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Friday, June 11, 2010

Quarter 4 Incomplete Assignment

Incomplete Make-Up Assignment—Fourth Quarter

Once you exceed five absences in a given quarter, you are required to complete a make-up assignment; this is a departmental requirement. Be aware that this assignment is designed to replace the considerable class time you have missed.

Obtain a copy of the class textbook McDougal Littell Literature: American Literature. Read “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane on page 712.

Summarize the story in your own words.

Answer Literary Analysis question 4 (Conflict) on page 735.
The seas is the great antagonist in Crane's story. Are the men primarily saved by their own efforts? Think about the following dangers the men face in the open boat and what they do to combat the dangers: distance from shore, size of the waves, sharks, exposure to weather, exhaustion.

Answer Literary Analysis question 7 (Tone) on page 735.
The narrative voice of this story is quite detached, relating highly dramatic events with a mild and even humorous tone. Find examples of this detachment. How does this tone affect the story's message or overall impact? Explain.

Answer Literary Criticism question 9 (Author’s Style) on page 735.
One writer described Stephen Crane's stories as "intensely realistic." He attributed this realism to Crane's training as a reporter, saying "his English flow(s) simple and pure." Do you agree? Explain why or why not using evidence from the story.

Read "The Open Boat" here:

Thursday, May 27, 2010

The Yellow Wallpaper - Due Friday, May 28th

Name: ____________________________________
“The Yellow Wallpaper”

1. Where does the story take place?
2. Who is narrating the story?
3. What does the narrator’s husband do?
4. About what do the narrator and her husband disagree?
5. When does John work?
6. Why has the narrator not been writing?
7. How does the narrator feel about her duty to John?
8. What does the narrator now see in the wallpaper?
9. How does she feel about what she sees?
10. What childhood “entertainment” does the narrator recall?
11. How does John say the narrator can get well?
12. Why doesn’t the narrator mention what she sees in the wallpaper?
13. How has the wallpaper changed?
14. What does the narrator say happens when the light changes? Why does she watch it?
15. What does she see behind the wallpaper?
16. Why does the narrator think the woman remains still?
17. Why does the narrator think the front pattern moves?
18. Whom does the narrator see behind the front pattern?
19. What is the woman behind the pattern trying to do?
20. How does John get in the room?
21. What is the narrator doing?
22. What is John’s reaction?
23. At the time it was published, most critics read “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a horror tale about madness or, after Gilman’s explanation appeared in 1913, as an expose of women’s medical treatment. Only a few saw what feminists in the 1970s would interpret as Gilman’s political assumptions. They viewed the story as a harsh criticism of marriage and the oppression of women. Explain which of these interpretations you favor using specific examples from the text to support your opinion.

Read the story here: http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/yellowwallpaper.pdf

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Identity Projects

Identity

Langston Hughes wrote poetry to honor his African-American heritage, but he didn’t limit himself to great heroes and historical events. For Hughes, it was the vibrant culture of everyday people—their music, their slang, and their experiences of life in the city—that shaped his sense of identity.

Identity can be defined as the qualities that a person regards as essential and unique to his or her personality.

  • What types of ethnic, cultural, gender groups, pop culture, music, art, literature, current events or everyday experiences help shape your identity?

  • Brainstorm a list of images and activities that characterize the way you live: the sounds and smells of your neighborhood, the places you go, the foods you eat, and so on.

  • Then create an account on www.prezi.com. Click “Sign Up Now” and follow the prompts to create a free account. You will use this website and your brainstormed ideas to create a presentation titled “What it means to be _________________________…,” a collage of all of the elements of your life that have contributed to your identity. Your presentation must include:
    • At least ten things you believe influence your identity
    • A one sentence explanation of each influence
    • At least five pictures
    • Other creative touches

All presentations are due by Tuesday, May 18th. Email or print the link or to your presentation by class time on Tuesday.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Homework for Tuesday, May11th

Finish reading Zora Neale Hurston's, "How It Feels to Be Colored Me." Then, answer the questions below on a separate sheet of paper.


http://www.wright.edu/cola/Dept/eng/composition/diagnostic/how_it_feels.pdf

1. Recall: In Hurston's description, what kind of community was Eatonville?'
2. Recall: What was the big changed Hurston experienced at age 13?
3. Paraphrase: What is Hurston's view of slavery?
4. Make Inferences: Judging from the anecdotes Hurson includes in her essay, what experiences does she consider distinctly African-American? Support your answer with details.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

“Why Soldiers Won’t Talk” by John Steinbeck

During the years between the last war and this one, I was always puzzled by the reticence of ex-soldiers about their experiences in battle. If they had been reticent men it would have been different, but some of them were talks and some were even boaster. They would discuss their experiences right up to the time of battle and then suddenly they wouldn’t talk anymore. This was considered heroic in them. It was thought that they had seen or done was so horrible that they didn’t want to bring is back to haunt them or their listeners But many of these men had no such consideration in any other field.


