Independent Reading & Research Term Three

Now you can turn more of your attention to your independent reading and research project.
You'll turn in evidence of the reading on or before March 23.You're expected to read between 500 and 1000 pages or so by the end of the term. (If you're reading difficult experimental fiction you'll likely read closer to 500 pages and if you're reading popular children's fiction you'll be expected to hit 1000.)
The goal of this reading is to prepare for the paper you will write during the fourth quarter. The notetaking and writing you do about the reading you are doing during third quarter will help you a lot when you write the paper.

There are three different ways you could show evidence of your reading and thinking.
Option 1: Keep a quotation response journal. You should have a quotation and response for every twenty to thirty (20-30) pages or so. Your responses should often relate to the central question and/or thesis in your proposal.

Option 2: Keep a double-entry notebook. Take notes -- quotations, paraphrases, other information -- on the left side of your notes & on the right side write down your thoughts about the information on the left side. What you write on the right side should often relate to the central question and/or thesis in your proposal. You should have a page of notes for every twenty to thirty (20-30) pages or so of your reading.

Option 3: Write short, informal, exploratory essay responses (300-500 words or so). You should write an essay for every fifty to sixty (50-60) pages or so of reading. These responses should discuss the reading in terms of your central question and/or provisional thesis.

King Lear Motif Assignment

Reading King Lear

1. Take notes on the following motifs by marking down the motif(s), speaker(s), act, scene, lines.

Example notes from 1.1:

Gloucester, parenthood/sex/unfaithfulness, 1.1.8-24

Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, saying v. truth, 1.1.60+

Cordelia, Lear, “nothing” 1.1.96

Lear, appetite/savagery 1.1.131, 136

Kent, loyalty, madness, flattery, wisdom, emptiness, hollowness,161-174  

What is the relationship between literal and figurative imagery, on the one hand, and thematic development on the other?

Is what is said understood? Is what is said true? (flattery, lies, etc.)

Is what is seen or (otherwise sensed: touched, smelled) understood? Is it true?

(Eyes are very important!)

What is natural? What is unnatural (or monstrous)?

What is sane? What is mad?

What is wisdom? (What is reasonable?) What is foolishness? (What is excessive?)

What is loyalty and faithfulness? What is betrayal and unfaithfulness?

What is kindness? What is cruelty?

How are these related to age and youth?

How are these related to parents and children?

How are these related to rank and status?

How are these related to property and wealth?

How are these related to the line between animals and humans?

How are these related to storms and calms?

How are these related to planets, stars, fates?

What is the significance of nothingness, emptiness, hollowness, loss, and nakedness in the play?

What is the significance of eating, appetites, consuming in the play?

What is the significance of sex and lust in the play?

What is the significance of blood (both as a signifier of family and of violence)?

All of the aforementioned motifs interact, weaving in and out of each other to form a matrix of association. So when Lear denies Cordelia her inheritance, he doesn't say "get away from me; you're no longer my daughter" (in Elizabethan English and iambic pentameter). He evokes several motifs and images that are echoed in other parts of the play: "Thy truth, then, be thy dower" "For by the sacred radiance of the sun... by all the operation of the orbs" "paternal care" "property of blood" "gorge his appetite" "avoid my sight" (1.1.120-139).

Also be on the look out for inversions: the natural becoming unnatural, the truth that is false, the sight that is a lie, the fool that is wise, etc. & look out for parallels. ("Monster" is tagged on both Cordelia and Edgar in Act One.) Look out for motif-words with ambiguous multiple or shifting meanings (especially "nature" and "nothing"). Listen for playfulness and for echoes. Figurative associations often haunt the literal meanings. And repetitions often reveal the play's obsessions.

2. Choose a particular monologue or passage of dialogue to analyze. (1) In your analysis demonstrate an understanding of the passage’s meaning within its context. (2) Also, identify and discuss the significance of (at least two) motifs within the passage. What does the use of the motifs reveal, particularly about characters, conflicts, and themes? (3) Finally, discuss the relationship between how the motifs are presented in the passage and how the motifs are presented elsewhere in the play. Post your response below. At the beginning of your post include your name, name the motifs, and quote the passages (include act.scene.line). [Note: In the right margin of the blog you'll find links to searchable etexts of King Lear and to video recordings of performances. These resources may be of help.]

Comments on act one are due by pumpkin time on Sunday, February 5.
Comments on act two are due by pumpkin time on Sunday, February 12. 
Comments on act three are due (for Mr. Cook's class) before A-block on Monday 27Feb.

Sharing Your Independent Reading and Research

Write two blog posts below. In one post discuss the main text you have been reading independently and in another post discuss 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.

The purpose of this assignment is for you to share what you have been reading and thinking about with your peers.

Midyear Exam Literary Terms

Midyear Exam Literary Vocabulary

Sonnets & Poetry (21)
English (Shakespearean) Sonnet, Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet, Iambic Pentameter, Meter, Iamb, Rhyme Scheme, Volta, Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance, Stanza, Octet, Sestet, Quatrain, Couplet, Enjambment, End rhyme, Full rhyme, Near/Off/Half/Slant Rhyme, Sonnet Sequence/Sonnet Cycle/Corona/Crown of Sonnets, Blank Verse

Other Types of Poems (5)
free verse, villanelle, sestina, terza rima, ballads

Other Poetic Techniques (3)
anaphora, epistrophe, inversion

Figurative Language (16)
figurative language, simile, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, personification, apostrophe, conceit, hyperbole, pun, double entendre, rhetorical question (=erotema), oxymoron, paradox, synesthesia, denotation, connotation

Irony (4)
irony, verbal irony, situational irony, dramatic irony

Narration (5)
narration, first person narration, third person limited narration, third person omniscient narration, stream of consciousness

Writing Style (9)
style, voice, diction, syntax, tone, mood, dialect, colloquialism, vernacular

Character (13)
characterization, direct characterization, indirect characterization, dynamic character, static character, round character, flat character, foil, protagonist, antagonist, tragic hero, antihero

Plot & Events (10)
Plot, exposition, inciting action, rising action, climax, denouement (resolution), flashback, foreshadowing, internal conflict, external conflict,

Other Literary Terms from First Semester (4)
motif, symbol, epigraph, epiphany

In the comment box post accurate, complete definitions; clear, relevant examples; and citation of reliable sources before the beginning of school on Monday, January 9.

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.