Begin listening to this TED Talk at 11:45.
More by Brene Brown: The Power of Vulnerability
Shame serves as a major theme in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Shame rears its head in many ways; note the various usages in Kesey's novel:
1.
“But not, you know, crazy like the movies paint crazy people. You’re just hung up and—kind
of—”
“Kind of rabbit-like, isn’t that it?”
“Rabbits, hell! Not a thing like rabbits, goddammit.”
“Mr. Bibbit, hop around for Mr. McMurphy here. Mr. Cheswick, show him how furry, you are.”
Billy Bibbit and Cheswick change into hunched-over white rabbits, right before my eyes, but they are too ashamed to do any of the things Harding told them to do.
“Ah, they’re bashful, McMurphy. Isn’t that sweet? Or, perhaps, the fellows are ill at ease because they didn’t stick up for their friend. Perhaps they are feeling guilty for the way they once again let her victimize them into being her interrogators. Cheer up, friends, you’ve no reason to feel ashamed. It is all as it should be. It’s not the rabbit’s place to stick up for his fellow. That would have been foolish. No, you were wise, cowardly but wise.”
2.
Harding turns a page of his magazine. “And that will make nearly a week our friend McMurphy has been with us without succeeding in throwing over the government, is that what you’re saying, Cheswickle? Lord, to think of the chasm of apathy in which we have fallen—a shame, a pitiful shame.”
“The hell with that,” McMurphy says. “What Cheswick means is that the first Series game is
gonna be played on TV tomorrow, and what are we gonna be doin’? Mopping up this damned
nursery again.”
3.
As he stares down at the floor, Fredrickson’s blond eyebrows are raised like he’s seeing for the first time just how he looks at least once a month. The nurse smiles and pats his arm and heads for
the door, glares at the Acutes to shame them for gathering around watching such a thing; when she’s gone, Fredrickson shivers and tries to smile. “I don’t know what I got mad at the old girl about—I mean, she didn’t do anything to give me a reason to blow up like that, did she?”
It isn’t like he wants an answer; it’s more sort of realizing that he can’t put his finger on a reason. He shivers again and starts to slip back away from the group. McMurphy comes up and asks him in a low voice what is it they take?
“Dilantin, McMurphy, an anti-convulsant, if you must know.”
“Don’t it work or something?”
“Yeah, I guess it works all right—if you take it.”
“Then what’s the sweat about taking it or not?”
4.
What he said makes me madder the more I think about it. He and John go ahead talking about our house and village and property and what they are worth, and I get the notion they’re talking about these things around me because they don’t know I speak English. They are probably from the East someplace, where people don’t know anything about Indians but what they see in the movies. I think how ashamed they’re going to be when they find out I know what they are saying. I let them say another thing or two about the heat and the house; then I stand up and tell the fat man, in my very best schoolbook language, that our sod house is likely to be cooler than any one of the houses in town, lots cooler! “I know for a fact that it’s cooler’n that school I go to and even cooler’n that movie house in The Dalles that advertises on that sign drawn with icicle letters that it’s ‘cool inside’!”
5.
McMurphy explained how the other girl was supposed to get all those papers up in Portland. One of the guys leaning against the bait shop called, “What other girl? Couldn’t Blondie there handle the lot of you?” McMurphy didn’t pay the guy any mind and went on arguing with the captain, but you could see how it bothered the girl. Those men against the shop kept leering at her and leaning close together to whisper things. All our crew, even the doctor, saw this and got to feeling ashamed that we didn’t do something. We weren’t the cocky bunch that was back at the service station. McMurphy stopped arguing when he saw he wasn’t getting any place with the captain, and turned around a couple of times, running his hand through his hair.
“Which boat have we got rented?”
“That’s it there. The Lark. Not a man sets foot on her till I have a signed waiver clearing me. Not a man.”
“I don’t intend to rent a boat so we can sit all day and watch it bob up and down at the dock,” McMurphy said. “Don’t you have a phone up there in your bait shack? Let’s go get this cleared up.”
6.
