Planning the AP English Lit & Comp Course: Three Dozen Questions

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2 Planning the AP English Lit & Comp Course: Three Dozen Questions Audiences Students 1. Who will be taking the course? 2. Who will decide who takes the course? 3. Is there a formal selection process in place? 4. How many students? in how many sections? 5. What grade level are the students? 6. Describe them. 7. What is their motivation for taking the course? 8. How motivated are they to do the work? 9. Does that motivation come from within, or is it imposed from outside, and, if so, by whom? 10. What will they have done in English? All of them? 11. Do you know any of them from previous courses? 12. Do you know any of their strengths? weaknesses? 13. Do they read? Other audiences: What agendas do they carry? What influence do they have on the AP course? 14. colleagues in your department 15. colleagues in other departments or other schools in your district 16. administrators at your site 17. district administrators; district governing board or committee 18. county / state offices of education 19. community leaders? 20. community members concerned with education? Purpose: 21. What are your purposes in the course? What are the purposes of your various audiences? The party line : An AP course in English Literature & Composition should engage students in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature. Through the close reading of selected texts, students should deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers. You probably want your students to form some habits as well, maybe including reading with insight and enjoyment and writing in their own voice with precision, intelligence, polish, and some sophistication. What do you want to add here? 22. What role will the AP Exam play in your course? 23. What role will the results of that exam play at your school? 24. What role will the results of that exam play in your community? Course Content There are no right answers here. 25. Who decides what the course content will be? 26. What must students leave with? what knowledge/understanding? what skills? what habits? 27. What works must be included? is that because you want them or someone else does? 28. What organizational plan do you want to use? The course can be arranged in any of a number of ways: thematically generically chronologically geographically maybe some combination? 29. What units do you want, and in what order? 30. Do you want to cover a broader range of literature or work in more detail and depth 31. How will your students success be measured, how often, and by whom? 32. What will be your time frame? 33. Will students do summer work? 34. How will your school calendar influence your course? opening and closing dates state and local testing holidays and breaks school events other factors You How do you keep it together? 35. What support systems for teaching AP do you already have in place? 36. What systems are you considering adding to your life as a teacher of AP? 2

3 English Literature and Composition Curricular Requirements The teacher has read the most recent AP English Course Description, available as a free download at apcentral.collegeboard.com/englitglit [ 1 ] The course includes an intensive study of representative works such as those by authors cited in the AP English Course Description. (Note: The College Board does not mandate any particular authors or reading list.) The choice of works for the AP course is made by the school in relation to the school's overall English curriculum sequence, so that by the time the student completes A.P English Literature and Composition she or he will have studied during high school literature from both British and American writers, as well as works written in several genres from the sixteenth century to contemporary times. The works selected for the course should require careful, deliberative reading that yields multiple meanings. The course teaches students to write an interpretation of a piece of literature that is based on a careful observation of textual details, considering the work s: [ 2 ] Structure, style, and themes [ 3 ] The social and historical values it reflects and embodies [ 4 ] Such elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone The course includes frequent opportunities for students to write and rewrite formal, extended analyses and timed in class responses. The course requires: [ 5 ] Writing to understand: Informal, exploratory writing activities that enable students to discover what they think in the process of writing about their reading (such assignments could include annotation, freewriting, keeping a reading journal, and response/reaction papers) [ 6 ] Writing to explain: Expository, analytical essays in which students draw upon textual details to develop an extended explanation/interpretation of the meanings of a literary text [ 7 ] Writing to evaluate: Analytical, argumentative essays in which students draw upon textual details to make and explain judgments about a work's artistry and quality, and its social and cultural values The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students' writing assignments, both before and after the students revise their work, that help the students develop: [ 8 ] A wide ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively [ 9 ] A variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination [ 10 ] Logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis [ 11 ] A balance of generalization and specific, illustrative detail [ 12 ] An effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure Resource Requirements The school ensures that each student has a copy of all required readings for individual use inside and outside of the classroom. NB: The numbering here follows the original numbers in the checklist on the reviewers' web site; it does not appear in the College Board manual. 3

4 Writing Requirements of the AP Audit (2-5) The three required types of essays interpreting literature: Requirement 2: The course teaches students to write an interpretation of a piece of literature that is based on a careful observation of textual details, considering the work s structure, style, and themes. A fulfillment: During or Following their study of students will be taught to write an interpretation of title of work or unit the novel / the play / a poem basing their essays on a careful observation of textual details, considering the way the work s structure and style help convey its theme. Requirement 3: The course teaches students to write an interpretation of a piece of literature that is based on a careful observation of textual details, considering the social and historical values it reflects and embodies. A fulfillment: During or Following their study of students will be taught to write an interpretation of title of work or unit the novel / the play / a poem basing their essays on a careful observation of textual details, considering the social and historical values it reflects and embodies. Requirement 4 The course teaches students to write an interpretation of a piece of literature that is based on a careful observation of textual details, considering such elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone A fulfillment: During or Following their study of students will be taught to write an interpretation of title of work or unit the novel / the play / a poem basing their essays on a careful observation of textual details, considering such elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone. 4

5 Writing Requirements of the AP Audit (5-7) The three required types of writing: Informal, Expository, and Analytical Requirement 5 The course requires writing to understand: Informal, exploratory writing activities that enable students to discover what they think in the process of writing about their reading (such assignments could include annotation, freewriting, keeping a reading journal, and response/reaction papers). A fulfillment: During or Following students will their study of name of the activity title of work or unit Possibilities include dialectical journals, annotation collections, response prediction papers, letters, notes, extended questions, reviews, adaptation proposals, medical reports, progress report, and the like. Requirement 6 The course requires writing to explain: Expository, analytical essays in which students draw upon textual details to develop an extended explanation/interpretation of the meanings of a literary text A fulfillment: During or Following their study of title of work or unit students will write an expository, analytical essay in which they draw upon textual details to develop an extended explanation/interpretation of the meanings of a literary text. Requirement 7 The course requires writing to evaluate: Analytical, argumentative essays in which students draw upon textual details to make and explain judgments about a work s artistry and quality, and its social and cultural values A fulfillment: During or Following their study of title of work or unit students will write an evaluative essay in which they draw upon textual details to make and explain judgments about the work s artistry and quality, and its social and cultural values 5

6 Writing Requirements of the AP Audit (8-10) The five required types of instruction and feedback Requirement 8 The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students writing assignments, both before and after the students revise their work, that help the students develop a wide ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively. A fulfillment: During or Following the study of title of work or unit the teacher s instruction and feedback on students writing assignments will focus on helping them develop a wide ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively. Requirement 9: The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students writing assignments, both before and after the students revise their work, that help the students develop a variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination A fulfillment: During or Following the study of title of work or unit the teacher s instruction and feedback on students writing assignments will focus on helping them develop a variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination Requirement 10: The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students writing assignments, both before and after the students revise their work, that help the students develop logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis. A fulfillment: During or Following the study of title of work or unit the teacher s instruction and feedback on students writing assignments will focus on helping them develop logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis 6

7 Writing Requirements of the AP Audit (11-12) Requirement 11: The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students writing assignments, both before and after the students revise their work, that help the students develop a balance of generalization and specific, illustrative detail. A fulfillment: During or Following the study of title of work or unit the teacher s instruction and feedback on students writing assignments will focus on helping them balance generalization with specific, illustrative detail. Requirement 12 The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students writing assignments, both before and after the students revise their work, that help the students develop an effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure. A fulfillment: During or Following the study of title of work or unit the teacher s instruction and feedback on students writing assignments will focus on helping them develop an effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure. The five required types of instruction and feedback Element: Strategy: Resources: 8 Vocabulary 9 Sentence Structure 10 Organization 11 Balance of generalization and specifics 12 Rhetoric 7

8 U NIT P LAN: T EACHING T HE B ROTHERS K ARAMAZOV AP AUDIT ELEMENT(S): Work / Chapter / Act / Pages Teaching strategy / Learning activity KNOWLEDGE What students should know actively: What students should be able to recognize: SKILLS What students should be able to do: HABITS What students should do habitually: 8

9 Requirement Unit / Time Before, During, After Work Strategies Resources The course teaches students to write an interpretation of a piece of literature that is based on a careful observation of textual details, considering 2 the work s structure, style, and themes. B D A 3 the social and historical values it reflects and embodies. B D A 4 such elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone B D A 9

10 The course requires 5 6 writing to understand: Informal, exploratory writing activities that enable students to discover what they think in the process of writing about their reading (such assignments could include annotation, freewriting, keeping a reading journal, and response/reaction papers). writing to explain: Expository, analytical essays in which students draw upon textual details to develop an extended explanation/interpretatio n of the meanings of a literary text B D A B D A 7 writing to evaluate: Analytical, argumentative essays in which students draw upon textual details to make and explain judgments about a work s artistry and quality, and its social and cultural values B D A 10

11 The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students writing assignments, both before and after the students revise their work, that help the students develop 8 a wide ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively. B D A a variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis. a balance of generalization and specific, illustrative detail.. an effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure. B D A B D A B D A B D A 11

12 A d v a n c e d P l a c e m e n t E n g l i s h The AP English Literature and Composition Course: Preliminary Planning COURSE ARRANGEMENT Generic Chronological Thematic other? TEXTBOOK(S) Literature anthology? Yes No Who pays for the books? CLASSES How many sections? How many teachers? How many students per section? What are the requirements/prerequisites? How are the students selected and by whom? LITERATURE Novels: (start with five) Plays: (start with five) SUMMER? AMERICAN BRITISH SUMMER? RENAISSANCE 20th-21st CENTURY? Poetry: Separate unit? Yes No 16-17th CENTURY 17th-18th CENTURY 19th CENTURY 20-21st CENTURY Organization & strategies:

13 COMPOSITION Required writing experiences 2: Structure, style, and themes 3: Social/Historical values 4: Literary elements 5: Writing to understand 6: Writing to explain 7: Writing to evaluate Required writing instruction 8: Vocabulary 9: Sentence variety, subordination 10: Organization 11: Balance 12: Rhetoric RESOURCES / CHALLENGES.

14 A d v a n c e d P l a c e m e n t E n g l i s h The AP English Literature and Composition Course: Preliminary Planning COURSE ARRANGEMENT Generic Chronological Thematic other? TEXTBOOK(S) Literature anthology? Yes No Who pays for the books? CLASSES How many sections? How many teachers? How many students per section? What are the requirements/prerequisites? How are the students selected and by whom? LITERATURE Novels: (start with five) Plays: (start with five) SUMMER? AMERICAN BRITISH SUMMER? RENAISSANCE 20th-21st CENTURY? Poetry: Separate unit? Yes No 16-17th CENTURY 17th-18th CENTURY 19th CENTURY 20-21st CENTURY Organization & strategies:

15 COMPOSITION Required writing experiences 2: Structure, style, and themes 3: Social/Historical values 4: Literary elements 5: Writing to understand 6: Writing to explain 7: Writing to evaluate Required writing instruction 8: Vocabulary 9: Sentence variety, subordination 10: Organization 11: Balance 12: Rhetoric RESOURCES / CHALLENGES.

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17 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays Some Concerns about Scores from the AP English Electronic Discussion Group ---- Original Message - What do I need to do as a teacher [to get the scores to go up each year]? I m not totally responsible for the scores; however, I know I am a piece of the puzzle. Thanks for your help - guidance. I ll accept any form: bulleted lists, etc... Your scores will not go up every year unless you start really low and be sure to improve only slightly each time. My scores this year were worse than last year s, too. Like you, I want to be better next year than I was this year. Do not beat yourself up, though, over lower scores unless you intentionally neglected or sabotaged your students. Others on the list will come through with good suggestions. Here is just a part of my list... once I start it you ll be able to add to it easily. I don t mean this to be as facetious as it sounds; the items here can make a significant difference. Be sure your students: have had practice with multiple choice questions have not had an argument with a parent within 72 hours have had practice writing essays have an adequate diet and get enough sleep are not worried someone s going to find out about (fill in the blank) have learned to read with some perception and appreciation are in nearly perfect health have no family members or pets with illnesses or emotional problems are not worried about other AP exams coming up later in the week have not had a fight with a boy/girlfriend within the past week have no friends who have just found out they re pregnant do not have an older brother or sister who got a 5 on this AP test have no nagging religious or philosophical doubts know they re going to be able to go to college and how they will pay for it and on, and on... and, above all are not adolescents Cheers, Skip Nicholson --- Original Message -- I m feeling very upset and extremely disappointed [with scores]. It s not a good way to start the school year in a few weeks. If your kids had scored far beyond your expectations on the exam, would you claim it was all your doing? even privately? I m trying to encourage you not to blame yourself, but can I get rough for a minute? If your only measure of the success of your course is the exam score, then you re probably right to be very upset and extremely disappointed. But if you work to make your class an enjoyable experience for your students, if you try to change the way they read and think about their reading, if you try to get them to establish habits about reading and about talking and writing about their reading habits they will carry into, through, and out of college, if your kids learn to challenge each other, to probe, to dig, and to laugh... if any of these operate in your class, they you are wrong to be discouraged. Disappointed that the system sometimes doesn t produce the results we think it should, OK. Disappointed that on that day, that exam didn t fit those kids, yes. Disappointed in yourself and them, no. The exam is not the course. One more way to look at it: You know your kids and what they did during the year. Would you feel comfortable using the AP exam scores as their final grades? Give the 5s an A, the 4s a B, the 3s a C, and the 2s a D? Would those grades reflect your evaluation of their knowledge, performance, and habits? If you would feel good throwing out all their other work and your professional judgement and using only those scores, may I suggest, with some honest respect but with some insistence too, that you probably should not be teaching AP. If you wanted things to work out better this year, you are welcome to join my new club. Last year my kids scores were exceptionally high. I did not take the credit, not even in conversations with myself. This year my kids scores were not what I hoped. I do not accept the blame. (I don t even accept that there s blame to be doled out.) Your reasoning, though, suggests that you would blame me. You wouldn t really would you? If not, you can t blame yourself either. Fair enough? Hang in there. Cheers, Skip Nicholson 13

18 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays CALCULATING THE AP EXAM SCORE PRE-DETERMINED: Total points possible = 150 Essay section = 55% (82.5 points) Multiple choice section = 45% (67.5 points) Essay section TOTAL Each Essay Each point (on the 9 point scale) points percent points percent points percent % % % Multiple choice section TOTAL Each passage* Each question points percent points percent points percent % % % * assumes, incorrectly, that all passages count equally 14

19 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays AP EXAM SCORE ESTIMATES SECTION I: MULTIPLE-CHOICE: X * = number correct Weighted Section I score SECTION II: ESSAYS: Question 1: X = out of 9 Question 1: X = out of 9 Question 1: X = out of 9 SUM of three essay scores: COMPOSITE SCORE: Weighted Section II score + = AP EXAM SCORE ESTIMATE 1. Multiply the number of correct answers by That gives you your weighted section 1 score. *(The factor assumes there are 55 multiple choice questions. If there are not, divide 67.5 by the number of questions to get this factor.) 2. Add together the scores (out of 9) on your three essays That gives you your weighted section 2 score. 3. Add together your two weighted scores. That number is your composite score. 4. The cut points between grades vary from year to year, but you can use this table to find the grade you would have received using these typical figures. 15

20 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays AP English Study Skills How to Prepare for AP English Examinations You ve been studying for years, almost since the days you got out of Dr. Seuss books. Is there some new, exotic set of study skills you need to do well in Advanced Placement courses and exams? No...and yes. No, because the general skills of reading and writing you ve gained are fundamental for advanced work. Yes, because AP courses are at a college level. They require more complex skills at a higher level of difficulty. Following is a quick study primer with tips on reading and writing, as well as preparing for AP English Examinations. Reading In AP English, you may feel you have never been given so much to read. AP English demands plenty of serious reading, and you might be tempted to speed read. You may try to scan paragraphs and pages as fast as you can while hunting for main ideas. In a word: Don t. First, main ideas usually aren t quickly accessible from speed reading complex texts. Also, if you race through good writing, you are likely to miss the subtlety and complexity. A paragraph of text by Frederick Douglass or Joyce Carol Oates, a poem by Auden, or a drama by Shakespeare cannot be appreciated or even minimally understood without careful, often repeated readings. In reading your AP assignments, keep in mind to: Read slowly Reread complex and important sentences Ask yourself often, What does this sentence, paragraph, speech, stanza, or chapter mean? Make Your Reading Efficient How can you balance the careful reading AP English requires with your demanding chemistry and calculus workloads, plus get in play practice, soccer games, and whatever else you ve got on your busy schedule? We ve compiled some helpful tips to make your AP reading more efficient, fun, and productive. Get a head start. Obtain copies of as many assigned texts as you can. Then you won t waste time searching for a text when you absolutely need it. Preview important reading assignments. By previewing, you carefully note: the exact title the author s name the table of contents the preface or introduction this section often states the author s purpose and themes in essays and certain types of prose, the final paragraph(s). Pause to consider the author s principal ideas and the material the author uses to support them. Such ideas may be fairly easy to identify in writings of critical essayists or journalists, but much more subtle in the works of someone like Virginia Woolf or Emily Dickinson. Know the context of a piece of writing. This technique will help you read with greater understanding and better recollection. A knowledge of the period in which the authors lived and wrote enhances your understanding of what they have tried to say and how well they succeeded. When you read John Steinbeck s The Grapes of Wrath, find other sources to learn about the horrible conditions for migrant laborers in California in the 1930s. Read text aloud. Slow down when you are having trouble with poetry or important passages, and read them aloud. You can more easily determine tone, for example. Reread difficult material to help you understand it. Complex issues and elegant expression are not always easily caught on a first reading. Form the habit of consulting your dictionary, the thesaurus, the encyclopedia, the atlas, and the globe. Through these resources, you ll discover new ideas and knowledge. Lots of high quality computer software is available, too. To understand and appreciate much of English and American literature, you should have some acquaintance with the major themes of Judaic and Christian religious traditions and with Greek and Roman mythology. These religious concepts and stories have influenced and informed first English and then American literary traditions from the Middle Ages through modern times. If you are studying Literature and Composition, you should also study extensively several representative works from various genres and periods from the Renaissance forward. You are advised to concentrate on works of recognized literary merit, worthy of scrutiny because of their richness of thought and language. 16

21 Writing Writing is central to both AP English courses and examinations. Both courses have but two goals, to provide you with opportunities to become skilled, mature, critical readers and practiced, logical, clear, and honest writers. In AP English, writing is taught as process that is, thinking, planning, drafting the text, reviewing, discussing, redrafting, editing, polishing, and finishing. It s also important that AP students learn to write on call or on demand. Learning to write critical or expository essays on call takes time and practice. Here are some key guidelines to remember in learning to write a critical essay: Make use of the text given to you to analyze. Quote judiciously from it to support your observations. Be logical in your exposition of ideas. Use evidence from the text to strengthen your analysis. If you acquire these skills organizing ideas, marshalling evidence, being logical in analysis, and using the text judiciously you should have little trouble writing your essays on the AP Examination. Practice in other kinds of writing narrative, argument, exposition, and personal writing all have their place alongside practice in writing on demand. As you study and practice writing, you ll want to consider the following points. Your reading directly influences your writing skills and habits. If you sat down and read the complete three volume edition of Edward Gibbon s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and wrote a paper about it, your writing style would probably take on the sound of Gibbon s with great series of elegant phrases and clauses and an elevated, lofty tone. Read with omnivorous relish and you won t even have to be taught how to write. It will come naturally. Writing at its best is great fun. When you have penned what you think is a great sentence or clean, logical paragraph, read it over to yourself out loud. Enjoy it. Delight in the ideas, savor the diction, and let the phrases and clauses roll around in your mind. Claim it as part of your self. You will discover you have a voice worthy of respect. Take a tip from E. M. Forster. He is reputed to have said that he never knew clearly what it was he thought until he spoke it; and once he had said it, he never knew clearly what it was that he said until he had written it down. Then, Forster noted, he could play with it and give it final form. Be like Forster: think, speak, write, analyze your writing, give it final shape. Think of grammar, mechanics, and rhetoric as tools, aids, props. Think of them as elements that you can order to clean up your ideas, to sharpen your statements, to make your words and sentences glisten and stick. Get well acquainted with the vocabulary. Writers and critical readers have a technical vocabulary they use when talking about language, drama, poetry, and fiction, Compile a list of such words. Notice writing that uses the right vocabulary and why. Words you should already know include: syntax, tone, rhetoric, attitude, antecedent, denouement, exposition, climax, atmosphere, voice, speaker, stock character, thesis, ideology, persuasion, paradox, allusion, ambivalence, syllogism, and aphorism. When writing, think about audience. Your teachers may specify an audience that you are supposed to keep in mind when writing a paper. Most of us in daily life are not writing for a particular person or audience, but rather for someone called the general reader. The general reader is someone, anyone, who possesses an average intelligence and has a fairly sound general education. This general reader is interested in the events of the day and in the world as a whole. He or she has a good measure of sympathy for humankind, appreciates the happy as well as the unhappy accidents of life. This reader also is blessed with a good sense of humor and the ability to listen to others, to writers like you in fact. Keep the general reader in mind when you write. How to Prepare for AP English Examinations During your AP English course, your teacher will probably assess how well you and your fellow students are mastering important knowledge and skills. Your teacher will gather this information through questions and quizzes, class reports, projects or papers, and, of course, tests. Besides these teacher prepared assessments, the Advanced Placement Program provides a standardized final exam in May. Unlike most exams prepared and graded by your teachers, the AP English Examination allows you to miss or omit quite a few questions on the multiple choice section and still receive a good grade. Keeping up with course work, regular study, and periodic review of major elements in the course constitute the best preparation for taking tests. If you want to master your AP course, remember that material you review periodically and skills you reinforce by practice are far more likely to remain with you than are those that you try to acquire all at once in a brief time period. But what about Exam Day, what to do if you have sweaty palms and your mind is darting from Auden to Hurston to Wharton quicker than the dash between class and school lockers? Here are some strategies for Exam Day. The first three apply to most exams you might take. The remainder refer specifically to AP Exams. Pay close attention to directions. Not paying enough attention to test directions can hurt your grade. Remember: If your teacher says, Answer one of the three questions in section one and all of the questions in section two, and you reverse the directions, the grade you receive on the test will probably not reflect accurately what you know about the topics. On the AP Exams, phrases in the multiple choice 17

22 sections like All the following are... EXCEPT or Which of the following does NOT... contain critical words. If you don t pay attention to them, you will not respond correctly to the questions. If you tend to be very nervous during a major exam, it s especially important to concentrate on the spoken and written directions. Be careful about the sequence on answer sheets for multiple choice tests. Even the most experienced test taker can make the critical mistake of getting responses out of sequence. If you re not careful, you may mark an answer for question 5 when the answer was intended for question 6. This can happen easily when you skip a question. Put a mark in your test book (not on your answer sheet) when you bypass a question. Frequently check to be sure that the number of the question on your answer sheet corresponds to the number of the question in your exam booklet. Use smart strategies to handle the time limits. Virtually all classroom and standardized tests have time limits. Skilled test takers make a quick estimate of the amount of time the various questions or sections of a test will require and stay aware of the time available throughout the test and concentrate on questions they can respond to best. On the multiple choice section of the AP Examinations, for example, you should note the number of questions and the time allotted to them. Move on to the next question if you can t figure out the answer to the one you are working on. Use all the time available for the AP Examinations. If you finish the exam with time to spare, go back to questions you skipped or answers that you can supplement. Know the probability for educated guessing. AP Examinations have a scoring adjustment to correct for random guessing. For questions with five answer choices, one fourth of a point is subtracted for each wrong answer. So if you know absolutely nothing that helps you eliminate even one of the multiple choice options, you probably won t come out ahead by guessing at an answer. But if you are fairly sure that even one of the options is wrong, it may be worthwhile to answer the question. Of course, if you can eliminate two or three options as probably incorrect, your chances of gaining credit become even greater. Specific Strategies for the Free Response Section When you are taking the free response section of the AP English Examinations, be sure to understand what each essay question is asking you to do and then make sure that you answer the question that is asked. Do not write on a topic other than the assigned one. Your essays will be evaluated on the completeness and the quality of your response to the question. The quality of your response includes both the quality of what you say and the skill with which you say it the quality of your writing. The best answers will be both perceptive and well written. Here are some pointers concerning free response questions: o o o o o o o o Know your time limits. Remember that your time on the free response questions is limited. Plan your answer carefully. Think about the major points that you want to make and the evidence you plan to include to support these statements. Before you start writing your essay, be sure that you understand the passage or poem (if there is one). Preparation works. Although the English teachers who score the free response section will generally be sympathetic if you revise your first reading or understanding of a passage as you write your answer, more preparation early on could save you the need to revise your thinking in the middle of your response. Substance counts. You need to write enough to answer the question fully and to make your ideas convincing by supporting them with specific details. Long answers are not necessarily the best answers, but answers that are very sketchy or filled with unsupported generalizations usually do not receive the highest scores. In the time allowed for each question, AP English students are usually able to write several substantial paragraphs and to develop their critical analysis at some length. Take care with revisions. Because of the time limitation in the free response section, you will not be able to write a rough draft and then recopy your answer. However, space is provided in the exam booklet and in the response booklet to make notes and/or to outline your answer. As you write your essay, you can cross out words and sentences and even insert a part or move it from one section to another. Try to save a little time for reviewing your essay so that you can edit or revise it slightly. Make sure that any changes you make are clearly marked and legible and that any parts you want to delete are carefully crossed out. Is it natural for you to be very nervous about the AP English Exam? Yes. It s understandable to be anxious when you are about to do something on which others will judge your performance. For most people, knowledge is the great moderator of anxiety. The more you know in advance about a course or an exam, the less you will worry. Knowing about an exam means understanding what kinds of questions you will be asked, how the exam will be graded, how much time you ll have to respond, and so on. Knowing that you are prepared in terms of the exam s content is probably the most calming knowledge of all. Consistent study, frequent review, and diligent practice throughout the course will powerfully support you for daily classroom learning and for taking tests. 18

23 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays Counting Down to the Exam Exam Tips: English Literature Observations of the Chief Faculty Consultant The Chief Faculty Consultant, Gale Larson, provided the following advice after the 2001 AP Reading: Tell students to read the prompt of each question very carefully. To think about the implications of the question, to begin thinking about how they will organize their responses, and to focus on what is asked of them are all important strategies in beginning the writing task. Often, students are asked to select a play or a novel to answer a particular question. Make sure they know that the work they have selected should be appropriate to the question asked. See to it that students have a fair range of readings that they feel familiar with, ones with which they can test the implications of the question and make the decision of the appropriateness of the work to the question asked. Without this flexibility they may force an answer that will come across as canned to the AP faculty consultant. Remind students to enter into the text itself, to supply concrete illustrations that substantiate the points they are making. Have them take command of what they are writing with authority by means of direct quotation of pertinent information from the text, always writing into the question and never away from it. Help them to keep their point of view consistent, to select appropriate material for supporting evidence, and to write in a focused and succinct manner. Remind your students that films are not works of literature and cannot be used to provide the kind of literary analysis required on the exam. Advise your students that, when starting an essay, they should avoid engaging in a mechanical repetition of the prompt and then supplying a list of literary devices. Instead, get them to think of ways to integrate the language of literature with the content of that literature, making connections that are meaningful and telling, engaging in analysis that leads to the synthesis of new ideas. Pressure them into using higher levels of critical thinking; have them go beyond the obvious and search for a more penetrating relationship of ideas. Make them see connections that they missed on their first reading of the text. Find more at AP Central, 19

