Thursday, November 21, 2013

/November 21, 2013: What's Happening in A.P. Literature?

Dear students,

There aren't many things that could take me away from you.  Having a baby is one of them.  Watching that baby almost die is another.  The past two days have been terrifying, but Henry is hanging in there.  We will be at Children's Hospital for at least few more days.  I will keep you posted.

In the meantime, please keep working hard and being respectful of the substitute and of each other.  E-mail me if you need help or have questions.

Much love,
Ms. Leclaire

1. Warm-up: Perusing each other's bookmarks, musical chairs style (you may need to explain to the substitute teacher what this is).  Take your composition notebook with you as you and write your reactions and comments to each other's bookmarks in your composition notebooks. Do this for a couple rounds, then TRADE BOOKMARKS WITH EACH OTHER.

If the substitute has other plans for you for the first part of class, that's fine, too.  Just be sure to trade bookmarks before you leave class today.

2. Socratic seminar: Please make sure you have a scribe today.

HW:
1. Continue following the Invisible Man reading schedule, annotating and adding to your new bookmark as you go.

2. Continue working on your poetry project/paper.  Please e-mail me with question, and I will give you feedback on your metacognitive writing over the break.

1 comment:

  1. • Page 236—lobotomy scene—when you’re the problem, you’re the center of the attention—better to be invisible. Doesn’t want to be the problem, or be pitied for being the problem
    • When you label someone as a problem, that’s all they can be—they live up to that label—be the best problem they can be
    • Society might view the narrator as the problem, but is he really? He’s submissive.
    • Perspective—is the narrator trustworthy?
    • Page 218—“if you’re white, you’re right.” He has to tread carefully to do what people want him to do
    • Page 252—he’s trying to avoid being the problem, which might be creating the problem
    • A no-win situation—he tries to do the right thing, and it backfires. He is left questioning how he can get around his problem
    • He is viewed as a problem from the beginning and has to work his way up from that
    • Page 4—”out of resentment, you begin to bump people back”—in the prologue he is taking action
    • Page 234 hallucination—similar to Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”—does it show his desire for escape?
    • Page 113—what is going on with the series of italics? Like page 8—Armstrong’s music makes poetry out of invisibility.
    o The italics are his thoughts, stream-of-consciousness—seems like a speech
    o Tone: cynical? “riling up”? self-reflective?
    o His speeches might be a way for him to address being the problem, being invisible
    • Louis Armstrong—watch him how he presents himself. He’s goofy, the clown, “Uncle Tom”
    • The color white—to make pure white, you need brown and black chemicals
    o White has an overwhelming presence in the world
    o In the hallucination scene, everything is in color
    o Biggest buyer of the paint is the government—it is being applied to monuments, everything central to America—we are invisible to it
    • How can the book be more than a racial issue? What else is an invisible aspect of our society?
    o The narrator is discredited to begin with
    o Everything is two-sided (like the coins), so he doubts himself
    o Duplicity—“history is a boomerang”
    • Emerson’s son relates to the narrator in terms of being marginalized—he may be homosexual
    • Music is a central motif
    Take-aways
    • RW Emerson—self-reliance
    • Contrast between black and white
    • The paint—society isn’t as pure as it seems (the paint becomes gray after a while)
    • Narrator’s progress
    • Narrator is constantly thrown into battles—has no defense, no choice
    • Mr. Brockway like the grandfather?
    • Narrator still doesn’t have a name
    • The brief case—opportunity. He always seems to ruin his opportunities, part of his being the problem?
    • Lobotomy scene—electroshock therapy to cure him of his violence—similar to the electric rug of coins
    • Many scenes in the book are similar to one another—mean the same things
    • Mary like the woman in the Sambo?
    • The Brute—the idea that black men prey on white woman, but they throw a naked white woman in a crowd of black men



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