“Hey, Blondie, did you get ‘am to sign a waiver clearing you with proper authorities? Relatives could sue, they tell me, if one of the boys fell in and drown while he was on board. Did you ever think of that? Maybe you’d better stay here with us, Blondie.”
“Yeah, Blondie; my relatives wouldn’t sue. I promise. Stay here with us fellows, Blondie.”
I imagined I could feel my feet getting wet as the dock sank with shame into the bay. We weren’t fit to be out here with people. I wished McMurphy would come back out and cuss these guys good and then drive us back where we belonged. The man with the kidney lips folded his knife and stood up and brushed the whittle shavings outof his lap. He started walking toward the steps.
“C’mon now, Blondie, what you want to mess with these bozos for?”
7.
“I can’t speak for them,” Harding said. “They’ve still got their problems, just like all of us. They’re still sick men in lots of ways. But at least there’s that: they are sick men now. No more rabbits, Mack. Maybe they can be well men someday. I can’t say.”
McMurphy thought this over, looking at the backs of his hands. He looked back up to Harding.
“Harding, what is it? What happens?”
“You mean all this?”
McMurphy nodded.
Harding shook his head. “I don’t think I can give you an answer. Oh, I could give you Freudian reasons with fancy talk, and that would be right as far as it went. But what you want are the reasons for the reasons, and I’m not able to give you those. Not for the others, anyway. For myself? Guilt. Shame. Fear. Self-belittlement. I discovered at an early age that I was—shall we be kind and say different? It’s a better, more general word than the other one. I indulged in certain practices that our society regards as shameful. And I got sick. It wasn’t the practices, I don’t think, it was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me—and the great voice of millions chanting, ‘Shame. Shame. Shame.’ It’s society’s way of dealing with someone different.”
“I’m different,” McMurphy said. “Why didn’t something like that happen to me? I’ve had people bugging me about one thing or another as far back as I can remember but that’s not what—but it didn’t drive me crazy.”
“No, you’re right. That’s not what drove you crazy. I wasn’t giving my reason as the sole reason.
Though I used to think at [258] one time, a few years ago, my turtleneck years, that society’s
chastising was the sole force that drove one along the road to crazy, but you’ve caused me to reappraise my theory. There’s something else that drives people, strong people like you, my friend,
down that road.”
8.
“Oh, yeah, just like that. Just ask ‘em to unlock the door and let me out.”
“No. He showed you how one time, if you think back. That very first week. You remember?”
I didn’t answer him, and be didn’t say anything else, and it was quiet in the dorm again. I lay there a few minutes longer and then got up and started putting on my clothes. When I finished dressing I reached into McMurphy’s nightstand and got his cap and tried it on. It was too small, and I was suddenly ashamed of trying to wear it. I dropped it on Scanlon’s bed as I walked out of the dorm.
He said, “Take it easy, buddy,” as I walked out.
The moon straining through the screen of the tub-room windows showed the hunched, heavy shape of the control panel, glinted off the chrome fixtures and glass gauges so cold I could almost hear the click of it striking. I took a deep breath and bent over and took the levers. I heaved my legs under me and felt the grind of weight at my feet. I heaved again and heard the wires and connections tearing out of the floor. I lurched it up to my knees and was able, to get an arm around it and my other hand under it. The chrome was cold against my neck and the side of my head. I put my back toward the screen, then spun and let the momentum carry the panel through the Screen and window with a ripping crash. The glass splashed out in the moon, like a bright cold water baptizing the sleeping [272] earth. Panting, I thought for a second about going back and getting Scanlon and some of the others, but then I heard the running squeak of the black boys’ shoes in the hall and I put my hand on the sill and vaulted after the panel, into the moonlight.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Saturday, October 11, 2014
What is Poetry Out Loud?
PoetryOutLoud.org
Tentative date for EA competition:
Wednesday, November 12th or Thursday, November 13th for the final school competition.
*A second poem must be memorized for the EA competition.
States hold their competitions by mid-March.
Following the state finals, the National Finals will be held in Washington, DC, April 27-29, 2015.
Lesson Plans: "The Tone Map" "Poems Put to Use"
Listen to Poems
Find Poems & Poets
What will you remember from high school?
