I wanted to remind everybody of what is due tomorrow. First, all presentations must be complete. Secondly, the LitCrit2 essay is due. I've posted the guidelines below as another reminder! I also linked to an essay on Lerman in a previous post.
LitCrit2: Poetry/Drama
Due: December 16, 2009
Worth: 200 pts
Answer the prompt below to write a literary analysis paper of 4-5 pages.
Obviously, language is a driving voice in a piece of literature. However, language is complex, malleable, fluid. The various poets and dramatists we have read this second half of the semester prove that meaning can be shaped and reshaped through diction, through figures of speech, through rhythm, through imagery, through perspective, through dialogue, through inclusion of cultural allusions and more. Writers meld language like sculptures shape clay. Words, like clay, are built up into a distinct vision of the artist.
Though the subjects of their work are sometimes repetitive – love, friendship, death, etc. – the individual outlooks of each author, and the language they use, allow the reader to experience their subjects in new ways. Analyzing the language allows us to understand what larger statement(s) are being made through the work, the text. In this paper, you should be explaining not only what the meaning of a piece is to be but how the author has accomplished this – what literary devices does the author use…?
Specific Prompt:
Eleanor Lerman, in her poetry collection Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds, offers us some of provocative looks at modern life. As the back cover states:
[In this collection,] Lerman boldly wrests contemporary mysticism from a hardknock New York Jewish consciousness. She finds evidence of a larger vision everywhere—in Roswell, bondage clubs, broken-down beach club bars, in a walk with her dog along the beach. She’s a solid witness to the sixties: Cold War, Vietnam, the sexual revolution, drugs
(Editors, Sarabande Books).
Four of Lerman’s poems are attached: “We Took the Coastal Evacuation Route,” “Angels of the Inquisition,” “The Anthropic Principle” and “Starfish.” These four poems provide a young literary critic – you – with the chance to dissect both:
1) What larger meaning or statement a poem(s) make(s), and
2) What literary devices – especially poetic devices – Lerman uses.
Essentially, you are explicating these poems – what meaning can a reader arrive at, and how Lerman crafts that meaning.
Helpful Suggestions:
- You are not required to use each poem in your analysis, but if you do I would suggest balancing most of your analysis on one or two poems in the collection.
- Also, I suggest having a thesis statement that clarifies which literary device(s) your essay is going to focus on. (Don’t be jumpy, but stick to reasoning out a few points. Quality/development of points explored over quantity/# of claims made!)
Guidelines: Times New Roman or Cambria; 12 pt. font; double-spaced; Work Cited page and in-text citation; Provide an insightful, creative title to analysis that connects to thesis!
As the syllabus states, and as we have discussed briefly throughout the semester, you will be presenting to the class a Final Creative Project to the class December 14 and 16. Below are the requirements restated from syllabus (also on Oasis):
Final Creative Project (110pts) – You are to create a visual/oral/ performance piece that can be interpreted as a real-world application of literature. You will choose one of the authors/texts and create a piece that connects literature to another discipline. You will present this piece towards the end of the semester to your course-mates, with a 1-page companion explanation handed in at the time of presentation. Photography, graphic design, painting, instrumental performances, dance – these are just a few of the possible talents that may help you complete this project. A short film, a well-designed advertisement – something of quality and high creative output is expected!
I will add some examples of what students have done in the past once I take pictures and upload them!
The following was in my e-mail, and may interest you. I saw Coval read once, and it was quite entertaining.
Columbia's Silver Tongue and Verbatim present:
KEEP IT IN THE FAMILY
featuring Kevin Coval and Ismail Khalidi
FRIDAY, November 20th, 6:00pm
Quincy Wong Center, 623 S. Wabash, 1st Floor.
FREE and Open To The Public
6:00 -- SILVER TONGUE -- student readings followed by a poetic conversation about Israel and Palestine with Kevin Coval and Ismail Khalidi.
7:00 -- Discussion with Coval and Khalidi, dinner from Jimmy Johns.
8:00 -- SLAM -- hosted by VERBATIM. Come sign-up to participate!
KEVIN COVAL is the author of everyday people (EM Press, Nov.'08) and slingshots (a hip-hop poetica) (EM Press, Nov. '05), named Book of the Year-finalist by The American Library Association. Coval's poems have appeared in many periodicals and journals, on radio and TV, and have been performed on four continents in seven countries. Co-founder of Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Teen Poetry Festival, the largest youth poetry festival in the world, Coval is poet-in-residence at The Jane Addams’ Hull House Museum at The University of Illinois-Chicago and poet-in-residence at The University of Chicago’s Newberger Hillel Center. He also teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Playwright and performer ISMAIL KHALIDI graduated from Macalester College in 2005. He made his playwriting debut with Truth Serum Blues at the Pangea World Theater in Minneapolis. Khalidi has performed in several theatrical productions, including With Love from Ramalla and his work has been published in Mizna and Electronic Intifada. He recently received the Playwright Center's Many Voices residency award, a SASE/Jerome greant, and an Emerging Voices grant.
SILVER TONGUE is a student-curated series featuring word-based readings of any genre.
VERBATIM provides students with the opportunity to experience, learn, and create performance poetry beyond the classroom setting as a means of expression and self-exploration.
