Transactional Palaver

Author Study September 23, 2008

This year-long project requires you to research and write an in-depth analysis of an American author of your choice. The list of possible writers is attached to this handout. Included in your study will be analyses of major themes and historical context, biographical information, study guides, photographs, and at least two critical analyses based on the student’s interest in the author’s work, one of which must be a study in the author’s style. I am pursuing a grant that will allow you to publish your work as a bound book at the end of the year through www.lulu.com, a self-publishing site that enables you to control the design and publication of your work.

This project is designed to be interdisciplinary in nature, so you may well be tapping your U.S. History II teachers for information and help. You will make decisions about relevant and irrelevant content, which texts to include in the study, influences (both historical and future) upon the author’s development as well as the influences your chosen author has had on subsequent writers/culture. Additionally, you will organize research and writing, balancing original writing with researched works, and will make decisions about the most effective presentation of information for the reader. You will gain valuable media experience through web-based publishing and design, as well.

Project Goal: Students will write, edit, design, and publish an in-depth study of a seminal American author through individually driven year-long inquiry.

Objective 1: Students will produce and adhere to an organized timeline for complete of their projects.

Objective 2: Students will produce an organized written portfolio of original writing that includes both research and critical analyses.

Objective 3: Students will generate a published work reflecting an entire year’s worth of student inquiry.

Objective 4: Student will demonstrate mastery and authority in the following areas in a class presentation of their work:

· Author’s works and biography

· Influences upon author

· Author’s influences on subsequent writers

· Historical and social context for author’s work

You should choose your writer now because you have a great deal of writing and research to do over the course of the year. You will have progress reports to complete on your project throughout the year so that we can ensure that you stay on schedule.

Modernism and Film Noir May 1, 2008

As individuals or groups of up to three, you are to do one or more of the following as the project for this unit.

1. Using MovieMaker (or any movie-making software of your choice), create a short film that incorporates the elements of Modernism and demonstrates your understanding of the noir style. Content must be school appropriate, so if you are unsure about whether or not your idea fits the guidelines, see me.

If you choose to work on a film, you will need to write a film proposal, outlining your ideas and plot. If two or three people choose to collaborate on a film, the film should be of sufficient length and complexity to demonstrate the work of two or three individuals as well as a deep understanding of the concepts involved.

2. You may also use software to create a film that does not include live actors. If you choose to go this route, remember that you must write a proposal for your project and be sure that the project is of sufficient length and complexity to demonstrate a full understanding of the concepts involved.

3. Your blog is also available to you as a medium in which you can demonstrate your knowledge. You may blog on the films we’ve watched, the style of the films, the concepts of noir, and the Modernist attributes.

4. Lastly, you may write a noir-style short story, published either on paper or on your blog. Again, the guidelines for what is school appropriate must be followed. The short story must demonstrate the elements of noir style as well as your understanding of the attributes of Modernism. The story also must be of sufficient length and complexity to demonstrate your understanding of the unit.

You may do one or more of the above options. For example, you may choose to explore in writing something on your blog, but visually explore the noir style through a short film. In other words, mix and match to ensure the following:

· My project demonstrates a full and deep understanding of the concepts of noir style and Modernism

· My project is of sufficient length and complexity to demonstrate this knowledge to anyone who views or reads my work

· My project is creative and finely crafted, indicating that I have spent the time on it that the project deserves and that I have pride in the product I offer

If you have any questions, please let me know. I have booked the computer lab for upcoming classes so that you can work on these projects during class.

My picture of a cat cannot be displayed, I’m sorry to say. 😦

It Was a Noir and Stormy Night April 16, 2008

Kiss Me Deadly, The Killers, and Something Wild combined with the handouts that I gave you on the noir style, you should have everything you need to get started on your next assignment. So what is your next assignment? Well, we have a potpourri of choices, as we noted yesterday in class. Here is the bottom line, however: Whichever route you go, you must:

· demonstrate a deep understanding of the noir style, i.e., its stylistic elements, both visually in film and in print.

· demonstrate a deep understanding of the symbolism behind the stylistic elements.

