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Thursday, September 3 (4) - Macbeth, Act 5; Remember there will be an AP-style, open-ended, in-class essay on the first two parts of C&P on Monday. The question often asks you to take an idea -- death, revenge, cruelty, love, memory -- and to write an essay on how that idea informs another thematic element in the work as a whole. Here are the prompts. You will have one of the three assigned to you at the beginning of class on Tuesday.
You may bring your book and any handwritten notes you have. You will need a charged iPad, too. Have this (revised) Pages template with MLA formatting ready. Make sure you know how to send a Pages doc to PDF to Google Drive and then to turnitin.
Tuesday, September 8 (6) - Crime and Punishment, Parts 1-2 In-class essay; Tonight, you are to read "PLOT" in your Literature anthology (bottom of page 13 to the top of 15). Begin a running list of terms in your notes (the most important ones in this section are protagonist/antagonist, exposition, suspense, and flashback). Also, read carefully this style primer. Familiarize yourself especially with the difference between word choice and diction, syntax, the effects of figures of speech, tone, and irony. This is extremely important; you'll be asked to use these terms appropriately in your writing from here on in.
Plot is the intelligent, sophisticated, artful arrangement of events in a story -- that's ALL of the events, both included and excluded. (1) Work your way through the novel so far and identify the sequence of events in a very brief way. What elements do you see, and in what order? Identify moments of exposition, conflict, suspense, crisis, resolution, flashback. In other words, how is the story told? (2) Think about what events Dostoevsky finds the need to include and what events he excludes, if any. Why does he choose to include some and exclude others? Or maybe it's more pertinent to ask why the narrator of Crime and Punishment pores over the minutiae of every single, daily event? On what types of events does the narrator spend the most time / place the most VALUE? (3) Now think a bit more about the ordering of those events and the effect CHRONOLOGY has on your understanding of the novel.
Wednesday, September 9 (1) - Crime and Punishment, openings and elements of plot; Tonight, with your style primer nearby, think about and respond to the following questions in your notes: (1) Find one instance where Dostoevsky's choice of words is unusual in some way. How does that choice of words provide insight? (2) Does Dostoevsky tend toward long or short -- even fragmented -- sentences? (3) How would you characterize his voice in, say, the first paragraph of Part 2, chapter I? Is it formal or casual? Distant or intimate? Impassioned or restrained? (4) Is there anything ironic about the narrator's voice at any point in the novel thus far?
Don't forget about your EC OPPORTUNITY! Carry on with your Crime and Punishment reading. Part 3 is due next Thursday, September 17 (197-278). Next Wednesday you'll have your first vocabulary quiz of the year, so be sure you have a copy of the vocabulary book and Sentence Composing for College by Monday (at the latest). By Wednesday, read pages 50-53 in the Killgallon, Sentence Composing for College book. Be familiar with the characteristics of absolute phrases. Then, complete Practice 3, numbers 3-5 AND Practice 8, numbers 1-4. These must be hand-written on loose-leaf paper, ready to be handed in at the end of your vocabulary quiz.
Thursday, September 10 (2) - Crime and Punishment, elements of style
Notes from 09/10/15
Friday, September 11 (3) - Crime and Punishment; Over the weekend, I'd like you to read the beginning of Chapter 3, "Character," in your Literature anthology (pages 77 to the top of 79) AND this selection from James Wood's How Fiction Works (Remember Macbeth??).
Monday, September 14 (4) - Set Prose analysis #1; Crime and Punishment and Character (Raskolnikov imagined); Tonight read this MIT assignment.
Tuesday, September 15 (5) - Crime and Punishment and Character (Prose analysis, page 74); Remember that by tomorrow you're to read pages 50-53 in the Killgallon, Sentence Composing for College book. Be familiar with the characteristics of absolute phrases. Then, complete Practice 3, numbers 3-5 AND Practice 8, numbers 1-4. These must be hand-written on loose-leaf paper, ready to be handed in at the end of your vocabulary quiz.