Garrison Keillor answers this question - cue to 5:07
Read this post on Shakespeare's Sonnet XVIII: "Shall I Compare Thee to Summer's Day?"
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Parent Night
Click: Mr. O'Brien's Journey to EA
Click for Courses on Canvas:
These can be found on EA's website too.
Teaching citation and learning about the perils of plagiarism.
Recommended reading/viewing:
1. Daniel Pink, Drive
The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Click here for full TED Talk by Daniel Pink
Plus Daniel Pink shares, perhaps, the best advice I've heard in a commencement speech at his alma mater Northwestern University.
2. Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
From Brainpickings post:
Fixed vs. Growth:
The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives
by Maria Popova
3. Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking
Click here for full TED Talk by Susan Cain
Bonus: Curated content that I share with my Advisory group.
Lastly, a poem that will make you smile.
The Lanyard
by Billy Collins
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that's what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
or wear one, if that's what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I , in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
and I , in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
So What Did You Do This Summer?
Besides priceless family time and travel, I made the most of my summer with the following:
- VAST at PMA: Visual Arts as Sources for Teaching, July 7-11
- "Looking Closely, Thinking Critically"
- Resources
- Art as Text blog
- Project Zero at Harvard GSE
- Teacher Appreciation Day
- Longwood Gardens
Last day @philamuseum VAST: Visual Arts as Sources for Teaching http://t.co/XbNT4D77ax One activity: spent 2 hours w/ pic.twitter.com/cJifhH1Pvq
— Kevin James O'Brien (@KOB14) July 11, 2014
Teaching For Creativity Institute: "Artful Thinking" - Shari Tishman @ProjectZeroHGSE http://t.co/Z08wDlu6y8 pic.twitter.com/OzvdXurnGJ
— Kevin James O'Brien (@KOB14) July 8, 2014
- Keynote note speakers - unexpected Twitter shout out.
- Diana Hacker - more to come!
- Heaney lecture - 9/11 poem - his obit from The Guardian
- Novel as News, Poetry as Proof: Using Literary Sources as Evidence
- "Is Education the Civil Rights Issue of Our Time?"
- Conversations in American Literature
@CB_Forums David Coleman's s/o @BeschlossDC twitter: priceless #AP_Conf #preachingtothechoir https://t.co/stzUdTJtFu pic.twitter.com/XYv6J8ghmS
— Kevin James O'Brien (@KOB14) July 11, 2014
Why Poetry Matters - Blog
4. Global Online Academy Professional Development Courses
- OLE 1: INTRODUCTION TO BLENDED LEARNING
- final assignment: Selling Poetry
- OLE 2: CREATING & CURATING CONTENT
- - final assignment: Who was Pocahontas?
- OLE 3: DESIGNING AN EFFECTIVE BLENDED LEARNING EXPERIENCE
- Final Assignment:
- CMC (template)
- Harlem Renaissance Project
- Canvas
Recommend:
Drive, Daniel Pink
Promised Land; Thirteen Books that Changed America - Jay Parini
Consider a blog for your class - and your writing...
- Why do we do what we do?
- "Sometimes we have to write to figure it out."
- Thinking out loud - modeling public learning/writing.
Twitter - Just Listen
Thursday, August 14, 2014
To set the stage for the year: First Week
Ø Introductions: Who are you? What’s your story?
At the end of the year, you will write a college essay.
In the meantime, you will write to find your "voice"
Ø An example in self-guided learning: “Who was Pocahontas?”
You will create your own mini-lessons on individuals in American Literature.
You will create your own mini-lessons on individuals in American Literature.
Set up digital platforms:
Ø Google Suite including G+, Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Moderator, Hangout
Ø Flipboard - will allow you to create and edit magazines of your writing
Ø New Twitter Handle (professional or pseudonym),
Ø MOOC: Enroll in ModPo @Coursera (optional participation)
Flipgrid - will allow you share comments by recording videos.
Ø MOOC: Enroll in ModPo @Coursera (optional participation)
Flipgrid - will allow you share comments by recording videos.
