unit 1: mccarthy’s The road
meeting 8: the road, pages 161-189; composing paragraphs
Today we’ll begin with your first vocabulary and sentence composition quiz of the year. I’ll set the next quiz immediately after.
I’ve printed out the paragraph we wrote together as a class. Now let’s work through it to study its parts, using a color-coding system that I hope will allow you to visualize the development of the argument.
Finally, we will return to The Road. Here’s our focus for today: What’s different about the novel now that we couldn’t have said was true at the beginning? Does the narrative voice seem more or less optimistic than it did at the beginning? What has changed? Do the father and son have more hope now, or less? What evidence makes you say that? Is the father still in control? In what ways has his role changed? What does the boy understand now that he didn’t understand at the beginning? What does the father understand now that he didn’t understand at the beginning? Has the relationship between the father and son changed? If so, who seems to be changing? What possibilities has the novel opened up that didn’t seem possible at the beginning?
Ryan will finish our discussion with a passage.
Homework:
(1) Read pages 190-221 of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Ben will begin our discussion next class.
meeting 7: the road, pages 131-161; composing paragraphs
Like yesterday, today we’ll begin with Aarav’s question about or passage from the latest reading to begin a discussion of this past section.
After, you’ll continue working on the practice body paragraph you began last class. Remember the skills you’re practicing: maintaining a single idea, developing your claim with evidence and reasoning, and embedding evidence into your own thinking.
Homework:
(1) Prepare for your first vocabulary and sentence composition quiz. You’ll complete it at the beginning of our class on Monday.
(2) Read pages 161-189 of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Ryan will begin our discussion next class.
meeting 6: the road, pages 107-130; composing paragraphs
Today we’ll begin with George’s question about or passage from the latest reading to begin a discussion of this past section.
After, we’ll continue looking at the examples of body paragraphs we began last class. How do you maintain a single idea? How do you develop your point? How do you embed evidence into your own thinking?
Now look at the passage below. Attempt another topic sentence, and begin to develop the argument with a body paragraph like the ones we’ve looked at together.
“They scrabbled through the charred ruins of houses they would not have entered before. A corpse floating in the black water of a basement among the trash and rusting ductwork. He stood in a livingroom partly burned and opened to the sky. The waterbuckled boards sloping away into the yard. Soggy volumes in a bookcase. He took one down and opened and then put it back. Everything damp. Rotting. In a letter he found a candle. No way to light it. He put it into a pocket. He walked out in a gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like groundfoxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.”
Homework:
(1) Read pages 131-161 of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Aarav will begin our discussion next class.
meeting 5: the road, pages 83-106; claim to paragraph
“Those Winter Sundays”
Before we return to a discussion of The Road, I’d like you to practice combining simple sentences into a single compound sentence, using this handout. Remember that your first vocabulary and sentence composition assignment will be at the beginning of next week.
The father tells the boy they are "the good guys" who "carry the fire." What does "carrying the fire" mean? What is the moral code the man and the boy try to maintain?
At the end of class, we’ll look at your topic sentences from last class and begin discussing how to build an argumentative body paragraph from that topic sentence. Here is the handout.
Homework:
(1) Read pages 107-130 of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. George will begin our discussion next class.
meeting 4: the road, pages 59-82; building a claim
At the beginning of class, we’ll take the SJ20 Diagnostic, something all SJ students do once each year. This is not for a grade; it’s only for us to track student progress across your time here.
I asked you to bring to class today a paragraph that has made you stop and think, even briefly. I have one, too, and we’ll start with that one. It starts on page 11 and continues onto 12. Let’s read it, think about it broadly, dive into even more deeply, and develop a claim about it. Recall from last year and from the first day of class this year that a claim starts with an observation and logically develops into an insight.
Here is the handout we’ll use during class.
We’ll finish the week with “Those Winter Sundays.”
Homework:
(1) Read pages 83-106 of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
meeting 3: the road, pages 35-58
First, a quiz.
Next, a passage. The novel’s first truly terrifying moment.
Then, the quiz again.
We’ll finish with “Those Winter Sundays.” I still have my part memorized.
Homework:
(1) Read pages 59-82 of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Go back through the novel, pages 1-82. Mark and have ready for discussion a paragraph that has made you stop and think, even briefly.
(2) Begin finding definitions for your first list of vocabulary words.
meeting 2: the road, pages 3-34
Today we’ll begin with “Those Winter Sundays.” What have you learned about the poem since our last reading?
I asked you to familiarize yourself with the course webpage and the course policies page. What questions do you have? Let me clarify a few of the points on the policies page.
Our main work for today pertains to the beginning of our first novel of the year, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. You’ll need your notebook and your copy of the novel. I’ll have guided notes for you on the board: Who was Cormac McCarthy? What is this novel’s genre? What questions does the book ask? How should you read it? What’s odd about this novel compared to others that you’ve read? What odd about the writing itself?
Let’s turn to the novel. I’ll be recording this part of the class. My goal is for everyone to contribute something.
Last class we differentiated observation and association. What did you observe? What did your brain associate? What details have stayed with you? What do you most clearly remember? Why do you think that is?
We can study the first sentence, the first paragraph, and the first few scenes.
Homework:
(1) Read pages 35-58 of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
meeting 1: welcome
Welcome, boys.
We’ll begin today with an exercise designed to illustrate the difference between observation and interpretation, that which you see and that which your brain associates with what you see. We’ll start with two images:
Let’s try the same exercise with a different medium, words. Around the room you’ll see a series of phrases. Most of those phrases contain concrete nouns. I’ll give you instruction for what I’d like you to do with those concrete nouns. Remind us: What is the difference between concrete and abstract?
Those phrases are not random, you probably will not be surprised to find out. They’re a part of the most anthologized American poem ever, Robert Hayden’s Those Winter Sundays. We’ll read it together now. Then you’ll take it home to memorize a small portion of it.
If we have time at the end, we can try this same exercise with a longer passage from Death Comes for the Archbishop.
Homework:
(1) Familiarize yourself with the course website—this page, the Policies page, and the Writing Center.
(2) Sign up for a time slot to discuss the summer reading.
(3) Memorize your assigned portion of “Those Winter Sundays.”
(4) Read pages 3-34 of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, our first novel of the year. Take your time. Read with a pen in hand if you’d like. Keep any annotations simple for now: Who do we meet? Where are they? What’s going on? Are you interested? In what?
If for some reason your book has not yet arrived, you may just this once print and read this PDF of the first pages. Semper paratus, boys.
due dates
CURRENT TEXT TO HAVE DAILY
vocabulary and sentence composition
american poems we’ll memorize
what we’re reading this year
