Current & Past Assignments

Current Assignments
Due 1/4/08 Six SOAPStone + Theme Response to Shakespeare's Sonnets
(Post responses in the comment box under "A few more things about WCW & an introduction to two other guys named William".)

Due 1/7/08 As I Lay Dying & Blog Comments
(Post comments under "As I Lay Dying Chat".)
*********************
Past Assignments
WCW (SOAPStone on the blog, Summer Work, [critic responses in the form of chat & post-its])
Whitman (SOAPStone, Explications, Summer Work)
Portrait (five scenes, chats, criticism response, in-class essay)
College essay revision
Not-for-college essay

As I Lay Dying Chat (In the Comment Box)

Because you'll be reading most of As I Lay Dying during the vacation. Here is a place where you can post comments and questions. Think of the comments box as the dry erase board. Think of your comments as post-it notes. I'd like to see four comments (post-it length) from each of you by January 7th or if you'd like to squish your comments into one long comment that'll work too. I'd like for all of you to ask at least one thoughtful question for others to pick up. I'd also like for all of you to respond to at least one post by a peer.

Think about motifs and their effect on the meaning and experience of reading.
Think about narration and language...
Think about themes, especially identity (how do we identify ourselves, with what do we identify) and alienation and love and death.
I'd like us to also start thinking about thematic and stylistic links between novels. (How would you compare As I Lay Dying to other works we've read this year and before?)

Ah, irony...

There I was talking on and on--explaining, explaining, explaining--the importance of direct sensory experience in Williams' poetry, the way the images he creates, the words he chooses, the music, the line breaks all contribute to the poem becoming an experience itself.

And yet instead of just reading more poems--experiencing more poems--I kept on explaining, explaining, explaining.

"Show don't tell" is the most common advice for poets and storytellers. Though teachers often have to show and tell (or explain), I should shut up, get out of the way, and show more often.

Here's a poem by Whitman that's about seeing-what-is-shown after hearing-what-is-said. Direct experience: that's the thing. [The lines that begin with ">" should be read as part of the preceding line. Uncle Walt loves the long line. WCW prefers the short one. This significantly affects the experience of reading the poems.]

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn'd astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in >columns before me; When I was shown the charts, the diagrams, to >add, divide, and measure them; When I sitting heard the astronomer where he >lectured with much applause in the >lecture room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by >myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to >time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

FYI: The Invisible Museum

Here you will find A Pocket Guide to highlights from The Invisible Museum

The Pocket Guide discusses The Cook Museum of Book Arts which was founded by Gregory Cook Sr. (no relation) and is now run by Gregory Cook III (a friend but not a relative). The Museum, Cook claims, is located in the Dorchester section of Boston but I have yet to find it.

The museum houses many of the finest examples of the book arts (art works that originate in literature), including "Dorian Gray" by Basil Hallward, "The Cormorant" watercolor on paper by Jane Eyre, "I Shall Never Hear..." chalk on paper by Emmeline Grangerford, and "Now It's the Women's Turn" (oil on canvas) by Rabo Karabekian.

If you find the Museum please let me know where it is.

A few more things about WCW & an introduction to two other guys named William

You must read this!
1. William Carlos Williams & an informal explication of "The Great Figure"
I didn't intend my question about "The Great Figure" to be a trick. But when we think about an author's purpose we think we are looking for something hidden *under* the words or *behind* the text. As if the text is there to cover up the true meaning. However, even in allegorical texts like Grendel, Lord of the Flies, and Invisible Man the symbolic meanings are embeded *in* the text, in the word choices, in the descriptions, in the language.

So when in Lord of the Flies William Golding writes about the first fire as a "squirrel" that develops into a "jaguar," we know that he is working on two levels: he describes the fire and he compares the fire to animals. Because he is working on the metaphorical (comparison) level as well as the literal level he invites a metaphorical/allegorical interpretation of the passage: "The fire is an animal that begins harmless (a squirrel) and becomes a predator (a jaguar); the boys themselves begin and end the same way.

Likewise when a writer wishes to draw our attention away from interpretation (away from looking behind or through an image for meaning, for example), we should find a text that foreground experience itself. So "The Great Figure" fixates on sensory experience and resists metaphorical/symbolic/allegorical readings. The poem encourages the reader to experience and not to move away from the experience into metaphorical comparisons or symbolic meanings (though the reader, being a thinker and interpreter of all she sees may, of course, choose to associate the experience with larger themes of, say, the hectic nature of modern urban life). He sets the scene quite literally: "among the rain/and lights." We see rain. We see lights. Then we see (as the speaker does) the figure five. It's "gold/on a red/firetruck". Both the "gold" and the "red" come at the end of lines and are therefore emphasized. For a moment (as they eye ends one line and picks up another) the red--the pure color--dangles independently without its object. So we experience red before we even know what is red. The experience of seeing is foreground and the meaning of what is seen is in the background.

Then the static 5 (static at least in the poem so far) is given motion. (Remember the reader's experience is ordered by the arrangement of words on the page not by what "really" "happened". So as we experience the "5" in the poem it is motionless until the word "moving". Then we realize (in the world) it has been moving all along though not in our mind's eye.)

The poem then becomes all movement & sound. The firetruck has "urgency", is "tense", and is "unheeded". ("Urgency" comes at the end of its line; the last two words stand alone for emphasis.) The firetruck moves "to" loud noises as a dancer moves to the music. (This reminds me of "Overture...") The movement & sound are synchronized in evoking an uneasy chaos in the reader.

The loud noises are "clangs" and "howls" and "rumbling". (Notice that like the colors and descriptions of the motion these sound words appear at the end of lines.) Clangs, howls, and rumbling are urgent and tense, like the firetruck's motion. If one is attentive to the words one will see the frenzied motion, hear the loud, insistent sounds, & feel the tension and heedless urgency inside oneself.

The last line then provides stasis all of this noise and motion occurs against the static nothing of darkness. (This is a recontexualization--a new backdrop--for the image, movement, and sound. The speaker's first lines give us a different context: "rain"--vertical movement later contrasted by the horizontal movement--& "light"--later contrasted by the "dark city".)