24 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays What AP Readers Long to See This list was compiled during the 1994 AP English Reading at Trinity University in San Antonio. 1. Read the prompt. It hurts to give a low score to someone who misread the prompt but wrote a good essay. 2. Do everything the prompt asks. Most writers focus on a few strategies and never fully answer the question. 3. Think before you write. Which strategies are used and how do the answer the prompt? 4. Plan your response. It is not easy for the reader to pick over an essay attempting to decipher sentences. A little organization will help you avoid extensive editing. 5. Make a strong first impression. Build your opening response. Don t parrot the prompt word for word. The reader knows it from memory. 6. Begin your response immediately. Do not take a circuitous route with generalizations. 7. Be thorough and specific. Do not simply point out strategies. Explain how they are used, give examples, and show how they establish what the question is asking. No long quotes! 8. Use clear transitions that help the reader follow the ideas in your essays. Keep your paragraphs organized; do not digress. 10. Write to express, not to impress. Keep vocabulary and syntax within your zone of competence. Students who inflate their writing often inadvertently entertain, but seldom explain. 11. Demonstrate that you understand style. Show the reader how the author has developed the selection to create the desired effect. This indicates that you understand the intricacies of the creative process. 12. Maintain an economy of language, saying much with few words. The best student writers see much, but say it quite succinctly. Often ideas are embedded rather than listed. 13. Let your writing dance with ideas and insights. You can receive a 6 or a 7 with a lockstep approach, but the essays that earn 8 s and 9 s expand to a wider perspective. 14. Write legibly. If a reader cannot read half the words, you will not get a fair reading even if your essay is passed on to a reader with keener eyesight. 15. Let your work stand on its own merits. Avoid penning pity me notes to the reader ( I was up all night. I have a cold, etc.). 9. Resist putting in a canned quotation or critic s comment if it does not fit. You will get a response from your reader but it will not be the one you want. 20

25 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays The Advanced Placement Reading This list was compiled during the 1994 AP English Reading at Trinity University in San Antonio and has been edited to reflect changes through Readings in Daytona Beach and Louisville. 1. DEVELOPING THE EXAM Before the exam a small group of experienced readers and college professors select literature and create appropriate questions The questions are subsequently fieldtested with groups of freshman English students in colleges and universities around the U.S. and are then reexamined and refine for validity. 2. THE AP READING PROCESS After the exam, the Test Development Committee and exam leadership meet to select potential sample essays. The table leaders arrive one day prior to the start of the reading to validate, refine, and even challenge scores. Samples to be used by all readers are selected and sequenced. Readers are broken into three large groups one for each question, and question leaders are introduced. Readers are further divided into tables consisting of one table leader and six, seven, or eight readers. The first morning (and sometimes part of the afternoon) is dedicated to training readers using pre selected samples and scoring guides. Then each reader receives a packet with a scoring sheet and twenty five exams, which they read and record in numerical order. When finished, readers turn in packet for new one. (This goes on forever or seven days, whichever comes first.) Table leader checks by reading behind new readers and reading selected samples from all readers throughout at least the first several days and usually the entire reading. Every session (even after breaks and lunch) begin with normed readings which diminish as the week progresses. The chief reader and question leaders offer inspiration and humor. 3. THE READING ATMOSPHERE Friendly, collegial, academic, enlightening Many activities both intellectual and inane: poetry/fiction readings, symposia, dances, receptions, sports, tours, etc. Plenty of food, great conversation and opportunities for insight as well as inspiration and exchange of ideas. READERS About 50% college instructors, 50% AP teachers. Remarkable egalitarian spirit nobody tries to pull rank. 21

26 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H The Card Trick Begin now keeping a deck of cards, one for each work you see or read. Use 4 x 6 or 3 x 5 cards; choose a size that works for you. On the front of the card record the following information: o the author (last name first for alphabetizing) o the title o the type of literature (play, novel, story...) o the year of writing o the setting (time and place) o the names of the main characters and their relationship to each other o the plot line (in two or three sentences) o the theater, date of performance, and director (for a play or movie) On the back, record o a brief reaction (brief, here, means one sentence) o questions you have o a memorable line or two o another work of literature (or art or music) to which you see some relation 22

27 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays Advanced Placement English Literature & Composition Name Major Work Data Page Writer/Nationality Theme/"Meanings of the work as a whole" Characters Date/Movement Organization Point of View (Why?) Style Setting(s) Symbol/Sustained Allusion Tone Plot/Story Ambiguity/Irony Related works (literature, fine art, music ) Something Else 23

28 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays AP Exam Review: Chart of Major Works Title, Author Type, Date, Country Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller play (tragedy) U.S. 1950s Topic Theme, Ideas The American Dream Worth of the individual Character Willy Loman Linda, Biff, Happy Ben (in flashbacks) Charley, Bernard Setting, Atmosphere SAMPLE: Brooklyn (claustrophobic) Loman home, restaurant Flashbacks in Boston Style, Language & Symbol Flute, cars, stockings, Ben, Alaska, refrigerator Links to other works Unrealized dreams (Streetcar) Tragic hero (Willy vs. Oedipus, Hamlet) Quotes Attention must finally be paid to this man. Review materials in The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 8 th ed , PRACTICE: Portrait of the Artist... James Joyce Novel Ireland, 20th c. Twelfth Night Shakespeare Play (comedy) England

29 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays QUESTION 3 PROMPTS: 21 st Century 2000 Many works of literature not readily identified with the mystery or detective story genre nonetheless involve the investigation of a mystery. In these works, the solution to the mystery may be less important than the knowledge gained in the process of its investigation. Choose a novel or play in which one or more of the characters confront a mystery. Then write an essay in which you identify the mystery and explain how the investigation illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot One definition of madness is mental delusion or the eccentric behavior arising from it. But Emily Dickinson wrote Much madness is divinest Sense To a discerning Eye Novelist and playwrights have often seen madness with a discerning Eye. Select a novel or a play in which a character s apparent madness or irrational behavior plays an important role. Then write a well organized essay in which you explain what this delusion or eccentric behavior consists of and how it might be judged reasonable. Explain the significance of the madness to the work 2002 Morally ambiguous characters characters whose behavior discourages readers form identifying them as purely evil or purely good are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary According to critic Northrop Frye, tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that tey seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divine lightning. Select a novel or play in which a tragic figure functions as an instrument of the suffering of others. Then write an essay in which you explain how the suffering brought upon others by that figure contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole Critic Roland Barthes has said, Literature is the question minus the answer. Choose a novel or play and, considering Barthes observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers any answers. Explain how the author s treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary In Kate Chopin s The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions. In a novel or play that you have studied, identify a character who conforms outwardly while questioning inwardly. Then write an essay in which you analyze how this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot summary Many writers use a country setting to establish values within a work of literature. For example, the country may be a place of virtue and peace or one of primitivism and ignorance. Choose a novel or play in which such a setting plays a significant role. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the country setting functions in the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present actions, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a novel or play in which a character must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Then write an essay in which you show how the character s relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot In a literary work, a minor character, often known as a foil, possesses traits that emphasize, by contrast or comparison, the distinctive characteristics and qualities of the main character. For example, the ideas of behavior of the minor character might be used to highlight the weaknesses or strengths of the main character. Choose a novel or play in which a minor character serves as a foil to a main character. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the relation between the minor character and the major character illuminates the meaning of a work A symbol is an object, action, or event that represents something or that creates a range of associations beyond itself. In literary works a symbol can express an idea, clarify meaning, or enlarge literal meaning. Select a novel or play and, focusing on one symbol, write an essay analyzing how that symbol functions in the work and what it reveals about the characters or themes of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot Palestinian American literary theorist and cultural critic Edward Said has written that Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unbeatable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. Yet Said has also said that exile can become a potent, even enriching experience. Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from home, whether that home is the character s birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the character s experience with exile is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or one of comparable literary merit. Do not merely summarize the plot In a novel by William Styron, a father tells his son that life is a search for justice. Choose a character from a novel or play who responds in some significant way to justice or injustice. Then write a well developed essay in which you analyze the character s understanding of justice, the degree to which the character s search for justice is successful, and the significance of this search for the work as a whole. 25

30 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays Advanced Placement English Literature & Composition THE TRIPLE EIGHT ATTACKING THE AP EXAM ESSAY QUESTIONS Questions 1 & 2 1. Find & mark verbs in the imperative and all conjunctions. 2. Identify all parts of the task. 3. Read the passage attentively and mark it up. 4. Watch for patterns of organization, repetition, echoing, or precedence. 5. Identify speaker, the audience, the setting, and the occasion. 6. Mark shifts in point of view, tone, or the like; mark any significant punctuation/pointing. 7. In poetry, note if a rhyme scheme or the arrangement on the page helps reveal organization. 8. Identify the main purpose & tone. Question 3 1. Cover list of suggested works. 2. Ignore any opening quotations or other material that comes before the first imperative verb in the prompt. 3. Find and mark all verbs in the imperative. 4. Identify all parts of the task, including any that might be implied rather than explicit. Pay careful attention to any numbers in the prompt. 5. Go back and read the opening of the prompt. 6. Decide on a work to use 7. Decide on an appropriate meaning of the work as a whole. 8. [Optional] Uncover and read the suggested titles to see if there is a better choice. ALL Questions 1. Write down a plan. Do not let the prompt dictate your organization. 2. Leave a space for an introduction. 3. Remember your audience. 4. Write legibly in ink. 5. Refer often to the text but avoid direct quotations of more than four words 6. Avoid plot summary and paraphrase. 7. Follow all detail from the text with your commentary; use the ratio of two pieces of your commentary to every one of detail from the text. 8. Avoid 'name calling, the identification of literary elements without explaining why the writer is using them. 26

31 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H Advanced Placement English Test Terms Related Terms The following words and phrases have appeared in recent AP literature exam essay topics. While not a comprehensive list of every word or phrase you might encounter, it can help you understand what you are being asked to do for a topic. Style: Tone: Diction: Detail: Point of view: Organization: Syntax: Devices: Stylistic devices Rhetorical devices Stylistic/rhetorical techniques Attitude Speaker s attitude Word choice Language Figurative language Figures of speech Imagery Sensory language Facts Focus Narrative focus Structure Narrative techniques Pattern Sentence structure Phrasing Figures of speech Syntax Diction ap-english listserv, Georgina Lorenzi [GLORENZI@bak.rr.com] 27

32 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays AP Q3 Sample Essay-Question Analysis 2000 Many works of literature not readily identified with the mystery or detective story genre nonetheless involve the investigation of a mystery. In these works, the solution to the mystery may be less important than the knowledge gained in the process of its investigation. Choose a novel or play in which one or more of the characters confront a mystery. Then write an essay in which you identify the mystery and explain how the investigation illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot. identify the mystery identify the investigation identify a meaning of the work knowledge gained [author] uses this to illuminate* this by showing In Kate Chopin s The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions. In a novel or play that you have studied, identify a character who conforms outwardly while questioning inwardly. Then write an essay in which you analyze how this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot summary. outward conformity to (2+) identify a meaning of the work Tension inward questioning of (2+) [author s] use of this contributes to this in this way 28

33 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays 2010 Palestinian American literary theorist and cultural critic Edward Said has written that Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unbeatable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. Yet Said has also said that exile can become a potent, even enriching experience. Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from home, whether that home is the character s birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the character s experience with exile is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or one of comparable literary merit. Do not merely summarize the plot. Experience of exile identify the alienation identify the enrichment identify a meaning of the work [author s] use of this contributes to this in this way 29

34 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays THE PROMPT: Planning: A Doll s House A recurring theme in literature is the classic war between a passion and a responsibility. For instance, a personal cause, a love, a desire for revenge, a determination to redress a wrong, or some other emotion or drive may conflict with moral duty. Choose a literary work in which a character confronts the demands of a private passion that conflicts with his or her responsibilities. In a well written essay show clearly the nature of the conflict, its effects upon the character, and its significance to the work. You may select a character from one of the following works or from another work of comparable quality A PLAN: THE NATURE OF THE CONFLICT identify: the private passion: the responsibilities: ITS EFFECTS ON THE CHARACTER ITS SIGNIFICANCE TO THE WORK 30

35 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays SOUTH PASADENA HIGH SCHOOL AP ENGLISH [NICHOLSON] SUMMER READING: DRAMA Exam Tennessee Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire This essay counts one-third of the total essay section. (Suggested time: 35 minutes) Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for example, two countries, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and the sea) to represent opposed forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. Choose a novel or a play that contrasts two such places. Write an essay explaining how the places differ, what each place represents, and how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the work. You may base your essay on a work from the list below, or you may choose another work of recognized literary merit. A Passage to India Tess of the D Urbervilles Wuthering Heights A Midsummer Night s Dream Antony and Cleopatra The Merchant of Venice Heart of Darkness Cry, the Beloved Country A Tale of Two Cities The Woman Warrior Anna Karenina Joseph Andrews Candide Things Fall Apart + A Streetcar Named Desire Jane Eyre The Great Gatsby The Color Purple Mansfield Park Huckleberry Finn The Scarlet Letter The Sun Also Rises A Farewell to Arms The Awakening Jude the Obscure A Raisin in the Sun The Dollmaker Their Eyes Were Watching God Invisible Man Slaughterhouse Five 1991, Educational Testing Service; Princeton, NJ. 31

36 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays Question 3, 1991 Rubric (A Streetcar Named Desire) 9-point scale Students should be rewarded for what they do well in response to the question. An extremely well-written response may be scored a point higher than it would be scored on the basis of content alone. A poorly written response may be scored a point lower. A very poorly written response will be a lower-half paper. Possible Scores: 9-8 The writers of superior responses choose an appropriate work and give an accurate analysis of the contrast between the two places. They identify clearly and discuss effectively the opposed forces or ideas and identify an appropriate meaning of the work. These responses are clear about how the places differ and demonstrate how the contrast contributes to the work s meaning. Superior responses are specific in their references to the work, well-organized, and wellwritten. 7 This score is useful for responses which answer the question well but are somewhat thinner in detail or argument than the best essays 6-5 These scores are useful for papers which choose an appropriate work and discuss the opposed forces or ideas but do one of the following: a) discuss a meaning of the work but are unclear about its derivation from the opposition b) discuss the opposition in general terms or by indirection Six is probably also the top score for papers which choose a work not wholly appropriate but make an intelligent and reasonable case for it without real distortion. 4-3 These lower-half scores include essays which do one of the following a) fail to relate the settings to opposed forces or ideas b) fail to include any discussion, even by indirection, of the contribution of the opposition of forces or ideas to the meaning of the work c) devote an undue proportion of their efforts to description or analysis of the settings d) distort the work to force it to the question e) choose an inappropriate work Responses which contain excessive plot summary or engage in vague discussions of conflict or opposition with little reference to the text probably receive no more than 3 and may receive less. 2 This score is useful for papers which compound the weaknesses in 4-3 scores or which show serious faults in writing 1 This score is used for any on-topic response which has almost no redeeming qualities 32

37 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays A Generalized A.P. Essay Rubric EXCEPTIONAL 8 9 Complex, original, sophisticated, and varied, with no errors in usage. Varied sentence construction, with controlled use of subordinate elements. Lucid and enjoyable to read; smooth flow of ideas. Logical, coherent structure which facilitates flow of ideas or structure of argument. Smooth transitions. Abundant specific support which relates directly to the stated thesis or argument. Nearly flawless. Errors, if any, are minor. ADMIRABLE 6 7 Varied, with many complex ideas; few, if any, errors in usage; occasional imprecise word choice. Uses a variety of sentence forms. Clear prose, with few, if any, tense or agreement errors or awkward constructions. Structure appropriate for purpose, although not particularly note worthy Transitions present between elements. Primarily specific support with some general statements. Bulk of support is related to thesis. A few minor errors: misplaced commas or apostrophes, incorrect capitalization, etc. ADEQUATE 4 5 Many simple words with some complex ideas, imprecise or incorrect word choice, some errors in usage. Primarily simple and short compound sentence structure. Several awkward or unclear constructions, tense/agreement errors. Follows formulaic structure which may not fit intentions or purpose of piece. Transitions, if any, are weak or illogical. Specific support, if any, is unexplained or illogical. Mostly general statements which are not tied to the thesis or argument. NOT ACCEPTABLE 2 3 Multiple minor errors or errors of greater magnitude, including comma splices. Primarily simple words; vague, incorrect word choice; use of cliché. Almost exclusively simple sentences; convoluted, unclear, repetitious. Multiple tense and agreement errors. No attempt made at a logical structure. Transitions, if present, are weak or unclear. Generalizations, repetitive words and phrases, same idea or example frequently restated. Major errors: missing or incorrect punctuation, sentence fragments, comma splices, etc. 33

38 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays The Rubric of all Rubrics Superior papers specific in their references, cogent in their definitions, and free of plot summary that is not relevant to the question. These essays need not be without flaws, but they demonstrate the writer's ability to discuss a literary work with insight and understanding and to control a wide range of the elements of effective composition. At all times they stay focused on the prompt, providing specific support mostly through direct quotations and connecting scholarly commentary to the overall meaning. These papers are less thorough, less perceptive or less specific than 9 8 papers. They are well written but with less maturity and control. While they demonstrate the writer's ability to analyze a literary work, they reveal a more limited understanding and less stylistic maturity than do the papers in the 9 8 range. 5 Safe and plastic, superficiality characterizes these essays. Discussion of meaning may be formulaic, mechanical, or inadequately related to the chosen details. Typically, these essays reveal simplistic thinking and/or immature writing. They usually demonstrate inconsistent control over the elements of composition and are not as well conceived, organized, or developed as the upper half papers. However, the writing is sufficient to convey the writer's ideas, stays mostly focused on the prompt, and contains at least some effort to produce analysis, direct or indirect Discussion is likely to be unpersuasive, perfunctory, underdeveloped or misguided. The meaning they deduce may be inaccurate or insubstantial and not clearly related to the question. Part of the question may be omitted altogether. The writing may convey the writer's ideas, but it reveals weak control over such elements as diction, organization, syntax or grammar. Typically, these essays contain significant misinterpretations of the question or the work they discuss; they may also contain little, if any, supporting evidence, and practice paraphrase and plot summary at the expense of analysis. These essays compound the weakness of essays in the 4 3 range and are frequently unacceptably brief. They are poorly written on several counts, including many distracting errors in grammar and mechanics. Although the writer may have made some effort to answer the question, the views presented have little clarity or coherence. 0 A response with no more than a reference to the task. A blank paper or completely off topic response. 34

39 Skip Nicholson Writing AP Exam Essays Nine-Point Essay scores converted to grades Score on the 9 point ETS scale for marking essays are fixed by the scoring guide, and teacher discretion does not enter into the rating. Converting those points into grades for a high school AP English class, however, does allow for some variation. Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Quarter 4 Highly rigorous 9 A 100% A 100% A 100% A 100% 8 A 98% A 97% A 96% A 95% 7 A 90% B 88% B 87% B 85% 6 B 85% B 82% B 78% C 75% 5 B 80% C+ 77% C 74% C 70% 4 C 75% C 70% C 65% C 60% 3 D+ 60% D 55% D 50% F 40% 2 F 40% F 35% F 35% F 30% 1 F 25% F 20% F 15% F 10% Rigorous 9 A 100% A 100% A 100% A 100% 8 A 99% A 98% A 97% A 96% 7 A 98% A 97% A 96% A 95% 6 A 90% B+ 88% B 86% B 85% 5 B 85% B 83% C+ 82% B 80% 4 B 80% C+ 77% C 74% C 70% 3 C 75% C 70% D+ 68% D 65% 2 D 65% D 60% F+ 50% F 40% 1 F 35% F 25% F 15% F 10% 35

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41 March 4, 1999 UCLA Judy Curtis, AVID Regional Program San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools 601 North E Street San Bernardino, CA Dear Judy, I am sorry to have taken so long to get back to you about AP and Honors courses. This is our critical reading time period. I hope my comments will be helpful as you think about the impact of these courses on a student s academic record. Given the competitive nature of admissions at UCLA, we have well beyond 35,500 applications for a class of 4,000; we must try to identify the students who are academically the strongest. We do this because Regental Policy mandates that a minimum of 50% up to a maximum of 75% of students admitted must come from this group. Our review process looks at SAT or ACT, SAT II scores, number of college preparatory courses, preparation in specific critical disciplines such as math and English, and the number of honors, college and AP courses a student takes. The latter become very important in the review because a student who has complete college level work by the end of the junior year of high school is, in our minds, exceptionally well prepared. Thus, students who complete AP courses and pass the test with a 3 5 are not only outstanding but also the norm for UCLA. They are ranked among the highest in our review. In Fall 1998 we enrolled 380 students who were full sophomores because of their AP units. By Winter quarter 1999, 18% of our freshmen had reached sophomore standing because of their AP units. Thus a very large number of our students come with a full quarter of AP credits. The next most critical piece of information about students taking AP is hat they have taken the AP test, even if they receive a 1 or 2 score. We know a student is participating fully in the AP course when s/he takes the test. A student taking the class without testing offers the least valuable profile for us when we review records. The next level we would turn to is the student with Honors. We hope students only list the approved Honors courses, but we know that tey tend to inflate the number of Honors and include all the ones they have taken. (We try to catch these.) But we have evidence that students who complete AP and the AP test are more likely to succeed at the University. Thus our greatest weight is placed on the AP tests with 3 5 scores, then AP tests with 1 2 scores, then AP classes and Honors classes which are basically treated the same without corroboration of the test. Please let me know if there is any further information that I can provide you with to clarify our position regarding AP. Sincerely, [signed] Rae Lee Siporin Director, Undergraduate Admissions and Relations with Schools 37

42 Close Reading: Real Preparation for Multiple Choice Tests by Jane Schaffer San Diego, California Taking a Different Tack For some years, the English Vertical Team at my school has been concerned about our students multiple choice scores on AP Exams and other reading assessments. We were giving practice sets from previous AP Exams, but we didn t see much growth. We decided to take a different tack and began doing focused close reading assignments, asking open ended reading questions that required sophisticated textual analysis. At first, we looked at published materials designed for higher order reading skills, but we found little on the market that suited our purposes. So, we wrote our own. Commercially available lessons asked, What do you think was going on in Jack s head in Lord of the Flies when he looked at his reflection? We wanted more analysis of the writer s choices and the kind of effect those choices created, so we deepened the question by asking, When Jack looks at his reflection first in the pool and later in the coconut shell, what kind of light appears in the shell that wasn t present in the pool? What effect does Golding create here, and why does he create it? The idea worked. Born from frustration, our approach to reading instruction can be used by any AP teacher. We follow several steps in producing close reading exercises: First, we identify key passages from the assigned reading. Shorter passages are more successful than longer ones. Second, we write close reading questions for them, borrowing from AP multiple choice stems, and assign them in class. We have learned that generic reading prompts asking about sequence or inference, for example, do not elicit higher order analysis. We write text specific questions that require students to search the story for the information. What is the main idea of the first paragraph? is not nearly as effective as How does Hawthorne describe the throng in the prison scene, and how does this description tell you his attitude toward the group? If students can answer without looking back at the book, then we have written a study question, good in its own right, but not a close reading one. Students often must read a passage two or three times. They balk at this We already read that page! but they need to learn that good readers often reread challenging texts. Third, we revise our question sets based on feedback from the class. They always show us what we need to clarify and polish. Writing Your Own Assignments The best way to write close reading assignments is to work as a group with colleagues who teach the same literature. Our most productive session was a release day where five of us went off campus to work. The synergy led us to questions that none would have thought of alone. Even working together, we realized how difficult it was to phrase the questions correctly to help our students achieve a greater understanding of the piece. When students begin a close reading exercise, they annotate the passage and make observations in the margins. They have little experience in doing this, so we model the process for them. If duplicating is an issue at your school, it needs to be solved. Students have to have their own copies of materials to mark. Sometimes we use a passage before starting the book. For example, at the beginning of The Scarlet Letter, we read the prison door scene to establish theme and tone. At other times, we might return to a selection that the class read several days before or assign the same excerpt twice to focus on an author s narrative technique. The only recommendation we have is that you not assign two or three days worth in a row. Analyzing a passage is an intense process, one that students don t sustain well day after day. We average three to five excerpts per novel or play, fewer with short stories or essays. Poetry is an exception; by its very nature, it demands many questions. At first, we work as a class, then in pairs or small groups, and finally as independent work. Our multiple choice averages have moved up steadily over the last few years. By AP Exam time, our students are well versed in good reading skills and much more confident about handling the challenge of the multiple choice section on any AP Exam. Jane Schaffer taught AP English for 24 years in San Diego and served as an AP reader for 12 years. She retired recently in order to focus on teacher training full time. She has published several articles about teaching English, including Peer Response That Works in the Journal of Teaching Writing, 1996; Strategies for Critical Reading in English in Making Sense: Teaching Critical Reading Across the Curriculum, 1993; and Improving Discussion Questions: Is Anyone Listening? in the English Journal, April ,00.html 38

43 Strategies for Practice with Multiple-Choice from the Electronic Discussion Group Give the students the MC questions and in groups of two have them answer the questions. The catch don t give them the piece until after they have answered the questions. It teaches the kids to use logic and to think critically to eliminate answers and make intelligent guesses. I passed out the piece after and we discussed their thought processes. Pat Allison The multiple choice test is essentially a vocabulary test; if they know the vocabulary, they will be fine. I have my students take a practice test and write down every word they don t know in a question or an answer. That is our vocabulary list for the next two weeks; then we do it again. Make every multiple choice practice test that you use a vocabulary lesson. Have students talk about systems: Do you read the questions first? Do you scan them? Do you do all the really easy ones first and return to the others? Different test coaches have different preferences. Discuss these strategies, have students try them out, and find the method that works best for each of them. Donna Anglin Have students individually complete one passage of an AP multiple choice practice (around 15 questions). Then have them work in teams; each team must come to consensus on each question. Hand each team laminated answer choice cards different color background for each choice. Have A on a red card, for example. As you read out the question stem, the teams raise their answers. Call on teams randomly for brief explanations. Finally, tally the score for each team. Jodi Grimes Work with students to group the questions according to what the questions arelooking for (word or phrase whose closest meaning is ;antecedent is ; main point of passage is; etc.). That exercise alone made the overall multiple choice section more manageable. Give students a copy of a past test. In small groups they come up with 10 to 12 kinds of questions that the test asks. List those on the board, and then have the class come up with a master list. Occasionally have them make up one good multiple choice question based on a reading they re doing. You might specify what type of question they are to write, so that they don t stay with only one. Collect them and distribute the best for the class to do or put them on an overhead that they work on together. They come to see that if they make up easy, surface type questions, theirs won t be chosen as examples they have to dig deeper. Marcia Gregorio Start with easy multiple choice questions that we as teachers could make up for them and gradually building in difficulty to the College Board tests. Have the students do the tests for practice only and keep their scores in a notebook. Let them use dictionaries and AP terms lists when they take the tests. After they finish, give them the answers, and have them work in small groups to determine why the right answer was right. Do not let them waste time arguing why their wrong answer should be right. The have the class convene and go over whatever they couldn t resolve in the groups. Consider, too, having the kids make up their own multiple choice tests. Betty Montague 39

44 A Post-Mortem Thinking back to essay Question #3, the open question: What work did you write on for Question #3? Poorly Very well How well did you feel prepared for Question #3? How difficult was each of these tasks for you on Question #3? Very difficult Very easy Making sense of the question Clearly identifying the task and its parts Recalling sufficient appropriate specific detail from the text Using sufficient personal commentary in your essay Coming up with an appropriate introduction Producing an effective conclusion Pacing your planning and writing Thinking back to Question #3, what caused you the most difficulty? Thinking back to Question #3, what was most easy or went best for you? Thinking back to essay Question #1, the poetry question: How difficult was each of these tasks for you on Question #1? Very difficult Very easy Making sense of the question Clearly identifying the task and its parts Making sense of the poem: vocabulary Making sense of the poem: syntax Making sense of the poem: diction Making sense of the poem: structure Identifying the elements to write about Identifying the tone or attitude in or the purpose of the poem Using sufficient appropriate specific detail from the text Using sufficient personal commentary in your essay Coming up with an appropriate introduction Producing an effective conclusion Pacing your planning and writing

45 Thinking back to Question #1, what caused you the most difficulty? Thinking back to Question #1, what was most easy or went best for you? How well did you feel prepared for Question #1? Thinking back to essay Question #2, the prose question: How difficult was each of these tasks for you on Question #2? Very difficult Very easy Making sense of the question Clearly identifying the task and its parts Making sense of the passage: vocabulary Making sense of the passage: syntax Making sense of the passage: diction Making sense of the passage: structure Identifying the elements to write about Identifying the tone or attitude in or the purpose of the passage Using sufficient appropriate specific detail from the text Using sufficient personal commentary in your essay Coming up with an appropriate introduction Producing an effective conclusion Pacing your planning and writing Thinking back to Question #2, what caused you the most difficulty? Thinking back to Question #2, what was most easy or went best for you? How well did you feel prepared for Question #2?

