AP English @ GHS

AP English Literature and Composition 2008-2009

2008-07-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for Mr. Cook's AP English blog for 2008-2009 go here.

Re-Contextualizing & Re-Imagining a Text: Heart of Darkness becomes Apocalypse Now!

2008-05-20T18:45:00.000-07:00

[Apocalypse Now! contains some adult language and violence. These clips are intended for educational purposes: analysis of the use of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness by Francis Ford Coppola (director) and John Milius (writer) in Apocalypse Now!]

1. Senseless Violence Directed toward Natives and the Land (the unknown)
Heart of Darkness: Marlow sees an attack on the natives though he can see no natives.
‘…assuring me most earnestly there was a camp of natives – he called them enemies! – hidden out of sight somewhere.’ (page 15)

Apocalypse Now! Opening Scene
Willard seems to remember an attack on the countryside. As in the scene from Heart of Darkness no enemy is seen but the land, the forest is destroyed.

2.
Heart of Darkness Marlow with the Russian Trade Meets Kurtz
"I could not hear a sound, but through my glasses I saw the thin arm extended commandingly, the lower jaw moving, the eyes of that apparition shining darkly far in its bony head that nodded with grotesque jerks. Kurtz -- Kurtz -- that means short in German -- don't it? Well, the name was as true as everything else in his life -- and death. He looked at least seven feet long. His covering had fallen off, and his body emerged from it pitiful and appalling as from a winding-sheet. I could see the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arm waving. It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of men made of dark and glittering bronze. I saw him open his mouth wide -- it gave him a weirdly voracious aspect, as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him. A deep voice reached me faintly. He must have been shouting. He fell back suddenly."

The Manager talks to Marlow of Kurtz's "unsound methods"
"The manager came out. He did me the honour to take me under the arm and lead me aside. 'He is very low, very low,' he said. He considered it necessary to sigh, but neglected to be consistently sorrowful. 'We have done all we could for him -- haven't we? But there is no disguising the fact, Mr. Kurtz has done more harm than good to the Company. He did not see the time was not ripe for vigorous action. Cautiously, cautiously -- that's my principle. We must be cautious yet. The district is closed to us for a time. Deplorable! Upon the whole, the trade will suffer. I don't deny there is a remarkable quantity of ivory -- mostly fossil. We must save it, at all events -- but look how precarious the position is -- and why? Because the method is unsound.' 'Do you,' said I, looking at the shore, 'call it "unsound method?"' 'Without doubt,' he exclaimed hotly. 'Don't you?' . . . 'No method at all,' I murmured after a while. 'Exactly,' he exulted. 'I anticipated this. Shows a complete want of judgment. It is my duty to point it out in the proper quarter.' 'Oh,' said I, 'that fellow -- what's his name? -- the brickmaker, will make a readable report for you.' He appeared confounded for a moment. It seemed to me I had never breathed an atmosphere so vile, and I turned mentally to Kurtz for relief -- positively for relief. 'Nevertheless I think Mr. Kurtz is a remarkable man,' I said with emphasis. He started, dropped on me a heavy glance, said very quietly, 'he WAS,' and turned his back on me. My hour of favour was over; I found myself lumped along with Kurtz as a partisan of methods for which the time was not ripe: I was unsound! Ah! but it was something to have at least a choice of nightmares.

Apocalypse now Willard [Marlow] meets Kurtz who speaks of the beauty of gardenias, asks if Willard thinks his "methods" are "unsound," and says Williard was sent by "grocery clerks to collect a bill" (an allusion to the Manager?)

3.
Kurtz reads "Hollow Man" by T.S. Eliot (the epigraph to this poem is taken from Heart of Darkness: "Mistah Kurtz, he dead") while the Photojournalist [an ambivalent admirer of Kurtz like the Russian trader in the novel] talks with Willard [Marlow]

4.
"The Horror! The Horror!" spoken by Kurtz in the novel and the film but in different contexts
Heart of Darkness
"Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror -- of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision -- he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:

"'The horror! The horror!'

"I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The pilgrims were dining in the mess-room, and I took my place opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes to give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored. He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar smile of his sealing the unexpressed depths of his meanness. A continuous shower of small flies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces. Suddenly the manager's boy put his insolent black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing contempt.

"'Mistah Kurtz -- he dead.'

Apocalypse Now!

Note: The violence Kurtz describes here might recall the heads on sticks in Heart of Darkness, which also seems to have inspired Golding's Lord of the Flies (sow's head on a stick) and the stick sharpened at both ends intended for Ralph.

5.
Whereas in the novel Kurtz declines in the film Willard (Marlow) kills him.
Heart of Darkness
"The shade of the original Kurtz frequented the bedside of the hollow sham, whose fate it was to be buried presently in the mould of primeval earth. But both the diabolic love and the unearthly hate of the mysteries it had penetrated fought for the possession of that soul satiated with primitive emotions, avid of lying fame, of sham distinction, of all the appearances of success and power.

"Sometimes he was contemptibly childish. He desired to have kings meet him at railway-stations on his return from some ghastly Nowhere, where he intended to accomplish great things."

Apocalypse Now!

Six Degrees of Separation: Imagination and The Catcher in the Rye

2008-05-20T18:27:00.000-07:00

Final Project: Language, Imagination, and Context

2008-05-19T07:25:00.000-07:00

Before writing...

^Take notes on a lecture about poetry in the 20^thand 21st century.
^Choose a “group,” “movement,” or “school”. (No more than two students can share a “movement” or “school”.)
^Read as many poems as you can—at least ten—by poets within the group/movement/school.