The sensory experience created by the poem--the arrangement of particular words in a particular order with particular line breaks--recreates the experience seen & felt by the speaker. The poem must evoke that experience in order to be effective. That seems to be its purpose: to transform an experience of sight, sound, and feeling into words that will evoke those same sights, sounds, and feelings for a reader. The poem to succeed must create an experience *in* the reader.

Williams never tells us that what he sees is like anything else. No similes. No metaphors. No personification. No allegorical language.

He also tells no story. The are no characters. The fire is implied by absent. Completely absent. There is no rising action. No single climax (Instead the poem climaxes at the end of each line from line seven through thirteen: moving, urgency, tense, unheeded, clangs, howls, rumbling--before (perhaps) unifying all the action with the word "city".)* No resolution. Just sensory experience--a number, then color, then motion, then sound, then nothing--and the feelings evoked by sensory experience.

Why do this? Why is it significant to make literature in a way that is aggressively non-allegorical? Allegories can feel like meanings grafted onto things & experiences--separate and separable from things, from experiences. And so allegories can feel like lies. (Think of Grendel's reaction to the Shaper. Think of your own feelings about certain undefended, unexplained interpretations of literature.)

Are there other reasons to foreground sensory experience and resist allegorical interpretation? One might believe--as Williams seems to have--that in grasping for ideas and interpretations and implications and meanings we miss what is in front of us. Or to make the implication clearer we miss the life that is in front of us. I think WCW makes the importance of attending to sensory particulars pretty clear in this poem:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

I read that first line as having at least two possible meanings. In the world beyond the poem that red wheel barrow might be crucial to the operation of the farm. Small but significant. In the world of the poem the entire poem depends upon the "red wheel / barrow" & its context. (Compare this to "The Great Figure". I think WCW's method is quite similar in the two poems.) Williams emphasizes particulars, things and experience. It is only *in* things that we can have ideas. (No ideas but in things.**) He seems to want to return us to a physical, sensory experience of our daily reality. Not a bad lesson in our increasingly "virtual" and "mediated" world.

A poem might be valuable because it helps us experience the world and word more vividly.

OK That's enough WCW for now. (We'll come back to his "Icarus" poem later.)

Notes:
*(If you doubt this reading notice line eight. Why doesn't Williams break the line at "weight" as we might expect based on the line lengths immediately before and after? Why? Because "weight" is a static word & the poem demands movement and sound from line seven through the penultimate line.)

**Notice that this edict can be applied to allegorical writing too. In truly effective allegory writers evoke the meanings that they feel are latent *in* things instead of grafting meanings onto things. (Think of William Golding's use of fire in Lord of the Flies. He finds meaning in the properties of fire. He doesn't impose external meaning upon it.) When an artist paints a blue circle and then say that it symbolizes war that is probably a meaning imposed upon a thing rather than discovered within it or evoked by it.

2.Over vacation we will be reading As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.
This novel will be the bridge between the poetry of self unit and the self & family unit.
Due 1/7.

3. Next in the poetry unit we will be reading two dozen of William Shakespeare's 154 sonnets. The details are below:
Read the following sonnets at http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/:

1, 3, 12, 14, 17, 18, 29, 30, 42 can be found here.

55, 73, 98, can be found here.

116, 126, 127, 129, 130, 133, 138, 143, 144, 147, 148, 152 can be found here.

There is helpful commentary on the site for each poem.

Read all 24.

Post six "SOAPSTone + Theme" responses to the blog. (Everyone must write about sonnet 130. In addition pick five other sonnets to respond to.) Due 1/4.

You will also need to memorize a sonnet for the midyear exam. More on that later.

WCW: All the Work

1. Read and understand the "notes" posted on the blog. (See: "WCW Poetry" & "More on Poetry" below.) Be able to discuss the notes on Friday (12/14).

2. Read three critical commentaries on WCW poems. Be prepared to discuss your responses to the commentaries on Friday (12/14). (Respond using the four questions from the Portrait Criticism Response. These questions are also below under "WCW Lit Crit").

3. Write a strong, imaginative, supported SOAPSTone + Theme on one poem from "Early Poems, William Carlos Williams". Post it below in the comment box for "WCW SOAPSTone + Theme". (Willie has posted already follow his lead.) In the event of difficulties with the blog email me your SOAPSTone + Theme.) Post by Friday (12/14).

4. Hand in summer work Friday 12/14.

More on Poetry

before class 12/13/07

WCW's poems are not secret codes with meanings accessible only to those with secret decoder rings available only at Big Time University English departments for $100,000.

So if poems are not secret codes--if a poet's purpose is not to encrypt the meaning to keep unwanted readers out--then why are poems often so difficult?

Here are a few ideas. A poem's difficulty often comes from compression of language, a lot of meaning & sound in a small space. Difficulties also come from tension between sound & sense--or, to put it another way, between the poem as an experience of language & the poem as an act of communication.

The 20th century American poet Louis Zukofsky wrote of poetry as "an integral" with speech as the lower limit and music as the upper limit. In other words, poetry exists in between speech and music. If the poem becomes exclusively musical--all sound, no meaning--it ceases to be poetry. If the poem becomes exclusively speech with no music then it again ceases to be poetry.