46 Which essay did you most enjoy writing? Why? Which essay did you least enjoy writing? Why? Thinking back to the multiple choice section: Remember any statements you signed about divulging the content of the multiple choice section of the exam. The questions here are intended to gather general information; avoid mentioning explicit information about specific passages or questions. How many passages appeared on the exam? How many questions appeared on the exam? Poorly Very well How well did you feel prepared for multiple choice section? Were the passages in number..... too few about right too many too Were the questions in number..... about right few What surprised you about (or in) the multiple choice section: too many Thinking back to the multiple choice section, what caused you the most difficulty? Thinking back to the multiple choice section, what was most easy or went best for you? 42

47 AP English Lit & Comp: MC Practice 1 1 Guess A B C Questions Type Vocabulary, Notes

48 AP English Lit & Comp: MC Practice 2 13 Guess A B C Questions Type Vocabulary, Notes

49 AP English Lit & Comp: MC Practice 3 26 Guess A B C Questions Type Vocabulary, Notes

50 Multiple-Choice Sample Questions: Passage 1 When we were all still alive, the five of us in that kerosene-lit house, on Friday and Saturday nights, at an hour when in the spring and summer there was still abundant light in the air, I would set out in my father s car for town, 5 where my friends lived. I had, by moving ten miles away, at last acquired friends: an illustration of that strange law whereby, like Orpheus leading Eurydice, we achieved our desire by turning our back on it. I had even gained a girl, so that the vibrations were as sexual as social that made me 10 jangle with anticipation as I clowned in front of the mirror in our kitchen, shaving from a basin of stove-heated water, combing my hair with a dripping comb, adjusting my reflection in the mirror until I had achieved just that electric angle from which my face seemed beautiful and 15 everlastingly, by the very volumes of air and sky and grass that lay mutely banked about our home, beloved. My grandmother would hover near me, watching fearfully, as she had when I was a child, afraid that I would fall from a tree. Delirious, humming, I would swoop and lift her, lift her 20 like a child, crooking one arm under her knees and cupping the other behind her back. Exultant in my height, my strength, I would lift that frail brittle body weighing perhaps a hundred pounds and twirl with it in my arms while the rest of the family watched with startled smiles of alarm. Had I stumbled, 25 or dropped her, I might have broken her back, but my joy always proved a secure cradle. And whatever irony was in the impulse, whatever implicit contrast between this ancient husk, scarcely female, and the pliant, warm girl I would embrace before the evening was done, direct delight flooded away: I 30 was carrying her who had carried me, I was giving my past a dance, I had lifted the anxious care-taker of my childhood from the floor, I was bringing her with my boldness to the edge of danger, from which she had always sought to guard me. 1. The speaker might best be described as someone who is (A) unwilling to forsake his family in order to gain his freedom (B) long overdue in obtaining maturity and acceptance in the adult world (C) struggling to find his own identity and sense of purpose (D) disturbed by the overbearing attentiveness and attitudes of his family (E) defining his passage from the role of protected to that of protector 2. The mythological reference in lines 6-7 reinforces the strange law (line 6) that (A) wishes are often best fulfilled when they are least pursued (B) conflict between youth and old age is inevitable (C) anticipation is a keener emotion than realization (D) in our search for heaven, we may also find hell (E) to those who examine life logically, few things are exactly as they seem to be 46

51 3. The effect of the words vibrations (line 9) and jangle (line 10) is most strongly reinforced by which of the following? (A) adjusting my reflection (lines 12-13) (B) electric angle (lines 13-14) (C) frail brittle body (line 22) (D) irony was in the impulse (lines 26-27) (E) implicit contrast (line 27) 4. Which of the following best restates the idea conveyed in lines 12-16? (A) There are moments in youth when we have an extravagant sense of our own attractiveness. (B) We can more easily change people s opinions of ourselves by adjusting our behavior than by changing our appearances. (C) Vanity is a necessary though difficult part of the maturing process. (D) How others see us determines, to a large degree, how we see ourselves and our environment. (E) Adolescence is a time of uncertainly, insecurity, and self-contradiction. 5. In line 13, everlastingly modifies which of the following words? (A) I (line 13) (B) my face (line 14) (C) beautiful (line 14) (D) lay (line 146 (E) beloved (line 16) 6. The image of the very volumes of air and sky and grass that lay mutely banked about our home (lines 14-15) is used to show the speaker s (A) desire to understand his place in the universe (B) profound love of nature (C) feelings of oppression by his environment (D) expansive belief in himself (E) inability to comprehend the meaning of life 7. The attitude of the speaker at the time of the action is best described as (A) understanding (D) superior (B) exuberant (E) fearful (C) nostalgic 8. The passage supports all of the following statements about the speaker s dancing EXCEPT: (A) He danced partly to express his joy in seeing his girl friend later that night. (B) His recklessness with his grandmother revealed his inability to live up to his family s expectations for him. (C) In picking up his grandmother, he dramatized that she is no longer his caretaker. (D) He had danced that way with his grandmother before. (E) His dancing demonstrated the strength and power of youth. 9. The description of the grandmother in lines 20 and 25 emphasizes which of the following? (A) Her emotional insecurity (B) The uniqueness of her character (C) Her influence on the family (D) Her resignation to old age (E) Her poignant fragility 10. Which of the following statements best describes the speaker s point of view toward his grandmother in the second paragraph? (A) Moving to the country has given him a new perspective, one that enables him to realize the importance of his grandmother. (B) Even as a young man, he realizes the uniqueness of his grandmother and her affection for him. (C) He becomes aware of the irony of his changing relationship with his grandmother only in retrospect. (D) It is mainly through his grandmother s interpretation of his behavior that he becomes aware of her influence on him. (E) Comparing the enduring love of his grandmother to his superficial feelings for the young girl heightens his appreciation of his grandmother. 11. Which of the following patterns of syntax best characterizes the style of the passage? (A) Sparse sentences containing a minimum of descriptive language (B) Long sentences interspersed with short, contrasting sentences (C) Sentences that grow progressively more complex as the passage progresses (D) Sentences with many modifying phrases and subordinate clauses (E) Sentences that tend toward the narrative at the beginning, but toward the explanatory at the end of the passage 12. In this passage, the speaker is chiefly concerned with (A) presenting grandparents as symbols worthy of reverence (B) demonstrating the futility of adolescent romanticism (C) satirizing his own youthful egocentricity (D) considering himself as an adolescent on the brink of adulthood (E) revealing his progression from idealism to pragmatism 1 47

52 Multiple-Choice Sample Questions: Passage 2 Advice to a Prophet When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city, Mad-eyed from stating the obvious, Not proclaiming our fall but begging us In God s name to have self-pity, 5 Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range, The long numbers that rocket the mind; Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind, Unable to fear what is too strange. Nor shall you scare us with talk of the death of the race. 10 How should we dream of this place without us? The sun mere fire, the leaves untroubled about us, A stone look on the stone s face? Speak of the world s own change. Though we cannot conceive Of an undreamt thing, we know to our cost 15 How the dreamt cloud crumbles, the vines are blackened by frost, How the view alters. We could believe, If you told us so, that the white-tailed deer will slip Into perfect shade, grown perfectly shy, The lark avoid the reaches of our eye, 20 The jack-pine lose its knuckled grip On the cold ledge, and every torrent burn As Xanthus* once, its gliding trout Stunned in a twinkling. What should we be without The dolphin s arc, the dove s return, 25 These things in which we have seen ourselves and spoken Ask us, prophet, how we shall call Our natures forth when that live tongue is all Dispelled, that glass obscured or broken In which we have said the rose of our love and the clean 30 Horse of our courage, in which beheld The singing locust of the soul unshelled, And all we mean or wish to mean. Ask us, ask us whether with the worldless rose Our hearts shall fail us; come demanding 35 Whether there shall be lofty or long standing When the bronze annals of the oak-tree close. *Xanthus: in Greek myth, a river scalded by Hephæstus, god of fire by Richard Wilbur. Reprinted from his volume Advice to a Prophet and Other Poems by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 48

53 13. The speaker assumes that the prophet referred to in lines 1-12 will come proclaiming (A) a new religious dispensation (B) joyous self-awareness (C) a new political order (D) the horror of self-destruction (E) an appreciation of nature 14. According to the speaker, the prophet s word of the weapons (line 5) will probably not be heeded because (A) human beings are really fascinated by weapons (B) nature is more fascinating than warfare (C) men and women are more concerned with love than with weapons (D) people have heard such talk too often before (E) people cannot comprehend abstract descriptions of power 15. In the phrase, A stone look on the stone s face, (line 12) the speaker is suggesting that (A) a stone is the most difficult natural object to comprehend (B) such a stone is a metaphor for a human lack of understanding (C) it is human beings who see a face on stones (D) nature is a hostile environment for the human race (E) the pain of life is bearable only to a stoic 16. In line 13 the speaker is doing which of the following? (A) Anticipating the prophet s own advice (B) Despairing of ever influencing the prophet (C) Exchanging his own point of view with that of the prophet (D) Heeding the prophet s advice (E) Prescribing what the prophet should say 17. In lines 14-16, the speaker is asserting that we (A) learn more or less about decay in nature according to our point of view (B) can never understand change in nature (C) are always instructed by an altering of our perspective (D) have all experienced loss and disappointment (E) realize that the end of the world may be near 18. The speaker implies that without the dolphin s arc, the dove s return (line 24) we would (A) be less worried about war and destruction (B) crave coarser pleasures than the enjoyment of nature (C) have less understanding of ourselves and our lives (D) be unable to love (E) find ourselves unwilling to heed the advice of prophets 19. The phrase knuckled grip (line 20) implies that the jack-pine (A) will never really fall from the ledge (B) has roots that grasp like a hand (C) is very precariously attached to the ledge (D) is a rough and inhuman part of nature (E) is very awkwardly placed 20. The dolphin s arc (line 24) refers to the (A) biblical story of Noah (B) leap of a dolphin (C) hunting of dolphins with bows and arrows (D) rainbow (E) migration pattern of the dolphin 21. The phrase that live tongue (line 27) is best understood as (A) a metaphor for nature (B) an image of the poet s mind (C) a symbol of the history of the world (D) a reference to the poem itself (E) a metaphor for the advice of the prophet 22. According to the speaker, we use the images of the rose (line 29), the horse (line 30), and the locust (line 31) (A) literally to denote specific natural objects (B) as metaphors to aid in comprehending abstractions (C) as similes illustrating the speaker s attitude toward nature (D) to reinforce images previously used by the prophet (E) to explain the need for scientific study of nature 23. Which of the following best describes an effect of the repetition of the phrase ask us in line 33? (A) It suggests that the prophet himself is the cause of much of the world s misery. (B) It represents a sarcastic challenge to the prophet to ask the right questions. (C) It suggests that the speaker is certain of the answer he will receive. (D) It makes the line scan as a perfect example of iambic pentameter. (E) It provides a tone of imploring earnestness. 24. Which of the following best paraphrases the meaning of line 36? (A) When the end of the year has come (B) When the chronicles no longer tell of trees (C) When art no longer imitates nature (D) When nature has ceased to exist (E) When the forests are finally restored 25. Which of the following best describes the poem as a whole? (A) An amusing satire on the excesses of modern prophets (B) A poetic expression of the need for love to give meaning to life (C) A lyrical celebration of the importance of nature for man (D) A personal meditation on human courage in the face of destruction (E) A philosophical and didactic poem about man and nature

54 Multiple-Choice Sample Questions: Passage 3 If the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, tradition should positively be 5 discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in 10 the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a writer beyond his twenty-fifth year; and this historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical 15 sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a 20 simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his 25 place in time, of his own contempora-neity.... To proceed to a more intelligible exposition of the relation of the writer to the past: he can neither take the past as a lump, an indiscriminate bolus, nor can he form himself wholly on one or two private 30 admirations, nor can he form himself wholly upon one preferred period. The first course is inadmissible, the second is an important experience of youth, and the third is a pleasant and highly desirable supplement. The writer must be very 35 conscious of the main current, which does not at all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations. He must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same. He must be aware that 40 the mind of Europe--the mind of his own country--a mind which he learns in time to be much more important than his own private mind--is a mind which changes, and that this change is a development which abandons nothing en route, which does not 45 superannuate either Shakespeare, or Homer, or the rock drawing of the Magdalenian draughtsmen. That this development, refinement perhaps, complication certainly, is not, from the point of view of the artist, any improvement. Perhaps not even an improvement 50 from the point of view of the psychologist or not to the extent which imagine; perhaps only in the end based we upon a complication in economics and machinery. But the difference between the present and the past is that the conscious present is an awareness of the 55 past in a way and to an extent which the past s awareness of itself cannot show. Someone said: The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did. Precisely, and they are that which we know The primary distinction made in the first paragraph is one between (A) a narrow definition of tradition and a more inclusive one (B) the concerns of a contemporary writer and those of one from the past (C) an understanding of the past and a rejection of the present (D) the literature of Renaissance Europe and that of ancient Greece (E) a literary tradition and a historical period 27. Which of the following best describes the function of the first sentence of the passage? (A) It states the main thesis of the passage as a whole. (B) It provides concrete evidence to support the central idea of the first paragraph. (C) It clears the way for serious discussion by dismissing a common misconception. (D) It poses a rhetorical question that is debated throughout the passage. (E) It establishes the reliability of the author as an impartial arbiter. 28. The phrase lost in the sand (line 6) is best read as a metaphor relating to (A) forgotten masterpieces (B) prehistoric times (C) ephemeral trends (D) the sense of the timeless (E) literary enigmas 29. In context, the clause anyone who would continue to be a writer beyond his twenty-fifth year (lines 11-12) suggests which of the following? I. Mature writers need to have a historical sense. II. Few writers can improve their perceptions after their twenty-fifth year. III. Young writers cannot be expected to have a developed historical sense. (A) I only (B) II only (C) III only (D) I and II only (E) I and III only 30. According to the passage, writers who are most aware of their own contemporaneity would be those who (A) have rejected the sterile conventions of earlier literature in order to achieve self-expression (B) have refused to follow the ways of the immediately preceding generation in favor of novelty and originality (C) have an intimate acquaintance with past and present literary works (D) understand that contemporary works are likely to lose their popularity in time (E) prefer the great literature of the past to the works of modern writers 50

55 31 In the first paragraph, the author is most concerned with (A) explaining how writers may be aware of their own contemporaneity (B) defining the historical sense as it relates to writing (C) berating those who dismiss the notion of tradition (D) developing a theory of what is durable in literature (E) summarizing historical trends in literary criticism 32. In lines 21-22, the repeated linkage of the words timeless and temporal can be interpreted as an emphasis on the (A) author s assumption that the two words are used carelessly by contemporary writers (B) necessity of allying two concepts usually thought of as opposites (C) ironic conclusion that all that is temporal is meaningless (D) author s disgust that contemporary writers have focused only on the timeless (E) unresolved debate as to which of the two concepts is more important 33. According to lines 27-34, which of the following would be natural and tolerable attitude for a young writer to hold? (A) The opinion that older literature is probably irrelevant to contemporary men and women. (B) The idea that writing is more a matter of natural talent than of hard work. (C) The idea that Shakespeare and Dickens are the only writers that he or she need use as models. (D) The notion that older literature is inherently superior to the works of contemporary writers. (E) The belief that genius is more likely to spring from one region or historical period than from another. 34. The author implies that the first course is inadmissible (lines 31-32) because following it leads to (A) failure to discriminate among the various literary works of past centuries (B) abandonment of the commitment to read older literature (C) relaxation of the standards that make a work of art likely to endure (D) neglect of the study of present-day writers who will become part of the tradition (E) forgetting that writer s first duty is to preserve his or her integrity. 35. The main current (line 35) is best understood as that which (A) changes and improves constantly (B) is and has been durable in literature (C) has had wide popular appeal (D) is suitable for stylistic imitation (E) epitomizes the characteristics of one period 36. In lines 42-43, the mind which changes refers to which of the following? I. the mind of Europe (line 40) II. the mind of his own country (line 40) III. his own private mind (line 42) (A) I only (B) III only (C) I and II only (D) I and III only (E) I, II, and III 37. In line 46, the author refers to the rock drawing of Magdalenian draughtsmen as (A) an example of an artistic style that has been imitated by contemporary artists (B) a part of a continuing artistic tradition that is still changing (C) evidence of the kind of re-evaluation that takes place when new critical theories are proposed (D) an example of art that had no self-consciousness about being part of an artistic tradition (E) evidence of the need to use the same standards in evaluating literature and painting 38. Which of the following is implicit before That this development... improvement (lines 47-49)? (A) The difference between the past and the present is (B) We all unconsciously believe (C) The significance of art is (D) The writer must be aware (E) A historian would deny 39. The function of the quotation in lines is primarily to (A) support ironically an idea different from the one apparently intended by Someone (B) refute the idea that art does not improve (C) ridicule the idea that writers of the past were ignorant (D) show that although Someone s ideas are obviously to be respected, literary critics do often have disagreements (E) add a new definition to the concept of remoteness,, while subtly indicating approval of the ideas expressed 40. The development of the argument can best be described as progressing from the (A) assertion of an idea to an elaboration of its meaning (B) summary of an argument to an analysis of the logic of the conflicting sides (C) statement of a hypothesis to a summary of possible objections to it (D) criticism of a process to a defense of its value (E) description of an abstract idea to a compilation of concrete examples of it 41. Taken as a whole, the passage is best described as (A) a narrative with a historical perspective (B) a technical discussion of a point of literary criticism (C) an argument developed through the use of anecdotes (D) an expository passage largely concerned with definition (E) a descriptive passage that makes use of concrete examples 51

56 52

57 TONE: Some words to describe the tone of a work or passage accusing admonitory affectionate allusive ambivalent amused angry annoyed anxious apprehensive audacious authoritative baffled bantering benevolent bewildered bitter blunt bossy brusque burlesque candid casual ceremonial cheerful cheery choleric clinical cold colloquial compassionate complimentary conceited concerned conciliatory condemnatory condescending confident confused contemptuous contentious critical cynical delightful depressed derisive derogatory desolate despairing desperate detached diabolic didactic diffident disappointed disbelieving disdainful disgusted disinterested dispassionate distressed disturbed doubtful dramatic ebullient effusive elated elegiac empathetic encouraging enraged enthusiastic euphoric excited expectant exuberant facetious factual fanciful fatalistic fearful fervent flippant foreboding formal frantic frightened frustrated furious gleeful gloomy grave greedy grim gushy happy haughty hilarious holier than thou hopeful hopeless horrific humorous impartial impatient incisive incredulous indignant inflammatory informative insipid insolent instructive intimate introspective ironic irreverent irritated jocund joyful laidback learned lethargic lighthearted loving lugubrious matter of fact measured meditative melancholic melancholy mirthful miserable mock heroic mocking mock serious moralistic mournful mysterious nervous nostalgic objective ominous optimistic outraged outspoken paranoid passionate pathetic patronizing pedantic pensive persuasive pessimistic petty pithy playful pompous pretentious proud provocative psychotic questioning reflective regretful relaxed reminiscent remorseful resigned restrained reticent reverent romantic rousing sad sanguine sarcastic sardonic satiric scared scornful selfish sentimental serene serious shocked silly simpering sinister skeptical sober solemn somber staid stirring stoic straightforward strident suspenseful suspicious sympathetic taunting tender tense terse thoughtful threatening timorous turgid uncaring unconcerned uneasy unhappy unsympathetic urgent vibrant vitriolic whimsical wistful worried wrathful wry zealous 53

58 More Help Describing Tone Another set of words to describe tone: upset/concerned Provocative = Stimulating, exciting Audacious = Daring, bold, insolent Persuasive = Written to convince or win over Condescending = patronizing, arrogant Disdainful = Arrogant, lordly, superior, unsympathetic Sarcastic = Snide, mocking, sharp taunting that wounds Sardonic = Derisively mocking, scornful and cynical Satiric = Ridiculing, ironic, mocking, farcical, exposing folly Mock heroic = Ridiculing a hero Apprehensive = anxious, uneasy, worried Ominous = Fateful, ill boding, foreboding, dire Urgent = imperative, critical, intensely necessary Threatening = Menacing, intimidating Horrific = Appalling, shocking, gruesome Disappointed = Deceived, crestfallen, let down Regretful = Contrite, apologetic, sorry (spans mere disappointment to a painful sense of dissatisfaction or self reproach) Remorseful = Moral anguish, penitent, contrite, rueful over past misdeeds Somber = Bleak, depressing, dismal Elegiac = Lamenting, poignant, funereal upbeat/neutral Amused = Entertaining in a light and playful manner (directing attention away from serious matters in an agreeable & pleasing manner) Bantering = Teasing, joking, playful Simpering = Smiley in a silly, self conscious, often coy way Whimsical = Capricious, unpredictable Reverent = Venerating, worshipping Reflective = Contemplative, meditative, introspective Intimate = Personal, informal, private Sympathetic = Compassionate, sensitive, sharing or understanding feelings Factual = Certain, absolute, irrefutable, unbiased Detached = Aloof, impartial, disconnected emotionally Pedantic = Scholarly, making a show of knowledge Provocative = Stimulating, exciting Adapted from materials from Ron Smith, Roby [Texas] HS and Susan VanDruten Using a dictionary of synonyms proud, arrogant, haughty, lordly, insolent, overbearing, supercilious, disdainful mean showing superiority toward others or scorn for inferiors Proud may suggest a feeling or attitude of pleased satisfaction in oneself or one s accomplishments that may or may not be justified and may or may not be demonstrated offensively <a proud man, unwilling to admit failure>. ant humble, ashamed Arrogant implies a claiming for oneself of more consideration or importance than is warranted and often suggests an aggressive, domineering manner an arrogant business executive used to being kowtowed to>. ant meek, unassuming Haughty suggests a blatantly displayed conscieousness of superior birth or position <a haughty manner that barely concealed his scorn>. ant lowly Lordly implies pomposity or an arrogant display of power <a lordly indifference to the consequences of their carelessness>.. Insolent implies insultingly contemptuous haughtiness <suffered the stares of insolent waiters>. ant deferential Overbearing suggests a tyrannical manner or an intolerable insolence <wearied by demands from her overbearing in laws>. ant subservient Supercilious implies a cool, patronizing haughtiness <supercilious parvenus with their disdainful sneers>. Disdainful suggests a more active and openly scornful superciliousness <disdainful of their pathetic attempts>. ant admiring, respectful The Merriam Webster Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam Webster, 1992, Print. [p. 310] 54

59 V O I C E L E S S O N S : S A M P L E S 1 DICTION Her face was white and sharp and slightly gleaming in the candlelight, like bone. No hint of pink. And the hair. So fine, so pale, so much, crimped by its plaiting into springy zigzag tresses, clouding neck and shoulders, shining metallic in the candlelight, catching a hint, there it was, of green again, from the reflection of a large glazed cache pot containing a vigorous sword leafed fern. A. S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance DISCUSS: 1. When Byatt describes a face like bone, what feelings does she suggest? 2. How can hair be clouding neck and shoulders? What picture does this word create for the reader? APPLY: Substitute another noun for bone in sentence one. Your substitution should change the meaning and feeling of the sentence. Show your sentence to your team and explain how your noun changes the sentence s connotation and impact. DETAIL How fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turreted, just at approach of nightfall, or to come to some straggling village, with the lights streaming through the surrounding gloom; and then, after inquiring for the best entertainment that the place affords, to take one s ease at one s inn! William Hazlitt, On Going a Journey DISCUSS: 1. What details support the generalization, how fine it is? 2. What feelings are evoked by the details of the town (old, walled, turreted)? How does this selection of detail communicate Hazlitt s attitude toward the town? APPLY: Imagine going to a motel after a long day on the road. The motel is the only place to sleep in town, and the next town is 200 miles away. The motel is old and dirty; you room is shabby and dark. Plan a brief monologue which expresses your attitude toward this room. Include specific references to the details that both produce and reveal your attitude. Perform your monologue for your team. Nancy Dean. Voice Lessons: Classroom Activities to Teach Diction, Detail, Imagery, Syntax, and Tone. Gainesville: Maupin House, 2000, Print. 55

60 V O I C E L E S S O N S : S A M P L E S 2 IMAGERY She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father s voice and her sister Margaret s. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air. Kate Chopin, The Awakening DISCUSS: 3. Although the narrator looks into the distance, the images are primarily auditory. What are the auditory images in the passage? What mood do these images create? 4. The last sentence of this passage contains an olfactory image (the musky odor pinks fill the air). What effect does the use of an olfactory image, after a series of auditory images, have on the reader? APPLY: Write a paragraph in which you create a scene through auditory imagery. The purpose of your paragraph is to crate a calm, peaceful mood. Use one olfactory image to enhance the mood created by auditory imagery. SYNTAX She is a woman who misses moisture, who has always loved low green hedges and ferns. DISCUSS: 1. Both of the subordinate clauses in this sentence modify woman. What effect does this parallel structure have on the sentence? 2. How would it change the feeling evoked by the sentence if it read: She misses moisture and has always loved low green hedges and ferns. APPLY: Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient Write a paragraph in which you create a scene through auditory imagery. The purpose of your paragraph is to create a calm, peaceful mood. Use one olfactory image to enhance the mood created by auditory imagery. TONE JACK (slowly and hesitantly): Gwendolen Cecily it is very painful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life that I have even been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind. However I will tell you quite frankly that I have no brother Ernest. I have no brother at all. I never had a brother in my life, and I certainly have not the smallest intention of ever having one in the future. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest DISCUSS: 1. What is Wilde s attitude toward Jack? What specific diction and detail reveal this attitude? 2. What is Wilde s attitude toward the audience or the reader? How do you know? APPLY: Rewrite Jack s lines to reflect the attitude that lying is terribly wrong. Adopt a disdainful attitude toward your audience and a scornful attitude toward Jack. Have your teammates read your lines. Nancy Dean. Voice Lessons: Classroom Activities to Teach Diction, Detail, Imagery, Syntax, and Tone. Gainesville: Maupin House, 2000, Print. 56