1. Write a reflection on the experience of reading the poems.

The edict of the modern and post-modern age in poetry comes from Ezra Pound: “Make it new!” Think about how the poems employ elements of poetry in inventive ways (new, strange, disorienting, surprising ways)

Think about the treatment of language: speaker’s voice, language style, diction, syntax, sound, stanza structure, line breaks, arrangement on the page. Think about the meaning and effect of the variations from traditional forms of poetry and tradition uses of language.

Think about the content: subject matter, imagery, figurative language, narration. Look for fragmentation and juxtaposition.

Post this reflection (with a list of the poems you have read and who wrote them) on your blog.

2. Write a careful, insightful explication of one of the poems. Post this on your blog. For explication help look here. Also, look at the directions above for ideas about what to explicate/explain/interpret/unfold. You're only doing one explication so it should show an imaginative, insightful grasp of the whole and of the particulars of the poem.

When explicating write about what the poem seems to say and how it says it. With modernist and post-modernist poetry the how (or form)--the speaker's voice, diction, syntax, tone, sound, line breaks, arrangement, etc.--is often as important or more important than the what (or content)--the speaker, the occasion, the subject, the plot or events, other people or characters in the poem.

Or to put it more succinctly, Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) said that James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist) isn't "writing about something. He is writing something."

3. Research the group / movement / school and write a reflection that demonstrates that you understand the group / movement / school, its relationship to the poems you’ve read, and to your own developing ideas about literature and language. {Notice the three parts to this: 1. show that you understand the group & what it was/is all about, it's significance, etc.; 2. show how the group's ideas, values, etc. has some relationship to the how (form) and what (content) of the poems you've read; 3. develop your own thoughts about the poems you've read and the group that created them, especially in terms of what you think literature should or could do, as well as what you get from & want from literature.}

4. Find a work of art other than a poem—painting, sculpture, musical composition, dance, film, etc.—that is somehow related to the group / movement / school. In some cases—surrealism, Dadaism, futurism for example—this will be easy because these movements occurred in the visual arts too. In other cases, you’ll have to be a bit more inventive. I can help with this. Ask me.

Write a response explicating the work of art and explaining how it relates to the poetry movement. (Notice there are two parts to this. 1. Provide a close reading of the work of art. For help explicating visual art check out step four here at my friend's blog (Mr. Gallagher of Malden High School). 2. Show a relationship between the poetry you have read (& the group / movement / school of poetry) and the art-other-than-poetry. I will also provide some examples in class.

5. Create a work of art—poem, painting, short film, script, etc.—that relates in someway to the poems, other art, or movement / group / school. Write a paragraph explaining the connection between your creation and the work you have done. The art & paragraph should be on your blog. (If the art is visual and you don't know how to scan it or take a digital photograph let me know; I'll help.)

A Blog of One's Own

2008-05-12T08:53:00.000-07:00

1. Create a blog of your own: Go to blogger.com; follow the directions. (For a name, it might be easiest to use your first name + "apenglish". So my address might be Jamesapenglish.blogspot.com or if there were another "James" in the class maybe: JamesCapenglish.blogspot.com)

2. After you have created a blog. Email your blog address to me at jcook@gloucester.k12.ma.us. On Wednesday I will add a link between the class blog and your individual blog, so mail me your blog address before then.

3. The first post on your blog should be a 300-600 word personal-and-analytical response to Heart of Darkness or another work of literary merit that you have been reading over the past several weeks. This is due before A-block on Friday, May 16.

4. The subsequent posts

AP Review

2008-05-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

For your own sakes, please take some time with the following review assignments this weekend.

1. Here's a link to the literary terms. Write questions in the comment box.

2. (This site offers a few additional terms and includes a review of writing movements and styles which I had intended to get to this week. Very few questions deal with writing movements (romanticism, modernism, surrealism) but it is a good idea to review, refresh, and perhaps learn something new. Write questions in the comment box.

3. This year we've read the following novels and plays: Invisible Man, Wide Sargasso Sea, Jane Eyre, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, As I Lay Dying, Antigone, a play of your choice, King Lear, Waiting for Godot, Slaughterhouse Five, and Heart of Darkness (or "a work of similar literary quality").

In the comment box, I'd like for you to identify and comment on the protagonist, antagonist(s), significant characters, major scenes, motifs/symbols, themes, tone/mood, narrative perspective, writing style (diction, syntax), and anything else you think is relevant.

Please add on to each other's identifications and respond to each other's comments.

Everyone should post something significant (identification/comment/add on/response) about at least three works by the beginning of class on Tuesday May 6.

{Dan, the name of Edna St. Vincent Millay poem is sonnet XII from Mine the Harvest.}

El Greco to Velazquez

2008-04-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

These paintings are The Opening of the Fifth Seal (The Vision of Saint John) and View of Toledo by El Greco.

Here's a link to the art exhibit I spoke about in class.

Here's a review from the Boston Globe.

Here are some of El Greco's paintings.

Essay due Friday, April 18

2008-04-14T12:50:00.000-07:00

Slaughterhouse-Five Essay

Choose one of the following writing prompts.

· In Slaughterhouse Five how does Kurt Vonnegut’s novel use the elements of fiction to develop the idea that life is absurd? And what effect—think tragicomedy—does this development have on the reader?

To address this question you might consider such things as tone, narrative perspective, narrative voice (including diction and syntax), narrative structure, events, motifs, characterization, etc. You might also consider the novel’s exploration of the many forms of life’s absurdity: absurd cruelty, absurd beauty, absurd irony, absurd humor, absurd circularity, absurd interrelationships, etc.

