Historical Research Essay

Annotated Bibliography DUE (at end of hour)

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Hemingway and Steinbeck

Continue reading "Big Two-Hearted River."


Begin Of Mice and Men (1937) by John Steinbeck.

Hemingway, Literary Analysis Essay

• Discussion of Nick Adams Stories ("Indian Camp", "The Battler", and "The End of Something") and of Hemingway's style.
  

• Read the story"Big Two-Hearted River" (Parts 1 & 2).
• Essay Assignment:

  You will write a 5-6 paragraph literary analysis essay on Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Big Two-Hearted River.”

  Select one of the following arguable points: Post traumatic stress disorder, rebirth, healing power of nature, other with Ms. Johnson’s approval.

  Possible Literary Techniques--no more than two for this short paper: imagery, symbolism, character development (character’s actions, thoughts, comments), word choice/sentence structure.

• Complete "Big Two-Hearted River" story chart as you read (handed out in class).
• First draft of essay due TUESDAY, May 10 at the beginning of class.

Ernest Hemingway

Take notes on these slides (presented and discussed in class).

• Read "The Battler" and "The End of Something" (both found in In Our Time or The Nick Adams Stories). You should have previously read "Indian Camp."
• Answer these questions:

1. What characteristics of the Hemingway Hero does Nick Adams display through these three stories?
2. Write down at least two questions from each story that Hemingway raises but does not answer for the reader.
3. Predict: What do you imagine will happen to Nick Adams later in his life? Will he marry? Have children? Hold a job? What details from the stories influence your answer?
   

The Great Gatsby, Compare and Contrast

Watch the opening scene of The Great Gatsby (1974).

Answer the following questions:

1. How is the film similar to and different from the novel?

2. How do the characters in the film compare to your vision from the novel?

3. How does the following quotation relate to The Great Gatsby? "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."

   F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack-Up" (1936)

The Great Gatsby (2000)

Finish film version of The Great Gatsby.

The Great Gatsby (2000)

Begin watching The Great Gatsby (2000).

The Great Gatsby

Final Test!

(Part One: Quote Identification, Part Two: Short Essay--books are allowed on Part Two, but not Part One)

Gatsby, Chapter Experts

Presentations from Chapters 7, 8 & 9 groups.

QUIZ, The Great Gatsby Ch. 1-6

Following the quiz, read Ernest Hemingway's story "Soldier's Home" (685).

Answer the following questions:

1. How does Krebs fit the character traits of a Hemingway Hero?
2. Consider the Iceberg Theory of literature. What questions is Hemingway presenting in this story but not answering?
   

Gatsby, Chapter Experts

Presentations for Chapters 4, 5, 6.

Be prepared for a quiz on Chapters 1-6.

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

• Create a list of writing traits for Fitzgerald and Hemingway--today focusing on differences. For example, consider this sentence from The Great Gatsby: "In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars"(39). Particularly in Gatsby, Fitzgerald includes many of the following traits:

1. His writing is very poetic, including much imagery and figurative language.
   
2. Gatsby is told by a 1st person limited narrator (Nick Carraway).
3. Much of the action and motivations of characters are revealed through Nick's analysis of his own and others' thoughts--he spends a good deal of time examining the "whys" of behavior.
4. His writing is very descriptive, including many details to set the tone and mood of each setting.

• Read Hemingway's short story "Indian Camp" (separate packet--or found in the collections In Our Time or The Nick Adams Stories.)
• What features of Hemingway's writing separate him from Fitzgerald?
  
• Consider the Iceberg Theory: only 10% of an iceberg is visible above water, the other 90% exists below the surface. Similarly, Hemingway only gives about 10% of the important information explicitly in his narration. Make a list of the questions that are raised but not answered by Hemingway in the story.
• Keep the chart comparing Fitzgerald's writing with Hemingway's in your notebook, along with the list of questions generated by "Indian Camp." This story will be covered in a quiz next week.
  

Gatsby, Chapter Experts

Presentations on Chapters 1, 2, & 3.

Reminder:

• Chapter leaders need to turn in 10 discussion questions the day of the presentation (individually).
• Class members are graded on their own participation in leading the discussion on one chapter and on participation in discussions led by others. Every class member must be prepared for the discussion on each chapter.
• All class members should be prepared for a quiz on the chapters the day their discussions occur.
  

Gatsby, Chapter Experts

Work time on presentations (only class time to work on this).