· demonstrate how the attributes of Modernism are expressed in noir style.

O’Neill and the Quest For a Personal Truth March 19, 2008

The assignment I had given in class last week should be written and posted by Monday, March 24. Here it is again:

As a blog entry, I would like you to identify the attribute of modernism that you believe is most evident in Desire Under the Elms. Explain how that attribute contributes to the play’s effectiveness. Also, identify and discuss any other major attributes evident in this play. You may find that there is more than one attribute that is significantly evident.

Now, you’ve spent several days with Eugene O’Neill up close and personal. All of you, at this point, have a solid understanding of the demons tormenting O’Neill as he attempted to navigate his life, to find meaning in his despair and anger, and to confront the tyranny of his memory. Let’s think about this….

Desire Under the Elms is one of many plays written during O’Neill’s Triumvirate period. There is much to plumb in Elms, both from a modernist perspective and through O’Neill’s thematic lens.

Here are some things to consider. From Contour In Time by Travis Bogard:

Now experiment serves realism and also, unobtrusively, opens the play to fuller perspectives. The characteristic dramatis personae—poetic hero, Strindbergian woman, materialistic brother, aloof and difficult father—are present, but they are drawn without the self-consciousness that derives from excessive autobiographical concern.* The typical themes—the yearning for a lost mother, for a home, for identification with a life force to be found in nature, and for the discovery of a god in marriage—are rooted, at last, in a credible fiction and characterizations. In all respects, Desire Under the Elms fulfills the promise of O’Neill’s early career and is the first important tragedy to be written in America.

Think about the “typical themes” referenced here: maternal loss, sense of home, purpose for living, and the affirmation of marriage. What resonates here for you in terms of this play and O’Neill’s life?

Think about Eben’s character, who he reminds you of, and how ultimately tragic his quest for solace and love is:

Eben’s sensitivity is the core of the play’s poetic extension beyond simple realism. His sensibility creates a perspective within the action that permits a view of all the characters sub species aeternitatis, as images of more than particular, external truths. Eben’s need, which generates his habits of thought, enlarges the meaning of the life on the farm, giving the events the qualities of a symbolic action, and providing a context wherein may be understood general and universal meanings. Through Eben, for instance, the beauty of the farm is made real, and through his awareness, Abbie is linked with that beauty. He causes Ephraim to become aware of the natural forces that shape his life and enables him to define the nature of the hard and easy Gods, and to clarify the influences that are concentrated in the sinister elms. Through Eben’s touch of poetry, the farm is transformed, and what transpires there is heightened as is the action of great poetic drama.

Be sure to read Bogard’s entire exploration of Desire. Does it make sense? Based on your reading of the play and your understanding of O’Neill, does it make sense? Write about it.

Some other helpful links:

• An Electronic Eugene O’Neill Archive
  
• Eugene O’Neill Foundation, Tao House
  
• Project Gutenberg Australia: Desire Under The Elms (Online Text)

Thinking About Streetcar and Glass March 6, 2008

We’ve finished A Streetcar Named Desire and have begun The Glass Menagerie. You should be considering Glass with an eye, so to speak, on Streetcar. Williams’ work is biographical, as you know, so there are striking similarities—recurrent themes, motifs, and symbols—that are worthy of your time and exploration.

Novels, plays, and book-length poems are italicized.

Short stories and poems are “in quotes.”

Where do periods and commas always go?  Inside the quotes.

Exploring Streetcar February 15, 2008

As we get deeper into A Streetcar Named Desire, there are quite a few things for you all to be thinking about. First, I will caution you again to resist the urge to write Blanche off as a character unworthy of your reflection. Many students find her so off-putting that they cannot or will not consider Williams’ character beyond her face value. Big mistake.

Second, be thinking about the characterizations of Stanley and Stella, as well.

And, of course, think about characters as metaphor….