61 V O I C E L E S S O N S P l a n B Type # Pg. Writer 1 Diction Byatt 2 Diction 1 3 Kingsolver 3 Diction 2 4 White 4 Detail 1 25 Macaulay 5 Detail 2 26 Rios 6 Detail 3 27 Miller 7 Syntax 1 69 Woolf 8 Syntax 2 70 Chief Red Jacket 9 Syntax 3 71 Poe 10 Imagery 1 47 Coleridge 11 Imagery 2 48 Hijuelos 12 Imagery 3 49 Chopin 13 Tone 1 91 Bombeck 14 Tone 2 92 Twain 15 Tone 3 93 Mukherjee One order of activities with the lessons: 1. The teacher models one or two lessons. 2. Students work through the lessons listed above as an opening activity. 3. Students are given transparencies or presentation files of one lesson and work in pairs to prepare an analysis ( words) of the lesson s content, including an extended logical definition of the author, and then present the lesson to the class. They are limited to 20 minutes and must have questions or activities prepared to engage the class in the lesson. 4. Students in pairs are given passages and assigned one of the five elements. They construct an exercise modeled on those done in class, including two discuss questions, one apply activity, and discussion suggestions. The teacher chooses most passages from the work the class is currently studying or has already completed. 5. Students work in small groups to select one of the five elements and locate an appropriate passage to illustrate it. (Or they may choose to work backwards, starting with a favorite text and then selecting an appropriate element.) They construct an exercise modeled on those done in class, including two discuss questions, one apply activity, and discussion suggestions. They might be encouraged to use the work the class is studying or one it has completed. 57

62 V O I C E L E S S O N S : S A M P L E S 3 USING VOICE LESSONS FOR POETRY ANALYSIS TONE Piazza di Spagna, Early Morning I can t forget How she stood at the top of that long marble stair Amazed, and then with a sleepy pirouette Went dancing slowly down to the fountain quiet square. 5 Nothing upon her face But some impersonal loneliness, not then a girl, But as it were a reverie of the place, A called for falling glide and whirl; As when a leaf, petal, or thin chip 10 Is drawn to the falls of a pool and, circling a moment above it, Rides on over the lip Perfectly beautiful, perfectly ignorant of it. Richard Wilbur DISCUSS: 3. What is the speaker s attitude toward the woman he describes? List the images, diction, and details that support your position. 4. Consider the last line of the poem. How does the repetition of the syntactical structure (adverb adjective, adverb adjective) support the tone of the poem? APPLY: Using Wilbur s poem as a model, write a sentence which expresses stunned admiration for a stranger. Use repetition of a syntactical structure to create your tone.. Nancy Dean. Voice Lessons: Classroom Activities to Teach Diction, Detail, Imagery, Syntax, and Tone. Gainesville: Maupin House, 2000, Print. 58

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64 Words to Know for Group Allusion Seminars Mythology 1. Achilles' heel 2. Adonis 3. Aeolian 4. Apollo 5. Argus eyed 6. Athena/Minerva 7. Atlantean 8. Aurora 9. Bacchanal 10. Bacchanalian 11. Calliope 12. Centaur 13. Chimera 14. Cupidity 15. Erotic 16. Furor 17. Gorgon 18. Halcyon 19. Harpy 20. Hector 21. Helen (of Troy) 22. Herculean 23. Hydra Headed 24. Iridescent 25. Jovial 26. Junoesque 27. Lethargy 28. Martial 29. Medea 30. Mentor 31. Mercurial 32. Mercury/Hermes 33. Mnemonics 34. Morphine 35. Muse 36. Narcissism 37. Nemesis 38. Neptune 39. Niobe 40. Odyssey 41. Olympian 42. Paean 43. Pandora's Box 44. Parnassus 45. Pegasus 46. Phoenix 47. Plutocracy 48. Promethean 49. Protean 50. Psyche 51. Pygmalion 52. Pyrrhic victory 53. Saturnalia 54. Saturnine 55. Sibyl 56. Sisyphean 57. Stentorian 58. Stygian 59. Tantalize 60. Terpsichorean 61. Titanic 62. Volcanoes 63. Vulcanize 64. Zeus Bible 1. Absalom 2. Alpha and Omega 3. Cain 4. Daniel 5. David and Bathsheba 6. Eye of the Needle 7. Filthy Lucre 8. Goliath 9. Good Samaritan 10. Handwriting on the wall 11. Ishmael 12. Jacob 13. Job 14. Job's comforters 15. Jonah 16. Judas 17. King Ahab and Jezebel 18. Manna 19. Original Sin/The Fall 20. Pearl of Great Price 21. Philistine 22. Prodigal Son 23. Ruth and Naomi 24. Samson and Delilah 25. Scapegoat Sepulcher 26. Sodom and Gomorrah 27. Solomon 28. Twelve Tribes of Israel Literature 1. Babbitt 2. Brobdingnag 3. Bumble 4. Cinderella 5. Don Juan 6. Don Quixote 7. Pangloss 8. Falstaff 9. Frankenstein 10. Friday 11. Galahad 12. Jekyll and Hyde 13. Lilliputian 14. Little Lord Fauntleroy 15. Lothario 16. Malapropism 17. Milquetoast 18. Pickwick 19. Pollyanna 20. Pooh bah 21. Quixotic 22. Robot 23. Rodomontade 24. Scrooge 25. Simon Legree 26. Svengali 27. Tartuffe 28. Uncle Tom 29. Uriah Heep 30. Walter Mitty 31. Yahoo History 1. Attila 2. Berserk 3. Bloomer 4. Bowdlerize 5. Boycott 6. Canopy 7. Casanova 8. Chauvinist 9. Derrick 10. Donnybrook 11. Dungaree 12. El Dorado 13. Hackney 14. Horatio Alger 15. Laconic 16. Limerick 17. Machiavellian 18. Marathon 19. McCarthyism 20. Meander 21. Mesmerize 22. Nostradamus 23. Sardonic 24. Shanghai 25. Spartan 26. Stonewall 27. Swift 28. Sybarite 29. Thespian 30. Uncle Sam 31. Utopia 32. Wagnerian 33. Waterloo 60

65 The King James Bible: Suggested Readings The Old Testament Genesis 1, 2 The Creation 3 The Fall Cain and Abel Noah and the Flood The Tower of Babel The call of Abraham 16 Sarah and Hagar 17 God's covenant with Abraham A son promised to Sarah The destruction of Sodom Isaac Rebecca Esau and Jacob Jacob's youth 32,22 32 Jacob returns to Canaan 37 Joseph sold into Egypt 39 Potiphar's wife tempts Joseph 41 Joseph and the Pharaoh Joseph and his brothers Exodus Moses The burning bush The Israelites' complaints 11 The last plague 14 The Exodus from Egypt 16 Manna and the Sabbath 17 Moses strikes the rock for water 17 Amalek defeated 19, 20 Moses on Mt. Sinai 32 The descent from Sinai 40 The Tabernacle Leviticus 12 The purification of women The laws concerning leprosy The significance of blood Numbers The spies in Canaan Moses strikes the rock The fiery serpents Balaam Deuteronomy Clean and unclean beasts Usury Divorce Beating of offenders Raising up children for a dead brother 34 The death of Moses Joshua 2 Rahab 3,4 The River Jordan 6 The Battle of Jericho 9 The Gibeonites The sun stands still 20 The cities of refuge The death of Joshua Judges Sins of the Israelites 4 Deborah, Joel Gideon 11 Jephtha Shibboleth Samson Ruth 1 4 Ruth The First Book of Samuel 1 5 Samuel and the Ark 8 10 Saul the King 15 Samuel and Saul David the King 18 David and Jonathan 28 The Witch of Endor 31 The slaying of Saul and Jonathan The Second Book of Samuel 1 David's lamentations David, King of Judah David, King of Israel 6 David and the Ark David and Bath sheba David and Absalom The First Book of the Kings King Solomon 3 Solomon's wisdom 10 The Queen of Sheba, Solomon's wealth The dividing of the kingdom Ahab the King Elijah Ahab and Jezebel 61

66 The Second Book of the Kings 2 Elijah and Elisha 4 5 Elisha Elisha's prophecy fulfilled 17 The end of the kingdom of Israel 25 The end of the kingdom of Judah Esther 1 8 Esther Job 1 42 Job The Psalms Especially 1, 2, 8, 11, 14, 19, 22, 23, 24, 38, 40, 42, 45, 46, 51, 63, 90, 91, 96, 103, 110, 114, 114, 115, 121, 122, 127, 130, 133, 137, 139, 150. The Proverbs 1 31 Especially , , , , , , Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher 1 12 Especially , , 11, 12. The Song of Solomon 2 Love Isaiah War Parable of the vineyard 6 Isaiah's vision Immanuel The Prince of Peace The rule of the Messiah Righteousness and justice Isaiah's prophecy Comfort The mission of the Servant 53 The suffering servant 55 Seek the Lord The year of the Lord's favor Daniel 1 6 Daniel 13* Susanna and the Elders 14* Bel and the Dragon Jonah 1 4 Jonah and the great fish Judith* 8 16 Judith Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach* False friends 30 Disciplining children Craftsmen and workmen Famous men * Books or chapters marked with an asterisk exist only in the Apocrypha. The New Testament The Gospel according to Matthew Birth of Jesus 3 John the Baptist 4 The Temptation of Christ 5 7 The Sermon on the Mount The call of Matthew 10 The mission of the Twelve Jesus prayer Six parables of the kingdom The prophet without honor The woman of Tyre The feeding of the five thousand Peter s confession and rebuke ( ) (The keys of the kingdom) The tribute Jesus and the children; forgiveness Parable of the merciless servant Parable of the laborers in the vineyard The mother of James and John The healing of the blind men The Gospel according to Mark Parable of the sower 5 Healings (The Gadarene swine) Death of John the Baptist The feeding of the five thousand The disciples rebuked The Transfiguration The dumb boy healed On marriage, children, and riches The Gospel according to Luke The preface Elizabeth and the Angel Gabriel The Annunciation The Visitation The birth of John The birth of Jesus The Purification The boy Jesus in the temple John the Baptist The rejection at Nazareth Jesus at Capernaum The great draught of fishes Jesus heals a leper and a paralytic Jesus and the Sabbath Domine, non sum dignus The widow s son brought to life John and Jesus The mission of the seventy Parable of the good Samaritan 62

67 Martha and Mary The Lord s Prayer The Pharisees and lawyers rebuked The neglect of material things The woman healed on the Sabbath Who shall be saved? The warning about Herod Healing on the Sabbath Humility Parable of the great supper The cost of following Jesus Parable of the lost sheep Parable of the lost piece Parable of the prodigal son Parable of the dishonest steward Parable of the rich man and the beggar 17 On forgiveness, faith, the kingdom of God Parable of the importunate widow Parable of the Pharisee and the publican Parable of the pounds Jesus enters Jerusalem and weeps (Mark ) The barren fig tree 20 The Pharisees and the saducees The end of Jerusalem and the world 22 The Passover in Jerusalem 23 The trial and Crucifixion (Mark ) The trial (Mark ) The last words of Jesus 24 The Resurrection, appearance, and Resurrection The Gospel according to John The Divine Word & John the Baptist The marriage at Cana Nicodemus 4 The woman of Samaria The feeding of the 5000; walking on water The woman taken in adultery 9 The blind man The Good Shepherd 11 Lazarus Mary anoints Jesus feet Jesus in Jerusalem The Last Supper 19 The trial, Crucifixion, and burial The Resurrection and appearance The Acts of the Apostles ; The Ascension, the Pentecost The healing on Solomon s porch 6:8 15, 7:51 60 Stephen stoned The conversion of Saul of Tarsus 9:32 43 The miracles of Peter 10:9 23 Peter s vision The riot at Ephesus The Epistle to the Romans , Justification by faith 13 Obedience to authority The First Epistle to the Corinthians The duty of men and women The Lord s Supper 13 Charity The resurrection of the dead The Epistle to the Hebrews 11 The power of faith (a fast review of the OT) The Epistle of James Justification by faith and works The Revelation of John the Divine, or The Apocalypse John s vision 4 The vision of God on His throne 5 The Lamb and the seven seals 6 7 The four horsemen; The four angels 12 The woman clothed with the sun 17 The scarlet woman and the beast with seven heads 21 The new Jerusalem 63

68 Allusion Research Jigsaw An allusion is a reference, explicit or implicit, to previous literature or history. Using allusions, authors can enrich a passage by inviting readers to make associations that can deepen or broaden meaning. Readers unaware of allusions, however, will miss these meanings not OK for an AP student. Learn the following allusions well. Use whatever sources you wish: children s tales, the Bible, encyclopedias, or reference books, or credible websites, not personal pages. For the Bible; prefer the Authorized (King James) Version, the one that s had by far the greatest influence on literature. If you are up for the originals of much of the mythology, check out Ovid s Metamorphoses. Britannia.com is a good site to start for Arthurian character and story information. For fairy tale research, try the Internet Public Library Pathfinder: Next, you are going to create a teaching document that includes, in your own words, an explanation of the story with an MLA (or APA) citation of the source. If you already know the story by heart double-check with an outside source for accuracy and cite the source. You will need to send me an electronic copy of your document and provide a hard copy in advance of your teaching day, so that photocopies can be made. A good website to help you create your MLA works cited page is Purdue s OWL at: < The stories you explain need not be long; written, most should be a paragraph or so. The purpose here is to give all of you a working knowledge of allusion. You will be teaching this information to your classmates. A test will follow. BIBLICAL GROUP 1 Creation Adam and Eve Cain and Abel David and Goliath Moses (birth to the promised land) Abraham and Isaac Tower of Babel Jonah and the Whale Samson and Delilah Solomon Job Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors Armageddon BIBLICAL GROUP 2 Daniel in the Lion s Den Elijah Jezebel Sodom and Gomorrah Birth of Jesus Parable of the Prodigal Son Lazarus John the Baptist Last Supper Judas Crucifixion and Resurrection Doubting Tomas Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse GREEK/ ROMAN MYTHOLOGY GROUP 1 Prometheus (and Io) Narcissus The Golden Fleece Orpheus and Eurydice Daedalus (and Icarus) Cupid and Psyche Pygmalion and Galatea Daphne (and Apollo) Perseus Theseus GREEK/ ROMAN MYTHOLOGY GROUP 2 Hercules Oedipus (including Sphinx) Antigone The Trojan War (including the fall of Troy, Achilles, Hector, Paris, Helen, and the Trojan Horse) Midas Bacchus Agamemnon, Orestes, and Electra (also known in whole as The Oresteia) Leda and the Swan Pandora Odysseus/Ulysses (know who he is, do not study The Odyssey) ARTHURIAN GROUP Uther and Igraine and the story of Arthur s birth Arthur, Guenevere, and Lancelot (their stories & the love triangle) Sir Gawain and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (story in verse) Merlin Morgan le Fay Nimue alias Vivienne, Lady of the Lake Perceval Mordred Places: Avalon and Camelot Objects: Excalibur, the Sword in the Stone, the Holy Grail FAIRY TALE GROUP The Ugly Duckling Snow White Rumpelstiltskin The Princess and the Pea The Pied Piper of Hamelin Little Red Riding Hood Hansel and Gretel The Frog Prince The Fisherman and His Wife Cinderella Bluebeard Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves Aladdin adapted from Jenna Gardner 64

69 AP English Literature Summer Assignment: Biblical Allusion Below is a list of terms, phrases, and people frequently alluded to by writers. For each one: (1) give a standard biblical reference; include the book, the chapter, and verse(s), (2) give a brief explanation of the allusion, (3) find a use of the allusion other than in the Bible, and (4) explain how the biblical quotation and the allusion relate. Ex. Am I my brother s keeper? Meaning: In Genesis 4: 9 God asks Cain, a son of Adam and Eve, where his brother is. Both Cain and God know that Cain has him. But Cain acts as if he does not know and replies, Am I my brother s keeper? Use of quote as allusion: A 1992 movie titled Brother s Keeper is about four very poor brothers. This documentary focuses on the alleged murder in June 1990 of 64-year-old Bill Ward by his brother Delbert, 59, a simple dairy farmer whose defense became a rallying cause for the citizens of Munnsville, a tiny farming community in central New York. Known by all of Munnsville as harmless hermits, the Ward brothers (also including Lyman and Roscoe) live an 18th-century lifestyle in their tiny, grimy shack, sleeping in the same bed through cold winters and tending daily to their hayfields and livestock. Semiliterate and stunted by minimal exposure to the outside world, the Wards are disheveled children in the bodies of aging men; and when Delbert is charged with suffocating his ailing brother Bill, he s a prime target for legal manipulation and a media circus that s immediately drawn to his case. Relationship between quotation and allusion: Although the movie, unlike the story of Cain and Able, does not have one brother killing the other out of jealousy, the idea of being one s brother s keeper comes into play as one brother attempts to end the suffering of and take responsibility for his suffering brother. 6. Create your own cartoon implementing a biblical or classical allusion. (No larger than a notebook sheet of paper) Due Date: First day of class. Do not wait until the last minute. *Be prepared to be tested over the allusions the first week of class. from Cynthia Cox Villa Rica High School; Villa Rica, Georgia 65

70 The Biblical Allusions 1. Am I my brother s keeper? 2. Ask and it shall be given you 3. In the beginning 4. Coat of many colors 5. Cast thy bread upon the waters 6. Crown of thorns 7. The lions den 8. Let the dead bury their dead 9. Do unto others 10. Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return 11. Doubting Thomas 12. An eye for an eye 13. Father, forgive them 14. The fatted calf 15. Forbidden fruit 16. Four horsemen 17. By their fruits ye shall know them 18. Get thee behind me 19. It is more blessed to give than to receive 20. Go the extra mile 21. Golden calf 22. Good Samaritan 23. The writing on the wall 24. He that is not with me is against me 25. Jacob s ladder 26. Jezebel 27. Judas Iscariot 28. Judge not, let yet be judged 29. Judgment day 30. The lamb shall lie down with the lion 31. A land flowing with milk and honey 32. The last shall be first 33. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone 34. Let there be light 35. Consider the lilies of the field 36. Loaves and fishes 37. Lot s wife 38. Man shall not live by bread alone 39. Many are called, but few are chosen 40. The meek shall inherit the earth 41. Why hast thou forsaken me? 42. No man can serve two masters 43. Nothing new under the sun 44. Original sin 45. Pearls before swine 46. Prodigal son 47. The Promised Land 48. A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country 49. Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar s 50. Second coming 51. Thirty pieces of silver 52. Through a glass darkly 53. Time to be born and a time to die 54. Turn the other cheek 55. Walking on water 56. Whither thou goest, I will go. 66

71 THE GREAT QUESTIONS Great literature of all cultures deals with one or more of the following questions: I. What is the nature of the universe the cosmos? Is the universe hostile / beneficent / indifferent to humanity? What is the nature of evil? What is the source of evil? Why, if God is good, does He allow evil to exist? (The Problem of Evil) Why, if God is just, does He allow the good to suffer? (The Problem of Pain) II. What is God s relationship to humans? Does God exist? Is God the Creator? Is God concerned about humanity? Is God indifferent toward humanity? Should humans fear / obey / love / sacrifice to / propitiate / pray to God? III. What is the nature of human beings? What is the nature of God? Is God (gods) basically: an angry God? a proud God? a jealous God? a kind God? Is God all good? Does God Himself bring evil to humanity and cause suffering? Are humans basically good or evil? Are people determined or do we have free will? Are people noble more divine than animal? or Are people degraded, corrupt more animal than spirit? Are people a balance? If so, how is the balance preserved? What is the human being s greatest faculty? reason? imagination? Do humans have a soul? Can they achieve immortality? How? Are humans in the universe by design or by chance? If by design, why? What is a human s basic purpose in life? Is there a purpose? To save the human soul? To find happiness? If so, what is happiness and how are we to achieve it? What is the good life for humans? How can life gain significance? How can people give value to their lives? How can people find their greatest satisfaction, completeness, fulfillment? How do people establish values, ethics, morals? What are their bases? IV. What is the relationship of one human to another? How are we to treat people? Are all people to be treated as equals? On what basis should we / do we evaluate our fellow humans? Are we basically social animals or anti-social ones? How are we to establish an orderly existence with other humans? What is the ideal or good society? How can it be established? Under what social system can people best flourish? On what base should we regulate our association with other people? Adapted from Dr. Dorothy Kilker, California State University, Fullerton 67

72 Katherine Anne Porter The Grave The Grandfather, dead for more than thirty years, had been twice disturbed in his long repose by the constancy and possessiveness of his widow. She removed his bones first to Louisiana and then to Texas as if she had set out to find her own burial place, knowing well she would never return to the places she had left. In Texas she set up a small cemetery in a corner of her first farm, and as the family connection grew, and oddments of relations came over from Kentucky to settle, it contained at last about twenty graves. After the Grandmother s death, part of her land was to be sold for the benefit of certain of her children, and the cemetery happened to lie in the part set aside for sale. It was necessary to take up the bodies and bury them again in the family plot in the big new public cemetery, where the Grandmother had been buried. At last her husband was to lie beside her for eternity, as she had planned. The family cemetery had been a pleasant small neglected garden of tangled rose bushes and ragged cedar trees and cypress, the simple flat stones rising out of uncropped sweet smelling wild grass. The graves were open and empty one burning day when Miranda and her brother Paul, who often went together to hunt rabbits and doves, propped their twenty two Winchester rifles carefully against the rail fence, climbed over and explored among the graves. She was nine years old and he was twelve. They peered into the pits all shaped alike with such purposeful accuracy, and looking at each other with pleased adventurous eyes, they said in solemn tones: these were graves! trying by words to shape a special, suitable emotion in their minds, but they felt nothing except an agreeable thrill of wonder: they were seeing a new sight, doing something they had not done before. In them both there was also a small disappointment at the entire commonplaceness of the actual spectacle. Even if it had once contained a coffin for years upon years, when the coffin was gone a grave was just a hole in the ground. Miranda leaped into the pit that had held her grandfather s bones. Scratching around aimlessly and pleasurable as any young animal, she scooped up a lump of earth and weighed it in her palm. It had a pleasantly sweet, corrupt smell, being mixed with cedar needles and small leaves, and as the crumbs fell apart, she saw a silver dove no larger than a hazel nut, with spread wings and a neat fan shaped tail. The breast had a deep round hollow in it. Turning it up to the fierce sunlight, she saw that the inside of the hollow was cut in little whorls. She scrambled out, over the pile of loose earth that had fallen back into one end of the grave, calling to Paul that she had found something, he must guess what. His head appeared smiling over the rim of another grave. He waved a closed hand at her. I ve got something too. They ran to compare treasures, making a game of it, so many guesses each, all wrong, and a final showdown with opened palms. Paul had found a thin wide gold ring carved with intricate flowers and leaves. Miranda was smitten at the sight of the ring and wished to have it. Paul seemed more impressed by the dove. They made a trade, with some little bickering. After he had got the dove in his hand, Paul said, Don t you know what this is? This is a screw head for a coffin! I ll be nobody else in the world has one like this! Miranda glanced at it without covetousness. She had the gold ring on her thumb; it fitted perfectly. Maybe we ought to go now, she said, Maybe someone ll see us and tell somebody. They knew the land had been sold, the cemetery was no longer theirs, and they felt like trespassers. They climbed back over the fence, slung their rifles loosely under their arms they had been shooting at targets with various kinds of firearms since they were seven years old and set out to look for the rabbits and doves or whatever small game might happen along. On these expeditions Miranda always followed at Paul s heels along the path, obeying instructions about handling her gun when going through fences; learning how to stand it up properly so it would not slip and fire unexpectedly; how to wait her time for a shot and not just bang away in the air without looking, spoiling shots for Paul, who really could hit things if given a chance. Now and then, in her excitement at seeing birds whizz up suddenly before her face, or a rabbit leap across her very toes, she lost her head, and almost without sighting she flung her rifle up and pulled the trigger. She hardly ever hit any sort of mark. She had no proper sense of hunting at all. Her brother would be often completely disgusted with her. You don't care whether you get your bird or not, he said. That's no way to hunt. Miranda could not understand his indignation. She had seen him smash his hat and yell with 68

73 fury when he had missed his aim. What I like about shooting, said Miranda, with exasperating inconsequence, is pulling the trigger and hearing the noise. Then, by golly, said Paul, whyn't you go back to the range and shoot at bulls eyes? I'd just as soon, said Miranda, only like this, we walk around more. Well, you just stay behind and stop spoiling my shots, said Paul, who, when he made a kill, wanted to be certain he had made it. Miranda, who alone brought down a bird once in twenty rounds, always claimed as her own any game they got when they fired at the same moment. It was tiresome and unfair and her brother was sick of it. Now, the first dove we see, or the first rabbit, is mine, he told her. And the next will be yours. Remember that and don't get smarty. What about snakes? asked Miranda idly. Can I have the first snake? Waving her thumb gently and watching her gold ring glitter, Miranda lost interest in shooting. She was wearing her summer roughing outfit: dark blue overalls, a light blue shirt, a hired man's straw hat, and thick brown sandals. Her brother had the same outfit except his was a sober hickory nut color. Ordinarily Miranda preferred her overalls to any other dress, though it was making rather a scandal in the countryside, for the year was 1903, and in the back country the law of female decorum had teeth in it. Her father had been criticized for letting his girls dress like boys and go careering around astride barebacked horses. Big sister Maria, the really independent and fearless one, in spite of her rather affected ways, rode at a dead run with only a rope knotted around her horse's nose. It was said the motherless family was running down, with the Grandmother no longer there to hold it together. It was known that she had discriminated against her son Harry in her will, and that he was in straits about money. Some of his old neighbors reflected with vicious satisfaction that now he would probably not be so stiffnecked, nor have any more high stepping horses either. Miranda knew this, though she could not say how. She had met along the road old women of the kind who smoked corn cob pipes, who had treated her grandmother with most sincere respect. They slanted their gummy old eyes side ways at the granddaughter and said, Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Missy? It's aginst the Scriptures to dress like that. Whut yo Pappy thinkin about? Miranda, with her powerful social sense, which was like a fine set of antennae radiating from every pore of her skin, would feel ashamed because she knew well it was rude and ill bred to shock anybody, even bad tempered old crones, though she had faith in her father's judgment and was perfectly comfortable in the clothes. Her father had said, They're just what you need, and they'll save your dresses for school.... This sounded quite simple and natural to her. She had been brought up in rigorous economy. Wastefulness was vulgar. It was also a sin. These were truths; she had heard them repeated many times and never once disputed. Now the ring, shining with the serene purity of fine gold on her rather grubby thumb, turned her feelings against her overalls and sockless feet, toes sticking through the thick brown leather straps. She wanted to go back to the farmhouse, take a good cold bath, dust herself with plenty of Maria's violet talcum powder provided Maria was not present to object, of course put on the thinnest, most becoming dress she owned, with a big sash, and sit in a wicker chair under the trees.... These things were not all she wanted, of course; she had vague stirrings of desire for luxury and a grand way of living which could not take precise form in her imagination but were founded on family legend of past wealth and leisure. These immediate comforts were what she could have, and she wanted them at once. She lagged rather far behind Paul, and once she thought of just turning back without a word and going home. She stopped, thinking that Paul would never do that to her, and so she would have to tell him. When a rabbit leaped, she let Paul have it without dispute. He killed it with one shot. When she came up with him, he was already kneeling, examining the wound, the rabbit trailing from his hands. Right through the head, he said complacently, as if he had aimed for it. He took out his sharp, competent bowie knife and started to skin the body. He did it very cleanly and quickly. Uncle Jimbilly knew how to prepare the skins so that Miranda always had fur coats for her dolls, for though she never cared much for her dolls she liked seeing them in fur coats. The children knelt facing each other over the dead animal. Miranda watched admiringly while her brother stripped the skin away as if he were taking off a glove. The flayed flesh emerged dark scarlet, sleek, firm; Miranda with thumb and finger felt the long fine muscles with the silvery flat strips binding them to the joints. Brother lifted the oddly bloated belly. Look, he said, in a low amazed voice. It was going to have young ones. Very carefully he slit the thin flesh from the center ribs to the flanks, and a scarlet bag appeared. He slit again and pulled the bag open, and there lay a bundle of tiny rabbits, each wrapped in a thin scarlet veil. The brother pulled these off and there they were, dark gray, their sleek wet down lying in minute even ripples, like a baby's head just 69

