A Gift of Three Poems (& far below a brief reminder of the Independent Reading & Research work)

In term two we have studied many works of art that make use of the story of Daedalus and Icarus. We've also talked about the ways other works of art make use of other old stories--not just by retelling them but by imaginatively re-envisioning them to serve new purposes. Some of you will be exploring retellings and reimaginings in your independent reading and research projects.

Below are three very different poems from the second half of the twentieth century, each of which make an imaginative re-use of the Christian Nativity narrative.

 

December 21^st                                                              Jean Valentine

How will I think of you

“God-with-us”

a name: a word

and trees paths stars this earth

how will I think of them

and the dead I love       and all absent friends

here-with-me

and table: hand: white coffee mug:

a northern still life:

and you

without a body

quietness

and the infant’s red-brown mouth           a star

at the star of the girl’s nipple…

1974

Note about December 21^st : The words in quotations, “God-with-us,” are a literal translation of “Emmanuel” and the next phrase “a name: a word” recalls Jesus Christ. The “girl” offering her nipple to the infant evokes Mary.

***

from Midwinter Day                                           Bernadette Mayer

…

Like the curtain like the moon’s oval pebbles

Under the exciting microscope

Of the Western world

                                       I speak out loud against it

Other lights in the town might be broken

By accident or widespread vandalism

But they’re too high and look like Christ

On the cross with the hands of an eye’s fluorescent fish

Like a talent unspotlit and queer

                                                          To be me is to be

Queer sleep after death, its modesty deriving

What from the eyes of the immodest living

Is offered at the cost of a ruinous leaving

Well, I have to close them

                                              This paid incandescent light

Is like the vigil of a virgin

Last to tell before my eyes I’ll end.

From dreams I made sentences, then what I’ve seen today,

Then past the past of afternoons of stories like memory

To seeing as a plain introduction to modes of love and reason,

Then to end I guess with love, a method to this winter season

Now I’ve said this love it’s all I can remember

Of Midwinter Day the twenty-second of December

Welcome sun, at last with thy softer light

That takes the bite from winter weather

And weaves the random cloth of life together

And drives away the long black night!

1982

Note: Midwinter Day is an extraordinary book-length poem written on a single day, the Winter Solstice, December 22, 1978 (published in 1982). The passage above is excerpted from the very end of the poem.

***

Christ Climbed Down                                             Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas trees
and no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck creches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit

and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagon sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
with German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
for everybody's imagined Christ child

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carollers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary's womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody's anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable
and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest
of Second Comings

1958

***

Independent Reading and Research: Term 2

1. Some of you still need to fine tune your proposals. Make sure you've clearly stated the title and author of the main text (novel; play(s); collection of stories, poems, essays) you are reading, the title and author of the text you are reading to gain background, context, and/or a critical perspective on the main reading, and the approach you are taking. (The options are outlined in the previous post.)

2. Quotation Responses: You will complete ten quotation responses on the main text and two on the supplemental text. Consult the models on the blog and the feedback on your summer work in order to improve your work.

3. Blog posts: You will also write two blog posts. In one you will discuss the main text and in another the supplemental text. It should be absolutely clear what texts you are referring to. This post should intelligently and insightfully (but not necessarily formally) discuss the texts and the ideas you have about the texts. Be bold. Be specific. Be thoughtful and convincing.

This work will be due January 13.

Independent Reading Project

Independent Reading Project

By the end of the day on Monday (12/19) post a comment below telling us (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 post the URL; make sure it's a scholarly source), and (3) what novel, play, or other lengthy work (for example, a collection of stories or poems) of literary merit you plan to read and respond to before the end of term two.

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).

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 Essay Examples

Click here for not-for-college essay examples.

The first two were written by AP EngLit students. The first of those two includes strong narration and reflection. (It was written in response to April Monroe's non-fiction narrative "The Potato Harvest".) The second one is short but delightful, effectively illustrating the not-for-college part of the assignment. It's about skipping school.

