Friday, February 28, 2014

The Real Thing

Happy Friday, everyone!











AGENDA:

1. House keeping.

All you need to know about Literary Criticism!
Final Essay Prompts
Final Essay Grading Rubric
Group Presentation Guidelines and Rubric

2. We will be having a discussion about Henry James' "The Real Thing"

With its ironic examination of the relationship between representations and reality, “The Real Thing” can serve as an excellent jumping-off point for a discussion of realism as an artistic movement. The story serves as a kind of fable about the artistic production of realistic representation. The reader, along with the artist in the story, comes to realize that it is precisely because the Monarchs represent British aristocratic values that they fail as models of the type. Artistic inspiration seems to depend on artificiality and pretense (figured by the lower-class models) and is hampered by the stifling presence of the “real thing.”

  • Think about the implications of James’s fable about the making of realistic art.
  • What is the relationship between the artist and reality?
  • What seems to be the goal of the “realist” art object?
  • What is the relationship between the artist in the story and Henry James, the writer?


HOMEWORK:
1. Finish up your novels and be prepared for out last LC meeting on Monday.
2. Finish working on your group presentation! We will be presenting Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
3. Work on your final paper! It is due next Friday.
4. Turn in any late work you are missing!!

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Marxist Criticism

Good afternoon, everyone!

AGENDA:

1. Handout essay prompts

2. Finish Socialism .vs. Capitalism debate

3. "The Real Thing" by Henry James

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Marxist Criticism

Good afternoon, everyone!!

AGENDA:

1. Prezi of Marxist Literary Criticism


2. Socialism .vs. Capitalism debate

Monday, February 24, 2014

Lit Circles #2 & #3

Good afternoon, everyone! Welcome back from break!! I don't know about you, but this is how I felt this morning...











AGENDA:

1. House keeping & missing work.

2. Take about 5-7 minutes to correct your answers to the AP Packet that Ms. Gamzon handed out to you before break. Once you're done, please turn these in so we can give you credit for them.

3. For the rest of the period today and into class tomorrow, you will be n your LC groups discussing the readings that you were supposed to do for the week before and the week of break (2/10-2/14 & 2/17-2/21). You had TWO readings and TWO roles to complete.

http://www.timeanddate.com/timer/#

Friday, February 14, 2014

They Say, I Say/AP Practice

Good afternoon, everyone!! Happy Valentine's Day!!













AGENDA:

1. Review "The Yellow Wallpaper" briefly

2. They Say, I Say Part 2

3. AP Practice

CHAPTER 4: THREE WAYS TO RESPOND

  •  Agree--But With a Difference
    • You need to do more than simply echo the views that you agree with; bring something new and fresh to the conversation.
    • Open up some difference or contrast between your position and the one you're agreeing with.
      • Point out unnoticed implications.
      • Explain something that needs to be better understood.
    • Remember: When you agree with one person, you are disagreeing with someone else.
  • Disagree--And Explain Why
    • You need to do more than simply say you disagree with a particular view; you have to offer persuasive reasons for why you disagree.
    • Demonstrate that you have something to contribute to the conversation.
    • "Duh" move = disagreeing not with the position itself, but the assumption that is new.
    • "Twist it" move = agree with the evidence that someone else has presented, but show through  twist of logic that the evidence actually supports your own, contrary position.
  • Qualifying (Agree and Disagree)
    • Goes beyond and "is too/ is not" exchange.
    • Keeps argument complex.
    • You can tip towards agreement or disagreement depending on where you lay your stress.
CHAPTER 7: SAYING WHY IT MATTERS

  • Answering the "who cares?" and "so what?" questions in your own writing.
  • "Who cares?"
    • Identify an interested person or group.
    • Establish a type of contrast between what others say and what you say.
    • Use of dramatic tension or clash of views helps your readers feel invested in what you are saying.
  • "So what?"
    • Link your argument to some larger matter that your readers already believe to be important.
    • Hook your readers.
    • Give real-world application of your claims.
    • Frame it in a way that helps the reader care about it.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Why I wrote the Yellow Wallpaper


