You choose, and make sure at least two classmates join you in your choice:
Third quarter: another classic Great American Novel
Gatsby/Grapes... the other one! (this can be one group or two)
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Biography of author (who wrote it?): Alec, Charlie
Historical context around publication (what was happening when it was written?):
Critical reception of book (why should we read it?): Cody, Sidney
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Biography of author (who wrote it?):
Historical context around publication (what was happening when it was written?): Finn, Evie
Critical reception of book (why should we read it?):
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Biography of author (who wrote it?):
Historical context around publication (what was happening when it was written?):
Critical reception of book (why should we read it?): Nathalie
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Biography of author (who wrote it?):
Historical context around publication (what was happening when it was written?):
Critical reception of book (why should we read it?):
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Biography of author (who wrote it?):
Historical context around publication (what was happening when it was written?):
Critical reception of book (why should we read it?):
1. Present on an intro question. Three minutes of good info.
Biography of author: Tell us a little bit about his/her life and career, and how this book fit into it. What made him/her write it?
Historical context around publication: Tell us what was happening in the part of the country where the book takes place, or where the author was writing it. What was happening in literature at the time? How does the events depicted in this book fit into the larger history of America? Why did the author write this book?
Critical reception of book: What makes this book special, groundbreaking, different? Why do people love it?
2. Explore the choices: read the first few pages of at least three of these books. Recruit your group.
3. Split your book into 4 parts. Give yourself reading deadlines. You'll be done with the book by.... March 20.
4. Look at the structure of the novel and make yourselves a plot sheet. How will you chart and monitor your reading?
Once you have read your book:
Please give me some advice. You've read either Grapes or Gatsby; and now you've read this. If there were only time for me to assign one of these two books, which do you think would be more important for students to read next year? What this book important to the study of American literature?
__________________________________________
Fourth quarter: Works of protest
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown (read first and last chapters, and at least 5 interior chapters)
The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Black Boy by Richard Wright (just part one)
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
These are all works of protest, sure, but against what? Have they had any effect? What purposes does protest serve?
Do one of the following:
1. Show how one particular paragraph or passage illustrates the deep meaning of the book as a whole. Focus both on content AND on style.
2. Analyze how the style of the book reinforces its meaning.
3. Write (and send) a letter to an adult about the issue the book is protesting. Explain what the book teaches about that issue, and recommend at least one action the adult ought to take (besides reading the book), that would help make the situation better.
4. Take some kind of protest action that you think the author of this book would approve of. Then write an account of what you did, and what resulted. Connect it to the book very specifically: how did your action grow out of reading this book?
5. (Unless you did it for Grapes of Wrath,) write an extra chapter of the book, getting as close as you can to the style and content of the book. Then, in a couple of thoughtful paragraphs, explain the choices you made.