The next three come from an e-magazine called Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction.

The final example is quite a bit longer. It's a personal narrative essay by David Gessner called "The Dreamer Did Not Exist". It's pretty darned great. 

For Mr. Cook's Class

I've decided to make the assignment a little easier for you. Look for your name below. Follow the directions and have your notes ready in class tomorrow morning.

Mai O, Patrice K, Lucas O read "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" by William Carlos Williams & "To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph" by Anne Sexton. Complete say-play-suggest (also called say-play-imply)*** notes for "Landscape" and TPCAST+Theme** notes for "To a Friend". You'll find directions for each type of notes below.

Clare P & Olivia D read "Musee des Beaux Arts" by WH Auden. Complete say-play-suggest (also called say-play-imply)*** and TPCAST+Theme** notes. You'll find directions for each type of note-taking below.

Jason C & Eleanor K read "Icarus" by Edward Field. Complete SOAPStone+Theme* and Say-Play-Suggest (also called say-play-imply)*** notes. Directions for the notes are below.

Maryka G & Shae L read "Waiting for Icarus" by Muriel Rukeyeser. Complete SOAPStone + Theme* and TPCAST + Theme** notes. You'll find directions below.

Sarah Z & Tucker H read "O Daedalus, Fly Away Home" by Robert Hayden. Complete SOAPStone+Theme* and TPCAST+Theme** notes. Directions are below.

* What are SOAPSTone + Theme notes?

SOAPSTone + Theme stands for "speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, tone, and theme"
What does the poem state or imply about the speaker of the poem?
What does the poem state or imply about the occasion--the dramatic situation or circumstances--of the poem?
What does the poem state or imply about the audience for the poem?
What does the poem state or imply about the speaker of the poem?
What does the poem state or imply about the subject matter or topic of the poem?
What seems to be the tone of the poem? How do you know?
What themes are developed in the poem? How?

** What are TPCAST + Theme notes?

TPCAST + Theme stands for "Title, Paraphrase, Connotation, Attitude, Shift, Title again, and Theme"
Before reading the poem write down your first impressions of the title? What does the title suggest about the poem?
After reading the poem but before doing other analysis paraphrase the poem in your own words?
Now look at the images and suggestive word choices; what are the connotations of those images and word choices?
Now consider the attitude (tone!) of the poem. Ironic, wry, enthusiastic, celebratory, grave, weary, nostalgic, etc.
Look for a shift in the poem. It might be a dramatic turning point; it might be a shift in tone; it might be a shift in style or form.
Now look at the title again. What do you think about it now that you have studied the poem?
What themes are developed in the poem? How?

***What are say-play-suggest (also called say-play-imply) notes?

What does the poem literally say?

How does the poem play with language? (Consider figurative language, suggestive imagery, repeated sounds, line breaks, rhythmic patterns, other kinds of patterns (like extended metaphors, juxtapositions, etc.), placement of words on the page, slippery tone, shifts in narrative, style, form, etc.)

What does all the saying & playing in the poem suggest or imply?

I'm looking forward to our poem discussion tomorrow.

all the best,
Mr. James Cook

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (the rest...)

READ THIS!

Here's what you've already done:
For chapters IV (four) and V (five) you have annotated passages. Some of you have used the enotes link (over there in the right margin) to print out and write on passages. Some of you have written on post-it notes or scraps of paper in your books. Some of you have jotted notes on a separate sheet of paper. Whatever your method you have made observations related to literary elements--narration, style, characterization, imagery, allusions, etc.; the whole landscape of the text--and have speculated on connections between those elements--features of the landscape--and the development, effect, and meaning of the novel as a whole.

Here's what you need to do Wednesday night before pumpkin time:
Now we'd like you to write an explication (also called a "close reading") of a passage from chapter V. (Most of you will write about the passage you have already annotated; though some of you might have been inspired by something you heard in class.)