Class Discussions:
Online Conversation: “Is Education the Civil Rights Issue of Our Time?”
American Literature: A Collaborative Journey into the 21st Century
The following is a working syllabus for a new course that I am teaching this year.
I am still tinkering with how to use Canvas, but I am excited about the possibilities.
Here's the course vision for now....
American Literature
A Collaborative
Journey into the 21st Century
Form V:
2014-2015
Mr.
O’Brien
Welcome!
Having
taught this course for ten years, I’ve always struggled with what content to
include (and wrestled with whom to cut). American Literature courses typically
cover a chronological sampling – the tip of the iceberg - without any
appreciation to the depth and scope of American writers that exist below the
syllabus surface.
It
is the diversity of American voices that makes this literature great (and
there’s danger to a single story). So why limit our experience to a dozen
writers over the next nine months?
I
invite you to an engaging approach to American Literature where you will take
ownership of your learning through research and presentations that you share
with your classmates via conversations and blog posts. Rather than a map, you
will be given a compass; like cartographers you will explore the American
landscape of past and present; then, record and present your findings.
Together, we will create this course.
Since
technology and the Internet offer new possibilities, we can rethink the
traditional classroom experience and transform your learning, by mirroring
courses that you will take in college and beyond. Your future requires 21st
century skills. Perhaps, the greatest pitfall to your education (and career)
may be plagiarism; you will learn how to site sources in a digital world.
Collectively, our success in this course will be dependent on each student’s
contribution.
With
greater student autonomy, I hope to foster intellectual curiosity and deeper
connections as students curate content in a collaborative learning environment.
I want us to change the game that we call education – as we learn how to learn
in the 21st century.
I
look forward to our journey together!
You will research and
present from FIVE general periods:
1)
New World - Early America
2)
Pre-Civil War
3)
Civil War and the Aftermath
4)
The Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance
5)
20th Century American Poets & (Short Story) Writers
(two presentations)
You
will also participate in a number of “Conversations” that will require you to
research and read an array of material curated in Bedford St. Martin’s Conversations in American Literature
(Aufses, Shea, Scanlon, Aufses).
Methodology, Mindset,
Motivation:
Ø
Student Autonomy
Ø
Intellectual Curiosity
Ø
Agility of Mind
Ø
Mastery of Curated Content
Ø
Purpose: Collaborative Learning
Ø
Deeper Connections (Breadth and Depth)
Topics: American archetypes,
myths, stereotypes, challenges
Themes: Rebellion, Rights,
Religion, Race, Roles
Big questions: What is American
Literature? What challenges does America face?
Old School meets 21st
Century: Paper and Pixels
Balance
between common experience of major works with research projects where you will work
independently as well as collaboratively.
You will write daily in
this course, by hand as well as digitally.
You
will keep a traditional Journal,
emphasizing penmanship and visual note-taking.
For
the most part, your journal is for your eyes only, so you may think in writing,
but for some assignments, you will be asked to share (you’ll be given notice).
"Sometimes
you have to write to figure it out."
These 9 words from Northwestern University Professor Charlie Yarnoff to
Daniel Pink in "Writing the Essay" changed his life.
Meanwhile,
on your blog, you will post your
presentations, essays, images, and other content. Through sharing your writing
with classmates (and potentially the world), you will write for a greater
audience than my eyes. By leveraging positive peer pressure, I believe that you
will publish writing that gives you a true sense of purpose: to persuade (and
impress) your classmates. With this motivation, your writing will improve as
you find your voice, receive feedback, and work towards mastery.
In
addition to frequent writing assignments, there will be regular reading and
vocabulary quizzes plus journal checks.
You
will create your own tests for each unit and presentation period.
You
will post quotes and questions to Canvas/Google Moderator.
You
will meet in Google Hangouts (Air – recorded) for presentations.
Your
willingness to give and receive feedback is vital to learning in this course.
Be
mindful. Be respectful.
To set the stage for the
year:
Ø Introductions: Who are
you? What’s your story?
Ø
An example in self-guided learning: “Who was Pocahontas?”