· How does Kurt Vonnegut characterize Billy Pilgrim and how does this characterization contribute to the work as a whole? Does Vonnegut present him as a sympathetic “Everyman,” behaving as common people do in circumstances beyond their control? Does Vonnegut reveal Pilgrim to be a failure, someone who instead of possessing traditional heroic attributes is an anti-hero? Explain how. (Think of direct and indirect characterization. Also, consider the significance of the character’s name.) While thinking about the significance of Vonnegut’s characterization of Billy Pilgrim, consider why Vonnegut chooses not to place his protagonist on a heroic pedestal, unlike many war novels and films that do. Consider how Vonnegut uses Billy Pilgrim to say something about war and about human beings.

· Explore why Vonnegut writes his novel in a way that blurs the line between reality and fantasy. Does Kurt Vonnegut intend for the reader to believe that Billy Pilgrim imagines that he becomes “unstuck in time” and is abducted by Tralfamadoreans or that he does, in fact, travel through time and space? How do you know? What are the hints? If Vonnegut provides hints that Billy is neither unstuck nor abducted why does he choose to write the novel from the perspective of a narrator who is credulous? In this essay you will explore how and why the novel is constructed to blur the line between reality and fantasy.

Your responses should address the writing prompt clearly, thoroughly, and deeply. Your responses should show an understanding of the necessary supporting details. Your responses should be well-organized and well-written. Most importantly, your responses should show an understanding of the prompt and its relationship to the novel. (In other words prove to me that you understand the prompt and that you understand Vonnegut’s novel.)

Slaughterhouse-Five

2008-04-08T12:50:00.000-07:00

In class I had you pick out scenes from the book that stood out to you for some reason. They were poignant, sad, funny, strange, enlightening, well-written, strangely written, seemingly important, etc.

Discuss at least two scenes you have chosen. Respond to what someone else has said about a third scene. You may write about anything you want--character, characterization, imagery, motifs, historical references, your personal emotional or intellectual reaction, links to other literature we have studied, etc.--as long as you are specific and insightful. (We haven't talked much yet about the novel's motifs but looking at what images, ideas, and phrases are repeated is an excellent clue to what matters in the novel (in any novel, as you probably realize by now).

In addition to writing about what you want, I'd like for you to comment on how the scene (and perhaps the book as a whole) is written. You might deal with the narrator, the narrative voice, the juxtaposition of scenes, the diction, the syntax, etc. Quote directly from the text to illustrate your ideas about the novel!!! "300 words or more" is a good rule of thumb for length. This weekend I'll post another Slaughterhouse-Five assignment and will await your comments. The next post will ask you to think about the novel as a whole.

Waiting for Godot

2008-03-30T14:26:00.000-07:00

Comment insightfully and specifically about Waiting for Godot and about your peers' responses to the play. You may comment all at once or over the course of the week. The comment period will be closed whenever at midnight on Friday, April 4.

Consider writing about the style and form of the play. Consider the minimalist structure. Consider the language.

Consider the stage directions. Consider the label "tragicomedy". Consider the play's relationship to vaudeville comedy. Consider the play's relationship to Theatre of the Absurd.

Consider the play's allusions to Christianity and Christian figures (God-ot, Christ, the thieves, Adam, Cain, Abel, etc.) and to other literature (especially but not exclusively Hamlet).

Consider writing about themes: hope and hopelessness, repetition and variation, sense and senselessness, power and powerlessness, masters and slaves, fate and choice, isolation and connection, waiting and acting (as in action but also as in playing), staying and going, being and not being, and so on.

Consider Samuel Beckett's treatment of the themes in Godot in relation to other author's treatment of the themes in other works you have read and studied.

Consider versions of the scenes from the play in the video bar or explore YouTube on your own. There's a lot there. (Aside: in a professional production of the play that uses Beckett's own production notes, Godot is pronounced GAW-doh and not gud-OH, and Pozzo is pronounced POT-zo not PO-zo. Thought you might be curious.)

Consider your own reaction to the play and explore the reasons for this reaction by remembering our reading of it and by examining the text. Also, push yourself to go beyond your initial reaction.

The best responses will respond to issues we have already discussed and will open up new ground for discussion.
Your response (or responses) should be at least 300 words in length.

King Lear/Kind Leer Final Thoughts

2008-03-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

Final Work
1. Post again in the thread of comments below. Explore themes. Discuss literary techniques. Quote the text. Make connections to other works of literature. Respond to peers and to ideas from class. Be as thoughtful, insightful, and specific as you would be in a thesis driven paper but allow yourself to be a bit more open and exploratory. (300 words or so.) Due Friday, March 21 by B-block.

2. Write a personal essay on an aspect of King Lear. Start with a quotation. Start with a character. Start with a relationship. Start with an image. Start with a scene. Then reflect on the meaning of this aspect of King Lear in your own life. Be thoughtful. Be specific. Invent an engaging narrative voice and an appropriate essay structure. Observe standard American English writing conventions. I want you to use this essay as an opportunity to fine-tune your sense of composition (a.k.a organization) and your use of language (a.k.a. stylistic resourcefulness and observation of conventions). (600 words or so.) Complete workshop draft due Wednesday, March 26. Final draft due Monday, March 31.

King Lear Acts Four and Five

2008-03-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

For your final posts on King Lear I'd like for you all to engage in an "open but guided forum".
So, comment on whatever aspects of the play interest you: characters and characterization, plot and plot design, motifs and themes, imagery and figurative language, poetic form (blank verse, rhyming couplets), comparisons to other works we have studied, performances and staging (in the Brian Blessed King Lear that we have been watching or in the clips from the Laurence Olivier King Lear found in this blog's Video Bar). Be specific. Be insightful. Cite specifics. Think of the whole.

Now here comes the "guided" part: Make sure your name (not just your screen name) is at the beginning of your commentary, deal with at least two direct quotations from the play in your commentary (identify the quotation by referring to act, scene, and lines in this manner: act.scene.lines (e.g. 1.2.33-44), respond substantively to at least one peer in your comments meaning: go beyond saying "I like what x said"), and comment at least twice.