Deadlines:
Monday, April 18: Chapters 1, 2, 3
Wednesday, April 20: Chapters 4, 5, 6
Monday, April 25: Chapters 7, 8, 9

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston

• Read the biographical information on Hurston (836).
• Read the excerpt from Dust Tracks on a Road. Answer the following questions:

1. What is the irony in the last paragraph? What does it reveal about Hurston's character?
2. Some of Hurston's contemporaries in the Harlem Renaissance criticized her for writing about African American life and not the oppression of African Americans by whites. Looking at this excerpt, do you think this criticism is justified? Why or why not?

The Great Gatsby
(read the section that begins with "We walked through a high hallway..." and ends with "I'm p-paralyzed with happiness." (7-8 or 12-13))

• Draw a picture of this setting on construction paper.
• On the back, write what this setting and description reveals about the characters included.

MCA Testing, Day Two (only per. 3)

The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald


Chapter Experts Presentations:
You will serve as a Gatsby expert for one chapter, as assigned in class. Experts will lead a 10 minute class presentation/discussion about the chapter. It is your job to keep the discussion moving and keep the focus on the text. You must be prepared for your discussion and knowledgeable about your chapter. Though you may discuss anything of note from your chapter, you must be prepared to discuss whatever your classmates would like to discuss from your chapter.

Plan to include a discussion of the following:

• author's style and rhetorical techniques
• important quotations
• characterization/character development
• symbols
• themes

On the day of your discussion, you will each show your preparation by turning in a written copy of a minimum of ten questions you had planned to use during your discussion. Your questions should be thought-provoking and open-ended. Do not ask any questions that would elicit monosyllabic responses. Your partners will also turn in the questions they have prepared.

Chapter Expert Schedule:
Chapters One, Two, and Three
Monday, 4/18
Chapters Four, Five, and Six
Wednesday, 4/20
Chapters Seven, Eight, and Nine
Monday, 4/25

Harlem Renaissance poetry (continued)

Read one of the following poems by a Harlem Renaissance poet:
"Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes
"Night Funeral in Harlem" by Langston Hughes
"Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too?" by Langston Hughes
"America" by Claude McKay
"Harlem Shadows" by Claude McKay
"The Barrier" by Claude McKay
"Lift Every Voice and Sing" by James Weldon Johnson
"Portrait in Georgia" by Jean Toomer
"Reapers" by Jean Toomer
"Storm Ending" by Jean Toomer
"Song of the Son" by Jean Toomer

Answer the following questions about this poem and the poems from yesterday:

1. What Harlem Renaissance characteristics are present in your poem?
2. Compare or Contrast one theme in your poem with any one poem from yesterday (819-835).

[This is all for period 3--they will finish the lesson tomorrow]





The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald


Chapter Experts Presentations:
You will serve as a Gatsby expert for one chapter, as assigned in class. Experts will lead a 10 minute class presentation/discussion about the chapter. It is your job to keep the discussion moving and keep the focus on the text. You must be prepared for your discussion and knowledgeable about your chapter. Though you may discuss anything of note from your chapter, you must be prepared to discuss whatever your classmates would like to discuss from your chapter.

Plan to include a discussion of the following:

• author's style and rhetorical techniques
• important quotations
• characterization/character development
• symbols
• themes

On the day of your discussion, you will each show your preparation by turning in a written copy of a minimum of ten questions you had planned to use during your discussion. Your questions should be thought-provoking and open-ended. Do not ask any questions that would elicit monosyllabic responses. Your partners will also turn in the questions they have prepared.

Chapter Expert Schedule:
Chapters One, Two, and Three
Monday, 4/18
Chapters Four, Five, and Six
Wednesday, 4/20
Chapters Seven, Eight, and Nine
Monday, 4/25

Harlem Renaissance poetry

• Read the introduction to the Harlem Renaissance on pp. 816-7. Follow this up by reading the six poems beginning on p. 819 by Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Lucille Clifton.

• Explain where Cullen and Hughes have each included issues or topics unique to African Americans in the 1920s. Sample issues/topics to look for:

a. Racism

b. African American culture (jazz music, traditional African American religious hymns, Biblical stories, famous African Americans)

c. African American history, especially slavery

d. City life

• For three of the six poems, find examples of the following poetic techniques. The more examples you can find, the better.

a. Alliteration

b. Rhyme scheme

c. Repetition

d. Symbolism

e. Onomatopoeia

f. Imagery

g. Internal rhyme

h. Figures of speech (simile, metaphor, personification)

• Read “I Hear America Singing” on p. 364 of the textbook. Look at “I, Too” below. Explain what Hughes is saying in his response to Whitman.

I, Too by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I'll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody'll dare

Say to me,

"Eat in the kitchen,"

Then.

Besides,

They'll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

Modern Poetry Presentations

Finish Modern Poetry presentations.

Begin Robert Frost.

Modern Poetry Presentations

Present information on poets/poetry

Modern Poetry

Continue presentation work in IMC.