A friend, Mr. Ryan Gallagher at Malden (MA) High School, writes, "A passage explication is an essay that takes apart the pieces of a prose passage to demonstrate how it creates meaning [on its own and in relation to the rest of the work]. Its main question can be reduced to the simple idea of 'What does the passage mean? What is its purpose? How does it create that meaning and achieve its purpose? How does it fit in with the rest of the text (if available)?'"

A further note on the etymology of explication: in Latin explicare means "to unfold," so it might be useful to imagine Joyce's text as compressed (or folded) into a particularly dense and layered package of potential meaning.

Your job as an explicator is to unfold the densely layered mass, to report on what you discover as you unfold, and to speculate upon the significance of what you discover.

Another friend, Mr. John Brassil, an AP Language teacher in Maine who is active with the College Board, talks about "close reading" as walking through the landscape of a text. What do you notice? (What is odd? What is interesting? What's similar? What's different? What stands out? What blends in?) And then, what might be significant about what you've noticed in relation to the text as a whole (or, to extend the metaphor, the landscape as an ecosystem)? We recommend that you walk through the passage from beginning to end, commenting as you go about what you notice and how it might be significant.

Here's what you'll do next (by Tuesday, November 29):
Write an expository essay that develops your interpretation of how a particular thread that embodies a tension in A Portrait of the Artist is significant to the work as a whole. We'll get the prompt up here tomorrow.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (chapter two and three)

Write an analysis of the passage you were given from chapter two or three. Be thoughtful. Be thorough. Be specific. Be resourceful. Be inquisitive. Take intellectual risks. Explore.(Due by pumpkin time Tuesday, November 8.)

Modernist Music (etc.)

By pumpkin time on Monday develop an open response that addresses the relationship between the modernist (and other) music you have been exposed to and modernism (and/or other movements) in other arts (fiction, poetry, film, painting, sculpture, architecture, dance, photography, etc.). Here's a list of some of the composers you have heard: Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Stravinsky, Gershwin, Shostakovic, Ned Rorem (who composed the "Minotaur" and "Acrobat on a Ball"). I look forward to your responses.

[Music played in class: (1) Chopin: Nocturne #2, E flat (1830-40); (2) Liszt: Nuagis Gris (1881); (3) Debussy: from Prelude Book I (1910); (4) Stravinsky: from Rite of Spring (1913); (5) Shostakovic: String Quartet #8 (1960). Music played by the Hausmann Quartet in the auditorium: (1) Debussy: String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10; (2) Stravinsky: Three Pieces for String Quartet; (3) Gershwin: Lullaby. In the library the Hausmann Quartet played pieces of music composed by Mozart and Debussy as well as the "Minotaur" and "Acrobat on the Ball" sections of a piece by Ned Rorem. What have I forgotten?]

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (chapter one)

Extend the class discussions about James Joyce's depiction of the developing consciousness of Stephen Dedalus' by explicating a single passage in chapter one. Be thoughtful. Be thorough. Be specific. Be resourceful. Be inquisitive. Take intellectual risks. Explore. (Mr. Telles and Mr. Cook have posted comments to help. A few of the student responses already posted also serve as effective models.)

Jane Eyre 28 to the End

Extend. Explore. Examine. Respond. Revisit. Revise. Analyze. Synthesize. Write.
Walk the landscape of the text. Dig into particulars. Muse on your findings. Put it together. Assert boldly.
As the Violent Femmes song goes, "Add it up! Add it up! Add it up!" 

Jane Eyre Chapters 17 through 27

Extend. Explore. Examine. Respond. Revisit. Revise. Analyze. Synthesize. Write.

Jane Eyre Chapters 1 through 16

Extend the class discussion.

Extending the Literary Analysis Web Discussions

By class time on Monday, September 12, write responses (each 300+ words in length) to the discussion of the two works that we studied this summer that you did not create a web for. (For example, if you wrote about Wide Sargasso Sea write one response that extends the discussion of Invisible Man and write another response that extends the discussion of Invisible Cities.)