74 washed, their unbelievably small delicate ears folded close, their little blind faces almost featureless. Miranda said, Oh, I want to see, under her breath. She looked and looked excited but not frightened, for she was accustomed to the sight of animals killed in hunting filled with pity and astonishment and a kind of shocked delight in the wonderful little creatures for their own sakes, they were so pretty. She touched one of them ever so carefully. Ah, there's blood running over them, she said and began to tremble without knowing why. Yet she wanted most deeply to see and to know. Having seen, she felt at once as if she had known all along. The very memory of her former ignorance faded, she had always known just this. No one had ever told her anything outright, she had been rather unobservant of the animal life around her because she was so accustomed to animals. They seemed simply disorderly and unaccountably rude in their habits, but altogether natural and not very interesting. Her brother had spoken as if he had known about everything all along. He may have seen all this before. He had never said a word to her, but she knew now a part at least of what he knew. She understood a little of the secret, formless intuitions in her own mind and body, which had been clearing up, taking form, so gradually and so steadily she had not realized that she was learning what she had to know. Paul said cautiously, as if he were talking about something forbidden: They were just about ready to be born. His voice dropped on the last word. I know, said Miranda, like kittens. I know, like babies. She was quietly and terribly agitated, standing again with her rifle under her arm, looking down at the bloody heap. I don't want the skin, she said, I won't have it. Paul buried the young rabbits again in their mother's body, wrapped the skin around her, carried her to a clump of sage bushes, and hid her away. He came out again at once and said to Miranda, with an eager friendliness, a confidential tone quite unusual in him, as if he were taking her into an important secret on equal terms: Listen now. Now you listen to me, and don't ever forget. Don't you ever tell a living soul that you saw this. Don't tell a soul. Don't tell Dad because I'll get into trouble. He'll say I'm leading you into things you ought not to do. He's always saying that. So now don't you go and forget and blab out sometime the way you're always doing.... Now, that's a secret. Don't you tell. city of a strange country, when without warning, plain and clear in its true colors as if she looked through a frame upon a scene that had not stirred nor changed since the moment it happened, the episode of that far off day leaped from its burial place before her mind's eye. She was so reasonlessly horrified she halted suddenly staring, the scene before her eyes dimmed by the vision back of them. An Indian vendor had held up before her a tray of dyed sugar sweets, in the shapes of all kinds of small creatures: birds, baby chicks, baby rabbits, lambs, baby pigs. They were in gay colors and smelled of vanilla, maybe.... it was a very hot day and the smell in the market, with its piles of raw flesh and wilting flowers, was like the mingled sweetness and corruption she had smelled that other day in the empty cemetery at home: the day she had remembered always until now vaguely as the time she and her brother had found treasure in the opened graves. Instantly upon this thought the dreadful vision faded, and she saw clearly her brother whose childhood face she had forgotten, standing again in the blazing sunshine, again twelve years old, a pleased sober smile in his eyes, turning the silver dove over and over in his hands. KATHERINE ANNE PORTER ( ) was born in Indian Creek, Texas, grew up in Texas and Louisiana, and was educated in Germany and Mexico, locales she used in her fiction. Three collections of short stories Flowering Judas (1930), Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939) and The Leaning Tower (1944) not only have given her an international reputation but also established her as one of America s most creative short story writers of the last century. Her only novel, Ship of Fools, was published in In May, 2006, the United States Postal Service honored Katherine Anne Porter on a postage stamp. Miranda never told, she did not even wish to tell anybody. She thought about the whole worrisome affair with confused unhappiness for a few days. Then it sank quietly into her mind and was heaped over by accumulated thousands of impressions, for nearly twenty years. One day she was picking her path among the puddles and crushed refuse of a market street in a strange 70

75 Katherine Anne Porter THE G RAVE SETTING The story is told in a flashback*. What is the setting of the flashback, and what is the setting of the frame* (or at least of the half frame )? SETTING is the physical, and sometimes spiritual, background against which the action of a narrative (novel, drama, short story, poem) takes place. It includes (1) geography (country / city/region), (2) time (day/night, season, century/year/era, historical and social conditions and values), and (3) society (class, beliefs, values of the characters). CHARACTER How much can you tell about Miranda and Paul? CENTRAL or DOMINATING IDEA What is the central idea, the subject, the general topic of the story? CHARACTER is established through (1) direct exposition (comment by the author directly to the reader, although this is nearly always filtered through a narrator or other character, whose reliability you must always question), (2) dialogue (what the character says or thinks), and (3) action (what the character actually does). CENTRAL IDEA/TOPIC (sometimes called theme ) is the general area of an author s concern in a story, the topic under discussion. It is usually an abstract idea or concept. SYMBOL Find at least three symbols in the story and tell for what each stands. SYMBOL is something which is itself and yet stands for or suggests or means something else..., a figure of speech which combines a literal and sensuous quality with an abstract or suggestive aspect. THEME Identify the theme of the story and state it in one sentence. THEME (sometimes called thesis ) is an attitude or position taken by a writer with the purpose of proving or supporting it. The topic is the subject about which a writer writes; the theme is what the writer says about the topic. Definitions are adapted from C. Hugh Holman, A Handbook to Literature, Indianapolis: The Odyssey Press, 1972, Print. 71

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77 FIC TIO N BO OT C A M P: READING SCHEDULE using Michael Meyer, The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 8 th ed. 0. Reading Fiction Reading Fiction Responsively, pp Explorations and Formulas, pp A Comparison of Two Stories, pp Plot Introduction, p (Burroughs) Joyce Carol Oates, Three Girls, p. 77 Ha Jin, Love in the Air, p. 84 William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily, p Character Introduction, p (Dickens) May Lee Chai, Saving Sourdi, p. 130 Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivner, p. 144 Susan Straight, Mines, p Setting Introduction, p Ernest Hemingway, Soldier s Home, p. 185 Andrea Lee, Anthropology, p. 192 Fay Weldon, IND AFF, p. 201 Robert Olen Butler, Christmas 1910, p Point of View Introduction, pp Achy Obejas, We Came All the Way from Cuba so You Could Dress Like This? p. 224 Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Pet Dog, p. 235 Joyce Carol Oates, The Lady with the Pet Dog, p. 249 Alice Walker, Roselily, p Symbolism Introduction, pp Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Clothes, p. 273 Colette, The Hand, p. 282 Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal, 285 Peter Meinke, The Cranes, p Theme Introduction, pp Stephen Crane, The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, p. 308 Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill, p. 317 Dagoberto Gilb, Love in L.A., p. 321 Daly Walker, I Am the Grass, Style, Tone, and Irony Instruction, pp Raymond Carver, Popular Mechanics, p. 343 Susan Minot, Lust, p. 349 Lydia Davis, Letter to a Funeral Parlor, p. 357 Z. Z. Packer, Brownies, p

78 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H Michael Meyer: The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 8 th ed. Fiction: Reading and Study Guide Lesson Five: Symbolism [Teaching Plan] Introduction Activity 1: Conventional symbols (Team discussion) Generate a list of at least 20 common conventional symbols (from our culture ) to add to those mentioned in the textbook. Arrange the symbols you have identified into categories or groups. [Construct a master list for the class] Activity 2: Common symbols / cultural differences (discussion) What traditional, conventional, or public meanings do you associate with: Water: origin of life, baptism rites, cleansing, destruction (floods) East vs. West: Dragons, White Activity 3: Symbol in specific stories (team analysis) 1. Divakaruni (p. 281, questions 4 6) 4. Meinke (p. 303, question 6) 2. Colette (p. 284, question 9) 5. Faulkner (p. 102, question 5, treating 3. Ellison (p. 294, questions 4 and 5) the items listed as symbols) Activity 4: Symbol in magical realism (class analysis) García Márquez ( The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World, handout, questions 2, 5) 74

79 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H Michael Meyer: The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 8 th ed. Fiction: Reading and Study Guide Part Five: Symbolism Reading: o Chapter 7: Symbolism, pp Stories included in the readings: o Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Clothes, p. 273 o Colette, The Hand, p. 282 o Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal, 285 o Peter Meinke, The Cranes, p. 301 Vocabulary for study: (p. 270) (p. 271) embedded evoke Provincial (p. 272) Petty subvert definitive Literary Terms and Concepts to Know (p. 270) symbol (p. 271) conventional symbol literary symbol (p. 272) allegory To sharpen your skills 1. Be certain you can explain the difference between symbolism and allegory, giving clear examples other than those in the textbook. 2. Keep a running list of familiar symbols from daily experience of other reading and viewing. 3. Keep track of the kinds of clues writers use, consciously or not, to guide a reader toward symbols. Due Date: 75

80 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H Michael Meyer: The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 8 th ed. Fiction: Reading and Study Guide PRACTICE: Symbol Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: Clothes Discuss the significance of the following symbols. In your conversation, use the author s name frequently. the saris the 7 11 alcoholic drinks the women s lake 76

81 Ralph Ellison: Battle Royal Identify the story s possible symbols and discuss the significance Ellison intends them to have. In your conversation, use his name frequently. 77

82 Alberto Alvaro Rios, A Secret Lion 1. Which of the following are not among the changes that the narrator experiences when he goes to junior high? [A] He has more teachers. [B] His relationship with girls changes. [C] He has to take the school bus. [D] He learns new, forbidden words. 2. What is the one place [the narrator and his friend Sergio were] not supposed to go? [A] The train station [B] The arroyo [C] Each other s houses [D] The highway 3. What happens when the narrator and Sergio go swimming in the stream? [A] Sergio almost drowns. [B] The narrator almost drowns. [C] They sometimes see some girls swimming upstream. [D] They are occasionally deluged with sewage. 4. When the narrator and Sergio walk into the hills, they discover a spot that they at first consider to be heaven. What does this place turn out to be? [A] The arroyo [B] A golf course [C] A private school [D] A waterfall 5. What is the secret lion? [A] A grinding ball [B] A kitten [C] Junior high school [D] A beautiful girl Colette, The Hand 6. What color hair does the husband have? [A] Blond [B] Brown [C] Copper [D] Gray 7. Why can t the wife sleep at the beginning of the story? [A] She is too depressed to sleep. [B] She is too angry to sleep. [C] She is too happy to sleep. [D] She is too embarrassed to sleep. 8. How long has the couple been married? [A] Two weeks [B] One year [C] Ten years [D] Fifty years 9. After looking closely at her husband s hand, the wife finds it [A] erotic. [B] womanly. [C] spider like. [D] horrible. 10. What does the wife do at the end of the story? [A] She asks for a divorce. [B] She tells the husband she is pregnant. [C] She tries to destroy the hand. [D] She kisses the hand. Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal 11. What does the narrator do on his graduation day? [A] He kills a man. [B] He gives a speech. [C] He runs away. [D] He becomes invisible. 12. Who is the audience for the battle royal? [A] The narrator and his schoolmates [B] The town s leading white citizens [C] The town s leading black citizens [D] A racial mix of townspeople 13. To what does the narrator refer when he says, Had the price of looking been blindness I would have looked? [A] A boxing match between other black boys [B] A dangerous drug deal [C] A pornographic magazine [D] A naked white woman 14. When the boys dive onto the rug to grab for money, what do they discover? [A] The money is not real. [B] The rug is electrified. [C] There is not enough money for everyone. [D] The men don t intend to let them keep the money. 15. What does the narrator say during his talk that provokes a violent response from his audience? [A] Cast down your bucket where you are. [B] I have a dream! [C] Social equality. [D] Friends always. Gabriel Márquez, The Handsomest Drowned Man When the villagers laid the drowned man on the floor of the nearest house, what do they discover about him? [A] He is not really dead. [B] He is someone they know. [C] He is taller than any man they know. [D] He was a murderer during his lifetime. 17. Who is Esteban? [A] The name they give the drowned man [B] The boy who discovers the drowned man [C] The drowned man s father [D] The drowned man s best friend 18. Which of the following do the villagers NOT do for the drowned man? [A] They attempt to discover who he is. [B] They clean and dress his body. [C] They raise money for his family. [D] They give him an elaborate funeral. 19. How do the women of the village respond to the drowned man s body? [A] They think he is an evil spirit. [B] They are revolted by the decay. [C] They fall in love with him. [D] They are eager to return him to the sea. 20. In what way does the narrator predict the village will change as a result of the drowned man s appearance? [A] Men will avoid going to sea. [B] The villagers will plant flowers on the cliff sides in his memory. [C] Houses will be smaller from now on. [D] Their dreams will be narrower. 78

83 David Updike: Summer Michael Meyer: The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 8th ed. Fiction: Reading and Study Guide PRACTICE: Combining the Elements of Fiction Study Summer in light of your assigned element. Examine the way your element functions in the story. Use the following questions as a guide to generate discussion Plot Does Summer have a clear beginning, middle, and end? Is the pot straightforward? Fragmentary? What is the conflict in the story? Character How realistic are the story s characters? Which are dynamic, and which, static? With which character(s) do you identify most? Why What information does Updike provide about the characters and what does he leave out? What effect do these choices have on the reader? Setting Describe the setting. What details does Updike use to convey the tone of the setting? How important is the setting to the narrative as a whole? Point of View How would we read this story if it were told from Sandra s point of view? What information would an omniscient third person narrator reveal that we do not receive here? Would the story differ significantly if Homer were the actual narrator? Symbolism Explain how Updike manipulates the story s major symbols: summer, heat, the characters names, and Sherlock Holmes. What other symbols can you identify? How important are those symbols to your reading of the story? Theme What is the story s theme? Is it stated explicitly or implicitly? Style, Tone, Irony Identify the tone. Is it nostalgic? ironic? objective? A combination? Cite textual examples. General Questions 1. What is gained by studying this story in light of more than one element? 2. How do the elements work together to create the total effect of the story (and what is that effect)? 3. It s unusual to have all the elements equally important in a story. Are they here? 4. If you were to include this story in one of the earlier chapters of the textbook, which one would you choose? Why? Story Questions 5. Homer admits that to touch her, or kiss her, seemed suddenly incongruous, absurd, contrary to something he could not put his finger on ; he realized he had never been able to imagine the moment he distantly longed for. What is Homer s motivation here? Why doesn t he kiss Sandra? Why doesn t he need to demonstrate his affection for her in some tangible way? What is there in the story that indicates that longing itself is enough? 6. What is the connection between his distanced affection for Sandra and his interest in the girl in the canoe who waves to them at the end of the summer? 7. He tells us, there was something in the way that she raised her arm which, when added to the distant impression of her fullness, beauty, youth, filled him with longing as their boat moved inexorably past, slapping the waves, and she disappeared behind a crop of trees (p. 15) Is this in some sense a metaphor for the ending of his pursuit of Sandra as the summer comes to a close? 79

84 Literary Terms: an incomplete list 1. allegory 2. alliteration 3. allusion 4. ambiguity 5. antagonist 6. apostrophe 7. archetype 8. aside 9. assonance 10. audience 11. ballad 12. blank verse 13. cæsura 14. central idea (theme) 15. characterization 16. climax 17. comedy 18. conceit 19. concrete poetry 20. connotation 21. consonance 22. convention 23. couplet 24. denotation 25. deus ex machina 26. detail 27. diction 28. elegy 29. epic 30. epiphany 31. exposition 32. farce 33. figurative language 34. first person (point of view) 35. fixed form 36. flashback (~forward) 37. foil 38. foreshadowing 39. free indirect discourse 40. free verse 41. hyperbole 42. iambic pentameter 43. image 44. in medias res 45. irony 46. literal language 47. litotes 48. lyric 49. metaphor 50. meter (iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapest) 51. narrator 52. naturalistic 53. octet 54. ode 55. omniscient (point of view) 56. overstatement 57. oxymoron 58. paradox 59. parody 60. persona 61. personification 62. plot 63. point of view 64. prosody 65. protagonist 66. purpose 67. quatrain 68. realistic 69. resolution 70. reversal 71. rhyme (interior, slant) 72. rhythm 73. romantic 74. satire 75. scan 76. sestet 77. simile 78. soliloquy 79. sonnet 80. speaker 81. stage direction 82. stock character 83. stream-of-consciousness 84. symbol 85. syntax 86. theme 87. tone 88. tragedy 89. understatement 90. unreliable narrator 80

85 Fiction: Reading and Discussion Guide for further practice: Symbol Gariel García Márquez: The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World Identify the story s possible symbols and discuss the significance García Márquez intends them to have. In your conversation, use his name frequently. the hoped for gardens and springs at the story s end the children the sea 81

86 The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World Gabriel García Márquez Translated by Gregory Rabassa T he first children who saw the dark and slinky bulge approaching through the sea let themselves think it was an enemy ship. Then they saw it had no flags or masts and they thought it was a whale. But when it washed up on the beach, they removed the clumps of seaweed, the jellyfish tentacles, and the remains of fish and flotsam, and only then did they see that it was a drowned man. They had been playing with him all afternoon, burying him in the sand and digging him up again, when someone chanced to see them and spread the alarm in the village. The men who carried him to the nearest house noticed that he weighed more than any dead man they had ever known, almost as much as a horse, and they said to each other that maybe he'd been floating too long and the water had got into his bones. When they laid him on the floor they said he'd been taller than all other men because there was barely enough room for him in the house, but they thought that maybe the ability to keep on growing after death was part of the nature of certain drowned men. He had the smell of the sea about him and only his shape gave one to suppose that it was the corpse of a human being, because the skin was covered with a crust of mud and scales. They did not even have to clean off his face to know that the dead man was a stranger. The village was made up of only twenty odd wooden houses that had stone courtyards with no flowers and which were spread about on the end of a desertlike cape. There was so little land that mothers always went about with the fear that the wind would carry off their children and the few dead that the years had caused among them had to be thrown off the cliffs. But the sea was calm and bountiful and all the men fitted into seven boats. So when they found the drowned man they simply had to look at one another to see that they were all there. That night they did not go out to work at sea. While the men went to find out if anyone was missing in neighboring villages, the women stayed behind to care for the drowned man. They took the mud off with grass swabs, they removed the underwater stones entangled in his hair, and they scraped the crust off with tools used for scaling fish. As they were doing that they noticed that the vegetation on him came from faraway oceans and deep water and that his clothes were in tatters, as if he had sailed through labyrinths of coral. They noticed too that he bore his death with pride, for he did not have the lonely look of other drowned men who came out of the sea or that haggard, needy look of men who drowned in rivers. But only when they finished cleaning him off did they become aware of the kind of man he was and it left them breathless. Not only was he the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built man they had ever seen, but even though they were looking at him there was no room for him in their imagination. They could not find a bed in the village large enough to lay him on nor was there a table solid enough to use for his wake. The tallest men's holiday pants would not fit him, nor the fattest ones' Sunday shirts, nor the shoes of the one with the biggest feet. Fascinated by his huge size and his beauty, the women then decided to make him some pants from a large piece of sail and a shirt from some bridal linen so that he could continue through his death with dignity. As they sewed, sitting in a circle and gazing at the corpse between stitches, it seemed to them that the wind had never been so steady nor the sea so restless as on that night and they supposed that the change had something to do with the dead man. They thought that if that magnificent man had lived in the village, his house would have had the widest doors, the highest ceiling, and the strongest floor, his bedstead would have been made from a midship frame held together by iron bolts, and his wife would have been the happiest woman. They thought that he would have had so much authority that he could have drawn fish out of the sea simply by calling their names and that he would have put so much work into his land that springs would have burst forth from among the rocks so that he would have been able to plant flowers on the cliffs. They secretly compared hom to their own men, thinking that for all their lives theirs were incapable of doing what he could do in one night, and they ended up dismissing them deep in their hearts as the weakest, meanest and most useless creatures on earth. They were wandering through that maze of fantasy when 82

87 the oldest woman, who as the oldest had looked upon the drowned man with more compassion than passion, sighed: 'He has the face of someone called Esteban.' It was true. Most of them had only to take another look at him to see that he could not have any other name. The more stubborn among them, who were the youngest, still lived for a few hours with the illusion that when they put his clothes on and he lay among the flowers in patent leather shoes his name might be Lautaro. But it was a vain illusion. There had not been enough canvas, the poorly cut and worse sewn pants were too tight, and the hidden strength of his heart popped the buttons on his shirt. After midnight the whistling of the wind died down and the sea fell into its Wednesday drowsiness. The silence put an end to any last doubts: he was Esteban. The women who had dressed him, who had combed his hair, had cut his nails and shaved him were unable to hold back a shudder of pity when they had to resign themselves to his being dragged along the ground. It was then that they understood how unhappy he must have been with that huge body since it bothered him even after death. They could see him in life, condemned to going through doors sideways, cracking his head on crossbeams, remaining on his feet during visits, not knowing what to do with his soft, pink, sea lion hands while the lady of the house looked for her most resistant chair and begged him, frightened to death, sit here, Esteban, please, and he, leaning against the wall, smiling, don't bother, ma'am, I'm fine where I am, his heels raw and his back roasted from having done the same thing so many times whenever he paid a visit, don't bother, ma'am, I'm fine where I am, just to avoid the embarrassment of breaking up the chair, and never knowing perhaps that the ones who said don't go, Esteban, at least wait till the coffee's ready, were the ones who later on would whisper the big boob finally left, how nice, the handsome fool has gone. That was what the women were thinking beside the body a little before dawn. Later, when they covered his face with a handkerchief so that the light would not bother him, he looked so forever dead, so defenseless, so much like their men that the first furrows of tears opened in their hearts. It was one of the younger ones who began the weeping. The others, coming to, went from sighs to wails, and the more they sobbed the more they felt like weeping, because the drowned man was becoming all the more Esteban for them, and so they wept so much, for he was the more destitute, most peaceful, and most obliging man on earth, poor Esteban. So when the men returned with the news that the drowned man was not from the neighboring villages either, the women felt an opening of jubilation in the midst of their tears. 'Praise the Lord,' they sighed, 'he's ours!' The men thought the fuss was only womanish frivolity. Fatigued because of the difficult nighttime inquiries, all they wanted was to get rid of the bother of the newcomer once and for all before the sun grew strong on that arid, windless day. They improvised a litter with the remains of foremasts and gaffs, tying it together with rigging so that it would bear the weight of the body until they reached the cliffs. They wanted to tie the anchor from a cargo ship to him so that he would sink easily into the deepest waves, where fish are blind and divers die of nostalgia, and bad currents would not bring him back to shore, as had happened with other bodies. But the more they hurried, the more the women thought of ways to waste time. They walked about like startled hens, pecking with the sea charms on their breasts, some interfering on one side to put a scapular of the good wind on the drowned man, some on the other side to put a wrist compass on him, and after a great deal of get away from there, woman, stay out of the way, look, you almost made me fall on top of the dead man, the men began to feel mistrust in their livers and started grumbling about why so many main altar decorations for a stranger, because no matter how many nails and holy water jars he had on him, the sharks would chew him all the same, but the women kept piling on their junk relics, running back and forth, stumbling, while they released in sighs what they did not in tears, so that the men finally exploded with since when has there ever been such a fuss over a drifting corpse, a drowned nobody, a piece of cold Wednesday meat. One of the women, mortified by so much lack of care, then removed the handkerchief from the dead man's face and the men were left breathless too. He was Esteban. It was not necessary to repeat it for them to recognize him. If they had been told Sir Walter Raleigh, even they might have been impressed with his gringo accent, the macaw on his shoulder, his cannibalkilling blunderbuss, but there could be only one Esteban in the world and there he was, stretched out like a sperm whale, shoeless, wearing the pants of an undersized child, and with those stony nails that had to be cut with a knife. They only had to take the handkerchief off his face to see that he was ashamed, that it was not his fault that he was so big or so heavy or so handsome, and if he had known that this was going to happen, he would have looked for a more discreet place to drown in, seriously, I even would 83

88 have tied the anchor off a galleon around my nick and staggered off a cliff like someone who doesn't like things in order not to be upsetting people now with this Wednesday dead body, as you people say, in order not to be bothering anyone with this filthy piece of cold meat that doesn't have anything to do with me. There was so much truth in his manner taht even the most mistrustful men, the ones who felt the bitterness of endless nights at sea fearing that their women would tire of dreaming about them and begin to dream of drowned men, even they and others who were harder still shuddered in the marrow of their bones at Esteban's sincerity. That was how they came to hold the most splendid funeral they could ever conceive of for an abandoned drowned man. Some women who had gone to get flowers in the neighboring villages returned with other women who could not believe what they had been told, and those women went back for more flowers when they saw the dead man, and they brought more and more until there were so many flowers and so many people that it was hard to walk about. At the final moment it pained them to return him to the waters as an orphan and they chose a father and mother from among the best people, and aunts and uncles and cousins, so that through him all the inhabitants of the village became kinsmen. Some sailors who heard the weeping from a distance went off course and people heard of one who had himself tied to the mainmast, remembering ancient fables about sirens. While they fought for the privilege of carrying him on their shoulders along the steep escarpment by the cliffs, men and women became aware for the first time of the desolation of their streets, the dryness of their courtyards, the narrowness of their dreams as they faced the splendor and beauty of their drowned man. They let him go without an anchor so that he could come back if he wished and whenever he wished, and they all held their breath for the fraction of centuries the body took to fall into the abyss. They did not need to look at one another to realize that they were no longer all present, that they would never be. But they also knew that everything would be different from then on, that their houses would have wider doors, higher ceilings, and stronger floors so that Esteban's memory could go everywhere without bumping into beams and so that no one in the future would dare whisper the big boob finally died, too bad, the handsome fool has finally died, because they were going to paint their house fronts gay colors to make Esteban's memory eternal and they were going to break their backs digging for springs among the stones and planting flowers on the cliffs so that in future years at dawn the passengers on great liners would awaken, suffocated by the smell of gardens on the high seas, and the captain would have to come down from the bridge in his dress uniform, with his astrolabe, his pole star, and his row of war medals and, pointing to the promontory of roses on the horizon, he would say in fourteen languages, look there, where the wind is so peaceful now that it's gone to sleep beneath the beds, over there, where the sun's so bright that the sunflowers don't know which way to turn, yes, over there, that's Esteban's village. 84

