Homework for Friday, 2.1.

Post a response to the following:

Compare what you know about Troy to Wilson's references* of Milwaukee Braves' player and until recently, the Major Leagues home run champ, Hank Aaron. Explore their similarities and differences. Aspects to consider: dreams and aspirations, outcomes, the fence as a symbol, baseball as a metaphor, and historical context.

Be sure to provide page number citations.

* Use the entire text, including the pages the precede the actual play.

About "Homerun" Henry (Hank) Aarons.

“Trying to throw a fastball by Henry Aaron is like trying to sneak a sunrise past a rooster.” — Curt Simmons

Exhibiting an understated style that became his trademark, Hank Aaron became the all-time home run champion via one of the most consistent offensive careers in baseball history, with 3,771 hits. In addition to his 755 home runs, he also holds major league records for total bases, extra-base hits and RBI. Aaron was the 1957 National League MVP, won three Gold Gloves for his play in right field and was named to a record 24 All-Star squads. —From the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum.

Homework for Thursday, 1.31.

Generate a discussion question from Act One, Scene 3 through Act Two, Scene 1. Post to blog. Again, your discussion question must be narrow in focus and address a significant symbol, metaphor, or passage of dialogue.

Also, remember to complete the survey and your annotations by class time this Friday (read complete details under the 1.26 post below).

Homework for Wednesday, 1.30 & Friday, 2.1. (It's not as much as it appears to be.)

Before class Wednesday, post to the blog:

1. Your answers to Monday’s in-class work, specifically:
• three major symbols (and your explanations) from “Setting.”
• 2-3 questions you generated from “The Play.” Then, attempt to answer them.
2. A discussion question from Act One, Scenes 1-2. Your discussion question must be narrow in focus and address a significant symbol, metaphor, or passage of dialogue.
   

Also, by Friday:

1. Complete the Quarter 2 Eval.
2. Revisit your Fences annotations (I will collect them on Friday) and improve accordingly. Specifically, they should:
1. Mark significant passages; highlight key words, images, and patterns.
2. Raise questions in the margins.
3. Draw connections with page number references (for example, “See page xx for ...”).
   

Thanks.

Growing Up Chinese, Graphically.

Gene Luen Yang recently spoke with NPR about his graphic novel, American Born Chinese, the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award. Listen to the program and view an audio slide show at:
Growing Up Chinese, Graphically.

Also, hip-hop artist Jin is the first Asian-American rapper to release a major-label record. His new CD, The Rest is History, challenges negative images of people of Chinese heritage in American culture. More at: Asian-American Rapper Jin Makes Hip-Hop History.

Visual supplement to Kelins' presentation.

Click here for PDF.

Didactic Statement.
Here is my paragraph to explain my Symbol. It includes some difference between the two countries. And I use the form of symbolization to make it clear and interesting.

Here are a few examples: The first one shows the difference between the ways that American and Chinese use to give suggestion. American are usually much more direct. And Chinese usually try as mild and indirect as they can. Then look at the fourth, it shows interpersonal relations. You can tell that Chinese interpersonal relations are much more complicated. It’s because the situation of the society.

The seventh shows the difference of ego. Americans’s ego are bigger than Chinese. Chinese people are used to giving in to others. And I found that American usually not. And look at the next one. That’s the difference that pretty much everyone knows. You can always see a lot of people on the street in China at any time. But you never see here except for State Fair. —Kelins

American Born Chinese identity project info.

Logistics.
We will have lab time with "Comic Life" this week Wednesday and Thursday to work on your American Born Chinese identity projects. You must have a sketched draft of your project completed by class time on Wednesday. I will check to see that you've completed it at the beginning of class. Bring your ABC note-taking handout, too; I will check it as well.

Project Suggestions.
Images.
In a medium such as graphic literature, you'll want to emphasize image over text. Allow the visual aspects of each panel to narrate. This includes, for instance, color, line, and form. To gather image content for your project, you may ...

1. use photographs* (as I've done)
   
2. images or avatars from the web (a Google Image search would work well to this end)
   
3. draw your images by hand
4. use any combination of the above
   

* If you would like to use digital photographs, bring them in on a disc, flash drive, email them to yourself, or upload them to a web-based photo gallery such as Picasa or Flickr. If you have hard copies of photographs that you would like to use and do not have a scanner, bring them to school and you can scan them in using the scanner in the Classroom Lab or the one in the LW office.

Text.
Supplement your images with minimal text. Text should add to, rather than reiterate, what your images are "saying."

See above right (or see the attachment in my recent email) for my own example. (Click on the image to enlarge it. I'll post my Didactic Statement soon, too.) You'll notice that I've taken some artistic liberties. For instance, there is no dialogue; the strip is exclusively narrated in third-person. Also, the narration is a poem. Here, one might argue that the images are supplementing the text and not the other way around. (Or, perhaps one may say that the images and text are complements.) That is a fair argument, however, given the poetic form, I believe it works. It's like where graphic art meets poetry. Hence the title of the strip: "Poetic License." Way baller, I know. So wizard.

Here's another example, featuring my cat, Tolstoy.

Introducing ... the book.

Project Week skedj.

• Monday, 1.7 (12:35-1:20): read American Born Chinese in classroom.

• Tuesday, 1.8 (2:15-3:00): read and discuss ABC in classroom.
  
• Wednesday, 1.9 (11:55-1:55): ABC project work in Classroom Lab.
• Thursday, 1.10: no class.
  
• Friday, 1.11: no class. End of the first semester. Analytical essay rewrites and any missing work must be in by then. Anything not turned in will not be given credit.
• Monday, 1.14: no class. Grade activities.
• Tuesday, 1.15 (12:35-1:20): Second semester begins. Class will meet from this point on two doors down in room #344 (Mrs. Hennessey).