On Deck February 4, 2008

Given that I wish for you all to be fully in the loop as we progress, I’m going to give you some of the texts, both written and performed, that we will be exploring. Here’s where we’ve been and where we’re going:

Poet Study: T. S. Eliot

• “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock”
• “The Hollow Men
• Four Quartets: Little Gidding (V) (read by Willem DeFoe)
  
• The Waste Land (particularly voice and imagery)

Author Study: Ernest Hemingway, Mickey Spillane & The Noir Style

• “The End of Something”
• “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”
• “The Killers”
• Kiss Me, Deadly

Playwright Study: Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill

• A Streetcar Named Desire (film: Lange, Baldwin)
• The Glass Menagerie (film: Hepburn, Waterston)
• Desire Under the Elms
• Long Day’s Journey Into Night (film: Hepburn, Robards)
• American Experience–Eugene O’Neill: A Documentary Film (Ric Burns)

Film Study: Robert Aldrich, Peter Weir, and Terrence Malick

• Kiss Me, Deadly
• Something Wild
• Picnic at Hanging Rock
• The Last Wave
• Days of Heaven

That’ll keep us busy for a while.

Parsing Eliot & Reading Around February 1, 2008

If you are feeling a little intimidated by Eliot, you are not alone and you are not stupid. Eliot is a challenge, even to the most discerning readers.

So, with that in mind, here is a resource that will help (in addition to Spark Notes? lol). The site is called Modern American Poetry, and it is the online companion to one of the holy books in literature, Oxford University Press’s Anthology of Modern American Poetry . This is the sort of survey text that you are likely to use in college, but for our purposes, the companion site is very helpful.

I encourage you to explore the Eliot pages on that site. You will note that the handouts that I have given you on “The Hollow Men” and will give you on The Waste Land and “Four Quartets” come from that site.

P.S. Look up the word “parse.” I’ll wager that few of you know what it means. 😉

P.S.S. I strongly encourage (hint hint) you to make good use of a dictionary while writing. You have all the tools literally at your fingertips to ensure that the quality of your writing is of the highest order. In other words, don’t be lazy.

Ms. Baz

Okay, We’re Off And Running January 30, 2008

I sense the anxiety some of you are feeling, but I assure you that this newfangled stuff will become much easier as we go.

Once you have all arrived at an attribute, I will publish all of them here so that you can readily see what your classmates are doing. This will come in handy down the line.

Now, keep your attribute in mind as we go back and reread “Prufrock.” We will probably work a little bit with it this week again before moving on to “The Hollow Men.” You may find as we work through the Eliot (and get into a little Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and Eugene O’Neill) that your attribute is intrinsically connected to one or more other attributes that someone else is considering. Start thinking about having that discussion with each other.

Feel free to leave me questions or concerns here. I’ll likely start making the rounds to your blogs towards the end of this week to see what’s up.

Oh, and one last thing. Be sure that your level of diction is appropriate as you start to move towards academic discussion. Your intro posts can be casual and in your own idiom, as it were, but remember that this is writing that you would normally be turning in to me in MLA-formated papers.

Ms. Baz

trans•ac•tion•al pa•lav•er: January 29, 2008

Transactional (adj, chiefly psych): relating to an interaction of an individual with one or more other persons, esp. as influenced by their assumed relational roles of parent, child, or adult.

Palaver (noun): a conference or discussion; sometimes persuasive talk or idle chatter.

This is the hub, the core, the crux, the nub, the nitty-gritty thrust and pith of where it’s at in English III these days. Your blogs should be set up by now and you should be ready to start work. I will lead you through the process as you build your sites, add content, links, images, and more. So let’s get started.

Here is your charge. Using one of the handouts I gave you, “Some Attributes of Modernist Literature,” find an attribute of Modernist literature that interests you. For example, are you interested in the experimentation with narrative perspective? How about the exploration of the interior or symbolic landscape? What about the use of time? Look over the handout and find an entry point that will allow you to explore the material. This entry point is the theme, or unifying concept, around which you will build the content of your blog. We will be studying rather intensively over the next few weeks the following, which will help you in your decision making:

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “The Hollow Men,” Four Quartets: “Little Gidding (V)” and The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot.

So, first things first. Pick a unifying concept and start thinking about why that particular element interests you.

Ms. Baz