I will grade the commentary according to a slightly modified version of the discussion rubric that we used earlier this year.

The comment period will close at the beginning of B-block on Wednesday, March 19. (I changed my mind about the due date to give you some more time and with the expectation that your comments will be of a high quality. And in case you are thinking "why B-block?" that will be my last opportunity to read comments before class on Wednesday.

King Lear Acts Two and Three

2008-03-10T11:59:00.000-07:00

Consider the motifs below and more...
sight (eyes, blindness) and other senses (touch, smell {noses}); fools, madness, and wisdom; duty and betrayal; naturalness and unnaturalness; animals and humans; storms and calms; age and youth; parents and children; rank and status; nothingness, loss, nakedness...& self...

Comment on at least two interrelated motifs. Your comments should refer to at least two specific passages (at least one passage for each motif). Demonstrate your understanding of the play so far by linking the motifs and the passages to each other and to the overall events and themes. Again, we're using close attention to small particulars in order to illuminate the whole.

At the beginning of your post include your name, name the motifs, and quote the passages (include act.scene.line). Your insightful well-supported commentary comes next.

These comments are due by the beginning of class (12:00pm) on Thursday, March 13.

King Lear Act One

2008-03-05T13:31:00.000-08:00

Respond to at least one of the following in the comments box:
The theme of identity (especially change and disguise) in act one
The theme of nature and naturalness in act one
The motif of "nothing[ness]" in act one
The parallels in the plot and subplot in act one
The use of dramatic irony in act one
The dynamic between parents and children, nobility and servants
or something else you've notice in act one

Indirect Characterization in Drama

2008-02-28T14:03:00.000-08:00

In the comment box below post a passage of indirect characterization from the play that you read on your own.

Remember that indirect characterization is a tool writers use to imply something about a character without directly stating it. Writers may do this through the character's own actions, speech, and thoughts, as well as through what other characters think and say about the character. What a character looks like and how a character affects others can also contribute to indirect characterization.

The passages you pick should reveal aspects of a character (or characters) without directly stating what those aspects are. Therefore, a perceptive and thoughtful reader should be able to figure out what the author is suggesting without being directly told.

Bananas & the Importance of Historical Context!

2008-02-25T12:02:00.000-08:00

Online Etylmology Dictionary says "Bananas in the slang sense of "nuts"* is first recorded 1935.

Dictionary.com lists 1965-1970 as the period in which "bananas" took on the meaning "crazy, deranged".

As I Lay Dying was published in 1930.

Seems Faulkner wasn't making a joke about Dewey Dell and Vardaman eating bananas instead of going bananas...or if he was his audience wouldn't have gotten the joke.

This is a clear illustration of the importance of knowing what a word meant at the time a work was written. This will be an important consideration when we read King Lear.

*(In case you are wondering, the first recorded use of the word "nuts" to mean "crazy" appears in 1846, which seems to have been derived from the phrase "be nutts upon" meaning "be very fond of" (1785), a use which seems to have been derived from "nuts" meaning "any source of pleasure" (1617).)

Please respond in the comment box if the topic interests you.

Independent Study of Drama

2008-02-15T11:07:00.000-08:00

Blog Comments
As you read or after you read, discuss the relationship between any of the following points (your choice) and the play you are reading. Post at least twice on some of the following topics by Tuesday, February 26. Also post at least once in response to a peer's comment. (Three total.)

Themes
* In the plays characters struggle between following personal paths (pursuing a passion, seeking self-understanding, etc.) and serving (following, agreeing with, sacrificing for) their families and/or society. Or, to put it a different way, In the plays families and societies often represent limits against which characters push.
* In the plays characters struggle to understand themselves and their relationships with family and society. Characters often harbor misunderstandings about themselves, their families, and/or their society that are re-examined over the course of the novel often because of dramatic revelations (of secrets, hidden history, etc.) and/or enlightening experiences.

Literary Techniques
While reading look for passages in which the playwright employs indirect characterization. After vacation we'll analyze these passages.

Track at least one object that functions as a motif (perhaps a symbol, perhaps an objective correlative) in the work.

Historical Context
Think about how the time and place (historical context) affect the relationship between individuals' identities, their families, and the society.

Self, Family, and Society

2008-02-12T08:48:00.000-08:00

You will read one of the following plays by February 26. You will post responses to the play on the blog.

Title (Author)

Oedipus Rex (Sophocles)*

The Oresteia: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides (Aeschylus)

Medea (Euripides)**

The Duchess of Malfi (Webster)**

Enemy of the People (Ibsen)**

A Doll’s House (Ibsen) **

The Wild Duck (Ibsen) **

Hedda Gabler (Ibsen) *

Blood Wedding (Lorca)#

Yerma (Lorca)#

House of Bernarda Alba (Lorca)#

Juno and the Paycock (O’Casey)**

Translations (Friel) #

Ourselves Alone (Devlin)#

Top Girls (Churchill)

Glass Menagerie (Williams)*

Long Day’s Journey into Night (O’Neill)*

A Touch of the Poet (O’Neill)**

A Moon for the Misbegotten (O’Neill)**

Death of a Salesman (Miller)*

Fences (Wilson)*

The Piano Lesson (Wilson)**

* marks plays that are owned by Gloucester High School

** marks plays that are available in the high school library

# marks plays that you could borrow from Mr. Cook

Sophocles' Antigone & Aristotle's Poetics

2008-02-11T09:36:00.000-08:00

Read the following questions and passages about Aristotle's Poetics and Sophocles' Antigone. Post comments by with your name, the number of the question you are responding to, and then a response to the question. Due Wednesday.

HAMARTIA IN ANTIGONE
1. What role does "hamartia" play in Antigone? Pay attention to the "complex meaning" of hamartia when answering the question.
2. Where you would lay the blame for the tragedy? Explain. Think about individual blame and inevitable, cosmic fate.