WCW & Poetry

From class 12/12/07
1. Poetry, for me, has always permitted a sort of freedom from the pressures I have felt to think, feel, and act in certain ways. Sometimes to thoughts, feelings, actions I've thought I should (or that I've felt pressured to) have, feel, do are not the one's I think are true. Or, sometimes I'm interested in exploring other ways. Reading a poem we might think, feel, react in ways that are not permissible or respectable outside the poem. Of course within that freedom, as with any freedom, one is responsible for what one does, what one chooses to do, with that freedom. I invite you to use the poem to freely explore other ways of thinking, but be responsible; try to remain true to the poem. This exchange between poet and reader brings up another hallmark of reading poetry: intimacy. The intimacy of the relationship between the poem (and most great literature) and the reader is another delight of the reading experience.
2. Reading and responding to poetry takes imagination, invention, creation on the part of the reader. The poem must happen within you. This reminds me of a poem by Bill Knott; it goes something like this:
A Juggler to His Audience
One in the air.
One in my hand.
And one in you.
3. WCW wrote "A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words." WCW believes that by choosing words carefully & artfully, arranging them in a particular way into sentences, breaking the lines in certain places, and creating music with the words the truth of a certain situation, one creates poem-machine--each of which has a purpose unique to that poem. (As Jake said, a toaster is not the same as a car & the two have different purposes.) WCW also believes that some understanding--a certain something--will be revealed in the experience of reading the poem if the machine works. (That's where the reader comes in. As Rebecca said, the machine needs a power source! Our minds, in a sense, animate the machine & each mind, each power, source does this somewhat differently. So the machine works differently depending on its power source, though it remains the same machine. Some power works better than others. Some power is just different than others. Some power sources animate only part of the machine for example. Be a good (i.e. imaginative, thoughtful) power source!)
4. In the next post you'll see three links. Those links will take you to one or more criticism of a poem from WCW's Early Poems. Choose three of those criticisms to respond to. I've changed how many but I'll give you time to work on them in class on Thursday and instead of collecting responses we'll discuss them in class on Friday. The three crits can be of the same poem or different poems. Respond to the same questions you used when responding to Portrait. The purpose of this assignment is to give you some experience reading how others have written about poetry.
5. Remember to post your WCW SOAPSTone + Theme down below if you can. Willie has posted his. Take a look. It's a good model.

WCW Lit Crit

Literary Criticism on WCW's can be found in a few places on line. Commentary on "Overture to a Dance of Locomotives" can be found here ; commentary on "Love Song" (by BU prof & former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky) can be found here ; commentary on "Portrait of a Lady," "Queen-Anne's-Lace," "The Widow's Lament in Springtime," and "The Great Figure," can be found here.

Read & respond to three of the commentaries. The purpose of this activity is for you to get a sense of how people write about poetry. There's a great range from formal to informal, from focus on sense to focus on sound, from abstract discussion of theme and purpose to concrete focus on word choices and line breaks. The best commentaries on WCW attempt to take on the poem as a whole comprise of parts; after all as WCW says a poem is a "machine made of words."

Be prepared to talk about the following on Friday (12/14):
1. How did the critical commentary help you understand particular aspects of the poem and/or the overall meaning? (Show that you have understood what the reader-critic is saying and then apply that understanding to your own take on the poem.)

2. What interpretations and analysis in the critical commentary are you skeptical about or do you disagree with? Explain. (Show an understanding of the critic's point; offer a counter argument.)

3. Discuss the language used in the commentary. Think about the word choices (diction) and sentence structure (syntax). Evaluate the writing: clear? sophisticated? stylish? Cite examples.

4. What references, allusions, terms, etc. would you like to know more about in order to better understand the commentary, the poem, the cultural and historical context of the poem, etc.?

(WCW's poem "The Great Figure" became the basis for a well-known modernist painting by WCW's friend Charles Demuth. You can see the painting off on the right of the blog. I've also put the Jean-Honore Fragonard painting that WCW seems to refer to in "Portrait of a Lady" over on the right side of the blog.)

WCW SOAPStone + Theme

Complete a SOAPStone + Theme for a Williams poem of your choice. (I have posted two below.)
In the interest of saving paper I would like you to post your SOAPStone + Theme in the comment box. Identify the poem. Include your name. Write down your ideas about the speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, tone, and theme. Make sure your ideas are adequately explained and supported.

Tract & Queen Anne's Lace

Tract

I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral
for you have it over a troop
of artists—
unless one should scour the world—
you have the ground sense necessary.

See! the hearse leads.
I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ's sake not black—
nor white either — and not polished!
Let it be whethered—like a farm wagon—
with gilt wheels (this could be
applied fresh at small expense)
or no wheels at all:
a rough dray to drag over the ground.

Knock the glass out!
My God—glass, my townspeople!
For what purpose? Is it for the dead
to look out or for us to see
the flowers or the lack of them—
or what?
To keep the rain and snow from him?
He will have a heavier rain soon:
pebbles and dirt and what not.
Let there be no glass—
and no upholstery, phew!
and no little brass rollers
and small easy wheels on the bottom—
my townspeople, what are you thinking of?
A rough plain hearse then
with gilt wheels and no top at all.
On this the coffin lies
by its own weight.

No wreathes please—
especially no hot house flowers.
Some common memento is better,
something he prized and is known by:
his old clothes—a few books perhaps—
God knows what! You realize
how we are about these things
my townspeople—
something will be found—anything
even flowers if he had come to that.
So much for the hearse.

For heaven's sake though see to the driver!
Take off the silk hat! In fact
that's no place at all for him—
up there unceremoniously
dragging our friend out to his own dignity!
Bring him down—bring him down!
Low and inconspicuous! I'd not have him ride
on the wagon at all—damn him!—
the undertaker's understrapper!
Let him hold the reins
and walk at the side
and inconspicuously too!

Then briefly as to yourselves:
Walk behind—as they do in France,
seventh class, or if you ride
Hell take curtains! Go with some show
of inconvenience; sit openly—
to the weather as to grief.
Or do you think you can shut grief in?
What—from us? We who have perhaps
nothing to lose? Share with us
share with us—it will be money
in your pockets.
Go now
I think you are ready.
***
Queen Anne's Lace

Her body is not so white as
anemone petals nor so smooth - nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force; the grass
does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be, with a purple mole
at the center of each flower.
Each flower is a hand's span
of her whiteness. Wherever
his hand has lain there is
a tiny purple blemish. Each part
is a blossom under his touch
to which the fibres of her being
stem one by one, each to its end,
until the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower,
a pious wish to whiteness gone over--
or nothing.

Love Song (WCW)

I lie here thinking of you:—

the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branched the lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick stain
that drips from leaf to leaf
and limb to limb
spoiling the colors
of the whole world—

you far off there under
the wine-red selvage of the west!

Song of Myself (all the work)

On Monday December 10 you should hand in...
* The three summer responses to Song of Myself: response to the theme of the self's relationship to the world, response to language in the poem, and personal/poem response.

* SOAPStone + Theme

* Explication of two sections of Song of Myself (Directions below.)