The Yellow Wallpaper” is an exaggerated account of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s personal experiences. In 1887, shortly after the birth of her daughter, Gilman began to suffer from serious depression and fatigue. She was referred to Silas Weir Mitchell, a leading specialist in women’s nervous disorders in the nineteenth century, who diagnosed Gilman with neurasthenia and prescribed a “rest cure” of forced inactivity. Weir Mitchell believed that nervous depression was a result of overactive nerves and ordered Gilman to cease all forms of creative activity, including writing, for the rest of her life. The goal of the treatment was to promote domesticity and calm her agitated nerves.Gilman attempted to endure the “rest cure” treatment and did not write or work for three months. Eventually, she felt herself beginning to go slowly insane from the inactivity and, at one point, was reduced to crawling under her bed holding a rag doll. Unlike the protagonist in her story, Gilman did not reach the point of total madness, but she knew that her deteriorating mental condition was due to the oppressive medical regime that was meant to “cure” her. She abandoned Mitchell’s advice and moved to California in order to overcome her depression on her own. Although Gilman’s attempt was successful, she claimed to suffer from post-traumatic stress from Weir Mitchell’s treatment for the rest of her life. In 1890, Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” in an effort to save other women from suffering the same oppressive treatment. Weir Mitchell and his treatment play a key role in the narrative; in the third section of the text, the protagonist’s husband even threatens to send her to Weir Mitchell in the fall if she does not recover soon.
In 1890, Gilman sent the story to writer William Dean Howells, who submitted it to Horace Scudder, editor of the prestigious magazine, “The Atlantic Monthly.” Scudder rejected the story as depressing material, and returned it to Gilman with a handwritten note that read: “Dear Madam: W. Howells has handed me this story. I could not forgive myself if I made others as miserable as I have made myself! Sincerely Yours, H. E. Scudder.” Eventually the story was published in “The New England Magazine” in May 1892. According to Gilman’s autobiography, she sent a copy of “The Yellow Wallpaper” to Weir Mitchell after its publication. Although she never received a response, she claimed that Weir Mitchell later changed his official treatment for nervous depression as a direct result of her story. Gilman also asserted that she knew of one particular woman who had been spared the “rest cure” as a treatment for her depression after her family read “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
The public reaction to the story was strong, if mixed. In many circles, “The Yellow Wallpaper” was perceived as nothing more than a horror story, stemming from the gothic example of Edgar Allen Poe and Mary Shelley. It was not until the 1970s that the story was also recognized as a feminist narrative worthy of historical and literary scholarship.


Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman, as it appeared in The Forerunner, October 1913

Many and many a reader has asked that.  When the story first came out, in the New England Magazine about 1891, a Boston physician made protest in The Transcript.  Such a story ought not to be written, he said; it was enough to drive anyone mad to read it.

Another physician, in Kansas I think, wrote to say that it was the best description of incipient insanity he had ever seen, and, begging my pardon, had I been there?

Now the story of the story is this:

For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia and beyond.  During about the third year of this trouble I went, in devout faith and some faint stir of hope, to a noted specialist in nervous diseases, the best known in the country.  This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which a still-good physique responded so promptly that he concluded there was nothing much the matter with me, and sent me home with solemn advice to “live as domestic life as far as possible,” to “have but two hours intellectual life a day,” and “never to touch pen, or pencil again” as long as I lived.  This was in 1887.

I went home and obeyed those directions for some three months, and came so near the borderline of utter mental ruin that I could see over.

Then, using the remnants of intelligence that remained, and helped by a wise friend, I cast the noted specialist’s advice to the winds and went to work again – work, the normal life of every human being; work, in which is joy and growth and service, without which one is a pauper and a parasite – ultimately recovering some measure of power.

Being naturally moved to rejoicing by this narrow escape, I wrote, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” with its embellishments and additions, to carry out the ideal (I never had hallucinations or objections to my mural decorations) and sent a copy to the physician who so nearly drove me mad.  He never acknowledged it.