The Greek word that describes what many people refer to as the "tragic flaw" of the hero of Greek tragedy, hamartia has a complex meaning which includes "sin," "error," "trespass," and "missing the mark" (as in archery–missing the bull's-eye). The "mistake" of the hero has an integral place in the plot of the tragedy. The logic of the hero's descent into misfortune is determined by the nature of his or her particular kind of hamartia.

FEAR, PITY, CATHARSIS IN ANTIGONE
3. Did you feel fear and pity followed by a catharsis when reading Antigone? If not, why not? When responding consider the special meaning of these words in Aristotle's Poetics. (The meanings are explained below.)
4. When have you ever felt fear and pity followed by catharsis when experiencing a work of art (a play, a film, a novel, a poem, a song, a painting, a sculpture, etc.)? Explain. I think, as modern readers, you will find Gadamer's explication (below) of what Aristotle meant by catharsis to be especially helpful and interesting.

FEAR AND PITY

Fear is one of the emotions aroused in the audience of a tragedy. This fear results, Aristotle seems to suggest, when the audience members understand that they, as human beings bound by universal laws, are subject to the same fate that befalls the tragic hero. Fear, along with pity, is "purged" in the process of catharsis. Along with fear, pity is one of the emotions aroused in the audience of a tragedy. We respond with pity, Aristotle seems to suggest, when we as members of the audience identify with the tragic hero's suffering. Pity and fear are "purged" in the process of catharsis.

CATHARSIS

One of the most difficult concepts introduced in the Poetics is catharsis, a word which has come into everyday language even though scholars are still debating its actual meaning in Aristotle's text. Catharsis is most often defined as the "purging" of the emotions of pity and fear that occurs when we watch a tragedy. What is actually involved in this purging is not clear. It is not as simple as getting an object lesson in how to behave; the tragic event does not "teach us a lesson" as do certain public-information campaigns on drunk driving or drug abuse. Hans-Georg Gadamer's attempt to describe catharsis in his study Truth and Method can serve both as a working definition and an introduction into the problem of establishing any determinate definition of this elusive concept:

What is experienced in such an excess of tragic suffering is something truly common. The spectator recognizes himself [or herself] and his [or her] finiteness in the face of the power of fate. What happens to the great ones of the earth has exemplary significance. . . .To see that "this is how it is" is a kind of self-knowledge for the spectator, who emerges with new insight from the illusions in which he [or she], like everyone else, lives. (132)

{SOURCE for everything above except for the questions: John Zuern's CriticaLink site hosted by the University of Hawai'i}

5. Respond to at least one comment posted by a peer.

As I Lay Dying Literary Analysis Prompt and Rubric

2008-01-31T09:58:00.000-08:00

As I Lay Dying Literary Analysis Essay

In a well-organized essay explain how William Faulkner uses literary techniques to convey the existential dilemmas experienced by members of the Bundren family. Also, how do the literary techniques and the existential dilemmas they convey contribute to the meaning and effect of the novel as a whole?

Note #1:

An existential dilemma might be defined as an internal crisis in which one’s own identity, one’s relationship to one’s family and surroundings, and the very nature of existence—the nature of being--are problematic.

Note #2:

Among the literary techniques one might consider are narrative perspective (point of view), style (stream of consciousness and literary lyricism for example), diction, syntax, tone, imagery (symbolic motifs for example), selection of detail (indirect and direct characterization for example), and the juxtaposition of techniques (perspectives, styles, dictions, syntaxes, images, etc.)

Focus on how Faulkner uses the techniques to convey the existential dilemmas (the crises of identity within the characters). Focus on the particularity of the language and its relationship to the novel’s meaning.

AP English Language and Composition 9-point Rubric

for As I Lay Dying Literary Technique Analysis

Essays earning a score of 9 meet the criteria for 8 papers and, in addition, are especially full, apt, sophisticated, insightful, original in their analysis or demonstrate particularly impressive control of language.

Essays earning a score of 8 convincingly and persuasively respond to the prompt. They refer to apt passages text explicitly and implicitly to explain how specific techniques convey the existential crises and contribute to meaning and effect of the novel as a whole. Their prose demonstrates an ability to control a wide range of the elements of effective writing (balance between insightful generalities and supporting details, transition between thoughts, smooth incorporation of quotations and detail, command of syntax and diction) but is not flawless.

Essays earning a score of 7 fit the description of 6 essays but provide a more complete analysis or demonstrate a more mature prose style (see above).

Essays earning a score of 6 adequately respond to the prompt. They convey plausible analysis of the techniques through explicit and implicit references to apt passages in the text, but their discussion is more limited, less convincing. The writing may contain lapses in diction or syntax, but generally the prose is clear.

Essays earning a score of 5 analyze the literary techniques, but they may provide uneven, inconsistent, inaccurate analysis. They may also choose less appropriate passages for support. They may treat the prompt in a superficial way or demonstrate a limited understanding of the prompt. (This might manifest itself in superficial or limited understanding of the techniques and/or the existential dilemmas.) While the writing may contain lapses in diction or syntax, it usually conveys ideas adequately.

Essays earning a score of 4 respond to the prompt inadequately. They may misrepresent the novel’s meaning and effect, show significant or persistent misunderstanding of the passages cited and the characters’ dilemmas, analyze the techniques inaccurately, or offer little discussion of specific techniques. The prose generally conveys the writer's ideas but may suggest immature control of writing.

Essays earning a score of 3 meet the criteria of the score of 4 but are less perceptive about the prompt or less consistent in controlling the elements of writing.