Respond! Explore! Extend! Debate! Be resourceful. Try to move back and forth between general, overarching insights and specific textual analysis. Be resourceful! (What resources do you have? Your notes from class discussion about the webs. Your passage responses. The notes Mr. Telles posted after each summer session. Comments posted about the summer sessions. The novels themselves. Click on the following links for the significant excerpts from the novels available on Google Books: Invisible Cities, Invisible Man, Wide Sargasso Sea.)

Note:
In Mr. Cook's class we didn't get to talk about Invisible Cities so here are excerpts from the Invisible Cities webs.

"[Reading Invisible Cities] we start to question our understanding of what is real and what is unreal, and if there is a difference between them, or [if they're] just what we know already and what we [have] yet to know...Kublai didn't know if the cities existed, and neither did Marco, the only thing Marco knew was that the city he described to Kublai was a possible city that he could find. The author us[es] cities as a microcosm for alternate realities." 

Here are some supporting quotations:

"Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches."

"It is a city made only of expectations, exclusions, incongruities, contradictions. If such a city is the most improbable, by reducing the number of abnormal elements, we increase the probability that the city really exists. So I have only to subtract exceptions from my model, and in whatever direction I proceed, I will arrive at one of the cities which, always as an exception exists. But I cannot force my operation beyond a certain limit: I would achieve cities too probable to be real."

"[Kublai says] 'why do you speak to me of the stone? It is only the arch that matters to me.' [Polo answers] 'without stones there is no arch.'"

"[T]hose who strive in camps and ports exist only because we two think of them, here, enclosed among these bamboo hedges, motionless in time."

& an excerpt from another Invisible Cities web:

"The main themes that are mentioned are the value that each city holds, the support they have, the city's invisibility, the invisible cities made within Polo's mind that are then transformed into words for the Khan's ears. Throughout the whole book, Polo weaves words into his stories creating invisible cities inside the Khan's mind, allowing him to think of these cities as part of his empire, which he believes will perish at the end of his reign."

& here are a few more quotations: 

"'Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased,' Polo said. 'Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.'"

"And Polo answers, 'Travelling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resemble all cities, places exchange their form, order distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents. Your atlas preserves the differences in tact: that assortment of qualities which like are like the letters in a name.'"

"'This is the aim of my explorations: examining the traces of happiness still to be glimpsed, I gauge its short supply. If you want to know how much darkness there is around you, you must sharpen you eyes, peering at the faint lights in the distance.'"

"'I have also thought of a model city from which I deduce all the others,' Marco answered. 'It is a city made only of exceptions, exclusions, incongruities, contradictions.'"

Literary Analysis Web

Literary Analysis Web

Making meaning by relating the parts to the whole and the whole to the parts

The Process and the Question
In the last part of class your teachers introduced an assignment that addresses the questions: What could each of you do to show that you understand how the parts contribute to a whole? How can you show that a writer’s choices -- choices 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 the significance of the work as a whole?

You will answer these questions by creating a literary analysis web in response to Invisible Cities, Invisible Man, or Wide Sargasso Sea.

The Web, part one: the center
Each student will 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, your understanding of what the novel you’ve chosen is fundamentally all about. What exactly do you think the novel suggests?

(Hint: To begin thinking about the essential themes in the novels review your passage responses and the summaries of summer session discussions written by Mr. Telles.)

The "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. Rely on your own interpretive skills, your own heart and mind. Each year several students ignore this warning and end up receiving no credit (0) for one or more summer reading assignment.)

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". Choose passages that show development over the course of the novel (beginning, middle, and end) as well as a range of choices made by the author that contribute to the novel’s development.  (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 how the passage supports your "big idea," your central insight about the significance of the whole. 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.

Part of AP English Lit & Comp is learning how to be a critical, creative, resourceful, and 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 second week of class.