Only recently have I found what seems to be a reasonable explanation, and the answer is simple. They did not and do not remember—and the worse the battle was, the less they remember.

In all kinds of combat the whole body is battered bye emotion. The ductless glands pour their fluids into the system to make it able to stand up to the great demand on it. Fear and ferocity are products of the same fluid. Fatigue toxins poison the system. Hunger followed by wolfed food distorts the metabolic pattern already distorted by the adrenaline and fatigue. The body and the mind so disturbed are really ill and fevered. But in addition to these ills, which come from the inside of a man and are given him so that he can temporarily withstand pressures beyond his ordinary ability, there is the further stress of explosion.

Under extended bombardment or bombing the nerve ends are literally beaten. The eardrums are tortured by the last and the eyes ache from the constant hammering.

This is how you feel after a few days of constant firing. Your skin feels thick and insensitive. There is a salty taste in your mouth. A hard, painful know is in your stomach where the good is undigested. Your eyes do not pick up much detail and the sharp outlines of objects are slightly blurred. Everything looks a little unreal. When you walk, your feet hardly seem to touch the ground and there is a floaty feeling all over you body. Even the time sense seems to be changed. Men who are really moving at a normal pace seem to take forever to pass a given point. And when you move it seems to you that you are very much slowed down, although actually you are probably moving more quickly than you normally do.

Under the blast your eyeballs are so beaten that the earth and the air seem to shudder. At first your ears hurt, but then they become dull and all you other senses become dull to. There are exceptions, of course. Some men cannot protect themselves this way and they break, and they are probably the ones we call shell-shock cases.

In the dullness all kinds of emphases change. Even the instinct for self-preservation is dulled so that a man may do things which are called heroic when actually his whole fabric of reaction is changed. The whole world becomes unreal. You laugh at things which are ordinarily funny and you become enraged at trifles. During this time a kind man is capable of great cruelties and a timid man of great bravery, and nearly all men have resistance to stresses beyond their ordinary ability.

Then sleep can come without warning and like a drug. Gradually your whole body seems to be packed in cotton. All the main nerve trunks are deadened, and out of the battered cortex curious dreamlike thoughts emerge. It is at this time that many men see visions. The eyes fasten on a cloud and the tired brain makes a face of it, or an angel or a demon. And out of the hammered brain strange memories are jolted loose, scenes and words and people forgotten, but stored in the back of the brain. These may not be important things, but they come back with startling clarity into the awareness that is turning away from reality. And these memories are almost visions.

And then it is over. You can’t hear, but there is a rushing sound in your ears. And you want sleep more than anything, but when you do sleep you are dream-ridden, your mind uneasy and crowded with figures. The anesthesia your body has given you to protect you is beginning to wear of, and, as with most anesthesia, it is a little painful.


And when you wake up and think back to the things that happened they are already becoming dreamlike. Then it is not unusual that you are frightened and ill. You try to remember what it was like, and you can’t quite manage it. The outlines in your memory are vague. The next day the memory slips farther, until very little is left at all. A woman is said to feel the same way when she tries to remember what childbirth was like. And fever leaves this same kind of vagueness on the mind. Perhaps all experience which is beyond bearing that way. The system provides the shield and them removes the memory, so that a woman can have another child and a man can go into combat again.

It slips away so fast. Unless you made notes on the spot you could not remember how you felt or the way things looked. Men in prolonged battle are not normal men. And what afterward they seem to be reticent—perhaps they don’t remember very well.


1. According to Steinbeck, how does the body's "anesthesia" protect the soldier against the stresses of combat?

2. What happens after this anesthesia wears off?

3. How is the soldier's experience like that of a woman in childbirth?

Saturday, April 24, 2010

The Final Week of April

This week we will be working on poetry and doing some review for the SATs.

Our study of poetry will include reading, analyzing, and discussing poetry, as well as writing original poems.

The Poetry Project


We will also be reviewing for the SATs. Even if you are not scheduled to take the exam, this review will help you to improve your reading, grammar, and vocabulary skills. Therefore, you must participate in this review which will be beneficial to you as a learner.



SAT Review (All aspects of the exam with practice questions)

Vocabulary Review