Ø Read aloud “The First
Day” by Edward Jones
Set up digital platforms:
Ø Canvas – Learning
Management System (LMS)
Ø
Google Suite including Gmail, Moderator,
Ø
Google+, and you own Google Blog.
Ø
New Twitter Handle (professional or pseudonym)
Ø MOOC: Enroll in ModPo
@Coursera (optional participation)
Class
Discussions:
Daniel Pink’s Drive
“Let Teenagers Try Adulthood” by Leon Botstein
Online
Conversation: “Education: The Civil Rights Issue of Our Time?”
“The Problem We All Live With” by Norman Rockwell (painting)
I. The
New World: Early America
1st
Presentation (September): Who was…? What was…? What were…?
You will become the resident expert:
Master your content.
Typical routine: Day 1 - Preview on
blogs,
Next day - Group presentations
and feedback,
3rd day - Discussions and
study guides, Day 4 - Test
Random lottery pick – research one of the
following:
Present on your blog – you may trade once. (no
duplicates in the other section)
1. Native
American Stories
2. Iroquois
Confederacy
3. Alvar
Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
4.
Pilgrims
Progress
5. Witchcraft
in Salem, MA
6. Richard
Frethorne
7. Anne
Bradstreet
8. Edward
Taylor
9. Mary
Rowlandson
10. Cotton
Mather
11. John
Hale
12. John
Winthrop
13. Jonathan
Edwards
14. Christopher
Columbus
15. Patrick
Henry
16. Thomas
Paine
17. Thomas
Jefferson
18. George
Washington
19. Hector
St. John de Crevecoeur
20.
The
Federalist Papers
21. Francis
Scott Key
22. William
Cullen Bryant
23. Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow
24. James Fenimore Coope
Lecture: Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography and Poor Richard’s Almanac
How do we create a personal narrative (and
self-improvement plans)?
Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People
Lecture: The American
short story: How has it changed and why?
Class
Discussions:
Washington Irving’s “The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle”
(On going question into the
spring)
Edgar Allen Poe’s “Single Effect”
Pick a Poe Short Story – In Class Write
Herman Melville,
“Bartleby, The Scrivener”
Hillis Miller, “A Deconstructive Reading
Melville’s ‘Bartleby, The Scrivener’”
What is role of art as text in American Literature?
What is role of poetry in American Culture?
Inspired Larry
Rivers
II.
Pre-Civil War: 2nd Presentation (October):
Transcendentalists,
Abolitionists, Native Americans, & Slave Narratives
Pick One:
(no duplicates in the other section)
1. Margaret
Fuller
2. John
Greenleaf Whittier
3. Sojourner
Truth
4. Frederic
Douglas “What, to the Slave, Is the Fourth of July?”
6. Harriet Jacobs
7. John
Hall, “The Indian Hater”
8. Catherine
Maria Sedgwick, “Cacoethes Scribendi”
9. Augustus
Baldwin Longstreet, “The Dance”
10. Lydia
Maria Child, “Slavery’s Pleasant Homes”
11. Elizabeth
Stuart Phelps, “The Angel over the Right Shoulder”
12. Harriet
Prescott Spofford, “Circumstance”
13. Chief
Seattle
14. Red
Cloud
15. Alexis
de Tocqueville
16. Elizabeth Peabody
17. Louisa May Alcott
18. John Muir
19. Thomas
Bangs Thorpe, “The Big Bear of Arkansas”
20. Your
choice – teacher’s approval required
Nathaniel Hawthorne:
Short story “Young Goodman Brown”
“The Prison Door” and “The Market
Place” from The Scarlet Letter (First
two chapters)
Conversation: Religious Tolerance in
America
Lecture: Emerson and Thoreau
Class Discussions:
What
is the legacy of the Transcendentalists?
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”
Read/Research: “American Scholar” “Nature” “The Poet”
Conversation: Henry David Thoreau’s Legacy
Lecture: Race in America
from Phillis Wheatley to Ferguson, MO
How does race define America? What defines you?