Due Dates
The physical "web" in whatever form you create is due the Tuesday after Labor Day, September  6, 2011.
The "teaching your peers" part of the assignment will take place during the week of Tuesday, September 6 through Friday, September 9.

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 your 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 a reasonable 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.

Wide Sargasso Sea

We began our discussion of Wide Sargasso Sea by noting that the book does not make it easy for the reader to become situated. The beginning of the novel is disorienting, and we need to be patient and look hard for cues about things like the socio-historical context of the book, narrative voice and the interrelationships between characters. We all agreed that this is a deliberate choice by the author, and started to explore other choices that Jean Rhys makes: for instance, moving the historical period of the book to post-emancipation (which is not exactly consistent with the period of Jane Eyre), deliberately delaying contextualization, and providing two principal narrative voices. How do these choices affect our understanding or experience of the novel as a whole?

As for themes, students identified issues of power and control were at work throughout the novel. Each character appears to be clinging to some means of power and trying to assert some control over their world, whether it be through money, mob strength, magic or cultural domination. Often these attempts at gaining power and control lead to deep entanglements and misunderstandings between characters, gulfs that they can not cross in order to truly connect with each other. Antoinette is problematic in regard to power and control, however, as it is not clear where she is drawing her power or by what means she is trying to control her experience (if she is at all). We noted that she is never at peace, and one student very shrewdly pointed out that she moves from one safe space to another, as each safe space is successively destroyed. Ultimately, she becomes attached to the latent sense of threat that she experiences on the island, although she is careful to point out that she feels at home within this feeling of dread or threat as long as it is divorced from people. Threat or menace from people or society is unbearable for her, but she can and must live within the threat from natural world of the island. Is this where she finds her power or control, living in the teeth of dread? Isn’t this paradoxical?

Another student noted a pattern of color in the book but was uncertain what to make of it. Mr. Cook and I appreciated that she brought this up, even tentatively. We have been encouraging students to make bold and pointed assertions about the books we’re reading, but we can not shy away from making tentative observations and allowing ourselves to spiral back through themes and ideas that we casually observe on our way to something we think is more substantial.

Another pressing question: why the return of Tia in the very last sentences of the book? What is it about this character that resonates so strongly in the book’s climactic moments?

This book will be crucial as we discuss Jane Eyre in the first semester. I have sent around an email with two due dates (one for the web assignment, one for your final independent reading) so please look closely at your email. Add a comment to this post if you were not able to get to the meeting, and we will be seeing you in a few days! Mr. Telles.

Invisible Man Meeting #2

At this meeting we continued with our attempts to understand how Ellison is using various stylistic and structural techniques to support the novel as a unified whole. We also began to prod ourselves to not just make observations about the text but to also make bold assertions about what we think is going on in the novel. In other words, we tried stating unequivocably: "This is what this book is concerned with, primarily." Mr. Cook noted that this endeavor -- making bold assertions -- requires some confidence and the willingness to defend one's assertion and / or concede its limitations when others react to it. I noted that in many of the quotation response journals, this was a skill that many in the class seem reluctant to try out, which is natural, but it's a skill that students should begin to exercise.

In the meeting, students made very shrewd observations about the text, nevertheless. One student noted how the nature of the IM's development changes dramatically after the first half of the novel. There is a new immediacy to the narrative, as both the reader and the IM himself has a somewhat limited perspective of the forces that are pushing and pulling him in the second half of the novel. This gives the narrative more urgency and less ironic distance -- there isn't so much of a "look at how foolish I was" tone to the voice, but rather a tone of direct engagement and bewilderment with what's going on. However, the student noted, this is tempered by the narrator's new attitude, which is less personally bound up in others' opinions of him and can deflect others' aggression more easily.