Song of Myself Explications

Explication of Two Sections in Song of Myself

• Write explications of the two sections in Song of Myself to which you have been assigned. (Two separate explications will likely work best.)
• An explication is a commentary that reveals the meaning of a passage or complete work of art. It is not a paraphrase. It is not a summary. It is a close reading of all the elements of a text in order to explicate (literally: to unfold, to unravel) its meaning.

• The explications should begin with commentary on the section's overall composition (a SOAPStone + theme approach--speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, tone--will help with this), the section’s context (the surrounding sections: what is "subjects" are discussed before and after the section?), and the section's overall significance and meaning (the "P" in SOAPStone--purpose-- and theme are relevant here), especially (but not exclusively) with regard to the theme of identity.
• The explication should also include (specific not vague or general) commentary on the significance of the speaker, the speaker's attitude (tone), the subject(s), what the speaker does (if anything), what the speaker sees (images), etc.
• The explication should unfold or unravel the significance of motifs and symbols in the section.
• Finally, deal explicitly and insightfully with the language in the sections. Recall our discussions of rhythmic listing and repetition. (The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of a series of lines (as in "Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much? Have you ...") is called anaphora. Whitman also uses parallel structure, alliteration, assonance, and an exceptionally long lines.) Recall our prior discussions of the sentence structures and word choices. Here you should deal with how language and form contribute to the meaning and effect (on the reader) of the sections.
• Conclude by returning to each section's overall significance and meaning (purpose and theme, especially (but not exclusively) with regard to the theme of identity. Also, in conclusion deal with each section's significance with regard to the poem as a whole. (How does it fit in with the novel’s overall design, themes, and purpose?)

SOAPStone + Theme

Respond to "Song of Myself" by responding to the prompts below.

Make sure you give reasons (evidence) for your responses.

You will need these responses in order to participate in assessed discussions.

(SOAPStone + Theme)

Speaker: Who is the speaker of the poem? What do you know about him or her?

Occasion: What is the occasion of the poem? What is the event that prompts the speaker to speak?

Audience: To whom is the speaker speaking? What do you know about him or her?

Purpose: What is the purpose of the poem? Why do you think the poet wrote the poem?

Subject: What is the subject of the poem? (This is a different from "what is the topic of the poem?")

tone: What is the tone of the poem? What is the speaker’s attitude toward the subject of the poem?

Theme: What is the theme of the poem? What is the poet pointing out about people, society, or life? State the theme succinctly.

(Special thanks to Mr. Gallagher at Malden High School.)

Term Two Collected Work

T1 Thesis essay (IM, WSS, JE)
11/12 Portrait Open Response
11/14 - 11/16 Portrait Chats
11/16 Not-for-College Personal Essay
11/26 Portrait Criticism Paper
11/29 In class essay: Portrait
12/5 College Essay Revision
12/10 Song of Myself Work

Welcome to Gloucester High School AP English 2007-2008.

My name is Mr. James Cook. I will be teaching the AP English Literature and Composition course for the first time during the upcoming school year. With the help of English Department Program Leader Mrs. Carolyn Marletta, I designed the attached syllabus and have submitted it to the College Board. As part of that syllabus, I designed a summer active reading unit, which will prepare you for the first two units of the AP course.

During the summer you will read two novels—Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys—and two books of poetry—Early Poems: William Carlos Williams and Song of Myself by Walt Whitman. Attached you will find directions for taking notes and writing informal open responses. (You will be writing three one-page (or longer) informal open responses for each book.) You are expected to read actively and to respond to the prompts before the first day of classes at the end of August.

This letter, information about the four books, and the reader response prompts can also be found here on the Gloucester High School AP English Literature and Composition blog (http://apenglishghs.blogspot.com/). You may post questions in the comment boxes at the blog, or you may email me directly (jcook@gloucester.k12.ma.us). Please do not hesitate to write if you have any questions. It might take me a few days to respond but I will get back to you. The blog is also a place for you to post questions, observations, and ideas on the books. A comment box will be set up for each book. Commenting on the blog and visiting the blog are not mandatory, but might be helpful for some of you.

Have a great summer. I look forward to reading your responses and discussing the four books with you next year.

Sincerely,

James W. Cook

English Teacher

Gloucester High School

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

THE BOOK
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison (Vintage)
ISBN: 0-679-73276-4 or 978-0679732761
$13.95

BEFORE YOU READ INVISIBLE MAN READ THIS…
1. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man won the 1953 National Book Award for fiction. Here's his acceptance speech.

If I were asked in all seriousness just what I considered to be the chief significance of Invisible Man as a fiction, I would reply: Its experimental attitude and its attempt to return to the mood of personal moral responsibility for democracy which typified the best of our nineteenth-century fiction.

When I examined the rather rigid concepts of reality which informed a number of the works which impressed me and to which I owed a great deal, I was forced to conclude that for me and for so many hundreds of thousands of Americans, reality was simply far more mysterious and uncertain, and at the same time more exciting, and still, despite its raw violence and capriciousness, more promising.

To see America with an awareness of its rich diversity and its almost magical fluidity and freedom I was forced to conceive of a novel unburdened by the narrow naturalism which has led after so many triumphs to the final and unrelieved despair which marks so much of our current fiction. I was to dream of a prose which was flexible, and swift as American change is swift, confronting the inequalities and brutalities of our society forthrightly, but yet thrusting forth its images of hope, human fraternity, and individual self-realization. A prose which would make use of the richness of our speech, the idiomatic expression, and the rhetorical flourishes from past periods which are still alive among us. Despite my personal failures there must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale.

~~~~~~~

Invisible Man is at its heart an attempt to use imaginative language to grapple with some of the core questions about living in modern America. Though some of the specifics have changed, the central questions about how to create a better civilization and how to develop a fully realized identity in the modern world still persist.

~~~~~~~

2. References to culture and history permeate Invisible Man, so it’s useful to know some

things before reading. Look up the following and record notes in your journal:

· Louis Armstong's "Black and Blue" appears in the Prologue. (Jazz, improvisation, syncopation are important concepts in the Prologue too.)

· W.E.B. DuBois’s concept of “Double Consciousness” from Souls of Black Folk seems to inform a great deal of the novel and will inform our discussion of identity during the first term.

