Hey guys! This week's blog post will cover:
Hemingway Dialectical Journal DebriefingNot bad for our first dialectical journals! After reading some of our DJ's there were a few pointers I wanted to mention to help everyone strengthen their DJ's for the next time around. #1: Summary is not analysis. Here is an example of a student response that struggled with this distinction: Concrete quote: “No. I have never had confidence and i am not young” Abstract analysis: The younger waiter says to the other that he has everything he does. The older waiter says he does not and admits he has no confidence. He sees the world as an empty place and understands that the calm setting of the cafe is where he feels safe This student's response is a paraphrase of the quote. For our purposes, paraphrase and summary are considered concrete. An example of abstract analysis for this quote could be: Unlike the younger waiter, the older waiter's sees the world through wisdom and pain of experience. The older waiter's self-awareness of his failings ("I have never had confidence") allows him the sensitivity to understand the younger waiter's viewpoint on life. This younger waiter himself, on the other hand, is incapable of understanding the reality's of others. #2: Adjectives are essential to describing a character. Below is an example of a student analysis for the first row that could have benefited from adding adjectives: Concrete Quote: “You should have killed yourself last week” Abstract analysis: Waiter #2 reveals that he has a deep annoyance with the deaf man’s presence. The words he uses when talking to or about the deaf man shows that he’s more interested in himself than making a haven for a loyal customer. Waiter #2 expresses his want for the deaf man to not exist because he believes his time is more important than the old deaf man. This response could have been improved by the addition of one more sentence including adjectives, for example: The waiter is self-centered, content, and brashly innocent of the inner turmoil experienced by the deaf man. #3: When you analyze a character's motivations, you must explain actions. Below is a strong student example of motivation analysis with the actions in bold: Concrete Quote: "I am of those who like to stay late at the cafe," the older waiter said. Abstract Analysis: I think this quote is telling because it reinforces the assumptions I made above. The waiter likes a clean, well-lit place because he knows the hell of being trapped in his mind and feeling deeply lonely. Because he shares that with the old man, it’s why he is sympathetic. It’s why he works the night shift. It’s why he wants to give people a sanctuary. Notes on Setting AnalysisThe challenge with analyzing setting is getting beyond the surface level identification. As you think about the setting of "A Jury of Her Peers," think about how the characters are affected by the setting: the challenges and advantages that the setting creates in the story. Think about the cultural dimension of setting, the values of the place and time that a story unfolds. Those abstract columns in our DJ's become more challenging for many of us when we analyze setting. I encourage to spend some extra thought thinking about how the setting functions in the story. What does it do to the plot and the character? How does it work? A Bit About Susan GlaspellSusan Glaspell lived and worked at the turn of the century. She wrote at a time when women's voices were part of a civil rights movement. Exactly one hundred years ago in 1920, the 19th amendment finally gave women the right to vote. I've been grading many of your AP questionnaire's, and I'm surprised and delighted to see how many of you enjoy reading nonfiction, and how many of you have been using your critical reading skills (honed and sharpened by AP Lang, no doubt) to stay informed about the social challenges and movements and calls for change of 2020. Here is link to an insightful article by the New York Times that discusses the struggle for women's right to vote. It's worth checking for the pictures alone. When Susan Glaspell was born, she wasn't a voting citizen. When she died in 1948, that had all changed. Her life was lived out during one of those hinge moments in history, when something important changes. And, turns out, she was also a great writer. "A Jury of Her Peers" is something that we don't see too often in Literature classes (at least not often enough for me): a murder mystery. Ooooooo. Accessing our Norton TextbookAlthough "A Jury of Her Peers" is widely available online, grammatical errors and all, I want us to try to access the short story through our new online textbooks. I will be sharing with you the process to get signed up for my class in Teams today, and (by mandate of the big HISD AP Lit guy) ONLY IN TEAMS. So if you aren't able to come, we'll schedule another Teams one on one or something to get you access to the book. Our next short story, "Puppies" by George Saunders, is available behind The New Yorker paywall, but otherwise the book is our only source. As it should be: Saunders is a living, breathing writer with bills to pay, and his work should be tied to his income. Next Week's Content HourY'all, I've been ruminating on the best way to use this time, and for now, I think we will use the next (and possibly the next) content hour for optional summer essay workshops with your peers. I wanted to find a way to meet with all groups of students individually about their essays, but logistically, it would take quite a while. Instead, I will give individual feedback on your essays themselves when you turn them in in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, if you are interested in feedback for possible revision, come to next Monday's content hour and we'll set up some writer workshops. I want you to know, that I'm in a writer workshop group with some other writers (including a screenplay writer: I'm learning so much!) and it has helped me continue to grow and see my work through different eyes. Plus, when I read someone else's work, I also end up learning. So I'm very pro-workshop groups, even if (and sometimes especially if) there's no teacher looming in the background.
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AuthorI'm a Houston high school teacher. Welcome to my adapted, socially-distanced, quarantined AP English Literature and Composition classroom. Archives
May 2021
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