Wednesday, September 16 (6) - Vocabulary Quiz, units 1-2; Killgallon
“[Russian novelist] Nikolai Gogol... saw Petersburg as a virtual kingdom of the dead, ‘where everything is wet, smooth, even, pale, gray, and foggy.’ For Gogol, Petersburg was a bacchanalia of demonic forces hostile to humans, where the soil was always shifting, threatening to suck up the majestic edifices, the soulless government offices, and the multitudes of petty clerks within them... The Petersburg mythos... ‘reflects the quintessence of life on the edge, over the abyss, on the brink of death.’”
Thursday, September 17 (1) - Crime and Punishment; By tomorrow, read Chapter 4, "Setting," in your Literature anthology (page 107 to the top of 110).
Friday, September 18 (2) - Crime and Punishment and Setting; Over the weekend, read the beginning of Chapter 2, "Point of View," in your Literature anthology (pages 25 to the top of 29). Also, read the circled sections of this chapter -- "Narrating" -- from James Wood's How Fiction Works.
Monday, September 21 (3) - Crime and Punishment, Point of view and narratorial modes
Tuesday, September 22 (4) - Crime and Punishment, Part Two, chapters 1-3
Wednesday, September 23 (5) - Crime and Punishment, Part Two chapters 4-5; Tonight, read Focus 7 (Appositive Phrase) in your Killgallon text, pages 65-67. What are the characteristics of appositive phrases? How does the focus of a sentence change when you place the appositive phrase at the beginning, between the subject and verb, or as a closer? Then, complete Practice 3, numbers 3-5 AND Practice 8, numbers 1-4. Again, they are to be hand-written on loose-leaf paper. This time, completion of the exercises will be for extra credit. You're welcome.
Thursday, September 24 (6) - Vocabulary Quiz, units 1-4; Killgallon
Friday, September 25 (1) - Crime and Punishment, Part Two, chapters 6-7; On Tuesday, October 6, there will be an in-class prose analysis. Details to come next week. Over the weekend, read / re-read Part 3, chapters 1-3 (pages 197-235). Misters Bradley and Callaghan should come prepared to begin class with one discussion question each.
Monday, September 28 (2) - Crime and Punishment, Part Three, chapters 1-3; Tonight, read Part Three, chapter 4 (pages 236-248). Additionally, finish moving through Part Three, chapter 3 systematically, cataloging Raskolnikov's reactions to the actions and speeches of the other characters, as well as any emotions associated with those reactions. What's the vital action of the chapter? This should be handwritten and will be turned in tomorrow for a quiz grade. It can take any form you'd like, though you might consider setting up your document like we did in class. At the end, write a short paragraph about what the exercise helped you discover about Raskolnikov. Do you see any connections to other moments in the novel? How has he changed?
Tuesday, September 29 (3) - Crime and Punishment, Part Three, chapters 3-4; Tonight, read Part Three, chapters 5-6 (pages 248-278). Mr Clark will begin class with a discussion starter -- either by posing a question or walking us through an idea of his own -- on chapter 5. Mr Kennedy will do the same for chapter 6.
To students of literature like us, explication is nothing more than spelling out all of the implications of a text. An explication is a critical piece that offers a detailed interpretation of a passage of prose, showing how the details of the text and elements of style -- diction, tone, figures of speech, allusion, imagery, word choice, syntax -- relate to the central themes of the novel. In other words, an explication looks closely at a specific scene or moment in order to make an argument about how a specific “part” of the story contributes and relates to the “whole."
Turn to page 246 of Crime and Punishment. That's Part Three, chapter 4. Read the paragraph at the bottom, beginning with "I'll have to sing Lazarus for him, too..." and ending with "that's not good! . . ." Which of the novel's themes does the paragraph conjure? Start there. Then move sentence by sentence, defining devices and techniques, making clear what they do to enrich theme.
Write out each sentence in the paragraph. That's handwrite out each sentence. Then underneath it identify device and technique in a list. Then in a sentence or two explain in detail and with specificity what that sentence reveals ABOUT the passage's theme—that is what device and technique do to enrich that theme, to suggest nuance about it. Due Thursday.
