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Unit two: puritanism: Then and now

What are some of the earliest American attitudes toward independence and freedom? | What is Puritanism? | What impact has Puritanism made on our culture throughout history?

How did the Salem Witch Trials come to be? | How does Arthur Miller use The Crucible to critique the practice we now know as McCarthyism? | What is cancel culture?

TO DO:

(1) If you have not finished Thesis 3 from our worksheet, do so. Begin to think about which of the readings you’re most interested in and how it better helps you understand Of Mice and Men.

CYCLE 1, CLASS 5 AUGUST 20, 23

(1) Today I’ll officially set your first writing assignment of the year, which you’ll write in during our next class. We’ll have time today to review writing skills from last year, like how to write a thesis and topic sentences, and how to incorporate evidence into your body paragraphs. Expect that you’ll write a thesis and two body paragraphs in class next time. While I will not give you the prompt beforehand, you should at this point have a general sense of what it will be about. When responding to the prompt, you will be required to quote from at least 3 but no more than 5 of the readings from the first cycle of our class in addition to Of Mice and Men, so please make sure you have them with you.

TO DO:

(1) In our next class you will write an in-class essay on Of Mice and Men. You may use your book, any handwritten notes you have, and the packet of readings from our first 5 classes. You will need a charged iPad, too. Have this template with MLA formatting ready to go. Make sure you know how to upload to turnitin.com. We'll have practiced in class.

CYCLE 2, CLASS 1 AUGUST 24, 25

In-class essay on Of Mice and Men.

TO DO: Read the packet that I put on your desk during the in-class essay, including an excerpt from William Bradford’s “The Mayflower Compact” and “Of Plymouth Plantation”, in addition to a bit more of John Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity”.

CYCLE 2, CLASS 2 AUGUST 25, 26

(1) We begin our next unit of the year by looking at Karl Shapiro’s wonderful poem, “The Puritan”. Published in a collection in 1944, the poem represents the Puritan patriarch as a dark and twisted figure from history, one who misreads even the landscape as a temptation to do evil. Shapiro does not celebrate Puritanism; instead, he condemns the Puritan as a cold, inhuman creature destined to die in fear. We’ll see this is an incomplete depiction.

(2) Compare and contrast these artistic depictions of Puritan culture:

(3) We’ll dip our toes into a little history at the end of class, using this doc.

TO DO: Read the excerpt from Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. I’d like for each of you to write one discussion question after you finish the reading. A good discussion question often begins with How of Why rather than What or Who. Aim to keep your question as broad and thematic as possible, inviting difference of opinion. We’ll work this year to refine our understanding of what’s a good question and what’s a question merely about plot.

CYCLE 2, CLASS 3 AUGUST 27, 30

(1) Today we’ll spend time discussing the religious beliefs and practices of the Puritans living in Massachusetts Bay Colony.

(2) We’ll learn a little about the Salem witch trials in order to get us ready for reading Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible next week.

TO DO: Bring to our next class your copy of The Crucible. I would also like you to two things with respect to learning about the phenomenon we now know as McCarthyism:

(1) Do 10-minutes of amateur “research” on the web to see what you can learn about Joseph McCarthy and what later came to be called McCarthyism.

(2) Watch the video below:

CYCLE 2, CLASS 4 AUGUST 30, 31

An introduction to McCarthyism and Miller’s The Crucible

TO DO: Read Arthur Miller’s note on the historical accuracy of the play (Page 2). Please also read and annotate the extended stage direction and note from Arthur Miller, beginning on page 3 and ending on the top of page 8. Study for the vocabulary quiz on September 1.

CYCLE 2, CLASS 5 september 1, 2

(1) Vocabulary quiz on the first 25 words from The Crucible.

(2) Today we’ll continue reading Miller’s The Crucible.

TO DO:

(1) Continue reading and annotating The Crucible, picking up from wherever we left off in class and stopping on page 24 after the following stage direction: “The singing has stopped in the midst of this, and now Parris rushes in.”

(2) Your next writing assignment of the year is a short character analysis of any one of the characters we’ve met so far in The Crucible. The assignment will ask you to make a claim about your chosen character in the form of an incisive characterization or definition of his or her motivation at this early point in the play. In preparation for this assignment, I want you to choose a character you like so far that you think would be a great option for this assignment. Think about the following before our next class: What vexes your character? What is his or his emotional state? How rational is he or she? What do we learn about his or her character--good, bad, or in between? And most important, how does his or her language convey those impressions? In other words, come to some insight into his or her character. That insight will eventually be your arguable claim.