Presentations due in class on Thursday, April 7.

Modern Poetry

• Read the introduction to Modern Poetry (645-7). Take notes on Symbolism and Imagism.
• With a small group, create a Modern Poetry presentation on assigned poet.
• Assignment instructions can be found here.
  
• Your group will have IMC work time on Tuesday, April 5 and Wednesday, April 6.
  
• Presentations are due Thursday, April 7.

**Becca K: read poetry by William Carlos Williams. Make your own powerpoint or prezi--you won't need to present it to the class. If possible, make the presentation in Google Docs and share it with ann_johnson@ahapps.anoka.k12.mn.us

Modernism Introduction

The Moderns (1914-1939)

• Read introduction to Modernism (636-43).
• Take notes on important features of Modernism (see margin box on 639).
• Answer the following questions (HAND IN)

1. What is the American dream?
2. What happened to the American dream in the early twentieth century?
3. In what ways did modernism challenge tradition--especially in what people valued in art and literature?
   

Realism Culminating Activity

Go to the Comic Strip Generator website.

Create a visual representation of any of the Realist works we've read during this unit (Frederick Douglass, Harriet A. Jacobs, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin, Paul Laurence Dunbar). ("Create a new strip" button is in the middle on the right side of the screen)

• Your comic must be at least three frames long, but may be more.
• You may include dialogue or not, as you wish.
• Your comic should be obvious in what story it is attempting to tell.
• Do not try to be funny; that was not the purpose of Realist writers.

When finished, print off the completed comic strip or e-mail the direct image link to Ms. Johnson at Ann_Johnson@ahapps.anoka.k12.mn.us

QUIZ: Realism

QUIZ: Reflecting on the Literary Period

The Rise of Realism: The Civil War to 1914

Think about…

The Civil War destroyed forever certain American illusions of innocence and isolation from the forces of history. In contrast to the Romantics’ focus on the inner life of the individual or the mysteries of nature and the universe, post-Civil War writers tended to emphasize the everyday world and common human problems in social settings. This new literary writing, called realism, attempted to describe the life of the ordinary people as it really was, revealing the realities of social conditions and ethical struggles of the times.

Along with the dramatic changes caused by the Civil War, American perceptions were also shaped by industrialization, the birth of the United States as a world power, and new scientific ideas. The process of industrialization moved the United States away from the simple agricultural economy of its early years. Large cities, new factories, and increasingly newer and better inventions were a normal part of life between 1890 and 1914. In addition, the United States became a world power in the late 1800s when it entered the Spanish-American War. The emerging sciences of biology, sociology, and psychology also played a significant role in shaping the United States. These conflicts and changes, along with the closing of the American frontier in 1890, compelled Americans to look at life differently and to seek new horizons.

Focus Question

As you read each selection, keep in mind this Focus Question and take notes to help you

answer it at the end of the feature:

How did realist writers portray social issues and the struggles of ordinary people?

"The Story of An Hour"

Kate Chopin (1894)

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."

"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.

Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

In 1893, Dunbar met Frederick Douglass, the famous African American lecturer, editor, and leader. Both men thought very highly of each other. In fact, Dunbar wrote several poems honoring the famous abolitionist. The poem “Douglass,” published almost ten years after Douglass’s death in 1895, contrasts Douglass’s life with the time in which Dunbar was living. In it, the speaker laments the loss of Douglass and his leadership.

Douglass

Ah, Douglass, we have fall'n on evil days,

Such days as thou, not even thou didst know,

When thee, the eyes of that harsh long ago

Saw, salient, at the cross of devious ways,

And all the country heard thee with amaze.

Not ended then, the passionate ebb and flow,

The awful tide that battled to and fro;

We ride amid a tempest of dispraise.

Now, when the waves of swift dissension swarm,

And Honour, the strong pilot, lieth stark,

Oh, for thy voice high-sounding o'er the storm,

For thy strong arm to guide the shivering bark,

The blast-defying power of thy form,

To give us comfort through the lonely dark.

We Wear the Mask

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes-

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile

And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,

In counting all our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us, while

We wear the mask.

We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries

To Thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh the clay is vile

Beneath our feet, and long the mile,

But let the world dream otherwise,

We wear the mask!

After reading these three short works, answer the following question:

How did realist writers portray social issues and the struggles of ordinary people?

Your answer should be in at least one paragraph (five-seven sentences, including a topic sentence), and should include examples from both the Chopin and Dunbar works you’ve just read. Also, feel free to include examples from the works by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin, or Mark Twain that we’ve read this trimester. The more specific examples you use to back up your points, the more convincing your answer will be.

Type your answer in Google Docs and share with Ms. Johnson. Please use your name as the filename.