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.
cycle 6, class 4 october 20, 21
We’ll begin today by setting the context of our next narrative, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, an autobiographical graphic novel showing the childhood of one girl living in Iran after the Revolution in 1979.
Questions for today:
How did the novel come to be written? What events led up to the Revolution in 1979?
How is reading a graphic novel different from reading the short fiction we’ve been reading so far this year?
Below is a list of subjects the novel follows:
Class, Correcting Western Misconceptions, War, Nationalism, Modernity versus Tradition, Coming of Age, Maturation, Freedom, Confinement
We’ll finish class by watching the video below, History of U.S. Intervention since 1953.
TO DO: I’d like you to read the introduction through page 39. Comment in your notebook on the style of the drawings in your notes as well as the following questions: Who is Marji? How would you describe her? Which pane is most striking to you as telling a powerful story in and of itself? Why do you say that?
cycle 6, class 5 october 21, 22
Satrapi, Persepolis: The word and the image working together to tell the story; Sometimes the image undercuts the word, sometimes the word undercuts the image
TO DO: I’d like you to read pages 40-79. You should know that this selection of the novel contains a few upsetting images of torture for which the novel has been banned in various places around the world. One of the things we’ll think about is why Satrapi includes such extreme violence and torment. I ask that you treat these particular panels with the maturity and seriousness they deserve.
green / white october 25, 26
(1) Persepolis Vocabulary Quiz
(2) Satrapi, Persepolis Discussion
(3) Introductions and Conclusions
TO DO: Continue reading Persepolis, pages 80-117.
cycle 7, class 1 october 27, 28
(1) Essay revision; Using logic and word glue to connect paragraphs
(2) We’ll continue our discussion of Persepolis.
TO DO: Finish reading Persepolis.
what's due?
October 25, 26 - Persepolis Vocabulary Quiz
November 1 - “Sonny’s Blues” Essay
DOCS TO HAVE HANDY
Essay Writing Process (“Sonny’s Blues”)
current text to have daily
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
“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.”
