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.