Quiz: chapters 1-9.

To reiterate, the quiz will be multiple choice and will cover chapters 1-9. It will be heavily focused on prominent characters (especially Janie, Nanny, Johnny Taylor, Logan, Joe, etc.), symbols and themes, and some vocab. Here's the study guide.

Bonus Opp.

Catcher/Graduate Snapshot.

Friday, 4.11 homework.

1. Reread Their Eyes chapter 6, pp. 51-75 (25). Complete handout.
2. Complete the Field Work part of the Authentic Dialogue assignment. Now that you are warmed up (from the Warm Up Exercise), go in search of dialogue. If you're in school, listen in the lounges, library, hallways, and at classroom doors. Outside of school, listen . . . well, anywhere. You must do this assignment alone. No two people should be together—hunt down an isolated conversation. Record about 7-10 minutes of actual dialogue, including expressions, body language, etc.
   

Thursday, 4.10 homework.

1. Reread Their Eyes, chapters 4 & 5, pp. 26-50 (25). Complete handout.
2. Complete the Warm Up Exercise part of the Authentic Dialogue assignment. Recall one conversation over Spring Break or today with friends or family members you are comfortable with. In ten minutes write this conversation verbatim (or as close to it as possible). Try to capture the actual language of the people involved. (For instance, runnin’ instead of running, cuz instead of because, whassup instead of what’s up, etc.) Insert facial expressions, body language, and other actions or interruptions as they occur.

Homework revision.

Due to the number of students out in the next two days because of band and choir, I'm revising the homework.

• For tomorrow (Thursday), thoroughly review--in other words, reread--chapters 1-3.
  
• For Friday, reread chapter 4 & 5.
  
• For Monday, reread chapter 6. You'll likely have something else over the weekend, too. I'll let you know what that something else is when I get there.
• For next Wednesday, read chapters 7-10.

I'll let you know what to expect from there on out early next week.

Also, there will be a quiz next week Wednesday on chapters 1-10. For the most part, it'll be structured similarly to the last Catcher quiz.

Yours in reading,
Commandante.

Zora's Roots.

The new documentary, Zora's Roots, will air on PBS stations beginning April 18. Paying tribute to the most prolific woman writer of the Harlem Renaissance, the film traces Hurston's life and work from her childhood in the all-black township of Eatonville, Florida, to her days as a Barnard student in New York City, to her anthropologic field work in Honduras and Haiti, and eventually back to Florida, where she died penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave.

During the Roaring Twenties, Hurston was central to Harlem's evolving literary scene alongside Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman. She was Barnard College's first black graduate, and her studies in anthropology contributed to a lifelong exploration of language, culture and the African American experience. More than 40 years after her death in 1960, Hurston's writing remains an integral piece of America's literary fabric. In addition to her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which has been cited as one of the 100 greatest literary works of all time, she is renowned for her journalistic, cinematic and non-fiction work.

"Zora['s] courage and determination to look at black culture with an analytical eye enabled her to express so beautifully the richness of the culture, its complex history and diasporic nature." said Barnard English Professor Monica Miller, who appears in the film.

Zora's Roots will air on PBS stations nationwide beginning April 18. Find your local listings here: Zora's Roots.

"New Yorker" cartoon channels young Janie.

This New Yorker cartoon seems to be directly inspired by pp. 10-11 of Their Eyes Were Watching God.

"Their Eyes" passages, chapters 1-5.

Review the passages below for Wednesday's class.

• Passage 1: “Ships at a distance … The dream is the truth” (1).
• Passage 2: “She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree … That was before the golden dust of pollen had beglamored his rags and her eyes” (11-12).
• Passage 3: “There are years that ask questions and years that answer … But anyhow Janie went on inside to wait for love to begin” (21-22).
• Passage 4: “Nanny sent Janie along with a stern mien … so she became woman” (24-25).
• Passage 5: “They, all of them, all of the people … It was just a handle to wind up the tongue with” (46-48).
• Passage 6: “And now we’ll listen tuh uh few words … Ah’ll sit on this case first thing” (43-44).

Take Aways from "Their Eyes" Foreword.

Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God is:

1. A bildungsroman; coming of age and "consciousness" novel; Self-revelation—or self-realization—of and through voice. To these ends, identity and place are crucial (x, xiii-xv, xvii).
   
2. A celebration, empowerment of:
• African American traditions; “blackness” (xi, xvi).
• women, specifically black women (xi, xii, xiv, xvii).
3. Harlem Renaissance lit, African American lit, feminist lit, and ultimately American Lit.