For more information, or to submit to participate in this SILVER TONGUE reading, please contact:
Dave Snyder -- dsnyder@colum.edu, 312-369-7459
Terms:
Annotate
Figures of Speech
Allusion
Archetype
Metaphor
Simile
Hyperbole
Symbol
Theme
Allegory
Flat character
Round Character
Unreliable Narrator
First Person
Third Person
Omniscient
Central Consciousness
Characterization
Diction
Plot
Discriminated occasion
Flashback
Conflict
Rising Action
Falling Action
Setting
Climax
Suspense
Hero / Heroine
Antagonist
Protagonist
Sections on Test:
1) Identification of Literary Terms – 15 questions (3pts each): standard definitions as written in text, or discussed in class.
2) Reading Comprehension and Identification of Excerpts – There are six excerpts from the stories read, and you are to match five excerpts, each to its correct story. That means, mathematically, there will be one excerpt not used (3 pts each).
3) Under Reading Comprehension and Identification of Excerpts section you will also be twice given an excerpted passage in which you are to answer five questions on each passage. The questions range from standard ID of author to identifying literary elements used in story (3 pts/question).
4) Short Answers. You will be asked to write two brief essays (about one handwritten page each)/(30 pts each). You are given the prompts ahead of time, so you must read the directions clearly and have prepared properly and honestly*.
*Anyone who provides quotations for more than TWO stories on their note sheets (which will be attached to exam for essay credit) will fail the exam with a zero (0). This means that you can only have quotations for one of stories from Short Answer One, and quotations for one of story for Short Answer Two.
Short Answer One (30 pts): Choose one of the following and make a thematic reading, using textual evidence to support your analysis. You may use a notes sheet that only includes quotations (with page numbers) from chosen story; you will attach this note sheet when you hand in Midterm.
1. Identify a main theme of Ambrose Bierces’ “An Occurrence at Owl Creek” and briefly explain how the plot, setting and, therefore, culture play a role in understanding the theme.
OR
2. Identify the main conflict in Sherman Alexie’s “Flight Patterns,” and clarify what thematic statement may Alexie be making. In your answer, focus on how Alexie uses stereotype and characterization in developing in the conflict.
Short Answer Two (30 pts): Choose one of the following and make a thematic reading, using textual evidence to support your analysis. As with the first short answer, you may use the same notes sheet that only includes quotations (with page numbers) from chosen story. Therefore, you will have one notes sheet with quotations for two short answer essays.
3. What is a first person narrator? What is a third person narrator? Briefly explain one way that first-person narration can affect the meaning taken. To do so, use one of the stories read for class as an example to develop your idea.
OR
4. How does the author use language? Choose one of the authors we have read and argue their literary excellence by their use of language (they are, after all, writers!). Identify in your argument thesis what exactly it is about their language that is so extraordinary. (diction, dialogue, figures of speech, use of allegory, syntactical rhythm, . . . ?)
10/7: p. 307-313 Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek”- What is interesting about the ordering of events?- What do you notice about the difference in language in the first section (I.) from the other sections?- What narrative/point of view techniques does Bierce use to create conflict/tension in story?- How effective is the ending, and what points to plausibility of the ending?- How do you feel about the main character, and what are some reasons for your attention?- What, in your mind, does Bierce make you think about through Farquhar's unraveling demise?
- Read John Cheever’s “The Country Husband” and the preface on “plot”
- Consider the following questions and be ready to discuss:
- How is your reading affected by how Cheever begins the story?
- After reading the story, how would describe Cheever’s subject matter? What and who are his subjects? Is the subject familiar to you, a reader in 2009?
As I said in class today, here are some questions that we will discuss in class on Wednesday. Though these are not "due" for class, I thought I'd give you time to let the questions marinate your brains for a more flavorful discussion Wednesday . . . .
1. Does Sherman Alexie’s “Flight Patterns” feel more contemporary to you than either Paley or Carver’s story? What parts of the story make you feel either way? Theme; language; content; plot; something else? Discuss as a group, then explain both the part(s) and those specific lines within the story that fulfill your response.
2. One of the things our class discussed on Tuesday was both the conflict and resolution of a story. Explain what tension/conflict within “Flight Patterns” drove the plot towards its conclusion. What kind of resolution is there at the end of the story? What do you infer about William’s character based on his final actions?
3.In “Flight Patterns” two men discuss how people can become trapped by other people’s ideas of who we are, especially when we are seen in terms of our race. What is the nature of this trap? Is it dangerous? Or merely inconvenient? (from the publisher’s website, Grove Atlantic)
4. Here in “Flight Patterns,” Alexie chooses to go with third person point of view. Thinking back to our first readings, where the narrator was a character, how does this affect the reader’s view of the character? What kinds of information, and possibly language, does the reader get that they may not if the story were told from William’s perspective? In what ways are the narrator and William similar?
5. After reading Alexie’s poem “Father and Farther,” you may notice that the native Indian man is a subject of each the poem and “Flight Patterns.” Discuss how Alexie tonally deals with the subject in each piece. Is there a similar resolution to any of the themes within the poem and the story? What are some statements of the native Indian man Alexie is making?