We thought quite a bit about some of the other refrains of the book, particularly the Grandfather's voice insisting that the IM should "yes" his oppressors to death, and we noted that the IM never comes to a complete understanding of this advice. At the end of the novel, it is still possible that the advice is poisonous or destructive, yet the IM contextualizes it differently. This observation led to a discussion of Ellison's choices of metaphor, how many seem so obvious and rather simple, only to become impossibly complicated when one turns them over in one's mind. Ellison plays with the light and dark imagery, whiteness and blackness, etc., so thoroughly that the metaphors flicker between a stark simplicity and bottomless complexity. And yet we noted that Ellison seems to be aware of the comedic value of using such heavy handed metaphor occasionally. In short, the book reveals problems but doesn't solve them.

One student noted her disappointment with the IM during the riot scene as he willingly participates in the burning of a tenement building. He even expresses some pride in the people for conceiving and carrying out a demonstration of social protest. Of course, the reality of this situation is brought home to the IM shortly after lighting the fire: it is a futile and self-defeating spectacle. But this scene led us to wonder why Ellison includes so many instances in which the IM is behaving in a manner that is almost repulsive to the reader.

The most difficult questions of the day were the following:
Why doesn't the IM tell Mary about his involvement with the Brotherhood?
What is the meaning of the Clifton / Sambo doll episode? Why would Clifton debase himself so much, and what is his understanding of what he is doing?

For the second question, we began by trying to simply take note of all of the minute details of the scene -- the doll's two faces, the movement of the crowd, the dancing motion of the doll, the particular strings that must be pulled, etc. -- and tried to connect some of the images and behaviors to other motifs throughout the book in order to make some meaning.

We made some tentative meaning out of the observations I've noted above, but I've left them open for the benefit of those who were not there and will comment on them. I will send around an email soon regarding a date for our fourth and final meeting to discuss Wide Sargasso Sea. Thanks, Mr. Telles.

Invisible Man Meeting #1, July 25.

Our first discussion of Invisible Man was very wide-ranging and exciting, and as we could have isolated and tracked the many motifs that Ellison works with in the novel, we instead discussed impressions of Ellison’s style and technique, thought deeply about the meaning of identity in the novel, and discussed the complicated roles of historical figures and social institutions in the novel. I will mention a few of the major discussion points, as the interrelationships that we uncovered are too numerous and complicated to detail here.

We noted the episodic nature of the book and found that the narrative breaks at the point in which the Invisible Man is reborn, after his electro-shock “therapy.” One student noted that there is a major shift in the Invisible Man’s engagement with the world after the rebirth: he moves from being a passive figure who honors the tacit expectations of his social environment – particularly at the college – to a person who is managing a more pervasive anger and can be direct about it. The student noted that the Invisible Man’s rage would erupt periodically and intensely before his break and became more of a state of being afterward. Another register of the Invisible Man’s change was obvious in his speech making: the content and contexts for his speeches (say the Battle Royal speech compared to his eviction speech) changes significantly, and this is worth the reader’s attention.

This led to some discussion on the stylistic choices that Ellison makes and how those choices tie in with the bigger themes of the book. Some students commented on the tone of the first part of the book, in which there is a sustained irony that colors the story as the Invisible Man tells of his college years, a tone that lightly mocks the character’s limited understanding of the forces bearing down on him at the time and is also critical of the pretensions of the college, its founders and administrators. I noted that this tone seems to collapse after the Invisible Man’s rebirth. The ironic tone compliments a theme that Mr. Cook pointed out, that of being a “part” of something and “apart” from something, a deep conflict that haunts the book. It allows the narrator to fully inhabit the deep sincerity of his youthful system of beliefs, but it makes clear that there is an impending break upon the horizon and the narrator is “apart from” and not “a part of” that world. Other students noted the interpolation of dialect speech, and others noticed passages (such as Rev. Barbee’s speech) that seem deliberately hackneyed, long-winded, or elevated in a way that seemed inappropriate or absurd, and this has the effect of pushing the reader out of the novel a little, giving the reader a sense of being at turns inside and outside the world of the book. We tried to understand Ellison’s decision to include scenes that seem to ignore the boundaries of what we think of as “real” life, i.e. the Battle Royal scene, the chaos of the Golden Day, the electro-shock therapy scene. Why do we often ask ourselves “is this really happening?” And why is Ellison forcing us to ask this question?