The little book is valued by alienists and as a good specimen of one kind of literature.   It has, to my knowledge, saved one woman from a similar fate so terrifying her family that they let her out into normal activity and she recovered.

But the best result is this.  Many years later I was told that the great specialist had admitted to friends of his that he had altered his treatment of neurasthenia since reading “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked.

With a partner or two:  write your thoughts about each of the underlined words in the article by Gilman.  If you don’t know what a word means (like neurasthenia) look it up!!  Be prepared to share with the class.

Mad:

Incipient Insanity:

Nervous Breakdown:

Melancholia:

Nervous Diseases:

Mental Ruin:

Neurasthenia:

Crazy:


The Yellow Wallpaper

Good afternoon, everyone!!

It's......










AGENDA:

1. Discuss "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gillman

  • What did you think of the story? The main character?
  • What was your impression/interpretation of the ending?
  • What tenets of Freud or Jung could you find?
2. Watch the last scene of "The Yellow Wallpaper"
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWJ4ZtLlRvE&list=PLA9B79A6592B5414C&index=2

If you are interested in watching the entire PBS Masterpiece Theater production, here is the link to the playlist on Youtube.
     The Yellow Wallpaper

HOMEWORK:

Please do a blog post looking at the last scene of "The Yellow Wallpaper", comparing and contrasting how it is depicted in the film clip we watched and how Gillman depicts it in her short story.

  • What is gained or lost by this film adaptation?
  • Which version do you think highlights the main character's instability/insanity more?
  • How does the film version enhance or lessen the creepy and disturbing effect of the original story?
  • Did seeing the film version affect your interpretation of the main character and the ending of the story? Why or why not?

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Additional Psychological Criticism Info

Hello, everyone!! Here are some additional resources for you on psychological criticism:

Psychological Criticism Cheat Sheet

Jung and Archetypes

Freud and Defense Mechanisms

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development

Psychological Criticism Continued

Good afternoon, everyone!!












AGENDA:

1. Review psychological concepts from yesterday.

2. If you group hasn't presented yet, you will present today.

3. Go through Kohlberg's stages of moral development.

http://prezi.com/q5rdbne7engf/psychological-criticism/

4. Kohlberg activity

HOMEWORK:

Read and annotate "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gillman. Look for concepts of Freud, Jung, and Kohlberg while you read.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Psychological Criticism

Good afternoon, everyone! I hope you all are ready for a lot of information today!

AGENDA:

1. Introduction to Psychological Criticism. We are going to go through this briefly (about 10 minutes), but please, please, please look it over on your own and ask questions if you there is something you need clarified.

http://prezi.com/q5rdbne7engf/psychological-criticism/

2. Activities on Psychological Criticism!! You will have the rest of class time and the first 5 minutes of class on Wednesday to work on these. We will present/share them in class tomorrow.

HOMEWORK:

Read and annotate "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gillman. Look for the psychological elements we talked about today in the story. We will begin discussion of the story Wednesday and carry it into Thursday, if necessary.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Literature Circles Meeting #1

Good afternoon, everyone!! Happy Monday!












AGENDA:

1. We briefly go over the Guidelines and Rubric sheet for the group project you will be doing.

Guidelines and Rubric

2. Today is the first meeting in our literature circle groups. Each of you will have 5-7 minutes to share your role with your groups. The order will go: Discussion Director, Passage Master, Connector, Summarizer, and Vocabulary Enricher.

          **If you are not presenting your role, you are to be taking notes on the other roles in your packet**

http://www.timeanddate.com/timer/#

3. You will be turing in your LC packet at the end of class so, please, make sure that your name is on it.



Saturday, February 8, 2014

Group Presentation Guidelines and Rubric

Hello everyone! I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend so far.

As promised, here is a more detailed set of guidelines as well as the rubric for the group presentation you will be doing at the end of this unit. We will go over this in class on Monday before we meet in our LC groups.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Good afternoon everyone! Happy Friday!!