· Booker T. Washington seems to be the model for the Founder and the philosophy of the school that the narrator attends.

· Although Ellison denies using him as a model, Marcus Garvey is quite similar in some ways to Ras.

· A novel that seems to have influenced one of the motifs and some of the ideas in Invisible Man is Fyodor Dostoyevski’s Notes from Underground.

· Ellison uses a quotation from T. S. Eliot’s The Family Reunion and another from Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno as epigraphs.

· There are other historical and cultural references throughout the book. Some are direct. Most are indirect. Write down questions!

AS YOU READ DO THIS…

· In your journal make note of motifs (include page numbers and a brief note):

o Vision (invisibility, blindness, misunderstanding, sight, visibility,
understanding)

o Light and Dark

o Colors (white, black, red)

o Underground

o Other motifs that you discover (dreams, sex, violence, food, speech and speeches, music, family and blood)

· Also make note of passages (include page numbers and a brief note) that deal with the theme of the self, identity, and the self’s relationship with groups; that demonstrate Ellison’s particular use of language (imaginative, symbolic, experimental, musical, rhythmic, vernacular words choices and sentence structures); that show connections within Invisible Man, between Invisible Man and other things you’ve read (including the cultural and historical references you researched before starting to read), and between your own experiences, thoughts, and feelings and Invisible Man.

These notes will be the foundation for the first unit of the year. We will use the notes to help us write essays.

AFTER READING DO THIS…

· Write two informal open responses. Respond to specific passages from the novel. (Use quotations in each response.) Show that you can link the novel’s particulars to the novel’s concepts. (That is the essence of AP writing.) Responses should be 300+ words each (about a page 12-point font, double-spaced). In your two responses address some of the issues listed below:

o The theme of identity (individual identity, identity and groups, belonging and alienation);

o Motifs (invisibility and blindness, light and dark (white, black, red), speaking and speeches, music, family and blood, sexuality, violence)

o Ellison’s use of language (“the richness of our speech, the idiomatic expression, and the rhetorical flourishes from past periods which are still alive among us”)

o Ellison’s allegorical (tragic-comic-satiric-surreal-symbolic) style (He said, “leav[e] sociology and case histories to the scientists, [fiction should] arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale.”

o connections between different parts of the novel; between the novel and other literature you have read (or films you have seen); between the novel and its literary, cultural, and historical context; between the novel and your own experiences, thoughts, and feelings.

· Write an informal personal response to the novel. This response should be 300+ words.

o Have you felt invisible? Invisibility can come from being unnoticed,
disappearing in a crowd, being unheard. Invisibility can also come from being misperceived. In other words people see your body or hear your voice but they don't see or hear you. They project something onto you. Instead of you they might see a stereotype. They might see what they expect to see, want to see, or hope to see. They might see their own fears, their own biases, their own prejudices, etc. Have you experienced this? Have you observed this? (Think about peers, parents, bosses, coaches, customers. Maybe think about gender, social class, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation. What do we actually see? What do we only think we see? What remains invisible?)

o Or respond to a motif, or the novel’s language, or another theme. The important thing is that this response allows you to reflect personally on an issue that arises in the novel.

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

THE BOOK
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
ISBN: 0393308804 or 978-0393308808
$13.95

BEFORE YOU READ WIDE SARGASSO SEA READ THIS…
Emily White writes, "The novel is Rhys's answer to Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë's book had long haunted her, mostly for the story it did not tell--that of the madwoman in the attic, Rochester's terrible secret. Antoinette is Rhys's imagining of that locked-up woman, who in the end burns up the house and herself. Wide Sargasso Sea follows her voyage into the dark, both from her point of view and Rochester's. It is a voyage charged with soul-destroying lust. 'I watched her die many times,' observes the new husband. 'In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty.'"

Jane Eyre will be the first novel we read in September but you might familiarize yourself with the general plot before reading Wide Sargasso Sea.

WHILE READING DO THIS...

· In your journal make note of some of the themes, motifs, and literary techniques found in Wide Sargasso Sea.

o happiness (the desireability of, the elusiveness of)

o threat (the effect of living with threats)

o identity (racial identity, social class identity, national identity, family
and self, name and self)

o madness (and complications of identity)

o sexuality and power

o reality and dreams

o fires, destruction

o flowers, plants, nature

o narrative perspective (point of view; how does perspective affect perception of identity, perception of reality)

· Also note connections between different parts of the novel; between the novel and other literature you have read, especially Invisible Man (or films you have seen); and between the novel and your own experiences, thoughts, and feelings.

AFTER READING DO THIS…

· Write two informal open responses. Each response should address one of the issues listed above. Respond to specific passages from the novel. (Use quotations in each response.) Your responses should show understanding of the novel’s particulars (character, setting, plot, use of language, etc.) and insights into the novel’s concepts (motifs, symbols, themes, etc.). In other words, show me that you have read and understood the text; also, show me that you have thought deeply and insightfully about what you have read. Responses should be 300+ words each.

· Write an informal personal response to some aspect of the novel. This response should be 300+ words. Here I’m interested in you showing “critical empathy.” What I mean by that is I want you to show that you can, in some way, personally understand (or relate to or connect with) some aspect of the novel. You may need to stretch yourself a bit to do this. That’s the point of reading imaginative writing!

Early Poems, William Carlos Williams

THE BOOK
Early Poems, William Carlos Williams (Dover Thrift Edition)
ISBN: 0486292940
$1.50

BEFORE YOU READ EARLY POEM, WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS READ THIS…

A SORT OF A SONG
by William Carlos Williams

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.
---through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

One way to read “A Sort of a Song” is as a guide to Williams’s poetry. The snake is a metaphor for the poet. The poet, like the snake, waits patiently and quietly in the weeds, observing the world “sleepless[ly]”. Then, when the poet’s mind seizes on something, the poet is “sharp to strike” before again becoming “quiet to wait.” So, the poet is a patient observer who when his or her imagination is stirred strikes with language.