Essays earning a score of 2 demonstrate little success in responding to the prompt. These essays may offer vague generalizations, substitute simpler tasks such as summarizing parts of the novel, offering unsupported generalizations about the characters dilemmas, omitting analysis of specific techniques, or simply listing techniques. The prose often demonstrates consistent weaknesses in writing.

Essays earning a score of 1 meet the criteria for the score of 2 but are undeveloped, especially simplistic in discussion, or weak in their control of language.

Indicates an on-topic response that receives no credit such as one that merely repeats the prompt or one that is completely off topic.

Term Two

2008-01-13T19:56:00.000-08:00

* Thesis Essay on Invisible Man, Wide Sargasso Sea, and/or Jane Eyre. (Graded & returned.)

* Revision of College Essay
* Not-for-College Essay

* A Portrait of the Artist: linking a scene from each of the five chapters. (Graded & returned.)
* A Portrait of the Artist: Chats (Graded & returned.)
* A Portrait of the Artist: Response to Portrait Criticism (Graded & returned.)
* A Portrait of the Artist: In-class Essay on Tone (Graded & returned.)

* Song of Myself, Walt Whitman (SOAPStone + Theme, explication of two sections, summer work)
* William Carlos Williams (SOAPStone + Theme on blog, summer work) {checked & recorded in grade book}
* W. Shakespeare Sonnets (Choice: Six SOAPStone + Theme responses or three SOAPStone + theme responses & three poems or three SOAPStone + theme responses & one Shakesperean sonnet) {checked & recorded in grade book}
* Literary Term Posts (as assigned) {checked & recorded in grade book}

Email me with questions.

AP English Literature and Composition Midyear Exam Prompt

2008-01-11T13:17:00.000-08:00

Due Thursday at Noon
12-point font, double spaced, MLA format (Consult your Compass)

Here comes the curveball...or is it a knuckler? Hm. Maybe it's best to set aside the baseball metaphors for the moment.

Instead of giving you a prompt to respond to, I'm going to give you all the open-ended prompts from 1970-2007 to use as models for a prompt that you will write yourself and to which you will respond by writing about one of the five novels we have read this year.

If you write and post your prompt in the comments box before exams begin I will give you some feedback. Prompts like thesis statements should be clear, meaningful, and essential. The best will be (to some degree) original. The prompt you write should offer you a chance to respond with insights into specific aspects of the novel and deep understanding of the novel as a whole. But you'll figure that out by looking at the examples below.

Slainte!

Open-ended Questions for Advanced Placement
English Literature and Composition, 1970-2007

1970. Choose a character from a novel or play of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you (a) briefly describe the standards of the fictional society in which the character exists and (b) show how the character is affected by and responds to those standards. In your essay do not merely summarize the plot.

1970 Also. Choose a work of recognized literary merit in which a specific inanimate object (e.g., a seashell, a handkerchief, a painting) is important, and write an essay in which you show how two or three of the purposes the object serves are related to one another.

1971. The significance of a title such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is so easy to discover. However, in other works (for example, Measure for Measure) the full significance of the title becomes apparent to the reader only gradually. Choose two works and show how the significance of their respective titles is developed through the authors' use of devices such as contrast, repetition, allusion, and point of view.

1972. In retrospect, the reader often discovers that the first chapter of a novel or the opening scene of a drama introduces some of the major themes of the work. Write an essay about the opening scene of a drama or the first chapter of a novel in which you explain how it functions in this way.

1973. An effective literary work does not merely stop or cease; it concludes. In the view of some critics, a work that does not provide the pleasure of significant closure has terminated with an artistic fault. A satisfactory ending is not, however, always conclusive in every sense; significant closure may require the reader to abide with or adjust to ambiguity and uncertainty. In an essay, discuss the ending of a novel or play of acknowledged literary merit. Explain precisely how and why the ending appropriately or inappropriately concludes the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

1974. Choose a work of literature written before 1900. Write an essay in which you present arguments for and against the work's relevance for a person in 1974. Your own position should emerge in the course of your essay. You may refer to works of literature written after 1900 for the purpose of contrast or comparison.

1975. Although literary critics have tended to praise the unique in literary characterizations, many authors have employed the stereotyped character successfully. Select one work of acknowledged literary merit and in a well-written essay, show how the conventional or stereotyped character or characters function to achieve the author's purpose.

1975 Also. Unlike the novelist, the writer of a play does not use his own voice and only rarely uses a narrator's voice to guide the audience's responses to character and action. Select a play you have read and write an essay in which you explain the techniques the playwright uses to guide his audience's responses to the central characters and the action. You might consider the effect on the audience of things like setting, the use of comparable and contrasting characters, and the characters' responses to each other. Support your argument with specific references to the play. Do not give a plot summary.

1976. The conflict created when the will of an individual opposes the will of the majority is the recurring theme of many novels, plays, and essays. Select the work of an essayist who is in opposition to his or her society; or from a work of recognized literary merit, select a fictional character who is in opposition to his or her society. In a critical essay, analyze the conflict and discuss the moral and ethical implications for both the individual and the society. Do not summarize the plot or action of the work you choose.

1977. In some novels and plays certain parallel or recurring events prove to be significant. In an essay, describe the major similarities and differences in a sequence of parallel or recurring events in a novel or play and discuss the significance of such events. Do not merely summarize the plot.

1978. Choose an implausible or strikingly unrealistic incident or character in a work of fiction or drama of recognized literary merit. Write an essay that explains how the incident or character is related to the more realistic of plausible elements in the rest of the work. Avoid plot summary.

1979. Choose a complex and important character in a novel or a play of recognized literary merit who might on the basis of the character's actions alone be considered evil or immoral. In a well-organized essay, explain both how and why the full presentation of the character in the work makes us react more sympathetically than we otherwise might. Avoid plot summary.

