufrock claim not to have?
SKILL FOCUS:  DETAIL
8.  Details such as Prufrock's assertion that he will "wear the bottom of his trousers rolled" or his question about whether he should "dare to eat a peach" have been interpreted in many ways.  Some say it's about his age or "oldness"; others say it is about his nervousness around women.  Consider several possibilities.  How does each add to the portrait of Prufrock and the multiple meanings of Eliot's poem?
SKILL FOCUS:  ALLUSION
9.  In the last six lines of this poem for a sestet (6 lines), the form that both ends the traditional Petrarchan sonnet and offers a solution for the problem or conflict set out in the first eight liens (the octave).  The poet Petrarch wrote about his unrequited love for Laura, but Prufrock doesn't even have an unrequited love.  Do these last six lines offer any solutions?  How does the image of mermaids continue some of the poem's motifs?  What does it mean that Prufrock invites the reader to drown with him at the end of the poem?
SKILL FOCUS:  REPETITION
10.  In what ways is "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" a poem about time?  Read through the poem and look for references to time, including aging, the meaning of time, and the word time itself.  What conclusions can you draw about the way Eliot thinks about time?
SKILL FOCUS:  REPETITION
11.  Highlight every reference to question/questions, as well as, every question asked.  Do you see any connections?  What conclusions do you deduce from this analysis of "the questions"?

For Thursday, February 20

I really enjoyed your collages today~I love to watch you thinking!  Great Work!

The Thinking Portion of your homework:
Reread: "To His Coy Mistress," by Andrew Marvell; this poem is in your textbook or you can read it online.

Here is a link:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16076

Note Marvell's references to time:  If we had all the time in the world, it would not matter if we waited....
Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, - This is an image we see again in "Love Song".  


Eliot is certainly alluding to Marvell a couple of times in "Love Song."  Can you see it?  What might this mean for Prufrock?
The Written Portion of your homework: Complete the "'Prufrock' Analysis Worksheet".  Take your time with this assignment.  Show me that you have thought deeply about each question. Remember the key is tie the literary device to meaning.  The guiding questions should help you.



  

For Tuesday, February 18

Task #1:  Finish reading "The Hollow Men".  Annotate what you can...what do you think the speaker communicates about his world?

Task #2:  Print out a copy of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
Task #3:  Read through the poem once.  Slowly.
Task #4:  Look up a You Tube video of Eliot reading his famous poem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAO3QTU4PzY

Task #5:  Next:  Read this excerpt from your textbook:

"'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' is like a collage, a work of visual art created by materials and objects glued to a flat surface.  In poetry this technique is called fragmentation, a favorite technique of the modernists.  The fragments come together--or don't--in a way that mirrors the fragmented, chaotic modern world.  In the fourth stanza, for example, what is the effect of fragments such as "yellow smoke," "murder and create," "visions and revisions," and "toast and tea" appearing together?  Do they form a new picture, or are their effects fragmentary?  How do the fragments communicate Eliot's vision of a modern man in a modern city?"

Task #6:  This weekend, I want you to create a collage (pencil drawing, magazine pictures, words, internet pictures, a combination of all) using some of the images from "Prufrock."  Use images that connect with you in some way.  (I would say to use a minimum of 5 images although you can use 100.  The more images you use, the more intimate you will be with the poem.)

For me those might be:
"mermaids singing, each to each"
"a patient etherized on a table"
"do I dare disturb the universe"
references to time

You will present your collages on Tuesday.  I cannot wait to see what you come up with.  We will tackle the analysis together, but this is a great way to start!

For Friday, February 14

Great class today.  I love digging deep into the works of literature we are reading.

Finish reading The House on Mango Street.  That should be about 40 pages or so.  We left off at page 66. So start with "Edna's Ruthie".  You could probably read all of these pages in an hour or maybe even less; however, do not discount the fact that the vignettes "tell much more than they say"...this should remind you of a recently read poem.

Select three of the vignettes that affect you emotionally.  Some of my favorites are:  "Four Skinny Trees", "Bums in the Attic", "The Monkey Garden", and "Red Clowns".

Create a chart with the following columns:  Title of the Vignette, the use of a Literary Device within the chapter that you find most effective (write out the example), Meaning Tied to LD, and Why (a very brief explanation as to why you found this chapter moving.

We will discuss your choices in detail on Friday, so bring your book to class for reference.  We want to have a rich and vivid dialogue regarding Cisneros' most famous work.

After HoMS discussion (as time allows), we will read and discuss "The Hollow Men".  Bring your handout.

For Wednesday, February 12

Task #1

Write a 40 minute essay over the poem "All My Pretty Ones" by Anne Sexton.  Before setting your timer, read the poem again looking over your annotations.  You will be writing on the speaker's changing perspective of her father.  Look at each album the speaker goes through.  The first, she discards.  The second, she "throw[s] out.  The next, she ________, and finally, she _________.
Her emotions go from bitterness (maybe) to forgiveness.  How?  Why?

After your careful review, set the timer.

Write a well-developed essay in which you analyze how Sexton conveys the speaker's changing perspective of her father through the use of allusion, imagery/metaphor, and tone.

FOR TEAM DISCUSSION ON WEDNESDAY:

Task #2

Read the short story "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow."  Come to class ready to conduct a detailed discussion with your team.  Consider Vonnegut's use of allusion.  What concerns does Vonnegut's short story address?  What themes?  What motifs?  What symbols?

Task #3

Find the Sylvia Plath poem entitled "Daddy"on the internet.  Read and annotate the poem.  Consider the tone of this poem in comparison to Sexton's poem.  Do the speaker's feeling change throughout the poem?  What is the tone?  Annotate comparison of father to history, images that suggest the speaker lacks value.
Your textbook has this note about this poem:  "Plath has said of 'Daddy':  'The poem is spoken by a girl with an Electra complex.  Her father died while she thought he was God.   Her case is complicated by the fact that her father was also a Nazi and her mother very possibly part-Jewish.  In the daughter the two strains marry and paralyze each other--she has to act out the awful little allegory before she is free of it.'  How does this commentary by the poet influence your reading of the poem?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_complex

Again,come ready to discuss!

For Thursday, February 6

I decided that we will not have a timed writing on Thursday.  I want to make sure we completely finish up Macbeth this week, so we will save this for another time.

Schedule Thursday:
Warm up--something cool
Tomorrow Speech Pair Performance
Finish Movie
Discuss Director's choices

FOR HOMEWORK:

1.          Re-read "The First Job"
Identify the theme through incidents in the plot.
Activity:  Consider the unwanted kiss incident.  Write a diary entry Esperanza might make regarding the incident; including her feelinsg at the time.  In what way does the incident help define the coming-of-age theme?

So...write the diary entry.  Then write one sentence that ties the incidents to theme.

2.          Read "Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark"
Understand the use of repetition as a device to emphasize ideas.
Activity:  Repetition is most commonly used in songs; however, one of the most well-known examples of repetition is found in Edgar Allen Poe's poem "The Raven."

"While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
as if someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door--"

Create a chart using examples of repetition from this chapter.  Excerpt from the Chapter on the left; Idea or Mood it Helps Define on the right

Example of repetition:  "...crumples like a coat and cries, my brave Papa cries."

3.         Read "Born Bad", "Elenita, Cards, Palm, Water", "Geraldo-No Last Name"  Annotate for meaning.