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90 Focus Questions for Short Short Stories writer title Katherine Anne Porter THE G RAVE PLOT Characterize the chronology of the plot. Where does it differ from the chronology of the story? CHARACTER SETTING POINT OF VIEW Where are examples of Free Indirect Style in this story? SYMBOL THEME State the theme of this story in one sentence. STYLE, TONE, and IMAGERY PLOT is an author s selection and arrangement of incidents in a story to shape the action and give the story a particular focus. Discussions of plot include not just what happens, but also how and why things happen the way they do. [B] CHARACTER is established through (1) direct exposition (comment by the author directly to the reader, although this is nearly always filtered through a narrator or other character, whose reliability you must always question), (2) dialogue (what the character says or thinks), and (3) action (what the character actually does). [H] SETTING is the physical, and sometimes spiritual, background against which the action of a narrative (novel, drama, short story, poem) takes place. It includes (1) geography (country / city/region), (2) time (day/night, season, century/year/era, historical and social conditions and values), and (3) society (class, beliefs, values of the characters). [H] POINT OF VIEW refers to who tells us a story and how it is told. The two broad categories are (1) the third person narrator who tells the story and does not participate in the action and (2) the first person narrator who is a major or minor participant. [B] SYMBOL is something which is itself and yet stands for or suggests or means something else..., a figure of speech which combines a literal and sensuous quality with an abstract or suggestive aspect. [H] THEME (sometimes called thesis ) is an attitude or position taken by a writer with the purpose of proving or supporting it. The topic is the subject about which a writer writes; the theme is what the writer says about the topic. [H] TONE is the author s implicit attitude toward the reader or the people, places, and events in a work as revealed by the elements of the author s style. STYLE is the distinctive and unique manner in which a writer arranges words to achieve particular effects. An IMAGE is a word, phrase, or figure of speech that addresses the senses, suggesting mental pictures of sights, sounds, smells tastes, feelings or actions. Definitions are adapted from C. Hugh Holman, A Handbook to Literature, Indianapolis: The Odyssey Press, 1972, Print. [Those marked H ] or from Michael Meyer, ed., The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 8 th Edition, Boston: Bedford/St. Martin s, Print. [Those marked [B] 86

91 There Was Once Margaret Atwood There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the forest. Forest? Forest is passé, I mean, I've had it with all this wilderness stuff. It's not a right image of our society, today. Let's have some urban for a change. There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the suburbs. That's better. But I have to seriously query this word poor. But she was poor! Poor is relative. She lived in a house, didn't she? Yes. Then socio economically speaking, she was not poor. But none of the money was hers! The whole point of the story is that the wicked stepmother makes her wear old clothes and sleep in the fireplace Aha! They had a fireplace! With poor, let me tell you, there's no fireplace. Come down to the park, come to the subway stations after dark, come down to where they sleep in cardboard boxes, and I'll show you poor! There was once a middle-class girl, as beautiful as she was good Stop right there. I think we can cut the beautiful, don't you? Women these days have to deal with too many intimidating physical role models as it is, what with those bimbos in the ads. Can't you make her, well, more average? There was once a girl who was a little overweight and whose front teeth stuck out, who I don't think it's nice to make fun of people's appearances. Plus, you're encouraging anorexia. I wasn't making fun! I was just describing Skip the description. Description oppresses. But you can say what colour she was. What colour? You know. Black, white, red, brown, yellow. Those are the choices. And I'm telling you right now, I've had enough of white. Dominant culture thus, dominant culture that. I don't know what colour. Well, it would probably be your colour, wouldn't it? But this isn't about me! It's about this girl Everything is about you. Sounds to me like you don't want to hear this story at all. Oh well, go on. You could make her ethnic. That might help. There was once a girl of indeterminate descent, as average looking as she was good, who lived with her wicked Another thing. Good and wicked. Don't you think you should transcend those puritanical judgemental moralistic epithets? I mean, so much of that is conditioning, isn't it? There was once a girl, as average-looking as she was well-adjusted, who lived with her stepmother, who was not a very open and loving person because she herself had been abused in childhood. Better. But I am so tired of negative female images! And stepmothers they always get it in the neck! Change it to stepfather, why don't you? That would make more sense anyway, considering the bad behaviour you're about to describe. Andthrow in some whips and chains. We all know what those twisted, repressed, middle aged men are like Hey, just a minute! I'm a middle-aged Stuff it, Mister Nosy Parker. Nobody asked you to stick in your oar, or whatever you want to call that thing. This is between they two of us. Go on. There was once a girl How old was she? I don't know. She was young. This ends with a marriages right? Well, not to blow the-plot, but yes. Then you can scratch the condescending terminology. It's woman, pal. Woman! There was once What's this was, once? Enough of the dead past. Tell me about now. There So? So, what? So, why not here? 87

92 Girl Jamaica Kincaid Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don't walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn't have gum on it, because that way it won't hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it; is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school?; always eat your food in such a way that it won't turn someone else's stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don't sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn't speak to wharf flies will follow you; but I don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button; this is how to make a button hole for the button you have just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming; this is how you iron your father's khaki shirt so that it doesn't have a crease; this is how you iron your father's khaki pants so that they don't have a crease; this is how you grow okra far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants; when you are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well, and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming; be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don't squat down to play marbles you are not a boy, you know; don't pick people's flowers you might catch something; don't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don't like, and that way something bad won't fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man; and if this doesn't work there are other ways, and if they don't work don't feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn't fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it's fresh; but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread? 88

93 H e had begun to read the novel a few days before. He had put it down because of some urgent business conferences, opened it again on his way back to the estate by train; he permitted himself a slowly growing interest in the plot, in the characterizations. That afternoon, after writing a letter giving his power of attorney and discussing a matter of joint ownership with the manager of his estate, he returned to the book in the tranquillity of his study which looked out upon the park with its oaks. Sprawled in his favorite armchair, its back toward the door even the possibility of an intrusion would have irritated him, had he thought of it he let his left hand caress repeatedly the green velvet upholstery and set to reading the final chapters. He remembered effortlessly the names and his mental image of the characters; the novel spread its glamor over him almost at once. He tasted the almost perverse pleasure of disengaging himself line by line from the things around him, and at the same time feeling his head rest comfortably on the green velvet of the chair with its high back, sensing that the cigarettes rested within reach of his hand, that beyond the great windows the air of afternoon danced under the oak trees in the park. Word by word, licked up by the sordid dilemma of the hero and heroine, letting himself be absorbed to the point where the images settled down and took on color and movement, he was witness to the final encounter in the mountain cabin. The woman arrived first, apprehensive; now the lover came in, his face cut by the backlash of a branch. Admirably, she stanched the blood with her kisses, but he rebuffed her caresses, he had not come to perform again the ceremonies of a secret passion, protected by a world of dry leaves and furtive paths through the forest. The dagger warmed itself against his chest, and underneath liberty pounded, hidden close. A lustful, panting dialogue raced down the pages like a rivulet of snakes, and one felt it had all been decided from eternity. Even to those caresses which writhed about the lover s body, as though wishing to keep him there, to dissuade him from it; they sketched abominably the frame of that other body it was necessary to destroy. Nothing had been forgotten: alibis, unforeseen hazards, possible mistakes. From this hour on, each instant had its use minutely assigned. The cold blooded, twicegone over reexamination of the details was barely broken off so that a hand could caress a cheek. It was Julio Cortázar ( ) Continuity of Parks beginning to get dark. Not looking at one another now, rigidly fixed upon the task which awaited them, they separated at the cabin door. She was to follow the trail that led north. On the path leading in the opposite direction, he turned for a moment to watch her running, her hair loosened and flying. He ran in turn, crouching among the trees and hedges until, in the yellowish fog of dusk, he could distinguish the avenue of trees which led up to the house. The dogs were not supposed to bark, they did not bark. The estate manager would not be there at this hour, and he was not there. He went up the three porch steps and entered. The woman s words reached him over the thudding of blood in his ears: first a blue chamber, then a hall, then a carpeted stairway. At the top, two doors. No one in the first room, no one in the second. The door of the salon, and then, the knife in hand, the light from the great windows, the high back of an armchair covered in green velvet, the head of the man in the chair reading a novel. Questions 1. Did the ending of the story surprise you? Why did it surprise you (if it did)? Should you have been surprised by the ending? 2. You may have noticed that seemingly insignificant details in the early part of the story are essential for making sense of the ending. For example, the reference to the green velvet upholstery at the beginning of the story becomes a key to understanding the last sentence. What other details does Cortázar casually plant at the beginning of the story that become important at the end? What is the significance of these details? Are there any wasted details? 3. Does the novel that the man reads sound like a realistic story? Does Continuity of Parks strike you as a highly realistic story? What does this story illustrate about the relationship between life and fiction? What does the title mean? 4. Cortázar writes, one felt it had all been decided from eternity. What does the it refer to? What does the line mean? Do such sentiments explain why the man reading the novel doesn t leave his chair? 5. Is the ending of the story a surprise to the man reading the novel? What is Cortázar s attitude toward surprises? Who could be the author of the novel read by the man in the story? 89

94 O NE OF T HESE D AYS Gabriel García-Márquez Monday dawned warm and rainless. Aurelio Escovar, a dentist without a degree, and a very early riser, opened his office at six. He took some false teeth, still mounted in their plaster mold, out of the glass case and put on the table a fistful of instruments which he arranged in size order, as if they were on display. He wore a collarless striped shirt, closed at the neck with a golden stud, and pants held up by suspenders He was erect and skinny, with a look that rarely corresponded to the situation, the way deaf people have of looking. When he had things arranged on the table, he pulled the drill toward the dental chair and sat down to polish the false teeth. He seemed not to be thinking about what he was doing, but worked steadily, pumping the drill with his feet, even when he didn t need it. After eight he stopped for a while to look at the sky through the window, and he saw two pensive buzzards who were drying themselves in the sun on the ridgepole of the house next door. He went on working with the idea that before lunch it would rain again. The shrill voice of his elevenyear old son interrupted his concentration. Papa. What? The Mayor wants to know if you ll pull his tooth. Tell him I m not here. He was polishing a gold tooth. He held it at arm s length, and examined it with his eyes half closed. His son shouted again from the little waiting room. He says you are, too, because he can hear you. The dentist kept examining the tooth. Only when he had put it on the table with the finished work did he say: So much the better. He operated the drill again. He took several pieces of a bridge out of a cardboard box where he kept the things he still had to do and began to polish the gold. Papa. What? He still hadn t changed his expression. He says if you don t take out his tooth, he ll shoot you. Without hurrying, with an extremely tranquil movement, he stopped pedaling the drill, pushed it away from the chair, and pulled the lower drawer of the table all the way out. There was a revolver. O.K., he said. Tell him to come and shoot me. He rolled the chair over opposite the door, his hand resting on the edge of the drawer. The Mayor appeared at the door. He had shaved the left side of his face, but the other side, swollen and in pain, had a five day old beard. The dentist saw many nights of desperation in his dull eyes. He closed the drawer with his fingertips and said softly: Sit down. Good morning, said the Mayor. Morning, said the dentist. While the instruments were boiling, the Mayor leaned his skull on the headrest of the chair and felt better. His breath was icy. It was a poor office: an old wooden chair, the pedal drill, a glass case with ceramic bottles. Opposite the chair was a window with a shoulder high cloth curtain. When he felt the dentist approach, the Mayor braced his heels and opened his mo Aurelio Escovar turned his head toward the light. After inspecting the infected tooth, he closed the Mayor s jaw with a cautious pressure of his fingers. It has to be without anesthesia, he said. Why? Because you have an abscess. The Mayor looked him in the eye. All right, he said, and tried to smile. The dentist did not return the smile. He brought the basin of sterilized instruments to the worktable and took them out of the water with a pair of cold tweezers, still without hurrying. Then he pushed the spittoon with the tip of his shoe, and went to wash his hands in the washbasin. He did all this without looking at the Mayor. But the Mayor didn t take his eyes off him. It was a lower wisdom tooth. The dentist spread his feet and grasped the tooth with the hot forceps. The Mayor seized the arms of the chair, braced his feet with all his strength, and felt an icy void in his kidneys, but didn t make a sound. The dentist moved only his wrist. Without rancor, rather with a bitter tenderness, he said: Now you ll pay for our twenty dead men. The Mayor felt the crunch of bones in his jaw, and his eyes filled with tears. But he didn t breathe until he felt the tooth come out. Then he saw it through his tears. It seemed so foreign to his pain that he failed to understand his torture of the five previous nights. Bent over the spittoon, sweating, panting, he unbuttoned his tunic and reached for the handkerchief in his pants pocket. The dentist gave him a clean cloth. Dry your tears, he said. The Mayor did. He was trembling. While the dentist washed his hands, he saw the crumbling ceiling and a dusty spider web with spider s eggs and dead insects. The dentist returned, drying his hands. Go to bed, he said, and gargle with salt water. The Mayor stood up, said goodbye with a casual military salute, and walked toward the door, stretching his legs, without buttoning up his tunic. Send the bill, he said. To you or the town? The Mayor didn t look at him. He closed the door and said through the screen: It s the same damn thing. 90

95 A Haunted House Virginia Woolf Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure a ghostly couple. Here we left it, she said. And he added, Oh, but here tool It s upstairs, she murmured. And in the garden, he whispered. Quietly, they said, or we shall wake them. But it wasn t that you woke us. Oh, no. They re looking for it; they re drawing the curtain, one might say, and so read on a page or two. Now they ve found it, one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. What did I come in here for? What did I want to find? My hands were empty. Perhaps its upstairs then? The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass. But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The windowpanes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. Safe, safe, safe the pulse of the house beat softly. The treasure buried; the room... the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure? A moment later the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare, coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I sought always burned behind the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us, coming to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows; the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house, found it dropped beneath the Downs. Safe, safe, safe, the pulse of the house beat gladly. The Treasure yours. The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy. Here we slept, she says. And he adds, Kisses without number. Waking in the morning Silver between the trees Upstairs In the garden When summer came In winter snowtime The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart. Nearer they come, cease at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides silver down the glass. Our eyes darken, we hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak. His hands shield the lantern. Look, he breathes. Sound asleep. Love upon their lips. Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces that search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy. Safe, safe, safe, the heart of the house beats proudly. Long years he sighs. Again you found me. Here, she murmurs, sleeping; in the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. Safe! safe! safe! the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart. 91

96 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children Gabriel García Márquez On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it was due to the stench. The world had been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a single ash gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish. The light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard. He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn't get up, impeded by his enormous wings. Frightened by that nightmare, Pelayo ran to get Elisenda, his wife, who was putting compresses on the sick child, and he took her to the rear of the courtyard. They both looked at the fallen body with a mute stupor. He was dressed like a ragpicker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great grandfather took away and sense of grandeur he might have had. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half plucked were forever entangled in the mud. They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar. Then they dared speak to him, and he answered in an incomprehensible dialect with a strong sailor's voice. That was how they skipped over the inconvenience of the wings and quite intelligently concluded that he was a lonely castaway from some foreign ship wrecked by the storm. And yet, they called in a neighbor woman who knew everything about life and death to see him, and all she needed was one look to show them their mistake. "He's an angel," she told them. "He must have been coming for the child, but the poor fellow is so old that the rain knocked him down." On the following day everyone knew that a flesh andblood angel was held captive in Pelayo's house. Against the judgment of the wise neighbor woman, for whom angels in those times were the fugitive survivors of a spiritual conspiracy, they did not have the heart to club him to death. Pelayo watched over him all afternoon from the kitchen, armed with his bailiff's club, and before going to bed he dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop. In the middle of the night, when the rain stopped, Pelayo and Elisenda were still killing crabs. A short time afterward the child woke up without a fever and with a desire to eat. Then they felt magnanimous and decided to put the angel on a raft with fresh water and provisions for three days and leave him to his fate on the high seas. But when they went out into the courtyard with the first light of dawn, they found the whole neighborhood in front of the chicken coop having fun with the angel, without the slightest reverence, tossing him things to eat through the openings in the wire as if weren't a supernatural creature but a circus animal. Father Gonzaga arrived before seven o'clock, alarmed at the strange news. By that time onlookers less frivolous than those at dawn had already arrived and they were making all kinds of conjectures concerning the captive's future. The simplest among them thought that he should be named mayor of the world. Others of sterner mind felt that he should be promoted to the rank of five star general in order to win all wars. Some visionaries hoped that he could be put to stud in order to implant the earth a race of winged wise men who could take charge of the universe. But Father Gonzaga, before becoming a priest, had been a robust woodcutter. Standing by the wire, he reviewed his catechism in an instant and asked them to open the door so that he could take a close look at that pitiful man who looked more like a huge decrepit hen among the fascinated chickens. He was lying in the corner drying his open wings in the sunlight among the fruit peels and breakfast leftovers that the early risers had thrown him. Alien to the impertinences of the world, he only lifted his antiquarian eyes and murmured something in his dialect when Father Gonzaga went into the chicken coop and said good morning to him in Latin. The parish priest had his first suspicion of an imposter when he saw that he did not understand the language of God or know how to greet His ministers. Then he noticed that seen close up he was much too human: he had an unbearable smell of the outdoors, the back side of his wings was strewn with parasites and his main feathers had been mistreated by terrestrial winds, and nothing about him measured up to 92

97 the proud dignity of angels. The he came out of the chicken coop and in a brief sermon warned the curious against the risks of being ingenuous. He reminded them that the devil had the bad habit of making use of carnival tricks in order to confuse the unwary. He argued that if wings were not the essential element in determining the different between a hawk and an airplane, they were even less so in the recognition of angels. Nevertheless, he promised to write a letter to his bishop so that the latter would write his primate so that the latter would write to the Supreme Pontiff in order to get the final verdict from the highest courts. His prudence fell on sterile hearts. The news of the captive angel spread with such rapidity that after a few hours the courtyard had the bustle of a marketplace and they had to call in troops with fixed bayonets to disperse the mob that was about to knock the house down. Elisenda, her spine all twisted from sweeping up so much marketplace trash, then got the idea of fencing in the yard and charging five cents admission to see the angel. The curious came from far away. A traveling carnival arrived with a flying acrobat who buzzed over the crowd several times, but no one paid any attention to him because his wings were not those of an angel but, rather, those of a sidereal bat. The most unfortunate invalids on earth came in search of health: a poor woman who since childhood has been counting her heartbeats and had run out of numbers; a Portuguese man who couldn't sleep because the noise of the stars disturbed him; a sleepwalker who got up at night to undo the things he had done while awake; and many others with less serious ailments. In the midst of that shipwreck disorder that made the earth tremble, Pelayo and Elisenda were happy with fatigue, for in less than a week they had crammed their rooms with money and the line of pilgrims waiting their turn to enter still reached beyond the horizon. The angel was the only one who took no part in his own act. He spent his time trying to get comfortable in his borrowed nest, befuddled by the hellish heat of the oil lamps and sacramental candles that had been placed along the wire. At first they tried to make him eat some mothballs, which, according to the wisdom of the wise neighbor woman, were the food prescribed for angels. But he turned them down, just as he turned down the papal lunches that the pentinents brought him, and they never found out whether it was because he was an angel or because he was an old man that in the end ate nothing but eggplant mush. His only supernatural virtue seemed to be patience. Especially during the first days, when the hens pecked at him, searching for the stellar parasites that proliferated in his wings, and the cripples pulled out feathers to touch their defective parts with, and even the most merciful threw stones at him, trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing. The only time they succeeded in arousing him was when they burned his side with an iron for branding steers, for he had been motionless for so many hours that they thought he was dead. He awoke with a start, ranting in his hermetic language and with tears in his eyes, and he flapped his wings a couple of times, which brought on a whirlwind of chicken dung and lunar dust and a gale of panic that did not seem to be of this world. Although many thought that his reaction had not been one of rage but of pain, from then on they were careful not to annoy him, because the majority understood that his passivity was not that of a her taking his ease but that of a cataclysm in repose. Father Gonzaga held back the crowd's frivolity with formulas of maidservant inspiration while awaiting the arrival of a final judgment on the nature of the captive. But the mail from Rome showed no sense of urgency. They spent their time finding out in the prisoner had a navel, if his dialect had any connection with Aramaic, how many times he could fit on the head of a pin, or whether he wasn't just a Norwegian with wings. Those meager letters might have come and gone until the end of time if a providential event had not put and end to the priest's tribulations. It so happened that during those days, among so many other carnival attractions, there arrived in the town the traveling show of the woman who had been changed into a spider for having disobeyed her parents. The admission to see her was not only less than the admission to see the angel, but people were permitted to ask her all manner of questions about her absurd state and to examine her up and down so that no one would ever doubt the truth of her horror. She was a frightful tarantula the size of a ram and with the head of a sad maiden. What was most heartrending, however, was not her outlandish shape but the sincere affliction with which she recounted the details of her misfortune. While still practically a child she had sneaked out of her parents' house to go to a dance, and while she was coming back through the woods after having danced all night without permission, a fearful thunderclap rent the sky in tow and through the crack came the lightning bolt of brimstone that changed her into a spider. Her only nourishment came from the meatballs that charitable souls chose to toss into her mouth. A spectacle like that, full of so much human truth and with such a fearful lesson, was bound to defeat without even trying that of a haughty angel who scarcely deigned to look at mortals. Besides, the few miracles attributed to the angel showed a certain mental disorder, like the blind man who didn't recover his sight but grew three new teeth, or 93

98 the paralytic who didn't get to walk but almost won the lottery, and the leper whose sores sprouted sunflowers. Those consolation miracles, which were more like mocking fun, had already ruined the angel's reputation when the woman who had been changed into a spider finally crushed him completely. That was how Father Gonzaga was cured forever of his insomnia and Pelayo's courtyard went back to being as empty as during the time it had rained for three days and crabs walked through the bedrooms. The owners of the house had no reason to lament. With the money they saved they built a two story mansion with balconies and gardens and high netting so that crabs wouldn't get in during the winter, and with iron bars on the windows so that angels wouldn't get in. Pelayo also set up a rabbit warren close to town and have up his job as a bailiff for good, and Elisenda bought some satin pumps with high heels and many dresses of iridescent silk, the kind worn on Sunday by the most desirable women in those times. The chicken coop was the only thing that didn't receive any attention. If they washed it down with creolin and burned tears of myrrh inside it every so often, it was not in homage to the angel but to drive away the dungheap stench that still hung everywhere like a ghost and was turning the new house into an old one. At first, when the child learned to walk, they were careful that he not get too close to the chicken coop. But then they began to lose their fears and got used to the smell, and before they child got his second teeth he'd gone inside the chicken coop to play, where the wires were falling apart. The angel was no less standoffish with him than with the other mortals, but he tolerated the most ingenious infamies with the patience of a dog who had no illusions. They both came down with the chicken pox at the same time. The doctor who took care of the child couldn't resist the temptation to listen to the angel's heart, and he found so much whistling in the heart and so many sounds in his kidneys that it seemed impossible for him to be alive. What surprised him most, however, was the logic of his wings. They seemed so natural on that completely human organism that he couldn't understand why other men didn't have them too. When the child began school it had been some time since the sun and rain had caused the collapse of the chicken coop. The angel went dragging himself about here and there like a stray dying man. They would drive him out of the bedroom with a broom and a moment later find him in the kitchen. He seemed to be in so many places at the same time that they grew to think that he'd be duplicated, that he was reproducing himself all through the house, and the exasperated and unhinged Elisenda shouted that it was awful living in that hell full of angels. He could scarcely eat and his antiquarian eyes had also become so foggy that he went about bumping into posts. All he had left were the bare cannulae of his last feathers. Pelayo threw a blanket over him and extended him the charity of letting him sleep in the shed, and only then did they notice that he had a temperature at night, and was delirious with the tongue twisters of an old Norwegian. That was one of the few times they became alarmed, for they thought he was going to die and not even the wise neighbor woman had been able to tell them what to do with dead angels. And yet he not only survived his worst winter, but seemed improved with the first sunny days. He remained motionless for several days in the farthest corner of the courtyard, where no one would see him, and at the beginning of December some large, stiff feathers began to grow on his wings, the feathers of a scarecrow, which looked more like another misfortune of decreptitude. But he must have known the reason for those changes, for he was quite careful that no one should notice them, that no one should hear the sea chanteys that he sometimes sang under the stars. One morning Elisenda was cutting some bunches of onions for lunch when a wind that seemed to come from the high seas blew into the kitchen. Then she went to the window and caught the angel in his first attempts at flight. They were so clumsy that his fingernails opened a furrow in the vegetable patch and he was on the point of knocking the shed down with the ungainly flapping that slipped on the light and couldn't get a grip on the air. But he did manage to gain altitude. Elisenda let out a sigh of relief, for herself and for him, when she watched him pass over the last houses, holding himself up in some way with the risky flapping of a senile vulture. She kept watching him even when she was through cutting the onions and she kept on watching until it was no longer possible for her to see him, because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea. 94

99 Gabriel García-Márquez A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings Magical Realism / Symbols Some vocabulary 1. stupor (293) 2. grandeur (294) 3. celestial 4. magnanimous 5. catechism (295) 6. decrepit 7. impertinence 8. antiquarian 9. terrestrial 10. ingenuous 11. unwary 12. prudence 13. sidereal 14. stellar (296) 15. hermetic 16. cataclysm 17. providential 18. haughty (297) 19. lament 20. iridescent 21. ingenious 22. infamy A couple of references Aramaic how many angels could fit on the head of a pin And some questions to talk about 1. What are the major symbols in the story? What makes you think they re symbols? What does each stand for? What other possibilities are there? Into what groups do the symbols seem to fall, or into what groups could we arrange them? Why would we want to do that? Come to some conclusion about the effect García Márquez might be using each symbol and each set of symbols to achieve. To what extent are the characters symbols? Is a story still a good story if the characters get too busy standing for stuff to be credible as people? 2. Find four examples of irony in the story, and explain the effect that García Márquez uses each to achieve. What different kinds or groups of irony appear in the story? How does the irony affect a meaning of the story? (And, what meaning of the story do you have in mind?) 3. Find five or six examples of humor in the story. Into what groups could we arrange the examples? What effects could García Márquez be trying to achieve through the humor? Is he after different effects with different kinds of humor? Does it matter? 4. Who is that old guy, anyway? How do you know? Who else could he be? 5. Compose a good definition of magical realism based only on this story. Use illustration from the story to show what you mean. 95

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101 U NIT P LAN: T EACHING T HE B ROTHERS K ARAMAZOV AP AUDIT ELEMENT(S): Chapter / Pages Teaching strategy / Learning activity KNOWLEDGE What students should know actively: What students should be able to recognize: SKILLS What students should be able to do: HABITS What students should do habitually: 98

