4/3: Abstract art (click on the "Art" link below).
3/31-4-2: Working on Beat poetry Smackdown (see attachment below).
3/27: Homework: Please watch the video clip posted as part of this introduction to the Beats. I want you to watch this 1) because it includes footage of the important Beat poets speaking and reading some of their poetry and 2) so you can get a better understanding of who they were, what they were trying to achieve and why they still matter today. As you watch, please take notes in your blue books, about this 2nd reason (better understanding...). Then, after we've spent a little more time on the poetry in class , I will ask you to write (using these notes) about what you saw in the video, how it connects to what you are seeing and discussing about the poem your group is working on, and how it helps you to understand the Beats and their place in our culture. This will count as a mini-assessment on term 4. You can also find a link on youtube here.
3/27: In class today - Gordon Parks photography and Baldwin poetry (see "Baldwin + Brooks poetry" below).
3/25: See "Cont Am Culture Rise! and Roy's Wound" (attached below)
3/24: Blue book for Rockwell's painting The Problem we All Live With attached below. Write for 7 minutes.
3/23: Homework: Please listen to Claudette Colvin's story about the time she refused to move to the back of the bus. She was one of many people who refused. The NAACP was looking for the right candidate to lead the charge, and they found he in Rosa Parks. Take notes and come to class prepared to write and talk about this.
3/20: See "Black and Blue + Invisible + Hurston" below. Homework: This weekend, read Melba Patittlo Beals’ memory of segregation and Lillian Smith’s letter to the editor (.pdf attached below). On one side of the notecard, react to what you read. On the other, make connections between these pieces and Hurston, Ellison and the Gates excerpt from class today. Fill both sides of the notecard.
3/18: We watched 2 excerpts from Eyes on the Prize. See "Till and Eyes on the Prize" below.
3/17: BIG PAPER looking at gender in the stories. Homework for Friday: For your reading Friday (excerpt from Invisible Man for honors credit and “How It Feels To Be Colored Me” for CPA credit), choose two quotes from the text that you think are essential to understanding the writer’s style and point of view. Copy the quote down (with page number) then write about WHY it matters. Make sure that you put the quote in context, break it down for me as you understand it (look at language too) and how it connects to the whole.(one quote on each side of the index card). You can find a copy of "How it Feels…" here and Invisible Man attached below.
3/13 In class: We either read "The Lottery" OR (for students who felt like they'd read that story to death already), read an essay about the story and its effect. Blue book prompt for both of these is attached below ("Lottery choices").
Homework: “The Enormous Radio”: On the front of the notecard, bullet points you want to make sure to talk about and/or questions or confusions you have about the story. On the back of the card, compare the world John Cheever creates with the one Shirley Jackson created in “The Lottery.” THINK about the differences in setting, in character type, in tone, in theme. THINK about any similarities you see in character type, in concerns these authors are wrestling with, their view of the world, etc. Fill the back of the card. Here is an audio version of "Enormous Radio" part one and part two“