Here we pick up the thread of “identity,” which is clearly one of the most problematic themes in the book. We asked ourselves why the Invisible Man is nameless. Some felt that the lack of a name strips down any associations one might have with that name and encourages us to concentrate on the character’s individual consciousness and interrelationships. Mr. Cook noted the character’s struggle to insist that the core of his self is unknowable and can not be co-opted, as so many in the book attempt to do. The essence of the self is a mystery. We also wondered about the deep sense of shame and nausea the character feels when his name is called or his deepest memories are exposed, and we asked how this may be tied up in the problem of the name. It is also important to note that Ellison gets some comedic mileage out of the namelessness of his character, and that may points in the book are simply very funny, which relieves the book of a solemn, self-important or portentous tone.

I could go on forever and have probably glossed over points that meant a lot to some participants. This can not be helped when a discussion goes as well as this one did. Themes like power, lack of control, social institutions that are duplicitous or overlap with others, “play” and humor as a response to oppressive and hypocritical cultural expectations, all played a part in the discussion. For those who were not able to come, please write in the comment section of this post with a 250 + word response to either the ideas brought up in discussion or your own thoughts that have been percolating as you have been reading. Thank you, Mr. Telles.

July 11th meeting for Invisible Cities

Our July 11 meeting was a great start for the program: participants were open to the uniqueness of Invisible Cities and were resourceful and specific with their evidence from the text when discussing ideas. Here are some of the ideas discussed:

1) Mr. Cook made the point that the book implicitly encourages us to be more sympathetic to Polo's way of thinking, and Mr. Cook asked whether we can understand or appreciate Khan's position. Later in the class, students argued that elements of Polo's cities (or imagination) such as the cities that are always in flux, in a state of becoming or decaying, unknowable, etc., can cause a deep level of frustration or anxiety. In this way, Khan can be reassuring in his striving for solidity, full understanding, and completeness.

2) Students found the image of "the abyss" to be significant, and one student made the point that the cities' inhabitants, as well as Khan and Polo themselves, often work to protect themselves or deny this unknowable darkness (a particularly clear example being the city suspended above the abyss). When approaching the subject of the abyss (or death, if you will), even in metaphor, Khan and Polo shut down their discussion (i.e. Khan's imagined city of only departures).

3) Other motifs / themes that students pointed out are waste and rubbish as the underside of opulence or idealized forms, the interplay between memory and language (how articulating memory in language can erase or replace memory), Kahn's urge for control being frustrated by the complexities of Polo's descriptions, and the ever-present friction between fear and desire.

4) I asked the students for examples of images, passages, or ideas in the book that they had particular trouble understanding or placing within the framework of the book. One student mentioned the city of smiling faces that multiply all around Polo, while Polo, strangely, does not seem to be disturbed by it. Other students suggested this may be connected to a motif of denial in the book, and it was noted that there is also a motif of faces: faces that are barely recognizable, covered, or in this case, identical and unnervingly happy.

I mentioned that I found myself wondering about the female images in the book. Each city has a feminine name, and there are often very vivid female images. Besides Khan and Polo, there are few male figures that make much of an impression. One student said that this seemed to be Polo's way of keeping Khan's interest -- the manipulations of a storyteller. Others thought it might be tied in with desire, but we were not able to make a satisfying connection.


For those who were unable to come: thank you for sending your quotation response journals. If you were not able to come, we are asking that you respond to one or more of the ideas above in a blog comment. Please write these responses before the next meeting, and they should be around 250 words. They can be attached as a comment to this post.

We're going to tentatively schedule our next meeting for Monday, July 25 at 9:30. The same rules apply: if you are unable to come, please send along a copy of your quotation response journal and look for the blog post afterward. The text is the first half of Invisible Man, chapters 1-15. Thank you, Mr. Telles.

