Lit 12 Proposal

Instead of doing boring Nova-Net, I would much rather read Brave New World, and do a nifty corresponding project. The only issue is that I must identify all of the Ga Standards.

They are:


ELABLRL1 The student demonstrates comprehension by identifying evidence (i.e., examples of diction, imagery, point of view, figurative language, symbolism, plot events, main ideas, and characteristics) in a variety of texts representative of different genres (i.e., poetry, prose [short story, novel, essay, editorial, biography], and drama) and using this evidence as the basis for interpretation.


ELABLRL2 The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of theme in a work of British and/or Commonwealth literature and provides evidence from the work to support understanding.


ELABLRL3 The student deepens understanding of literary works by relating them to their contemporary context or historical background, as well as to works from other time periods.


ELABLRL4 The student employs a variety of writing genres to demonstrate a comprehensive grasp of significant ideas in selected literary works. The student composes essays, narratives, poems, or technical documents.


ELABLRL5 The student understands and acquires new vocabulary and uses it correctly in reading and writing.

Okay, so my proposal is to write a total of 4 blog responses. This is one post per 50 pages. To cover standards 1-3 & 5, I will write lengthy blog responses, showing the standards and my reactions to them. To cover my fourth standard, "the composed" part, I will create a set of photos in photoshop and will post them on a powerpoint. Everything will be "okayed" by you, Mr. siegmund, before I complete and post them to this blog.

You know what? Nevermind! I have decided that this project might just be a waste of my valuable time. Jim finished and I now have decided that I should just go ahead and do the stinking novanet and just be done with it. =)

Poetry =/

1. Richard Corey

WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.


And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.


And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.


So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.



I take in this story as Disillusionment at its best. Richard Cory was a rich man; the American Dream. To many people money equals happiness, but to Richard Cory it was not enough to outweigh his sorrows.




2. Mending Wall


SOMETHING there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,

But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father’s saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”



This poem screams Disillusionment in so many forms. The saying should be "Bad fences make good neighbors" because the neighbors only meet to fix the rock fence once a year. The author thinks that he is more intelligent than his neighbor because of this nonsense saying. He thinks of his neighbour as being medieval; Not daring to look outside the box that his father had built for him.

3. A Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-- And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

I actually had to look this poem up to understand its heritage. The full name is "Harlem- A Dream Deferred." I'm sure that you edited it to make it a tad bit harder for us. Yet, Langston Hughes was a Harlem Renaissance poet. As I said, I had to look this up to find the true meaning. The theme is "Having to postpone one’s deepest desires can lead to destruction." Langston used astounding imagery in this poem, and I feel that is what made it so famous.


The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Langston Hughes

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Langston Hughes was not a racist, his heart survived through the racism he endured. Being a black man in the 1920's he was not treated as an equal, most would become bitter and racist themselves, but not Langston. He knew that all people are, were, and will always be equal. He uses geographical waters to show the love he felt. Rivers have always been a breadbasket for life. The Euphrates is widely known as the cradle of life, and Langston speaks of living at these ancient rivers. He symbolises being many different peoples and all are dependent on these holy rivers. When he speaks of the Nile, the equality shows the most. For all races were slaves to build the Egyptian's pyramids.


Incident
Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

This is the most straight forward poem in this series. There is no "beating around the bush" present here. This is A Harlem Renaissance poem showing the pure hate that the white race felt towards "lesser" humans. The poor little boy had done nothing to deserve such hatred. Countee Cullen was raised in a middle class home and was very well educated. He even graduated from Harvard (a prodominatly white school.) He did not want to be classified as a "Black poet" but his poems concerning race were the most popular.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty/ Psychoanalysis

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was very confusing the first time I read it. The plot skips from Mitty doing everyday errands to being a submarine pilot with no leading context. I thought that I had skipped a paragraph or something. Then, I thought he was having flashbacks from WWII; I really had it wrong. After that, I thought that maybe Mitty was crazy; I was wrong again.
Aparently, Walter Mitty is daydreaming. I can see the psychoanalysis portion of this, the idea of showing someone's thoughts was very new at the time this story was written. Although this story was harder to keep up with than a Tarantino movie I rectuantly read it over and over so that I could atempt to grasp the full meaning.
"They're so damn cocky, thought Walter Mitty, walking along Main Street; they think they know everything." I don't think that Mitty likes America too much.