102 Works Appearing on Suggestion Lists for Question 3 Advanced Placement English Literature & Composition Examination: Invisible Man Wuthering Heights 18 Crime and Punishment Jane Eyre 17 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Great Expectations Heart of Darkness King Lear Moby-Dick The Great Gatsby A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man The Scarlet Letter The Awakening Their Eyes Were Watching God Beloved Catch-22 Light in August As I Lay Dying Billy Budd Jude the Obscure Ceremony The Grapes of Wrath Native Son A Raisin in the Sun 9 Antigone Anna Karenina The Color Purple Death of a Salesman A Doll House The Glass Menagerie Othello Song of Solomon 8 Obasan Oedipus Rex A Passage to India Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead A Streetcar Named Desire Sula Things Fall Apart 7 All the King s Men All the Pretty Horses Candide The Crucible Cry Beloved Country Equus Lord Jim Madame Bovary The Mayor of Casterbridge The Portrait of a Lady The Sound and the Fury The Tempest Waiting for Godot Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 6 Bless Me, Ultima The Cherry Orchard Ethan Frome Gulliver s Travels Hamlet Hedda Gabler Macbeth Major Barbara Medea The Merchant of Venice Moll Flanders Mrs Dalloway Murder in the Cathedral The Piano Lesson Pride and Prejudice The Turn of the Screw 5 The Age of Innocence Bleak House Doctor Faustus Don Quixote An Enemy of the People Fences Frankenstein Julius Caesar Mrs Warren s Profession Native Speaker Nineteen Eighty-four Romeo and Juliet Sister Carrie The Stranger The Sun Also Rises Tess of the D'Urbervilles Tom Jones Wide Sargasso Sea Wise Blood 4 Absalom, Absalom! As You Like It Brave New World Ghosts Go Tell It on the Mountain The Little Foxes Middlemarch Pygmalion A Tale of Two Cities To the Lighthouse Twelfth Night Typical American The Women of Brewster Place 3 Alias Grace An American Tragedy The American The Bluest Eye The Bonesetter's Daughter The Catcher in the Rye Daisy Miller David Copperfield Emma A Farewell to Arms Going After Cacciato The Handmaid s Tale Hard Times Henry IV, Part I House Made of Dawn The House of Mirth To Kill a Mockingbird The Kite Runner Long Day s Journey into Night Lord of the Flies Mansfield Park Master Harold... and the Boys The Mill on the Floss Mother Courage My Ántonia The Odyssey Our Town Paradise Lost Persuasion The Poisonwood Bible The Remains of the Day Reservation Blues The Trial The Winter's Tale 2 All My Sons Another Country Antony and Cleopatra Atonement The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man The Bear The Birthday Party Black Boy The Blind Assassin The Brothers Karamazov Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Cat s Eye Cold Mountain 99

103 Dutchman Faust Fifth Business For Whom the Bell Tolls A Gathering of Old Men A Gesture Life The God of Small Things The Good Soldier The Hairy Ape The Homecoming The House on Mango Street The Importance of Being Earnest J.B. Jasmine Joe Turner's Come and Gone The Joy Luck Club The Jungle A Lesson Before Dying M. Butterfly Main Street The Member of the Wedding The Metamorphosis Middle Passage A Midsummer Night's Dream The Misanthrope Monkey Bridge The Namesake Never Let Me Go One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich One Hundred Years of Solitude Phèdre The Plague Pocho Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Ragtime The Road A Separate Peace Slaughterhouse-Five Snow Falling on Cedars Sons and Lovers The Stone Angel Surfacing The Things They Carried A Thousand Acres Uncle Tom s Cabin Woman Warrior The Zoo Story 1 Adam Bede The Aeneid Agnes of God America is in the Heart American Pastoral An Enemy of the People Angels in America Angle of Repose The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz Armies of the Night A Bend in the River Benito Cereno Bone Brighton Rock Broken for You Candida The Canterbury Tales The Caretaker The Centaur The Chosen Civil Disobedience Copenhagen The Country of the Pointed Firs The Crisis The Crossing The Dead Death of Ivan Ilyich Delta Wedding Desire Under the Elms Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant The Divine Comedy The Diviners Doctor Zhivago The Dollmaker Dreaming in Cuban East of Eden The Eumenides The Fall A Farewell to Arms The Father Fathers and Sons The Federalist A Fine Balance The Fixer A Free Life: A Novel Germinal The Golden Bowl The Heart of the Matter Henry IV, Part II Henry V A High Wind in Jamaica Home to Harlem House for Mr Biswas The House of the Seven Gables The Iliad In the Lake of the Woods In the Time of the Butterflies The Inheritance of Loss Joseph Andrews Kafka on the Shore Lady Windermere s Fan Letters from an American Farmer Little Women Look Homeward, Angel Love Medicine The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock The Loved One Lysistrata Man and Superman The Memory Keeper s Daughter Miss Lonelyhearts The Moor's Last Sigh Much Ado About Nothing My Last Duchess My Name is Asher Lev No Country for Old Men No Exit No-No Boy Notes from the Underground The Octopus Of Mice and Men Old School Oliver Twist One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest The Optimist's Daughter The Orestia Orlando The Other Our Mutual Friend Out of Africa Pale Fire Pamela Passing Peer Gynt Père Goriot The Picture of Dorian Gray The Playboy of the Western World Pnin The Power and the Glory Praisesong for the Widow A Prayer for Owen Meany Push The Rape of the Lock The Red Badge of Courage Redburn The Return of the Native Rhinoceros Richard III A River Runs Through It Robinson Crusoe Room of One's Own A Room with a View Saint Joan The Sandbox Sent for You Yesterday Set This House on Fire The Shipping News Silas Marner Sister of My Heart Snow A Soldier s Play Sophie s Choice The Story of Edgar Sawtelle The Street Tartuffe A Thousand Splendid Suns Tracks Trifles Tristram Shandy USA The Vicar of Wakefield Victory Volpone The Warden Washington Square The Waste Land Watch on the Rhine The Watch that Ends the Night The Way of the World The Way We Live Now We Were the Mulvaneys Who Has Seen the Wind The Wild Duck Winter in the Blood Zoot Suit 100

104 T he Novel: Some Elements Elements in nearly all novels: CHARACTER direct description or commentary by the narrator, including ironic comment language: in speech and thought, in both content and form of expression action: especially as it confirms or contradicts what characters say change: growth or deterioration Coincidence Coincidence, which surprises us in real life with symmetries we don t expect to find there, is all too obviously a structural device in fiction, and an excessive reliance on it can jeopardize the verisimilitude of a narrative. Ending last-minute twist is generally more typical of the short story than of the novel Intertextuality some ways a text can refer to another: parody, pastiche, echo, allusion, direct quotation, structural parallelism IRONY consists of saying the opposite of what you mean, or inviting an interpretation different from the surface meaning of your words. Narrative Structure you can t see it, but it determines the edifice s shape and character the arrangement of the parts of the material PLOT Plot has been defined as a completed process of change. A story is a narrative of events in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. --Forster POINT OF VIEW the vantage point from which an author tells a story. The two broad categories are (1) the third-person narrator who tells the story and does not participate in the action and (2) the first-person narrator who is a major or minor participant. Repetition can be lexical or grammatical; incantatory rhythms and repetitions SETTING the background of a story in [1] PLACE, including city/country/region, indoors or out, weather and [2] TIME, including century, year, historical and social conditions, season, day/night, and the like Showing and Telling Fictional discourse constantly alternates between showing us what happened and telling us what happened. [Scene and Narration] STYLE the individual way a writer works, especially to achieve a specific effect. The elements of style include diction, syntax, imagery, figurative language, and larger questions of structure, modes of discourse, and the like. SYMBOL anything that stand for something else is a symbol, but the process operates in many different ways. THEME a central idea. Like thesis, it implies a subject and a predicate of some kind, as opposed to a topic, which can be simply a label TONE the author s attitude toward the material in a work or toward the reader. Tone is revealed by style. 101

105 Elements in many novels Comedy Two primary sources: situation and style. Both depend crucially upon timing Duration as measured by comparing the time events would have taken up in reality with the time taken to read about them. This factor affects narrative tempo Epiphany literally, a showing. Any descriptive passage in which external reality is charged with a kind of transcendental significance for the perceiver Epistolary Novel advantages: can have more than one correspondent and thus show the same event from different points of view Exotic foreign, but not necessarily glamorous or alluring Implication especially sexual in Victorian lit Interior Monologue Intrusive Author very difficult technique to use apt to impose a painfully slow pace on the narrative around the turn of the century fell into disfavour Magic Realism marvellous and impossible events occur in what otherwise purports to be a realistic narrative Metaficiton fiction about fiction novels and stories that call attention to their own compositional procedures. Names In a novel names are never neutral. Sense of Past historical novels (19th century) dealt with historical personages and events; but also evoked the past in terms of culture, ideology, manners and morals Stream of Consciousness 1] one technique is interior monologue 2] second technique is free indirect style. It renders thought as reported speech but keeps the kind of vocabulary that is appropriate to the character, and deletes some of the tags Allegory does not merely suggest, but insists on being decoded in terms of another meaning; at every point a one-to-one correspondence to the implied meaning Time-Shift narrative avoids presenting life [in order] and allows us to make connections of causality and irony between widely separated events Unreliable Narrator Title The title is part of the text--the first part of it, in fact invariably invented characters who are part of the stories they tell adapted from David Lodge, The Art of Fiction, London: Penguin, An invaluable source with the strongest recommendation. 102

106 T e a c h i n g t h e N o v e l BEFORE, During After A. Select the novels and place them appropriately in the school calendar. 1. Select the novels a. Two summer novels, both accessible b. Four in-class novels: two pre-ww I, two post-ww I c. Most of the novels should be of literary merit [rich language / reward rereading / multiplicity of interpretation] 2. Place the novels in the syllabus a. Consider putting the novels in order of accessibility. b. Consider the traps in your school s calendar. c. Know what your students will be doing in other classes and activities. 3. Use a planning page or the like to set the learning outcomes for each novel. 4. Search the novel on line. a. Find what resources offer ideas for teaching the novel. b. Find what resources can help your students; know what sites are available for them. B. Model a way into the novel, a pre-reading strategy. 1. Look carefully at the title one word at a time. 2. Look at the organization. a. Is the novel divided into chapters? b. How many are there? Are they about equal length? c. Are they numbered? grouped into sections? d. Do they have epigraphs? titles? e. Watch to see what design the writer is using, what logical reasons underlie the structural organization: patterns of repetition that establish a narrative rhythm 3. Devise a reasonable strategy for reading the novel, including a schedule. Leave some elbow room. C. Model a close reading of the opening passage of the novel the writer uses this piece to separate the real world we live in from the world of the novel. Include the title. 1. Read at least the first page or two aloud, signaling students what kinds of notes they can be making as they read. Be sure they can pronounce the proper nouns. 2. Help students identify the setting and the point of view. 103

107 T e a c h i n g t h e N o v e l Before, DURING, After A. Model a close reading of a narrative passage early in the novel [to signal what elements students should be attending to] 1. the setting 2. in time [year, season, and the like] 3. in place [country, city or country, and the like] 4. social and historical environment 5. the characters 6. who they are and how the relate to the others 7. techniques the writer uses to reveal them B. Annotating 1. Work out a system to offer students for marking the text. At the least, they should indicate: the entrance of new characters plot elements (complications, shifts in setting (place or time) or mood crises, climaxes, reversals) changes in characters (softening, hardening, predictions epiphanies) or changes in relationships questions between or among characters memorable lines or passages patterns, including repetition or echoing 2. Stop to review the annotations frequently, using the questions students bring in to start discussion, constructing a class-wide set of memorable lines, and the like C. Some Activities Make a list of a character s actions in one column and the consequences of those actions in the other. Stop in the middle, or at the end of each third, to identify and discuss the big issues to that point. How can they be identified? How will the author have the characters work them out? Find a poem (or a song) that echoes or can be said to comment on a part or passage of the novel. Explain how the two are related. Decide to what extent the names of the characters seem to suggest meanings. In a complex novel, keep a family tree. Trace graphically the conflicts in the novel. Which pit characters against their environment, natural or social? Which set characters against each other? Which create a clash within a character? Which characters want what they wish they did not want? For one chapter/section of the novel, write a review of the analysis given at one of the popular literature help web sites: Enotes, SparkNotes, BookRags, or the like. Explain what is included, what is left out, any special insights the site offers, any questionable readings, and anything else that helps evaluate the site. 104

108 1. Add a chapter T e a c h i n g t h e N o v e l Before, During, AFTER Write a short new chapter to follow the novel s last chapter or come before the first one or to fit at a specific place in the midst of the novel. The new chapter needs to appear to be part of the original novel, so it must match in style, tone, and theme. [adapted from Frazier L. O'Leary, Jr.; Cardozo High School; Washington, D.C.] 2. Design a Game The students first job is to make notes as they read (mind map form is great for this) under the headings of character, setting, landmarks of the journey/events, goal/treasure to be attained, as appropriate to the novel. The game must stay consistent with the themes and tone of the novel. From there they design a proposal for their game - this must include at least six pieces: (1) Name of the game, (2) Playing pieces including any cards or devices accompanying it (3) Written rules, (4) Board design, and (5) Written instructions for how the game is to be played. Once the students have written these notes out fairly fully, they draft a layout for the front of box for the game. This will then be labeled with at least three visual and verbal features they intend to include and the effect they want these features to have. i.e. use of trendy lettering to attract teenage buyers. Once students have discussed their proposal with the teacher, and both are happy with any needed changes, additions or compromises, students being the final production. [adapted from Sharon Stewart; Whitianga, New Zealand. (rsalisbury@xtra.co.nz)] 3. Rewrite a passage Students rewrite a passage, either imitating the style of a different writer (a piece of Hemingway as Faulkner might have done it) OR changing the point of view. 4. Prepare a movie treatment Students prepare a movie proposal for a film of the novel. They are to include, with specific written explanation for each: a) a complete cast (actual actors living or not), b) a director c) a detailed description and rendering of two set designs d) a description of the music, specifying the composer(s) e) a poster or full-page newspaper ad f) a story summary, specifying what will be included and what will be omitted 105

109 Author Toni Morrison Title Song of Solomon Character Analysis Chart Point: End Relation to Milkman Character Type Main Actions Main Emotions Central Values At This Point Milkman Corinthians Pilate Hagar Guitar Circe sees father killed; Macon father dominant-domineering; becomes suspicious kills man; finds gold; finds Ruth w/ her dead father; wants M. aborted believes owning houses gives him ownership of people; unchanged by Milkman s story of his journey & discoveries 106

110 AdvancedPlacementEnglish R USSIAN N AMES Name Dimunitives Name Diminutives MEN Alexandr Alexei Andrei Anatoli Anton Arkady Boris Valentin Vassili Viktor Vladimir Vsevolod Vyacheslav Grigorii Denis Dmitri Yevgeni Yegor / Igor Ivan WOMEN Alexandra Anastasia Anna Antonina Avdotia Valentina Varvara Vera Viktorya Darya Yekaterina Elyena Elizabeta Irina Zinaida Sasha, Shyura, Sanya Alyosha, Lyosha, Alyoshka, Lyókha Andryusha, Dryusha, Dryushka Tolya, Tolik Antosha, Tasha, Antoshka Arkasha, Arik Borya, Bórenka Valya, Valyusha, Valik Vasya, Vásenka, Vassilyók Vitya, Vitenka, Vityulia Volodya, Vova, Volodka, Vlad Seva Vasha, Slava, Slavik, Vyachik Grisha, Grishúnya Mitya, Dima, Mitri, Mitka, Dimka Zhenya, Zhénechka Yegorka, Yegorushka Vanya, Vanka, Vanusha, Vanushka Sasha, Shura, Sanya, Sashenka Nastya, Nastásyushka, Stasya Anya, Anyuta, Anusha, Annushka Tonya Dunya, Dunechka, Dúnyushka Valya, Valyusha, Valyushka, Valechka Varya, Varka, Varéenka, Varyúsha Verochka Vika Dasha, Dáshenka Katya, Katyúsha, Kátenka Lena, Lenya, Lulya, Lyalya, Lyolya Liza, Lizaveta Yra, Arina, Arinushka, Irisha Zina, Yda, Zinka Ilya Iosif / Ossip Konstantin Lev Leonid Maxim Mikhail Nikolai Oleg Pavel Pyotr Porfiry Rodion Semyon Sergei Stepan Fyodor Yurii Yakov Ilyusha, Ilik Osya Kostya, Lotik, Kostik Lyova, Lyóvushka Lonya, Lyénka, Lyonchik Maks, Maksyúsha, Maksimka Misha, Mishka, Mishenka, Mishunya Kolya, Nika, Nikolka, Nikolasha, Mikhas Olesha Pasha, Pavlik Petya, Petka, Petrusha, Petrushka, Pétenka Rodya, Rodenka Semya, Syoma, Syómka Seryozha, Seryóga, Sérzhyk Styopa, Stepka, Styópka, Stepánushka Fedya, Fedka, Fedyusha Yura, Yurka, Zhora, Zhorik, Zhorzh Yasha / Yacob Lidia Lida, Lidochka, Lidushka Lyubov Lyuba, Lyúbushka Lyudmilla Lyuda, Mila, Milochka, Lyúdochka Marya Masha, Mánya, Músya, Múra, Marúsya, Máshenka, Mashúnya, Maríchka, Maríchka Marfa Marfusha Nadezhda Nadia, Nadyúsha Natalia Natasha, Nata, Natáshenka Nina Nínochka, Ninúlya Olga / Olechka Olya, Olyúsha, Ólenka Polina Polechka, Pavla, Pavlinais, Polia Praskovia Pasha, Pashenka Sophia Sonya, Sonyechka Tamara Tamarka, Tamarochka, Toma Tatiana Tanya, Tanyúsha, Tanechka Diminutives: In addition to the diminutives above, many Russian given names can add the suffixes -sha and -shka (Nikolai : Nikolasha, Nikolashka), endings analogous to the English -y in Johnny or Danny. Patronymics: A Russian has three names: a given name; a patronymic formed from the father s given name and a family name. The three most common ways of forming the patronymic are: Father s name Son s patronymic Daughter s patronymic IVAN + ovich = Ivanovich + ovna = Ivanovna NIKOLAI + yevich = Nikolayevich + yevna = Nikolayevna ILYA + ich = Ilyich + inichna = Ilyinichna Formality: Eight of the possible ways of addressing a man, in descending order of formality: (1) Gospodin [Mr.] Turgenev (2) Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (3) Ivan Sergeyevich (4) Ivan (5) Vanya (6) Vanka (7) Vanusha (8) Vanushka. with thanks to Sergei Samborski and to the Ashot family for revisions and additions 107

111 T HE C YRILLIC A LPHABET Cyrillic Roman about as in: Cyrillic upper lower italic upper lower italic Roman about as in: А а а A father Р р р R ring Б б б B bet С с с S sun В в в V very Т т т T toy Г г г G get У у у U room Д д д D dog Ф ф ф F four Е е е YE yet Х х х CH* loch Ё ё ё YO yoke Ц ц ц TS bets Ж ж ж ZH measure Ч ч ч CH cheese З з з Z zoo Ш ш ш SH sugar И и и I (E) be Щ щ щ SHCH freshcheese Й й й EE bee Ъ ъ ъ (hard) К к к K king Ы ы ы Y** very Л л л L call Ь ь ь (soft) М м м M man Э э э E set Н н н N nine Ю ю ю YU use О о о O Tom Я я я YA yard П п п P party * like the ch in the Scottish loch, the ch in some German dialects (as in dich) and the Greek letter chi. ** something like the French oei in oeil or eul in deuil 108

112 109

113 Peter Viereck Vale 1 from Carthage (Spring, 1944) I, now at Carthage. 2 He, shot dead at Rome. Shipmates last May. And what if one of us, I asked last May, in fun, in gentleness, Wears doom, like dungarees, and doesn t know? 5 He laughed, Not see Times Square 3 again? The foam, Feathering across that deck a year ago, Swept those five words like seeds beyond the seas Into his future. There they grew like trees; And as he passed them there next spring, they laid 10 Upon his road of fire their sudden shade. Though he had always scraped his mess-kit pure And scrubbed redeemingly his barracks floor, Though all his buttons glowed their ritual-hymn Like cloudless moons to intercede for him, 15 No furlough fluttered from the sky. He will Not see Times Square he will not see he will Not see Times change; at Carthage (while my friend, Living those words at Rome, screamed in the end) 20 I saw an ancient Roman s tomb and read Vale in stone. Here two wars mix their dead: Roman, my shipmate s dream walks hand in hand With yours tonight ( New York again and Rome ), Like widowed sisters bearing water home 25 On tired heads through hot Tunisian sand In good cool urns, and says, I understand. Roman, you ll see your Forum Square no more; What s left but this to say of any war? 1 Vale is the Latin word for farewell. 2 Carthage is the site of the famous ancient city in Tunisia, North Africa. In ancient times the rivalry between Rome and Carthage culminated in the Punic Wars. In World War II, Tunisia again figured prominently. 3 Times Square is the bustling center of New York City the theater district. 110

114 Directions: Read the following poem carefully. Then answer fully and explicitly the questions which follow it. Use complete sentences. 1. Is the structure of the three opening sentences justifiable in this particular poem? Give reasons for your answer. 2. Why do the three place names Carthage, Rome, and Times Square create the particular emotional effects present in this poem? 3. Interpret each of the following portions of the poem so as to show how it contributes to the effectiveness of the poem as a whole: a. Wears doom, like dungarees (line 4); b.. they laid Upon his road of fire their sudden shade (lines 9-10); c. No furlough fluttered from the sky (line 15); d. Living these words (line 19); e. Like widowed sisters (line 24). 4. To whom does I refer in line 26? What is it that is understood? 5. To how much may this refer in the final line of the poem? 111

115 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H TP-COASTT: a mnemonic for poetry Title The title is part of the poem; consider any multiple meanings. Paraphrase Rephrase the poem using your words. Connotation Contemplate the poem for meaning beyond the literal. Organization Identify organizational patterns, visual, temporal, spatial, abstract Attitude Identify the tone both the speaker's and the poet's attitude Shifts* Locate shifts in speaker, tone, setting, syntax, diction Title Examine the title again, this time on an interpretive level Theme Determine what the poem says *Shifts Signals Key words (still, but, yet, although, however ) Punctuation (consider every punctuation mark) Stanza or paragraph divisions Changes in line length or stanza length or both Types Structure (how the work is organized) Changes in syntax (sentence length and construction) Changes in sound (rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, assonance ) Changes in diction (slang to formal language, for example) Patterns Are the shifts sudden? progressive? recursive? Why? 112

116 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H Ten Easy Lessons in How to Read Poetry and Get Something Out of It 0. Notice the title. 1. Find the sentences in the poem. (They will not end at the ends of the lines.) rad them one at a time as sentences. Notice any that are questions. 2. Underline the subject, verb, and object/complement of each sentence. They may not come in natural order. so turn them around first. 3. Locate the prepositions. Put a check mark over them and bracket the prepositional phrases. 4. Notice the turning words ( but, so, yet ) or the turns if no word is used to mark them. Mark an asterisk beside these. 5. Look up words that you do not know, keeping consciousness of both denotative and connotative meanings. Write a synonym above the word in the poem. 6. Observe the shape of the poem; the breaks between lines, the length of lines, the presence or absence of rhyme. Think about how these aspects help you notice the sense and the turns. 7. Think about who is speaking this poem. Is it spoken to someone in particular? (Check the title again.) Make some notes about your ideas. 8. Look for words that may be used figuratively (first similes, then metaphors). Circle them. 9. Consider possible symbols things that might represent something more than just themselves. Make notes about your ideas. 10. Explore for allusions things that refer to something outside the poem. Look them up if you need to. Take notes. READ THE POEM AGAIN. It helps to read id aloud, but that is not allowed on the exam. Now: Try to complete this sentence: The poem, (title) by (poet) is about (topic), and it says that (theme). A lone white sail shows for an instant Where gleams the sea, an azure streak. What left it in its homeland distant? In alien parts what does it seek? The billow play, the mast bends creaking, The wind, impatient, moans and sighs Mikhail Lermontov The Sail (1832) It is not joy that it is seeking. Nor is it happiness it flies. The blue waves dance, they dance and tremble, The sun s bright rays caress the seas. And yet for storm it begs, the revel, As if in storm lurked clam and peace! from Dixie Dellinger,

117 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H Team Poetry Lessons Some Guidelines Topics: Three teams will be assigned a poet: either Dickinson, Frost, or Hughes. Four teams will be assigned a theme: either love and longing, teaching and learning, humor and satire, or Border Crossings. Poems: Use the poems in The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 8th ed. You may add one additional poem if you feel it necessary. Secondary Sources: Print: Use the critical material in the literature anthology. Electronic: Begin with the widest group of Internet sites you can locate but at least ten, exclusive of encyclopedias and other general sites. From that group, select the three most helpful. Presentation: Your team will give a short lesson on your poet. You will probably want to focus on two of the poems. You want the point of the lesson to be something more valuable than, say, Dickinson is swell. Find a focus. You will have minutes, inclusive of any class discussion or questions you choose to include. Your grade will be penalized for every minute you go beyond 30. You are to include some sort of a visual aid along the way. It could be projected, drawn on the board, held up. posted. you decide what will be most effective. Written work: You will submit a lesson summary of about one side of one page. You will turn in as well a tidy list of the web sites your team found. Include the title and the URL for each. You will write an AP type essay question that prompts writers to identify one or more techniques or devices your poet uses and to explain how the poet uses them to convey an element such as theme, character, tone, point of view, idea, setting, mood, or the like. The written work may be handwritten, printed, or submitted electronically. 114

118 P R O S O D Y THE FOOT The foot is measured according to the number of its stressed and unstressed syllables. The stressed syllables are marked with an acute accent ( ) or a prime mark ( ' ) and the unstressed syllables with a small superscript line ( ), a small x, a superscript degree symbol ( ) or a short accent mark, or breve ( ). A virgule ( / ) can be used to separate feet in a line. Iamb iambic ( - ) to-dáy Trochee trochaic ( - ) BRÓ-ther Anapest anapestic ( - - ) in-ter-céde Dactyl dactyllic ( - - ) YÉS-ter-day Spondee spondaic ( ) ÓH, NÓ Pyrric pyrric ( - - )...of a... (Amphibrach) (amphibrachic) ( - - ) chi-cá-go (Bacchus) (bacchic) ( - ) a BRÁND NÉW car (Amphímacer) (amphímacratic?) ( - ) LÓVE is BÉST METRICAL FEET One Monómeter Thus I Two Dímeter Rich the treasure Three Trímeter A sword, a horse, a shield Four Tetrámeter And in his anger now he rides Five Pentámeter Draw forth thy sword, thou mighty man-at-arms Six Hexámeter His foes have slain themselves, with whom he should contend. Seven Heptámeter There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away. Eight Octámeter When I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve, Nine Nonámeter Roman Virgil, thou that sing'st Ilion's lofty temples robed with fire, SPECIAL Heroic meter Iambic pentameter NAMES Long meter Iambic tetrameter Alexandrine One line of iambic hexameter SCANSION To SCAN a line is to divide it into its several feet, then to tell what kind of feet make up the line and how many of them there are, as in the descriptive names of Shakespeare and Chaucer's 115

119 iambic pentameter. STANZAIC Name Lines Special rhymes / forms FORMS Couplet 2 rhymes: aa (2 heroic lines = heroic couplet) Tercet 3 rhymes: aaa, aab, abb (Terza rima = aba bcb cdc, etc.) Quatrain 4 (In Memoriam Stanza = abba in iambic tetrameter) Quintain 5 (Limerick rhymes: aabba) Sestet 6 Seven-line 7 (Rime Royale = ababbcc in iambic pentameter) Octet 8 (Ottava Rima = abababcc in iambic pentameter) Nine-line 9 (Spencerian Stanza = ababbcbcc in iambic pentameter; the final line is an Alexandrine) Some fixed poetic forms THE SONNET THE SESTINA THE VILLANELLE THE BALLAD TWO JAPANESE FORMS The sonnet consists of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter (in Romance languages, iambic hexameter) The English (Shakespearean) Sonnet is made up of three quatrains and a heroic couplet and rhymes abab cdcd efef gg The Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet is made up of an octet and a sestet. It rhymes: abbaabba cdecde; in sonnets written in English, the last six rhymes may come in any order. The sestina dates from the 12th century. Its 39 lines divide into six sestets and a three line envoy. The same words that end the lines in the first sestet will end the lines in all the others in a different but prescribed order. Each stanza uses these ending words from the previous stanza in the order All six words appear in the envoy, three of them at the end of a line. The villanelle, a complex and rare form, is made up of 19 lines arranged in five tercets and a concluding quatrain. Line 1 must be repeated as lines 6, 12, and 18; line 3 must be repeated as lines 9, 15, and 19. The ballad is made up of quatrains in which the second and fourth lines must rhyme and are generally trimetric; the first and third lines are normally tetrametric. Syllables are counted instead of feet. The haiku is a three line poem in which the first and third lines have five, the second, seven. The tanka is a five line poem in which the first and third lines have five, the other three, seven each. The haiku must contain a reference to a season. 116