1980. A recurring theme in literature is the classic war between a passion and responsibility. For instance, a personal cause, a love, a desire for revenge, a determination to redress a wrong, or some other emotion or drive may conflict with moral duty. Choose a literary work in which a character confronts the demands of a private passion that conflicts with his or her responsibilities. In a well-written essay show clearly the nature of the conflict, its effects upon the character, and its significance to the work.

1981. The meaning of some literary works is often enhanced by sustained allusion to myths, the Bible, or other works of literature. Select a literary work that makes use of such a sustained reference. Then write a well-organized essay in which you explain the allusion that predominates in the work and analyze how it enhances the work's meaning.

1982. In great literature, no scene of violence exists for its own sake. Choose a work of literary merit that confronts the reader or audience with a scene or scenes of violence. In a well-organized essay, explain how the scene or scenes contribute to the meaning of the complete work. Avoid plot summary.

1983. From a novel or play of literary merit, select an important character who is a villain. Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze the nature of the character's villainy and show how it enhances meaning in the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

1984. Select a line or so of poetry, or a moment or scene in a novel, epic poem, or play that you find especially memorable. Write an essay in which you identify the line or the passage, explain its relationship to the work in which it is found, and analyze the reasons for its effectiveness.

1985. A critic has said that one important measure of a superior work of literature is its ability to produce in the reader a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. Select a literary work that produces this "healthy confusion." Write an essay in which you explain the sources of the "pleasure and disquietude" experienced by the readers of the work.

1986. Some works of literature use the element of time in a distinct way. The chronological sequence of events may be altered, or time may be suspended or accelerated. Choose a novel, an epic, or a play of recognized literary merit and show how the author's manipulation of time contributes to the effectiveness of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

1987. Some novels and plays seem to advocate changes in social or political attitudes or in traditions. Choose such a novel or play and note briefly the particular attitudes or traditions that the author apparently wishes to modify. Then analyze the techniques the author uses to influence the reader's or audience's views. Avoid plot summary.

1988. Choose a distinguished novel or play in which some of the most significant events are mental or psychological; for example, awakenings, discoveries, changes in consciousness. In a well-organized essay, describe how the author manages to give these internal events the sense of excitement, suspense, and climax usually associated with external action. Do not merely summarize the plot.

1989. In questioning the value of literary realism, Flannery O'Connor has written, "I am interested in making a good case for distortion because I am coming to believe that it is the only way to make people see." Write an essay in which you "make a good case for distortion," as distinct from literary realism. Analyze how important elements of the work you choose are "distorted" and explain how these distortions contribute to the effectiveness of the work. Avoid plot summary.

1990. Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid plot summary.

1991. Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for example, two countries, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and the sea) to represent opposed forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. Choose a novel or play that contrasts two such places. Write an essay explaining how the places differ, what each place represents, and how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the work.

1992. In a novel or play, a confidant (male) or a confidante (female) is a character, often a friend or relative of the hero or heroine, whose role is to be present when the hero or heroine needs a sympathetic listener to confide in. Frequently the result is, as Henry James remarked, that the confidant or confidante can be as much "the reader's friend as the protagonist's." However, the author sometimes uses this character for other purposes as well. Choose a confidant or confidante from a novel or play of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you discuss the various ways this character functions in the work. You may write your essay on one of the following novels or plays or on another of comparable quality. Do not write on a poem or short story.

1993. "The true test of comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter." Choose a novel, play, or long poem in which a scene or character awakens "thoughtful laughter" in the reader. Write an essay in which you show why this laughter is "thoughtful" and how it contributes to the meaning of the work.

1994. In some works of literature, a character who appears briefly, or does not appear at all, is a significant presence. Choose a novel or play of literary merit and write an essay in which you show how such a character functions in the work. You may wish to discuss how the character affects action, theme, or the development of other characters. Avoid plot summary.

1995. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a novel or a play in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character's alienation reveals the surrounding society's assumptions or moral values.

1996. The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings. "The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from their readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy ending, I do not mean mere fortunate events -- a marriage or a last minute rescue from death -- but some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death." Choose a novel or play that has the kind of ending Weldon describes. In a well-written essay, identify the "spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation" evident in the ending and explain its significance in the work as a whole.

1997. Novels and plays often include scenes of weddings, funerals, parties, and other social occasions. Such scenes may reveal the values of the characters and the society in which they live. Select a novel or play that includes such a scene and, in a focused essay, discuss the contribution the scene makes to the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or another novel or play of literary merit.

1998. In his essay "Walking," Henry David Thoreau offers the following assessment of literature:

In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking in Hamlet and The Iliad, in all scriptures and mythologies, not learned in schools, that delights us.

From the works that you have studied in school, choose a novel, play, or epic poem that you may initially have thought was conventional and tame but that you now value for its "uncivilized free and wild thinking." Write an essay in which you explain what constitutes its "uncivilized free and wild thinking" and how that thinking is central to the value of the work as a whole. Support your ideas with specific references to the work you choose.

1999. The eighteenth-century British novelist Laurence Sterne wrote, "No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man's mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time."

From a novel or play choose a character (not necessarily the protagonist) whose mind is pulled in conflicting directions by two compelling desires, ambitions, obligations, or influences. Then, in a well-organized essay, identify each of the two conflicting forces and explain how this conflict with one character illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may use one of the novels or plays listed below or another novel or work of similar literary quality.