 

AGENDA:

1. We're going to revisit the conversation that we had at the end of class yesterday about feminist criticism.

2. We'll be doing a mini-lesson on Part 1 of They Say, I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein.

CHAPTER 1: STARTING WITH WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
  • When you write, you are entering an academic conversation
  • A writer needs to clearly indicate both their thesis AND the larger conversation the thesis is responding to.
    • Explain what you are responding to before offering your response
  • Summarize what you're responding to first, briefly because you will elaborate later, then state your own position as soon as possible.
  • Ways to introduce what "they say"
    • Illustrative quote
    • Revealing fact or statistic
    • Relevant anecdote
CHAPTER 2: THE ART OF SUMMARIZING
  • Summarizing: any information from others that you present in your own words (including paraphrasing)
    • Paraphrasing: your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form; more detailed than a summary
    • Summarizing: a brief statement or account of the main points of something
  • In a summary, you need to:
    • Balance what the original author is saying with what your own focus is
    • Be true to what the author is saying (outward) and what they say that interests you (inward)
  • Playing the "believing game": you inhabit the world view of those of whose conversation you're entering
    • If you do it WELL, your readers will not be able to tell if you agree or disagree with the author yet.
    • If you do it POORLY, your summary will be biased and your credibility with readers will be undermined.
  • GOOD SUMMARY represents what the original author says fairly while spinning the focus of the summary to fit your own agenda
    • Align what they say with what you say
  • Satirical Summary
    • A writers deliberately give his own spin to someone else's argument in order to reveal the glaring shortcomings of the original author's writing.
      • Let the summarized argument condemn itself by using its own words against itself.
  • What to AVOID when summarizing:
    • "Closet cliche syndrome": familiar cliche is mistaken and summarized as the author's view
    • "List summaries": inventory of the author's various points without focusing on his overall claim
    • Boilerplate formulas: "X says" etc.
  • What to DO when summarizing:
    • Use action verbs
CHAPTER 3: THE ART OF QUOTING
  • Main Problem: thinking that quoting speaks for itself, not understanding what is quote, and having trouble explaining what the quote means.
  • When quoting:
    • CHOOSE WISELY
      • Make sure the quote supports your argument
      • Find a thesis first then find quotes that best support it
    • FRAME THE QUOTE
      • Questions to ask: whose quote is it, what does the quote mean, how does it relate to your own text/thesis
        • Always connect what they say to what you say!
      • Sandwich the quote
        • Introduction of the quote (top bread slice)
          • Who is speaking, set up of what the quote is saying
        • The actual quote (meat)
        • Explanation of quote (bottom bread slice)
          • Why is the quote important, how does it relate to your thesis
  • Blend the author's words with your own
    • "Echo" the author's language while moving the discussion towards your point/thesis
  • RULE OF THUMB FOR QUOTE ANALYSIS
    • It is better to over-analyze a quote than under-analyze a quote
    • Your analysis should AT LEAST be as long or longer than the length of the quote
      • Ex) 4 lines of quote = 4 or more lines of analysis

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Feminist Criticism/"The Story of an Hour"

Good afternoon everyone! Here is the agenda for today.

AGENDA:

1. I will be collecting the t-charts that you did in class yesterday and finished for homework. These will count as classwork.

2. We will be beginning our discussion of feminist criticism. While we are going through the basics of feminist criticism, please be taking notes so that you have them for when you write your final essay!
          http://prezi.com/lxdkcbmu2rwh/feminist-literary-criticism/

3. You will each be given a copy of "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin. Read it silently to yourself and annotate the story. Focus your annotations on:
  • Which aspects of feminist criticism you can see in the story. If you were writing a feminist critique of Chopin's story, which approach would you take and what evidence from the text supports your analysis.
  • Pay close attention to the end of the story. What do you believe happens at the end of the story? What is your interpretation? What evidence from the text supports your interpretation?
4. After you read the story and annotate it, turn to the person next to you and take 5 minutes to discuss your final interpretations of the story.

5. After 5 minutes, we will pull together for a class discussion about how you were able to view Chopin' story through a feminist lens.