Then, beginning in the seventh line, the speaker talks about using “metaphor to reconcile/the people and the stones.” In other words the poet—through metaphor—connects people to the world around them. The poet shows relationships, connections, likenesses, disruptions between people and things, between feelings and things, between ideas and things, between this and that. In Williams’s poetry these relationships are often implied not explicit, so be on your toes. You will notice that Williams’s poetry incessantly (or “sleepless[ly]”) shows an active, imaginative mind expressing relationships between itself and its surroundings, and among things in the surroundings.

That leads me to the most famous phrase in the poem: “No ideas/but in things.” For Williams, the ideas (and the feelings) in poetry must be found in, must be based upon, must be derived from the physical world we inhabit.

Some people—some philosophers, some poets—think that means we are then trapped by the physical world. Williams answers with an exclamation: “Invent!” In other words, the inventive imagination allows us to break through the limitations of the physical world, allowing us to create. To express this concept Williams uses a final metaphor from the physical world. The saxifrage plant (the name is Latin for rock-breaker) is capable of growing in rock crevices. Therefore, Williams is saying that the imagination (“ideas”), like the saxifrage, bursts forth out of the limitations of the physical world (“things” and “rocks”).

The other thing to notice about this poem is its use of language. Williams is fond of simple language, rhythmic phrasing, and asymmetrical sound. In other words, he uses common words a 20^th (now 21^st) century American reader can understand; he is fond of breaking lines into phrases and small units; he doesn’t rhyme but his poetry is still musical: “stones./Compose,” the “w’s” in the first five lines, and the sibilant “s’s” in lines 5-6.

As you read, pay close attention to the relationship between the speaker’s imagination (“ideas”) and the world outside the speaker (“things”). Also, pay close attention to Williams’s use of language: word choice (word choice), sentence structure (syntax), line breaks, and music (assonance, consonance, alliteration).

WHILE READING DO THIS...

· In your journal make note of the relationship between “ideas” and “things,” between the speaker of the poems and his or her surroundings. Also make note of the subtle music of Williams’s free verse poetry.

· In your journal make note of questions that occur to you.

· Also note connections between different parts of the novel; between the novel and other literature you have read, especially poems and songs, but also, perhaps, to the other summer reading books; and between the novel and your own experiences, thoughts, and feelings.

You should have notes on all of the poems in the book. These notes will be crucial for the second unit of the year in September.

AFTER READING DO THIS…
* Write an informal open response (300+ words) in which you discuss the relationship in five poems between the outer world (“things”) and the inner world of the observer (“ideas” and feelings, too). Williams writes, "No ideas/but in things," implying that our inner ideas must be grounded in the "things" that we observe around us. Discuss how in the five poems you have chosen the speaker of the poem (the poetic persona) uses observations of the world around him "things" to generate "ideas" and express feelings.

* Write an informal open response (300+ words) in which you examine Williams’s use of language. Cite passages from at least five poems in your response. Consider his diction (word choices): simple or complex? Consider his syntax (how he puts words together) and use of rhythm. Consider his line breaks. (Do the line breaks affect rhythm? How? Do they affect meaning? How? Consider the subtle music: assonance, consonance, alliteration.
Your responses should include observations and ideas about the observations. How does his use of language matter? How is the poem affected by his choice of words, his arrangement of words, his breaking of lines, his use of the music of words.

* Poem or personal response

Write a poem of your own using Williams’s work as a guide. First, determine three characteristics of Williams’s poetry. Then write a poem that emulates those three characteristics. (Think about “no ideas/but in things.” Think about how Williams uses language.) Be inventive. Have fun with this.
OR

Write an informal personal response. This response should be 300+ words. Invent! Invent a way of responding personally to these poems. You might respond to the book as a whole, to individual poems, to the style and language. You might write a personal response in which you adopt Williams’s way of looking at the word and/or using language. Invent!

Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

THE BOOK
Song of Myself, Walt Whitman (Dover Thrift Edition)
ISBN: 0486414108
$2.50

BEFORE YOU READ SONG OF MYSELF READ THIS
James E. Miller, Jr. of the University of Chicago writes,

In the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, “Song of Myself” came first in the
series of twelve untitled poems, dominating the volume not only by its sheer
bulk, but also by its brilliant display of Whitman's innovative techniques
and original themes. Whitman left the poem in the lead position in the 1856
edition and gave it its first title, “Poem of Walt Whitman, an American,”
shortened to “Walt Whitman” in the third edition of 1860. By the time
Whitman had shaped Leaves of Grass into its final structure in 1881, he left
the poem (its lines now grouped into 52 sections) in a lead position,
preceded only by the epigraph-like cluster “Inscriptions” and the
programmatic “Starting from Paumanok.”

”Song of Myself” portrays (and mythologizes) Whitman's poetic birth and the
journey into knowing launched by that “awakening.” But the “I” who speaks is
not alone. His camerado, the “you” addressed in the poem's second line, is
the reader, placed on shared ground with the poet, a presence throughout
much of the journey.

WHILE READING DO THIS...

· In your journal make note of the depiction of the self and its relationship with the surrounding world.

· Make note of motifs: the body and the spirit (“soul”), the individual and the group, the self and others (“I contain multitudes”), the self and nature, learning from encoded beliefs (“creeds”) or from experience, age and youth, male and female, life (procreating, sexuality, etc.) and death (dying and killing), activity (doing) and passivity (watching, observing, loafing, musing)

· Make note of Whitman’s use of language and poetic structure: lists, repetitions, parallel structures, etc.

You might consult this webpage which has some interesting notes on the poem.
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/roots/legacy/whitman/songofmyselfweb.html

AFTER READING DO THIS...
* Write an informal open response (300+ words) in which you discuss what this poem has to say about the self (body, soul, mind) and its relationship to the external world (other people, nature, etc.) Refer to specific passages. Quotations are important. I’m looking for close reading here. Show me you understand the particulars of the poem and their relationship to the concepts in the poem.

* Write an informal open response (300+ words) in which you examine Whitman’s use of language. This poem is called “Song of Myself” and so has elements of the music of language, even though Whitman departs from a set rhythm (like iambic pentameter) and rhyme scheme. Refer to specific passages in the poem to illustrate how Whitman uses other poetic techniques (alliteration, assonance, consonance, long lines, lists, repetitions, parallel structures, etc.) in his poetry. Then, I’m interested in hearing what you have to say about how those poetic techniques affect the meaning of the poem and the reader’s experience of the poem.