2000. Many works of literature not readily identified with the mystery or detective story genre nonetheless involve the investigation of a mystery. In these works, the solution to the mystery may be less important than the knowledge gained in the process of its investigation. Choose a novel or play in which one or more of the characters confront a mystery. Then write an essay in which you identify the mystery and explain how the investigation illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

2001. One definition of madness is "mental delusion or the eccentric behavior arising from it." But Emily Dickinson wrote

Much madness is divinest Sense-
To a discerning Eye-

Novelists and playwrights have often seen madness with a "discerning Eye." Select a novel or play in which a character's apparent madness or irrational behavior plays an important role. Then write a well-organized essay in which you explain what this delusion or eccentric behavior consists of and how it might be judged reasonable. Explain the significance of the "madness" to the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

2002. Morally ambiguous characters -- characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good -- are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

2002, Form B. Often in literature, a character's success in achieving goals depends on keeping a secret and divulging it only at the right moment, if at all. Choose a novel or play of literary merit that requires a character to keep a secret. In a well-organized essay, briefly explain the necessity for secrecy and how the character's choice to reveal or keep the secret affects the plot and contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. You may select a work from the list below, or you may choose another work of recognized literary merit suitable to the topic. Do NOT write about a short story, poem, or film.

2003. According to critic Northrop Frye, "Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divisive lightning." Select a novel or play in which a tragic figure functions as an instrument of the suffering of others. Then write an essay in which you explain how the suffering brought upon others by that figure contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.

2003, Form B. Novels and plays often depict characters caught between colliding cultures -- national, regional, ethnic, religious, institutional. Such collisions can call a character's sense of identity into question. Select a novel or play in which a character responds to such a cultural collison. Then write a well-organized essay in which you describe the character's response and explain its relevance to the work as a whole.

2004. Critic Roland Barthes has said, "Literature is the question minus the answer." Choose a novel, or play, and, considering Barthes' observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers answers. Explain how the author's treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

2004, Form B. The most important themes in literature are sometimes developed in scenes in which a death or deaths take place. Choose a novel or play and write a well-organized essay in which you show how a specific death scene helps to illuminate the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

2005. In Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess "That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions." In a novel or play that you have studied, identify a character who outwardly conforms while questioning inwardly. Then write an essay in which you analyze how this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot summary.

2005, Form B. One of the strongest human drives seems to be a desire for power. Write an essay in which you discuss how a character in a novel or a drama struggles to free himself or herself from the power of others or seeks to gain power over others. Be sure to demonstrate in your essay how the author uses this power struggle to enhance the meaning of the work.

2006. Many writers use a country setting to establish values within a work of literature. For example, the country may be a place of virtue and peace or one of primitivism and ignorance. Choose a novel or play in which such a setting plays a significant role. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the country setting functions in the work as a whole.

2006, Form B. In many works of literature, a physical journey - the literal movement from one place to another - plays a central role. Choose a novel, play, or epic poem in which a physical journey is an important element and discuss how the journey adds to the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

2007. In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present activities, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a novel or play in which a character must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Then write an essay in which you show how the character's relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

2007, Form B. Works of literature often depict acts of betrayal. Friends and even family may betray a protagonist; main characters may likewise be guilty of treachery or may betray their own values. Select a novel or play that includes such acts of betrayal. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze the nature of the betrayal and show how it contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

Literary Terms

2008-01-02T12:42:00.000-08:00

Terms Related to...

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, 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

(Ninety Terms Total)

Sonnet 130 / Dim Lady

2008-01-02T12:35:00.000-08:00

Let's make a deal...
If you write a sonnet* of your own in response to sonnet 130 or a sonnet of your choice, then you only have to do three SOAPStone + Theme responses instead of six.
*14 lines, iambic pentameter, and ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

Let's make a deal (option two)...
Or, if you write three poems--free verse or any other form--in response to any three sonnets, then you will only have to do three SOAPStone + Theme responses instead of six. ("Dim Lady" is an example of one way to respond to Sonnet 130.)

Current & Past Assignments

2007-12-19T18:10:00.000-08:00

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)

2007-12-19T17:41:00.000-08:00

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...

2007-12-19T10:20:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-18T16:25:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-18T10:23:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-13T05:56:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-13T04:21:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-12T13:30:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-12T09:02:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-11T09:21:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-11T09:19:00.002-08:00

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)

2007-12-11T09:19:00.001-08:00

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)

2007-12-06T06:14:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-06T05:32:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-04T10:35:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-26T09:28:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-06-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-15T09:01:00.003-07:00

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

2007-06-15T09:01:00.001-07:00

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

2007-06-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

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.

AP English @ GHS

AP English Literature and Composition 2008-2009

Re-Contextualizing & Re-Imagining a Text: Heart of Darkness becomes Apocalypse Now!

Six Degrees of Separation: Imagination and The Catcher in the Rye

Final Project: Language, Imagination, and Context

A Blog of One's Own

AP Review

El Greco to Velazquez

Essay due Friday, April 18

Slaughterhouse-Five

Waiting for Godot

King Lear/Kind Leer Final Thoughts

King Lear Acts Four and Five

King Lear Acts Two and Three

King Lear Act One

Indirect Characterization in Drama

Bananas & the Importance of Historical Context!

Independent Study of Drama

Self, Family, and Society

Sophocles' Antigone & Aristotle's Poetics

*As I Lay Dying* Literary Analysis Prompt and Rubric

Term Two

AP English Literature and Composition Midyear Exam Prompt

Literary Terms

Sonnet 130 / Dim Lady

Current & Past Assignments

As I Lay Dying Chat (In the Comment Box)

Ah, irony...

FYI: The Invisible Museum

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

WCW: All the Work

More on Poetry

WCW & Poetry

WCW Lit Crit

WCW SOAPStone + Theme

Tract & Queen Anne's Lace

Love Song (WCW)

Song of Myself (all the work)

Song of Myself Explications

SOAPStone + Theme

Term Two Collected Work

Welcome to Gloucester High School AP English 2007-2008.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Early Poems, William Carlos Williams

Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

AP English Syllabus

As I Lay Dying Literary Analysis Prompt and Rubric