Summer Session #1 & Passage Responses for *Invisible Cities*

The first summer session will be held at nine-thirty antemeridian (9:30 am) on Monday, July 11 in room 2205.

Also remember that responses to ten passages from Invisible Cities are due on Monday, July 11. Bring them with you to the summer session. (If you cannot attend the session send an email letting us know you won't be there and then make sure you email your passage responses by midnight Monday, July 11. If you are going to be away and do not have access to email where you are going make sure you contact Mr. Cook and Mr. Telles before leaving.)

Here is a link to a passage response template that is easy to use.
Notice that sixty words is a minimum and not a recommendation. Responses that short will likely score in the lower half of the grading rubric (needs improvement/warning status) whereas typical AP level responses vary are most of in the 100 to 300 word range.

Here is a link to the grading rubric for passage responses.
Click on the link if you want to understand how you will be evaluated. We recommend reading this. Email us with questions.

Here is a link to a two AP level passage responses from last year's students.
We recommend taking a look at these so you are familiar with the level of work that AP students produce.
***

Finally, don't forget to comment on the previous blog post and to respond to the email Mr. Telles sent last week. (He asked you to reply to the email with your favorite word. Today I might have responded with the word inimitable.)

Post a Comment Here

Respond to these prompts in the comment box.
1. What is your full name?
2. What would you like your classmates and teachers to call you?
3. What sources do you use to get news?
4. What period of history -- or aspect of history (or what country's/region's history) -- are you most interested in? (Or, if you prefer, what aspect of psychology or sociology are you most interested in?)
5. What is your favorite science experiment? (Or, what is your favorite scientific discovery?)
6. What is your favorite mathematical equation, rule, or property?
7. What book would you most like to re-read when you get older?
8. Of the books that you want to read but haven't read yet, which one do you most want to read before you get out of high school?
9. Translate one of your responses into a foreign language you are studying or have studied.

Commitment Letter

We, Mr. Telles and Mr. James Cook, will be teaching the AP English Literature and Composition course during the upcoming school year. Twenty-four of you have signed up for AP English, and, fortunately, Gloucester High School can offer two sections of the course during the 2011-2012 school year, which means there is room for everyone. However, before the English Department finalizes the roster for the course I want to make sure you are committed to the course. 

During the summer you are expected to read the Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (165 pages), Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (581 pages), Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (171 pages), and a book of your choice. You will also be expected to keep a passage response journal for each work, participate in four AP English Literature summer sessions at Gloucester High School, post comments on the AP English blog (apenglitghs2012.blogspot.com), and create a theme web. (You will find out more about the web in August). This litany of work is not intended to scare you off. However, we want to be honest and upfront about the expectations. If you are seriously committed to reading, writing, talking, and thinking at a college level, we promise that you will find the summer experience to be fulfilling and rewarding. 

During the school year you will read between 500 and 1000 pages, write between twenty and thirty pages, and participate in several graded discussions each term. You are expected to be self-motivated and genuinely engaged; and, since the goal of the class is for every student to do well on the AP exam, it is important that you are willing to work with classmates in small groups to analyze text and evaluate peer work. You will learn from the texts, your teacher, and each other. To achieve this goal the class atmosphere must be collegial rather than competitive, and you must do your share of the work. 

Please consider this description of the course and make a decision about whether or not you are committed to fulfilling the requirements of AP English Literature and Composition. Please complete the "commitment form" (on the back of this letter) and return it to Mr. Telles in room 2209 by Friday, June 10. If you have questions about any of the expectations please stop by 2207 or 2209. We are looking forward to getting to know you.

Sincerely,

Mr. James Cook                                     Mr. Telles
English Teacher                                      English Teacher
Gloucester High School                          Gloucester High School

Commitment Form for AP English Literature and Composition

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Circle one:

Yes, I am committed to AP English.               No, I will take another senior English.

______________________________                          ______________________________

student signature                                                                                parent signature