Conversation: Phillis Wheatley’s Legacy
Conversation: John Brown
III. Civil War and Aftermath:
Major Work: Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(October-November)
Context on Huck and
Biography on Mark Twian (Video)
Class
Discussions:
Whitman and Dickinson (visit Coursera’s
ModPo)
Select a favorite poem of each – post to your blog.
Whitman - read sections 1, 2,
3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 14, 47 & 52 of "Song of Myself"
Dickinson - “I dwell in Possibility” “Tell all the Truth but
tell it slant”
and “The Brain within its Groove”
We will share these daily while reading Huck
Thomas Nast’s “Worse than Slavery” (Political
cartoon)
Conversation: Abraham Lincoln
3rd
Presentation (November): Civil War and Aftermath
Pick one:
(no duplicates in the other section)
1. Kate Chopin “The Story of An Hour”
2.
Bret Harte, “The Luck of Roaring Camp”
3. Sarah
Orne Jewett “White Heron”
4. Mary
Wilkins Freeman, “The Revolt of ‘Mother’”
5. Stephen
Crane “The Open Boat” or “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky”
6. Andrew
Carnegie from Gospel of Wealth
7. Jacob
Riis “The Mixed Crowd”
8.
Jane Addams from The Subtle Problem of Charity
9. Upton
Sinclair from The Jungle
10. Katharine
Lee Bates
11. Ambrose
Bierce “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
12.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett from Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its
Phases
13. Booker
T. Washington
14. Paul
Laurence Dunbar
15. W.E.B.
DuBois
16. James
Weldon Johnson
17. Charles
S. Johnson
18. Alain
Locke
19. E.A.
Robinson
20. Theodore
Roosevelt “The Strenuous Life”
21.
Zitkala-Sa from The School Days of an Indian Girl or “The Trial Path”
22.
Charles W. Chestnut, “The Wife of His
Youth”
23.
George Washington Cable, “Belles
Demoiselles Plantation”
24.
Constance Fenimore Woolson, “Rodman the
Keeper”
25.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow
Wallpaper”
26.
Alison Dunbar-Nelson, “Tony’s Wife”
IV. The
Jazz Age (Roaring Twenties) & Harlem Renaissance
(December – February)
Guest Lecture by Jazz teacher Ryan Dankanich
Class Discussions:
What
was the Harlem Renaissance? Why Harlem? Why 1919-1939?
What
is the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance?
What
role did Jazz/Art/Literature play in the Harlem Renaissance?
Jazz
Recommended listening
Poetry:
Claude
McKay,“If We Must Die” (1919)
Langston
Hughes, “Jazzonia” (1923) “Harlem” (1951)
Art:
William H. Johnson, Jitterbugs
Stuart Davis, Swing
Landscape
Writing
:
Ralph
Ellison, excerpt from Invisible Man
Robert O’Malley, excerpt Seeing Jazz
Gerald Early, excerpt Jazz and the African American Literary Tradition
4th
Harlem Renaissance Presentations (February):
Biography List From Wikipedia:
Recommend selecting a name
in BOLD
(Italics = will be covered in class or other unit)
Dancers
Leading intellectuals
· L.S. Alexander Gumby,
Archivist and salon host
Literature
Authors
Poets[
Drama
·
Joseph Seamon
Cotter, Jr., author of the play, On the Fields of France.
·
Charles Gilpin,
actor
·
Angelina Weld Grimke,
author of the drama, Rachel
·
Langston Hughes, Mulatto, produced on Broadway. Hughes also helped to found
the Harlem Suitcase
Theater
·
Georgia Douglas Johnson,
author of the play, Plumes, A Tragedy.
·
Richard Bruce Nugent,
author of the play, Sahdji, an African Ballet
·
Paul Robeson, actor
·
Eulalie Spence,
author of the play, Undertow
·
Krigwa Players,
popular Harlem theatre group.
·
Thomas Montgomery
Gregory, supporter of Negro Theatre Movement.