Homework: Make sure you are reading the first section of your novel and completing your LC ready so that you are ready for your first LC meeting on Monday!!

HOW TO WRITE FEMINIST CRITICISM: CHEAT SHEET

Realism .vs. Romanticism

 Characteristics of Romantic Literature:
o   Themes: Highly imaginative and subjective; Emotional intensity; Escapism; Common man as hero; Nature as refuge, source of knowledge and/or spirituality
o   Characters and setting set apart from society; characters were not of our own conscious kind
o   Static characters--no development shown
o   Characterization--work proves the characters are what the narrator has stated or shown
o   Universe is mysterious; irrational; incomprehensible
o   Gaps in causality
o   Formal language
o   Good receive justice; nature can also punish or reward
o   Silences of the text--universals rather than learned truths
o   Plot arranged around crisis moments; plot is important
o   Plot demonstrates: romantic love, honor and integrity, idealism of self
o   Supernatural foreshadowing (dreams, visions)
o   Description provides a "feeling" of the scene
o   Slave narrative: protest; struggle for authors self-realization/identity
o   Domestic (sentimental): social visits; women secondary in their circumstances to men.
o   Female gothic: devilish childhood; family doom; mysterious foundling; tyrannical father.
o   Women's fiction: anti-sentimental heroine begins poor and helpless, heroine succeeds on her own character, husbands less important than father

Characteristics of Realist Literature:
o   Emphasis on psychological, optimistic tone, details, pragmatic, practical, slow-moving plot
o   Rounded, dynamic characters who serve purpose in plot
o   Empirically verifiable
o   World as it is created in novel impinges upon characters. Characters dictate plot; ending usually open.
o   Plot=circumstance
o   Time marches inevitably on; small things build up. Climax is not a crisis, but just one more unimportant fact.
o   Causality built into text (why something happens foreshadowed). Foreshadowing in everyday events.
o   Realists--show us rather than tell us
o   Representative people doing representative things
o   Events make story plausible
o   Insistence on experience of the commonplace
o   Emphasis on morality, usually intrinsic, relativistic between people and society
o   Scenic representation important
o   Humans are in control of their own destiny and are superior to their circumstances

·         

Mark Twain Essay

Good morning, everyone!!

AGENDA:

1. We'll doing a quick review of what we talked about yesterday with realism.
          http://prezi.com/sxdeimd3sn62/american-realism/

2. We will be reading a Mark Twain Essay. Your task for today is to read the essay and highlight, underline, or otherwise mark up the parts of the essay where:

  • Twain lists what Cooper's offenses are
  • Twain says what Cooper should have done instead
Once you have finished this, we will go over it as a class.
          Intro
          Mark Twain's The Literary Offences of Fenimore Cooper
          Who is James Fenimore Cooper?

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

What is American Realism?

Today, we start getting into the meat of our unit.

AGENDA:

1. Spend about 5-10 minutes completing the padlet that we started yesterday.
          http://padlet.com/wall/aoldrg94sa

2. After about 10 minutes, we will go over what you found and put on the padlet.

3. Introduction prezi to American Realism. Please take notes!!!
          http://prezi.com/sxdeimd3sn62/american-realism/

Monday, February 3, 2014

American Realism/Introducing Literature Circles

Good afternoon, everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and, if you watched it, were not too disappointed with the Superbowl. This is the first week of our American Realism unit and today is just going to be a set up of the unit.

AGENDA:

EQ: What are the characteristics of American Realism?
        Why was there a shift from Romanticism to Realism in the second half of the 19th century?

1. We will get into our LC groups and you will get a copy of the your book. For those of you reading The Awakening, Herland, or Huckleberry Finn, you will need to go down to the library and pick up your book.

2. We will go over how the LCs are structured, what you will be doing, and the reading schedules.

3. If there is time left in class, we will begin our introduction into what American Realism is.

http://padlet.com/wall/aoldrg94sa


LITERATURE CIRCLE GROUPS AND PRESENTATION