* Poem or personal response

Write a poem of your own using Whitman’s work as a guide. First, determine three characteristics of Whitman’s poetry. Then write a poem that emulates those three characteristics. (Think about the long lines, lists, repetitions, parallel structures. Think about Whitman’s assertion of self and the relationship between that self and the things around the self. Think about his observations of other people and other things around.) Be inventive. Have fun with this.
OR

Write an informal personal response. This response should be 300+ words. Sing a song of yourself! Invent a way of responding personally to these poems. You might respond to the book as a whole, to individual poems, to the style and language. You might write a personal response in which you adopt Whitman’s way of looking at the word and/or using language. Write a song of yourself in response to Whitman’s “Song of Myself”.

AP English Syllabus

AP English Literature and Composition

Gloucester (MA) High School

Gloucester High School AP English Course Overview

This course is designed

• to encourage students to investigate the self and its relationship to its surroundings (families, societies, cultures, civilizations, nature).
• to prepare students—through active-reader strategies, knowledge of literary techniques, exploratory writing in journals, focused classroom discussions, the process of formal writing, etc.—to analyze, understand, explain, and evaluate works of imaginative literature from many time periods and many places.
• to help students write with purpose, style, sophistication, and a command of the English language and its conventions.
• to equip students with the reading, writing, and critical thinking skills necessary to succeed on the AP English Literature and Composition Exam.

Unit 1a: The Search for Self (pre-reading over the summer)

Thematic Essential Questions:

• What is the “self”? What is an “identity”?
• What affects the formation of an identity? In what ways is one’s identity a matter of choice? In what ways is one’s identity a matter of factors beyond one’s control?
• How do conflicting allegiances, conflicting desires, conflicting roles, conflicting conceptions of our identities create identity crises? How do we resolve (or manage) these identity crises?

Skill-based Essential Question:

• What are the habits of an active reader? How does one become an active reader?
• How does journal writing help create a deeper understanding of a text?

Learning Activities

• Read Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison), Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys), Early Poems: William Carlos Williams, Song of Myself (Walt Whitman)
• Complete directed active-reader response journal.

Unit 1: The Search for Self (and an introduction to AP writing)

THREE WEEKS

Thematic Essential Questions:

• What is the “self”? What is an “identity”?
• What affects the formation of an identity? In what ways is one’s identity a matter of choice? In what ways is one’s identity a matter of factors beyond one’s control?
• How do conflicting allegiances, conflicting desires, conflicting roles, conflicting conceptions of our identities create identity crises? How do we resolve (or manage) these identity crises?

Skill-based Essential Question:

• How do authors use language to create and dramatize fictional selves and identities in novels?
• How does one fully experience and understand novels from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?
• How does one write insightfully and clearly about a complex novel under the constraints of time?
• How does one write extended analyses and evaluations of novels?

Learning Activities

• The students will have read Invisible Man, Wide Sargasso Sea before beginning the first unit.
• During this unit students will keep an active-reader journal while reading Jane Eyre.
• In this unit students will explore the theme of identity formation and practice timed, in-class response writing.
• Students will learn literary terms and techniques relevant to writing about the modern novel and romantic/modern poetry.
• Students will learn concepts specific to considering the self and identity (including the ideas of Erik Erikson, James Marcia, and W.E.B. Du Bois)
• Students will refresh close reading and active reading techniques learned in grades 9-11.
• Students will discuss and refresh the timed-writing process, including understanding the prompt, planning, writing, and editing.
• Students will practice timed-writing using adapted AP prompts.
• Students will evaluate their timed-writing using a scoring guide and anchor essays.
• Students will rewrite essays using feedback and a scoring guide.
• Students will define and understand concepts including self, identity, identity formation (Erik Erickson), identity status (James Marcia), double consciousness (W.E.B. Du Bois).
• Students will apply concepts to an analysis of the novels studied during this unit.
• Students will write extended analyses and evaluations of the novels using identity concepts.

Unit 2: The Search for Self (in Poetry from the English Renaissance through Romanticism to Modernism)

FOUR WEEKS

Thematic Essential Questions:

• What is the “self”? What is an “identity”?
• What affects the formation of an identity?

Skill-based Essential Question:

• How do poets use language to present, express, explore, and dramatize understandings of self? How do poets use language to present, express, explore, and dramatize the relationship between the self and the world?
• How does one fully experience and understand poetry from many time periods?
• How does one use close reading and explication to arrive at a deeper understanding of poetry?
• How does one write insightfully and clearly about complex poems under the constraints of time?
• How does one write extended analyses and evaluations of poetry?

Learning Activities

• Students will have read William Carlos Williams’ early poems and Whitman’s Song of Myself before beginning this unit.
• Students will read poetry (and prose about poetry) relevant to the exploration of the self: Shakespeare’s sonnets, metaphysical poets (Donne, Herbert, Marvell), Wordsworth’s “Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” Keats’s “Negative Capability” letter, poems by Wordsworth and other English Romantics (Coleridge, Shelley, Keats), Dickinson (and excerpts from Susan Howe’s My Emily Dickinson), Whitman, Hopkins (and “inscape”), Pound and Eliot’s personae, Fernando Pessoa’s heteronyms, Frank O’Hara (and “Personism”), Sylvia Plath (and other “Confessional Poets”), etc.
• Students will gain experience reading, thinking critically, and writing about poetry.
• Students will learn literary terms and techniques relevant to poetry. (An understanding of personas and poetic voice as distinct from the poet-author is extremely important in this unit.)
• Students will identify techniques, analyze how the techniques are used, and synthesize meaning for poems.
• Students will learn to explicate poetry through models and practice.
• Students will apply the social, historical, political context of poems (especially pertaining to changing concepts about self and identity) to help determine meaning.
• Students will complete informal journal assignments in which they practice poetry analysis and in which they respond more personally to the poems.
• Students will practice, evaluate, and rewrite timed essays about three poems. (The focus will be on “close reading”: interpreting poetry by attending to textual details.)
• Students will write extended analyses and evaluations about three poems that they select from the unit.