Wednesday, September 30 (4) - Crime and Punishment, Part Three, chapters 5-6; By Monday, be read through Chapter 4 of Part 4 (page 331). Expect an annotation check on Monday.
Tanner: "We've been writing [Raskolnikov] off like he is not capable of true human relationships and never has been, but in seeing his true emotions and soft side flash up in his interaction with his mother and sister and in his sentimental recalling of his first love, I believe there is more to Raskolnikov."
Bradley: "This exercise helped me to see the impulsiveness and randomness of Raskolnikov's actions... he is not mentally present... His subconscious takes over, especially at the moment of the knife."
Gardner: "[T] he act itself, not the consequences of being caught, causes him the most guilt and anxiety."
Nylund: "We see in this chapter that while Raskolnikov can appear to function like a normal person to a limited degree, he still retains the scars of his actions, evident in his false, alienated smile and his not-so-subtle references to the murders. He has gone, for better or worse, from incapacitated by guilt and shock to almost emboldened by it."
Thursday, October 1 (5) - Anatomy of a prose analysis
Friday, October 2 (6) - Sample A, Sample B, Sample C
Monday, October 5 (1) - Crime and Punishment, Part Four, chapters 1-4
Tuesday, October 6 (2) - In-class prose analysis
Wednesday, October 7 (3) - Crime and Punishment, Part Four, chapters 5-6
Thursday, October 8 (4) - Crime and Punishment, Part Five, chapters 1-2
Friday, October 9 (5) - Crime and Punishment, Part Five, chapter 3; Over the weekend, read through Part Six, chapter 1 (page 448).
School of Life: Losers and Tragic Heroes
Monday, October 12 (6) - Set Crime and Punishment Thematic Essay; Crime and Punishment, Part Five, chapters 4-5, Part Six, chapter 1
Tuesday, October 13 (1) - Crime and Punishment, Part Six, chapters 2-3
Wednesday, October 14 (2) - NO CLASSES (TESTING DAY)
Thursday, October 15 (3) - Next Tuesday you'll have your next vocabulary quiz, focusing on units 5-6. I'd also like you to read the selection of your Killgallon text associated with participial phrases (80-83). Then, complete Practice 3, numbers 3-5 AND Practice 8, numbers 1-4. These must be hand-written on loose-leaf paper, ready to be handed in at the end of your vocabulary quiz; Crime and Punishment, Part Six, chapters 4-6
Friday, October 16 (4) - Crime and Punishment, Part Six - Epilogue
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Due Dates
Tuesday, September 8 - Crime and Punishment, Parts 1-2 In-class Essay
Wednesday, September 23 - Prose Analysis #1
Tuesday, October 6 - In-class Prose Analysis (Crime and Punishment)
Monday, October 26 - Crime and Punishment Thematic Essay
Study Links
"6 reading habits from Harvard"
“Excuse me, young man, has it ever happened to you ... hm ... let’s say, to ask hopelessly for a loan of money?”
Crime and Punishment Study Links
Click the image to read a short biography of Dostoevsky.
Nabokov
“... one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader. And I shall tell you why. When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation. When we look at a painting we do no have to move our eyes in a special way even if, as in a book, the picture contains elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting. In reading a book, we must have time to acquaint ourselves with it. We have no physical organ (as we have the eye in regard to a painting) that takes in the whole picture and can enjoy its details. But at a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting. However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous achievement of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement. A book, no matter what it is - a work of fiction or a work of science (the boundary line between the two is not as clear as is generally believed) - a book of fiction appeals first of all to the mind. The mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine, is, or should be, the only instrument used upon a book.”
- Nabokov, Lectures on Literature
“In reading exam papers written by misled students, of both sexes, about this or that author, I have often come across such phrases — probably recollections from more tender years of schooling — as ‘his style is simple’ or ‘his style is clear and simple’ or ‘his style is beautiful and simple’ or ‘his style is quite beautiful and simple.’ But remember that ‘simplicity’ is buncombe. No major writer is simple. The Saturday Evening Post is simple. Journalese is simple. Upton Lewis is simple. Mom is simple. Digests are simple. Damnation is simple. But Tolstoys and Melvilles are not simple..."