Quarter Three eval.

Contrary to previous evals, the Quarter Three eval is not mandatory. Additionally, it is anonymous. That said, I encourage you to complete it and to own up to your feedback. As I've said before, your feedback is invaluable and regardless of what you say, so long as it is said respectfully, I won’t think differently of you.

The eval is four short answer questions. You are not required to answer every question. You can answer only those that you wish to address with respect to your performance, my teaching, and the class as a whole. That said, the more of the eval you complete, the more helpful it will be to me.

Please complete before coming to class this next Monday, April 7.

24-hour countdown to Spring Break.

But before that...

1. Complete your Catcher essay final draft. Submit it via Turn It In by 4pm Friday. Our class ID is 2220665 (not the previously posted 220665!) and the password, for obvious reasons, is phony. See Sherf if you do not have a turnitin account and need help setting one up. If you had difficulty with Turn It In last night, please resubmit your essay (even if you've since emailed me your final draft), as the issue is now resolved. For your convenience, I'll have a few laptops available in class today so that you can do this.
   
2. Catcher quiz #2 is Friday. See Study guide.
3. Turn in your Catcher book for an annotations check before you leave for Spring Break.

Thesis statements and passages.

Post here. You do not need to include full passages; a page numbers will do just fine.

Stop studying.

Quiz postponed. Details forthcoming. Spread the word in the lounge and halls. Today we'll discuss the end. (Of Catcher.) Specifically, chapters 22-26. See you then.

—Maurice

Friday's announcements.

1. Finish Catcher.
2. Review Catcher essay assignment and complete prewriting (thesis draft and list of passages).
3. Quiz Monday. Mostly multiple choice; perhaps a few fill in the blanks.

Thursday's board work.

(Click images to enlarge.)

Found.

This newspaper clipping was found in the pages of a used copy of Catcher in the Rye that I bought at a bookstore a few years back. I've forgotten what page I found it in, but it will remain in the book so long as it's in my possession. I can be superstitious like that.

(Click image to enlarge.)

Countdown to Spring Break.

• Thursday, 3.6: Board work on ducks on the pond, Museum of Natural History, red hunting hat, kings in the back row, “catcher in the rye,” etc.
• Friday, 3.7: Continuation of Thursday's board work; a look at chapters 21-24.
  
• Monday, 3.10: Quiz #2; brief thoughts on Catcher's conclusion; Paul Kivel's article.
  
• Wednesday, 3.12: In-class work on Catcher essay; begin The Graduate.
• Thursday, 3.13: In-class work on essay; The Graduate continued.
  
• Friday, 3.14: Essay due; finish The Graduate.
• Spring Break: No homework; optional Catcher bonus and short story supplements.
• after break: Q3 eval; begin Their Eyes Were Watching God.

"Piano Lesson" bonus opps.

After having seen the Penumbra’s staging of The Piano Lesson on Tuesday, you may do one of the following three bonus opportunities.

Write a…

1. Snapshot.
2. Thematic analysis of The Piano Lesson and Fences. (Go beyond a simple compare/contrast; analyze a particular—and specific—element that occurs in each.)
3. Analysis of how staging or other aspects of performance impacted, affected, and worked for or against the content and themes of the play.
   

All options must be one typed page and adhere to MLA formatting. Due before you leave school for Spring Break. Let me know if you need clarification or have any other questions.

So what's the deal with J.D. Salinger, anyway?

- Biography.
- New York Times archives: news and reviews.
- BBC News: "A Glimpse Inside the Life of a Recluse."
- New York Review of Books: "Justice to J.D. Salinger."
- Time Magazine: "All-Time 100 Novels."

FirstClass? Not so much...

More like Second Rate. (Anyone else having problems with it today?)

When it's back up, I'll email you your monologue analysis with marginal comments; however, I won't include a scoring rubric or a formal assessment of any kind. As mentioned in class on Thursday, you are to use the self-assessment I handed out to evaluate yourself. Use my comments, then, to help you determine the answer to each of the five questions on the self-assessment.

I am putting an enormous amount of faith in you that you will be fair and honest. Do this not for my sake, but for your own. I trust that you will not cheat “the system,” but more importantly, I trust that you will not cheat yourself. At first I hesitated in doing this, but after further thought determined that is was a risk worth taking. Sounds dramatic, huh? It isn’t really, but in a way, it is. (This is my best attempt at a Tim ‘O Brien-like contradiction. Profound, I know.)

Thanks; see you tomorrow. Go Bears. Go Literature.