Unit 3: The Search for Self (and writing personal essays for college)

THREE WEEKS

Thematic Essential Questions:

• How does one form an identity and how does one come to an understanding of oneself?
• How does personal writing reveal (and conceal) the self?
• How is the personal essay (or personal narrative) different from other related genres (especially the expository essay and fictional narrative)?

Skill-Based Essential Question:

• How does one write an excellent college essay?
• How does one write an excellent literary personal essay?

Learning Activities

• Students will examine the facets of their identities through free-writing, open-responses, reflective self-questioning, and small and large group discussion.
• Students will read and evaluate college essays and literary personal essays (from among other places The Best American Essays of the Century). The evaluation will be in journal form and in discussion.
• Students will write personal essays and/or personal statements for college admission.
• Students will write literary personal essays in which they explore their own search for self.
• Students will evaluate their writing using a scoring guide.
• Students will revise their essays extensively.

Unit 4a: a link between the units (Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)

Thematic Essential Questions:

• What is the relationship between our inner selves, our family selves, and our public selves?
• How does one respond when one’s family (and/or one’s society) sees one differently than one sees oneself?
• How does one choose when one is caught between one’s self, one’s family, and/or one’s society (one’s town, one’s nation, one’s religion, one’s culture, one’s civilization etc.), or being true to one’s family or being true to one’s nation or society?
• When is one’s identity a matter of choice? When is one’s identity a matter of factors beyond one’s control?

Skill-Based Essential Question:

• How does James Joyce use language to create a fictional self and to dramatize his identity conflicts?
• How does one write take active notes to prepare for expository essay writing?

Learning Activities

• During units two and three (when there is not so much reading) students will A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Unit 4: The Self, Family, and Society

SIX WEEKS

Thematic Essential Questions:

• What is the relationship between our inner selves, our family selves, and our public selves?
• How does one respond when one’s family (and/or one’s society) sees one differently than one sees oneself?
• How does one choose when one is caught between one’s self, one’s family, and/or one’s society (one’s town, one’s nation, one’s religion, one’s culture, one’s civilization etc.), or being true to one’s family or being true to one’s nation or society?
• When is one’s identity a matter of choice? When is one’s identity a matter of factors beyond one’s control?

Skill-Based Essential Question:

• How do playwrights and novelists use language to create fictional selves and to dramatize identity conflicts?
• How does one fully experience and understand drama from many time periods?
• How does one write well about plays and novels in extended essays and in timed responses?

Learning Activities

• Students will have read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
• Students will read Antigone and King Lear, as well as a “choice” play from a list of titles including Enemy of the People, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Death of a Salesman, Fences, and others. (They will read and write journal responses about their chosen play during units two and three—in other words, before this unit begins.)
• Students will read As I Lay Dying, as well as a “choice” novel from a list of titles including East of Eden, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Anna Karenina, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and others. (They will read and write journal responses about their chosen novel during units two and three—in other words, before this unit begins.)
• Students will read (in translation) short stories by Clarice Lispector (including “Love”) and the novella Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.
• Students will develop an understanding of concepts including family, society, culture, and civilization.
• Students will continue to practice timed-writing that asks them to analyze works in terms of literary techniques employed by authors in this unit.
• Students will write, evaluate, and rewrite an extended analysis and evaluation of the conflicts among self, family, and society in the literature of this unit.

Unit 5: The Self, the Journey, and the World beyond the Known

EIGHT WEEKS

Thematic Essential Questions:

• Why do journeys and quests help and/or hinder one’s identity formation and one’s search for self?
• How do writers use the journeys to examine the relationship between the self, the known world, and the world beyond?

Skill-Based Essential Question:

• {something about writing to evaluate}

Learning Activities

• Students will read Heart of Darkness and view Apocalypse Now!
• Students will deepen their understanding of the unit’s central theme by reading excerpts from Moby Dick (Melville), Call Me Ishmael (Charles Olson), The Inferno (Dante).
• Students will keep an active reader journal while reading one book from a list including Slaughterhouse-Five, The Things They Carried, Gone Boy: A Walkabout, On the Road, Invisible Cities, etc.
• Students will read Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road” and C.P. Cavafy’s “Ithaca” and “The Cities”.
• Students will understand concepts related to this unit’s theme: the journey, the quest, the walkabout, “the other,” etc.
• Students will continue to practice timed-writing: one on a poem and one on an excerpt from a work of fiction.
• Students will write, evaluate, and rewrite an extended analysis and evaluation of the conflicts between self, family, and society in the literature of this unit.
• Students will write, evaluate, and rewrite a reflective personal essay about a literal and/or metaphorical journey beyond the known.

Unit 6: The World and the Self: Attention and Imagination

EIGHT WEEKS

Thematic Essential Questions:

• How do open-minded attention and acts of imagination allow one to see new possibilities and develop new understandings of oneself and of the surrounding world?

Skill-Based Essential Question:

• How do writers (and how can any of us) use language to communicate imaginative possibilities and understandings?

Learning Activities

• Students will read excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays, The Maximus Poems (Charles Olson), Zero Hour (Ernesto Cardinal), Century of the Wind (Eduardo Galeano) to examine ways that authors use imagination and imaginative language to transform our perceptions of particulars and to provide essential insights.
• Students will write in active-reader journals and discuss in small and large groups.
• Students will read Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (Stevens), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Stoppard), selection of “Magical Realist” short fiction, selection of Surrealist poems, excerpts from Metamorphoses (Ovid), excerpts from The Truth and Life of Myth (a book-length essay by Robert Duncan) to examine less obviously “realistic” works of literature. (We’ll also watch an excerpt from the film Six Degrees of Separation that deals directly with competing definitions of “imagination.)
• Students will write in active-reader journals and discuss in small and large groups.
• Students will investigate concepts including attention, perspective, perception, imagination, creativity, reality, myth, archetype, surrealism, Theatre of the Absurd, etc.
• Students will create imaginative works based on close examination of the world and imaginative use of language. Students will evaluate their work and revise.
• Students will also write, evaluate, and revise an extended essay on the role of the imagination (and imaginative language) in the literature they have studied.