-Nabokov, Lectures on Russian Literature
Below are 5 of my annotated pages from various texts and 1 of David Foster Wallace's copy of DeLillo's Players. The pages of the texts that you will be working with most closely should look just like these.
The College Board's official course description:
An AP English Literature and Composition course engages students in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature. Through the close reading of selected texts, students deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers. As they read, students consider a work’s structure, style and themes, as well as such smaller-scale elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism and tone.
Strake Jesuit's official course description:
In AP Lit & Comp. you will learn to read like an artist-critic, studying texts not only for their development of themes and cultural ideas but also for their technical mastery and innovations. How do writers employ language to create texts that engage their cultural moment and literary history in rich, often ambiguous ways? Why is first-person the right choice in A Farewell to Arms? Why so many disease images in Hamlet? What makes Joyce's sentences so terribly beautiful? You will read literature from a variety of genres and periods, always with an eye to unlocking its deeper mysteries. To read well you will first unlearn bad habits. No longer will quick reading, that nervous skim before class, do. No. You will learn to read slowly, to savor each sentence, each line, each paragraph or stanza for its multiple meanings, its suggestions, its silences. In time, you will learn the wisdom of Nabokov's remark that you can only re-read a book. Your writing assignments will be frequent and varied, from one-page response essays due the day of a reading, to longer, more formal essays of evaluation and analysis, to expository and creative pieces. Always, you will learn to sharpen your thinking and hone your writing, to give both an edge gained only by rethinking and rewriting. You will have conferences with me before and after essays are due. You will edit each other's essays for argument and style. And you will revise, revise, revise. This class offers an intensive reading experience and a full-on writing workshop.
General Literary Terms
allegory, allusion, anachronism, arete, bildungsroman, canon, characterization, chiasmus, close reading, conceit, diction, epiphany, epistolary novel, fable, fabliaux, frame narrative, genre, irony, leit-motif, metafiction, mood, motif, novel, novella, poetry, prose, satire, symbol, tone, verisimilitude, verse
Elements of Fiction
character, climax, conflict, denouement, dialogue, dynamic character, foil, narration, plot, point of view, suspense, tension, unity, unreliable narrator
Poetic Terms
alexandrine, alliteration, anapest, apostrophe, assonance, ballad, blank verse, caesura, canticle, canto, carpe diem, consonance, contrapasso, couplet, dactyll, elegy, end rhyme, english sonnet, enjambment, epic, epic simile, free verse, half rhyme, heroic couplet, imagery, in medias res, internal rhyme, lyric, metaphysical, meter, ode, pastoral, pathetic fallacy, personification, prosody, quatrain, rhyme, slant rhyme, sonnet, sprung rhythm, stanza, terza rima, verse
Drama Lingo
blank verse, catastrophe, catharsis, chorus, comedy, deus ex machina, dialogue, drama, hamartia, hubris, metadrama, miasma, mimesis, monologue, peripeteia, stasimon, strophe, tragedy, tragic flaw, tragic hero
Rhetorical Devices
a priori, anadiplosis, anaphora, antithesis, apophasis, asyndeton, hyperbole, parallelism, parataxis, pathos, polysyndeton, procatalepsis, stychomythia, synesthesia
Figures of Speech
catachresis, euphemism, idiom, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, paradox, personification, simile, synecdoche, synesthesia
Required Course Texts
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing, 11th edition
Vocabulary from Latin and Greek Roots VI
Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment: Pevear & Volokhonsky Translation (Vintage Classics)
Euripides, Medea (trans. Diane Arnson Svarlien)
Killgallon, Sentence Composing for College
Wharton, The Age of Innocence (Norton Critical Edition)
Students should also expect to purchase a few paperback titles at my discretion.
Suggested Reading
Stanley Fish, How to Write a Sentence
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
David Mikics, Slow Reading in a Hurried Age
Francine Prose, Reading like a Writer
James Wood, How Fiction Works