Novels
·
Jessie Redmon Fauset — There
is Confusion (1924), Plum Bun(1928), The Chinaberry
Tree (1931), Comedy, American Style(1933)
·
Rudolph Fisher — The
Walls of Jericho (1928), The Conjure-Man Dies (1932)
·
George Schuyler — Black No More (1931), Slaves
Today (1931)
·
Wallace Thurman — The Blacker the Berry (1929), Infants
of the Spring (1932), Interne (1932)
·
Jean Toomer — Cane (1923)
·
Carl Van Vechten — Nigger Heaven (1926)
·
Walter White — The
Fire in the Flint (1924), Flight (1926)
Short story collections
·
Eric Walrond — Tropic
Death (1926)
Musicians and composers
Visual artists
· Leslie Bolling, Wood carvings
· William H.
Johnson, Painter
· Norman Lewis,
Artist
Major Work: Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
Read (mostly) in class (December)
FSF Biography Winter Dreams
(Video)
Major Work: Hurston’s Eyes Were Watching God
(January - February)
Conversation: Changing Roles of Women
V. 20th Century American Poets and (Short Story) Writers:
5th & 6th Presentations: Short Stories (March)
and Poetry (April)
Select
one of each – no duplicates in the two sections.
Blog posts for both poet and writer.
American (Short Story) Writers:
Inspired by Anne Charters, The American Short Story and Its Writer
1. O.
Henry
2. Willa
Cather
3. Edith
Wharton
4. Jack
London
5. Sui San
Far
6. Sherwood
Anderson
7. Theodore
Dreiser
8. Katherine
Anne Porter
9. Dorothy
Parker
10. William
Faulkner
11. John
Steinbeck
12. Pearl
S. Buck
13. James
Thurber
14. John
Cheever
15. Shirley
Jackson
16. Tillie
Olsen
17. Philip
Roth
18. Flannery
O’Connor
19. Eudora
Welty
20. James
Baldwin
21. John
Barth
22. Joyce
Carol Oates
23. Grace
Paley
24. Raymond
Carver
25. Leslie
Marmon Silko
26. Bobbie
Ann Mason
27. Ursula
K. LeGuin
28. John
Edgar Wideman
29. Sherman
Alexie
30. Annie
Proulx
31. Edwidge
Danticat
32. Helena
Maria Viramontes
33. Lan
Samantha Chang
34. Kurt
Vonnegut
1. Lorine
Niedecker
2. Cid
Corman
3. Rae
Armantrout
4.
H.D.
5.
Ezra Pound
6.
Wallace Stevens
7. Gertrude Stein
8. Elsa von
Freytag Loringhoven
9. Tristan
Tzara
10.
Genevieve Taggard
11.
William Carlos
Williams
12.
Richard Wilbur
13.
Gwendolyn Brooks
14.
Amiri Baraka
15.
Allen Ginsberg
16.
Jack Kerouac
17.
Anne Waldman
18.
Bill Berkson
19.
John Ashbery
20.
Kenneth Koch
21.
Barbara Guest
22.
Frank O'Hara
23. Ted
Berrigan
24. Bernadette
Mayer
25. Bob
Perelman
Ernest Hemingway:
“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”
“Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”
“Soldier's Home”
Biography (Video)
Robert Frost:
“Mending Wall”
Select a favorite Frost
poem
Post to blog
Tim O'Brien and Phil Klay: America and War
Focus: “On the Rainy River” from The Things They Carried
Phil Klay: Redeployment
College Essay: Who are you? What’s your story?
Final
Presentations: Post to your blogs (May)
Pick
a Conversation below to present with a partner:
Ø Immigration: The Lure of America
Ø The American Cowboy
Ø
Japanese Internment and Reparations: Making It Right?
Ø
The Atomic Age
Ø
The American Middle Class
Ø
America’s Romance with the Automobile
Ø
Create a Conversation – teacher approval required
Final Conversation: What is American Literature?
Parini’s Thirteen
Books that Changed America
Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco – the Camden Chapter
from Days
of Destruction Days of Revolt
Final
Lecture: America: Decline & Fall or Renewal & Reinvention?
What challenges does America face?
How will America face (and embrace) these challenges?
How will American Literature make a difference?
What is the future for America(n Literature)?
Last Week: Exam Review
Connections
between Major Works
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