cycle 6, class 1 october 12, 14

Thesis Statement Preparation

TO DO: Revise the draft of your thesis statement for our next class.

cycle 6, class 2 october 14, 15, 18

Thesis Statements and Topic Sentences

cycle 6, class 3 october 18, 19

Sample Body Paragraph

TO DO: During our next class I am going to walk you through the history of Iran in the last 100 years or so. Please bring to class your copy of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.

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cycle 5, class 1 SEPTEMBER 29, 30

Today we will take a day to go through the Elements of Fiction test to see how everyone did and make sure you understand why the answers are what they are.

In the second half of class, I’ll give you some time to work on your short story assignment. I want to offer a few hints if I can on how to get started if you’re having trouble at this point.

TO DO: We’re going to begin a new section of the class that looks at slightly longer and much longer works of fiction that we can spend a bit more time with, learn more about, and begin to train our brains to read differently. The first is James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” which is an excellent example of a story that relies on all of the elements of fiction to convey its message. It’ll take us a few classes to read it. To start, read the very beginning of “Sonny’s Blues”. Stop on page 80 immediately AFTER the line “‘Be seeing you,’ he said. I went on down the steps.”

cycle 5, class 2 SEPTEMBER 30, OCTOber 1, 4

James Baldwin by Bee Johnson

If there’s one thing I know about teaching literature to students, it’s that the first section of a story is always the most challenging because we’re entering a new fictional world in the middle of things with very little context—we don’t know, for instance, who the characters are, where we are in the world and when we are in history, and—more to the point—the context with which the writer fashions their story. The context surrounding James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” is very layered, and in many ways beyond what I am capable of relating to you in a meaningful and satisfying way. The story, of course, revolves around a fractured relationship between two brothers—something that can almost universally be understood—but also two brothers who come from a specific place, Harlem, during a specific time, the 1950s, with specific professions, an algebra teacher and a struggling artist who grapples with drug addiction—things that can not be universally understood without some context. To that end we’re going to work through the context today before looking at a passage of the story.

We’ll begin with a BRIEF background about James Baldwin’s life—where he grew up, how he was treated, and the way he viewed the world:

TO DO:

(1) Study for the vocabulary quiz on the word from “Sonny’s Blues”.

(2) Make sure you’ve finished the beginning section of “Sonny’s Blues” that I assigned the other day.

(3) I’d like you to re-read, or maybe read for the first time, Genesis 4, which tells the story of Cain and Abel. Find it here. Why? I think the thematic connections will soon become clear.

cycle 5, class 3 october 4, 5

(1) Vocabulary Quiz on “Sonny’s Blues”

(2) We will then dive right into the beginning of “Sonny’s Blues”. What type of a narrator do we have? From the title, the story is supposed to be about Sonny, so why not have him be the narrator? Anticipate what might be behind Baldwin’s decision.

TO DO:

(1) Continue to read “Sonny’s Blues”. Pick up where you left off on page 80 and continue reading to page 89, stopping just AFTER the line, “But the worry, the thoughtfulness, played on it still, the way shadows play on a face which is staring into the fire.”

cycle 5, class 4 october 6, 7

Today we’ll continue our discussion of “Sonny’s Blues”. I want to see what patterns you continued to identify in this last reading. Are there any new ones?

TO DO:

Continue to read “Sonny’s Blues”. Pick up where you left off on page 89 and continue reading to page 96, stopping just AFTER the line, “It’s a wonder it doesn’t blow the avenue apart.”

cycle 5, class 5 october 7, 8

(1) Reading Quiz on “Sonny’s Blues”

(2) Discussion of “Sonny’s Blues”

TO DO:

(1) Finish reading “Sonny’s Blues.”

(2) Read this document. It walks you through the writing process. Complete steps 1, 2, and 3 over the weekend.

fall final essay questions

“The Appointment in Samarra”: To what extent do the characters in the stories we read have personal determination, that is, control their fate?

“The Scorpion and the Frog”: If characters have personal determination, to what extent are their choices a result of their nature?

fall reading list

Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Chopin, “The Story of an Hour”

Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”

Updike, “A&P”

Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl”

Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”

Jackson, “The Lottery”

O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues”

Satrapi, Persepolis

Achebe, Things Fall Apart

enjoying literature

Why should we spend our time reading novels and poems when, out there, big things are going on?
“In the realm of narrative psychology, a person’s life story is not a Wikipedia biography of the facts and events of a life, but rather the way a person integrates those facts and events internally—picks them apart and weaves them back together to make meaning. This narrative becomes a form of identity, in which the things someone chooses to include in the story, and the way she tells it, can both reflect and shape who she is. A life story doesn’t just say what happened, it says why it was important, what it means for who the person is, for who they’ll become, and for what happens next.”
— Julie Beck, The Atlantic