120 Prosody Practice Putting them together: Give the kind of foot, then the number of feet, using the conventional terminology. For numbers 13-15, create (or recall) an example of the meter given. line 1. The night is chill; the forest bare iambic tetrameter 2. Sent them spinning down the gutter trochaic tetrameter 3. I will not eat them with a goat, I will not eat them on a boat I do not like green eggs and ham I do not like them, Sam I Am. 4. In the glare of a scoreboard s last light anapestic trimiter 5. You turn your face, but does it bring your heart? iambic pentameter 6. Romeo Montague, Juliet Capulet dactylic tetrameter 7. With torn and bleeding hearts we smile iambic tetrameter 8. We wear the mask. iambic dimeter 9. Where lasting friendship seeds are sewn iambic tetrameter name 10. And those Power Puff Girls are in trouble again anapestic tetrameter 11. Because I could not stop for Death He kindly stopped for me The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality. (Emily Dickinson) 12. If we shadows have offended Think but this, and all is mended (Shakespeare) alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter trochaic tetrameter 13. iambic pentameter 14. trochaic tetrameter 15. iambic trimeter 117

121 Adrienne Rich Storm Warnings The glass has been falling all the afternoon, And knowing better than the instrument What winds are walking overhead, what zone Of gray unrest is moving across the land, 5 I leave the book upon a pillowed chair And walk from window to closed window, watching Boughs strain against the sky And think again, as often when the air Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting, 10 How with a single purpose time has traveled By secret currents of the undiscerned Into this polar realm. Weather abroad And weather in the heart alike come on Regardless of prediction. 15 Between foreseeing and averting change Lies all the mastery of elements Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter. Time in the hand is not control of time, Nor shattered fragments of an instrument 20 A proof against the wind; the wind will rise, We can only close the shutters. I draw the curtains as the sky goes black And set a match to candles sheathed in glass Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine 25 Of weather through the unsealed aperture. This is our sole defense against the season; These are the things that we have learned to do Who live in troubled regions. 1975, 1973, 1971, 1969, 1966 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Copyright 1951 by Adrienne Rich 118

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123 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H Response Assignment Students sometimes cringe when they learn that a major focus of this course is poetry. As children most of you loved poetry, reciting nursery rhymes and chanting limericks. What happened? We don t have the answer, but one of our goals this year will be to rekindle your enthusiasm for and appreciation of poetry. Laurence Perrine suggests, People have read poetry or listened to it or recited it because they liked it, because it gave them enjoyment. But this is not the whole answer. Poetry in all ages has been regarded as important, not simply as one of several alternative forms of amusement, as one person might choose bowling, another, chess, and another, poetry. Rather, it has been regarded as something central to existence, something having unique value to the fully realized life, something that we are better off for having and without which we are spiritually impoverished. John Ciardi writes, Everyone who has an emotion and a language knows something about poetry. What he knows may not be much on an absolute scale, and it may not be organized within him in a useful way, but once he discovers the pleasure of poetry, he is likely to be surprised to discover how much he always knew without knowing he knew it. He may discover, somewhat as the character in the French play discovered to his amazement that he had been talking prose all his life, that he had been living poetry. Poetry, after all, is about life. Anyone who is alive and conscious must have some information about it. This year we are approaching poetry two ways. We are studying some poems in class, learning about the tools and devices poets use in their craft, talking about what a poem means or how it made you feel, or seeking answers to questions we raised while reading or studying. We might call this our structured or formal study of poetry. But we are also studying poetry informally through poetry responses. You will be writing responses about every two weeks. Please look closely at the list of dates to know when these responses are due. You will have a different list of poems each quarter. Your first job is to get to know them. To that end, you will read all the poems from the list at least once every week. Read them at different times, in different places, and in different moods. You will notice how the poems will reveal themselves to you over the weeks. Although you will respond on paper to only one poem for each assignment, you want to become acquainted with all the poems on the list. For each assignment date, you will choose one poem from the list and write a response to that poem. These responses are to be a minimum of about 200 words, or the equal of one typed page. Place the response in the box at the beginning of class on the day it is due. Late poetry reactions do not receive credit. You may approach this assignment several ways. Sometimes students write an analysis of the poem. They explain what is going on in the poem and relate what they think the theme is. Others begin with the theme and elaborate on that, while some apply the poem to themselves by relating a personal experience. Occasionally a student will write a response on one line from the poem. What you do with the response is up to you as long as you say something. Students who explain that they could not understand the poem no matter how they tried do not get credit. You will not like all the poems, but if you choose to write that you dislike a poem because of its content or style, support that with concrete detail. Adapted from Danny Lawrence; Career Center, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 120

124 Poems for Response: Second Quarter Choose one of the following poems for each of the poetry responses. All are found in Meyer, The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 8 th ed. on the indicated pages. Use a poem once only during the quarter. Write on one poem only for a poetry response. Yousif al-sa igh, An Iraqi Evening, p Margaret Atwood, February, p. 910 Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish, 781 Anne Bradstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband, p Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool, p. 860 Randall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, p. 832 E. E. Cummings, In Just, p John Donne, Death, be not proud, p H. D., Heat, p. 881 Linda Pastan, Pass/Fail, p Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays, p. 771 Seamus Heaney, The Forge, p Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, p. 842 Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, p John Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci, p Millay, I will put Chaos into fourteen lines, p Robert Morgan, Overalls, p Sharon Olds, Rites of Passage, p Marge Piercy, The Secretary Chant, p. 770 Henry Reed, Naming of Parts, 943 Theodore Roethke, My Papa s Waltz, p. 999 Shakespeare, When, in disgrace with Fortune and men s eyes, p Shelley, Ozymandias, p Cathy Song, The Youngest Daughter, p. 857 Phillis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to America, p. BC-C Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer, p Richard Wilbur, A Late Aubade, 846 William Carlos Williams, This Is Just to Say, p William Wordsworth, The world is too much with us, p William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium, p Due Dates

125 Poems for Response: Second Quarter, Choose one poem for each of the poetry responses. Use a poem once only during the quarter. Write on one poem only for a poetry response. The dates for the second quarter are given here; changes may be announced in class. Use this log page to record the poem you choose to write on and the type of response you write. This page will help you complete a variety of responses. Due dates: Friday 13 November 2010 Thursday 18 November 2010 Wednesday 24 November 2010 Thursday 2 December 2010 Wednesday 8 December 2010 Thursday 16 December 2010 Thursday 6 January 2011 Wednesday 12 January

126 ADVANCED PLACEMENTENGLISH Stephen Dedalus STUDENT Date Poem Response 1 Wed 3 Oct Ozy Personal, political 2 Fri 12 Oct Africa Political 3 Wed 17 Oct Naming Parts Political * 4 Fri 26 Oct We Cool Personal, structure 5 Wed 31 Oct L A T E L A T E 85 6 Wed 14 Nov Wild Swans Analysis, personal 7 Fri 23 Nov Belle Dame Structure, analysis 8 Wed 28 Nov In Just--- Mythology, fig. lang. 9 Fri 7 Dec Golden Retrievals Form, personal 10 Wed 12 Dec Death not proud Rhyme, meter 11 Fri 21 Dec To the Virgins Personal, humor, structure 12 Wed 9 Jan That the Night Come Scansion 13 Fri 18 Jan the Forge Comparison (theme) 14 Wed 6 Feb Out, Out Theme, relates to AILDying 15 Fri 15 Feb When I consider Personal, thematic 16 Wed 20 Feb When in disgrace Political, personal 17 Fri 29 Feb Birches Comparison (Out out) 18 Wed 5 Mar Fern Hill Cultural, structure 19 Fri 14 Mar Leda and the Swan Compare (Wild swans), personal 20 Wed 19 Mar Late Aubade Diction, patterns 21 Fri 28 Mar Mother 2 Son Political, Theme, Personal 22 Wed 2 Apr Song spacey personal 23 Wed 16 Apr 24 Fri 25 Apr 25 Wed 30 Apr

127 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H Poetry Response: Quiz 1 1. Henry Reed s Naming of Parts is about the parts of (A) a medical exam (B) a mythical island (C) the United States (D) a rifle (E) the human heart. 2. Shelley s Ozymandias takes its title from (A) a river in Greece (B) an ancient king (C) the name of a poetic figure of speech (D) a Mediterranean warship (E) a set of prehistoric caves. 3. The speaker in Shakespeare s sonnet says that when in disgrace with Fortune and men s eyes things get better when he (A) happens to think on thee (B) begins to count his blessings (C) remembers that God is forgiving (D) considers the wonders of nature (E) sees one less blest than I. 4. The speaker in Williams s This Is Just to Say asks forgiveness for (A) killing a tree (B) breaking a promise (C) stealing a bicycle (D) leaving a wheelbarrow out in the rain (E) eating some plums. 5. Donne s Death Be Not Proud ends with (A) Die not, poor Death (B) Ask not for whom the bell tolls (C) Death, thou shalt die. (D) Good fences make good neighbors (E) Only the good die young. 6. The rivers in Langston Hughes s The Negro Speaks of Rivers are rivers (A) the speaker has visited on vacation (B) leading to the North and freedom from slavery (C) that symbolize oppression and slavery (D) representing experiences of the speaker s ancestors (E) destroyed by pollution and waste. 7. The real cool people in Gwendolyn Brooks s poem (A) remain in school (B) provide comfort to their parents in their old age (C) become famous as entertainers or athletes (D) write poetry (E) die young. 8. The knight in Keats s La Belle Dame sans Merci is (A) Sir Lancelot (B) pale and alone (C) the future King Arthur (D) defending his castle and title (E) not a knight at all but a lowly peasant. 9. The setting of Sharon Olds s Rite of Passage is (A) a birthday party (B) a wedding (C) the sailing of a ship to a war zone (D) a deserted garden (E) a graduation ceremony. 10. In February, Margaret Atwood uses as both an audience and a symbol (A) her cat (B) a snow storm (C) the woman next door (D) a veterinarian (E) two calendars. 124

128 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H Poetry Response: Quiz 1 Answer the following questions with a word or phrase. (Use a complete sentence, go to jail.) 11. Henry Reed s Naming of Parts is about the parts of what? a rifle 12. What does the speaker in Shelley s Ozymandias find in the desert? a broken statue 13. What does the speaker in Shakespeare s sonnet say makes things better when he feels in disgrace with Fortune and men s eyes? thee (a lover / a girlfriend / a friend ) 14. What has the speaker in Williams s done that he apologizes for? eaten some plums 15. What are the final word of Donne s Death Be Not Proud? Death, thou shalt die. 16. What are two of the rivers named in Langston Hughes s The Negro Speaks of Rivers? Euphrates, Congo, Nile, Mississippi 17. What happens to the real cool people in Gwendolyn Brooks s poem? They die. 18. What does the knight in Keats s La Belle Dame sans Merci look like? alone and palely loitering 19. What is the setting of Sharon Olds s Rite of Passage? her son s birthday party 20. To what sport does Margaret Atwood refer in February? ice hockey 125

129 Teacher s Discussion Guides TP-COASTT: a mnemonic for poetry Title multiple meanings? Paraphrase Rephrase the poem Connotation meaning beyond the literal. Organization organizational patterns, Attitude Identify the tone both the speaker's and the poet's attitude Shifts* Locate shifts in speaker, tone, setting, syntax, diction Title Examine the title again Theme Determine what the poem says Signals o Key words (still, but, yet, although, ) o Punctuation (consider every mark) o Stanza or paragraph divisions o Changes in line or stanza length or both Types o Structure (how the work is organized) o Changes in syntax (sentence length and construction) o Changes in sound (rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, assonance ) o Changes in diction (level or type) Patterns o Are the shifts sudden? progressive? recursive? Why? APPROACHING THE POEM Level 1 Detail: What details stand out? Is there an obvious pattern? Diction: [1] Characterize it [2] Is it consistent? varied? shifting? Syntax: [1] What level is it? [2] Characterize it [3] Is it balanced? varied? shifting? Imagery: [1] What images dominate? To which sense to they appeal? Structure: What are the parts? Is it a fixed form? Rhetoric: Sounds: Themes: Level 2 Which words have the strongest connotations? Which figures of speech dominate? Is there antithesis? irony? parallels? paradox? Rhyme? Rhythm? alliteration? assonance? consonance? Level 3 How do the elements combine to produce or emphasize the theme(s)? 126

130 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H One Art The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster 5 of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. 10 I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next to last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. 15 I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. From The Complete Poems by Elizabeth Bishop, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Copyright 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel. Used with permission. 127

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132 Web Sites Rusche, Harry. Emory University. The Poet Speaks of Art. &poems/titlepage.html Morrison, Valerie. University of Georgia. Ekphrasitc Poetry. ekphrasticpoetry.html Books & Video Rowden, Justine. Paint Me a Poem: Poems Inspired by Masterpieces of Art. Honesdale, Pa.: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press, Print. Krakora, Joseph, dir. Vermeer: Master of Light. Microcinema, DVD. Greenberg, Jan, ed.. Heart to heart : new poems inspired by twentieth century American art. New York: Harry N Abrams, Print. Lesson and Unit Plans Cox, Ann Kelly. Ekphrasis: Using Art to Inspire Poetry, a plan for a unit of 8 50-minute periods. NCTE/IRA Read Write Think. < Smithsonian American Art Museum. Ekphrasitic Poetry Lesson, a one-period lesson. < Ekphrastic_Poetry_Lesson.pdf> Suitable for grades 7-12; students produce a 10- line poem. Moorman, Honor. Backing into Ekphrasis: Reading and Writing Poetry about Visual Art. English Journal, Sep. 2006: Print. Available online at < ekphrasis.pdf> Includes a lesson plan and much more Marisco, Lynn Rogers. Ekphrastic Poetry: Exploring the visual Arts with a Poet s Eye. Chathan University, Pa. < arsico.pdf> A lengthly discussion and an 8-day lesson plan. Suitable for all secondary grades. Museums Artcyclopedia presents an extensive list of museum web sites accessible from a clickable world map. But it also includes a search engine for finding words by title, by artist, or by museum. It s an extensive data base, easy to navigate. < Here are a few major museums outside North America that students can mine with profit. China National Museum of Fine Art Le Muée des Beaux-Arts, Brussels Musé d Orsay, Paris Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janiero National Archaeological Museum of Athens National Museum, New Delhi html The British Museum, London The Hermitage, St Petersburg The Louvre, Paris The National Gallery, London The National Museum of Korea, Seoul The Prado, Madrid The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam The Uffizi Gallery, Florence The Vatican Museums Vatican City Tokyo National Museum 129

133 THE FALL OF ICARUS Pieter Brueghel the Elder Musee des Beaux Arts W.H. Auden Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus William Carlos Williams About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; how well, they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; 5 How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot 10 That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer s horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Breughel s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away 15 Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen 20 Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. According to Brueghel when Icarus fell it was spring a farmer was ploughing 5 his field the whole pageantry of the year was awake tingling near 10 the edge of the sea concerned with itself sweating in the sun that melted 15 the wings wax unsignificantly off the coast there was a splash quite unnoticed 20 this was Icarus drowning 130

134 Icarus Edward Field Only the feathers floating around the hat Showed that anything more spectacular had occurred Than the usual drowning. The police preferred to ignore The confusing aspects of the case, 5 And the witnesses ran off to a gang war. So the report filed and forgotten in the archives read simply Drowned, but it was wrong: Icarus Had swum away, coming at last to the city Where he rented a house and tended the garden. 10 That nice Mr. Hicks the neighbors called him, Never dreaming that the gray, respectable suit Concealed arms that had controlled huge wings Nor that those sad, defeated eyes had once Compelled the sun. And had he told them 15 They would have answered with a shocked, uncomprehending stare. No, he could not disturb their neat front yards; Yet all his books insisted that this was a horrible mistake: What was he doing aging in a suburb? Can the genius of the hero fall 20 To the middling stature of the merely talented? And nightly Icarus probes his wound And daily in his workshop, curtains carefully drawn, Constructs small wings and tries to fly To the lighting fixture on the ceiling: 25 Fails every time and hates himself for trying. He had thought himself a hero, had acted heroically, And now dreamt of his fall, the tragic fall of the hero; But now rides commuter trains, Serves on various committees, 30 And wishes he had drowned. The Lament for Icarus Herbert Draper To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Triumph Anne Sexton Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wings on, testing this strange little tug at his shoulder blade, and think of that first flawless moment over the lawn of the labyrinth. Think of the difference it made! 5 There below are the trees, as awkward as camels; and here are the shocked starlings pumping past and think of innocent Icarus who is doing quite well: larger than a sail, over the fog and the blast of the plushy ocean, he goes. Admire his wings! 10 Feel the fire at his neck and see how casually he glances up and is caught, wondrously tunneling into that hot eye. Who cares that he fell back to the sea? See him acclaiming the sun and come plunging down while his sensible daddy goes straight into town. 131

135 Icarus By Tony Curtis Out of an English summer morning s sky drops an Indian who failed in flight miles short of heaven. This frozen Icarus thrown from the wheel-bay of a 747, 5 splashes into a Surrey reservoir, cracking the water like a whip. This poor man stowed away in the Delhi heat, curled himself into an oven of rubber and oil, 10 and dreamed as he rose in the deafening take-off of food and rain and Coca-Cola and television where the colour never ends. The waitress at the Granada stop tapping in two coffees and a Danish 15 at the till, for no reason at all, looked up, saw a bird, or an engine, or a man, and then nothing but blue sky again. Icarus Diatribe By Aaron Pastula How we have wasted the years here, Father; Grounded in the shadow of Talus, whom you envied Too much, and murdered. We might be free If 5 Ariadne had not received a precious ball of thread With which to save her lover, yet you would rescue Another even though we are trapped, and only Two left. I ve watched your shadows sleep against stone walls 10 While I ran our labyrinth, the sun above Driving me as if I should call for my final repose Alone. Do you remember the torrid wind maneuvering Around the angles of our usless garrison, 15 Filling empty mouths with surrogate conversation? We Seldom spoke, you and I, roaming like languid souls When the Minotaur s threat was dead. And yet I felt the lyre singing in my breast, 20 Always Crying out background noise for the construction Of my cunningly wrought wings; my only means to rise Above these steadfast fortress walls, lest I Surrender 25 To your silence. I know the gulls were wailing When I robbed them, but they had flown too close: I am not to blame for the necessity of my purpose. To you I am as your own divided heart - double-sexed 30 And beating as a thief s in the falling hours of twilight, Awaiting my time to retire. Instead I take flight, The sun Drawing me as an opiate away from our Etherized utopia, leaving you puzzled; compelling 35 You to follow me out above the open, Beguiling sea Icarus By Christine Hemp It was his idea, this flying thing. We collected feathers at night, stuffing our pockets with mourning dove down. By day, we d weave and glue them with the wax 5 I stole after we d shooed the bees away. Oh, how it felt, finally, to blow off Crete leaving a labyrinth of dead-ends: my clumsiness with figures, father s calm impatience, cool logic, interminable devising. 10 The sea wind touched my face like balm. He thought I d tag along as usual, in the wake of his careful scheme bound by the string connecting father and son, invisible thread I tried for years to untie. 15 I ached to be a good-for-something on my own. I didn t know I d get drunk with the heat, flying high, too much a son to return. Poor Daedelus, his mouth an O below, his hands outstretched to catch the rain 20 of wax. He still doesn t know. My wings fell, yes - I saw him hover over the tiny splash - but by then I d been swallowed into love s eye, the light I ve come to see as home, drowning in the yes, this swirling 25 white-hot where night will never find me. And now when my father wakes each morning, his bones still sore from his one-time flight, his confidence undone because the master plan fell through, 30 he rises to a light he never knew, his son. The Fall of Icarus (Metamorphosis, VIII: ) By Ovid, Translated by Sir Samuel Garth These, as the angler at the silent brook, Or mountain-shepherd leaning on his crook, Or gaping plowman, from the vale descries, They stare, and view em with religious eyes, 5 And strait conclude em Gods; since none, but they, Thro their own azure skies cou d find a way. When now the boy, whose childish thoughts aspire To loftier aims, and make him ramble high r, Grown wild, and wanton, more embolden d flies 10 Far from his guide, and soars among the skies. The soft ning wax, that felt a nearer sun, Dissolv d apace, and soon began to run. The youth in vain his melting pinions shakes, His feathers gone, no longer air he takes: 15 Oh! Father, father, as he strove to cry, Down to the sea he tumbled from on high, And found his Fate; yet still subsists by fame, Among those waters that retain his name. 132

136 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H Vincent (Starry Starry Night) Song lyrics by Don McLean Starry starry night, paint your palette blue and grey Look out on a summer's day with eyes that know the darkness in my soul Shadows on the hills, sketch the trees and the daffodils Catch the breeze and the winter chills, in colors on the snowy linen land 5 Now I understand what you tried to say to me How you suffered for you sanity How you tried to set them free They would not listen they did not know how, perhaps they'll listen now Starry starry night, flaming flowers that brightly blaze Swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue 10 Colors changing hue, morning fields of amber grain Weathered faces lined in pain are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand Refrain: For they could not love you, but still your love was true And when no hope was left in sight, on that starry starry night You took your life as lovers often do, 15 But I could have told you, Vincent, This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you Starry, starry night, portraits hung in empty halls Frameless heads on nameless walls with eyes that watch the world and can't forget. Like the stranger that you've met, the ragged man in ragged clothes 20 The silver thorn of bloody rose, lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow Now I think I know what you tried to say to me How you suffered for you sanity How you tried to set them free They would not listen they're not listening still Perhaps they never will. 133

137 Starry Night Vincent van Gogh, 1889 Museum of Modern Art, New York 134

138 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H W. H. Auden She looked over his shoulder For vines and olive trees, Marble well-governed cities And ships upon untamed seas, 5 But there on the shining metal His hands had put instead An artificial wilderness And a sky like lead. A plain without a feature, bare and brown, 10 No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood, Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down, Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood An unintelligible multitude, A million eyes, a million boots in line, 15 Without expression, waiting for a sign. Out of the air a voice without a face Proved by statistics that some cause was just In tones as dry and level as the place: No one was cheered and nothing was discussed; 20 Column by column in a cloud of dust They marched away enduring a belief Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief. She looked over his shoulder For ritual pieties, 25 White flower-garlanded heifers, Libation and sacrifice, But there on the shining metal Where the altar should have been, She saw by his flickering forge-light 30 Quite another scene. 45 She looked over his shoulder For athletes at their games, Men and women in a dance Moving their sweet limbs Quick, quick, to music, 50 But there on the shining shield His hands had set no dancing-floor But a weed-choked field. A ragged urchin, aimless and alone, Loitered about that vacancy; a bird 55 Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone: That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third, Were axioms to him, who'd never heard Of any world where promises were kept, Or one could weep because another wept. 60 The thin-lipped armorer, Hephaestos, hobbled away, Thetis of the shining breasts Cried out in dismay At what the god had wrought 65 To please her son, the strong Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles Who would not live long. Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke) And sentries sweated for the day was hot: A crowd of ordinary decent folk 35 Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke As three pale figures were led forth and bound To three posts driven upright in the ground. The mass and majesty of this world, all That carries weight and always weighs the same 40 Lay in the hands of others; they were small And could not hope for help and no help came: What their foes like to do was done, their shame Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride And died as men before their bodies died. 135

139 Homer s description of the shield of Achilles, The Iliad, Book 18 [490] Therein fashioned he also two cities of mortal men exceeding fair. In the one there were marriages and feastings, and by the light of the blazing torches they were leading the brides from their bowers through the city, and loud rose the bridal song. And young men were whirling in the dance, and in their midst [495] flutes and lyres sounded continually; and there the women stood each before her door and marvelled. But the folk were gathered in the place of assembly; for there a strife had arisen, and two men were striving about the blood-price of a man slain; the one avowed that he had paid all, [500] declaring his cause to the people, but the other refused to accept aught; and each was fain to win the issue on the word of a daysman. Moreover, the folk were cheering both, shewing favour to this side and to that. And heralds held back the folk, and the elders were sitting upon polished stones in the sacred circle, [505] holding in their hands the staves of the loud-voiced heralds. Therewith then would they spring up and give judgment, each in turn. And in the midst lay two talents of gold, to be given to him whoso among them should utter the most righteous judgment. But around the other city lay in leaguer two hosts of warriors [510] gleaming in armour. And twofold plans found favour with them, either to lay waste the town or to divide in portions twain all the substance that the lovely city contained within. Howbeit the besieged would nowise hearken thereto, but were arming to meet the foe in an ambush. The wall were their dear wives and little children guarding, [515] as they stood thereon, and therewithal the men that were holden of old age; but the rest were faring forth, led of Ares and Pallas Athene, both fashioned in gold, and of gold was the raiment wherewith they were clad. Goodly were they and tall in their harness, as beseemeth gods, clear to view amid the rest, and the folk at their feet were smaller. [520] But when they were come to the place where it seemed good unto them to set their ambush, in a river-bed where was a watering-place for all herds alike, there they sate them down, clothed about with flaming bronze. Thereafter were two scouts set by them apart from the host, waiting till they should have sight of the sheep and sleek cattle. [525] And these came presently, and two herdsmen followed with them playing upon pipes; and of the guile wist they not at all. Homer. The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd Replications of Achilles s shield, made from the description in The Iliad. 136

140 Derek Mahon (for Gordon Woods) Oblique light on the trite, on brick and tile Immaculate masonry, and everywhere that Water tap, that broom and wooden pail To keep it so. House-proud, the wives 5 Of artisans pursue their thrifty lives Among scrubbed yards, modest but adequate. Foliage is sparse, and clings. No breeze Ruffles the trim composure of those trees. No spinet-playing emblematic of 10 The harmonies and disharmonies of love; No lewd fish, no fruit, no wide-eyed bird About to fly its cage while a virgin Listens to her seducer, mars the chaste Perfection of the thing and the thing made. 15 Nothing is random, nothing goes to waste. We miss the dirty dog, the fiery gin. That girl with her back to us who waits For her man to come home for his tea Will wait till the paint disintegrates 20 And ruined dikes admit the esurient sea; Yet this is life too, and the cracked Out-house door a verifiable fact As vividly mnemonic as the sunlit Railings that front the houses opposite. 25 I lived there as a boy and know the coal Glittering in its shed, late-afternoon Lambency informing the deal table, The ceiling cradled in a radiant spoon. I must be lying low in a room there, 30 A strange child with a taste for verse, While my hard-nosed companions dream of fire And sword upon parched veldt and fields of rain-swept gorse. Courtyards in Delft Pieter de Hoock, 1659 National Gallery, London approx. 29 x 23.5 inches 137

141 Donald Finkel The Great Wave: Hokusai But we will take the problem in its most obscure manifestation, and suppose that our spectator is an average Englishman. A trained observer. carefully hidden behind a screen, might notice a dilation in his eyes, even an intake of his breath, perhaps a grunt. (Herbert Read, The Meaning of Art) It is because the sea is blue, Because Fuji is blue, because the bent blue Men have white faces, like the snow On Fuji, like the crest of the wave in the sky the color of their 5 Boats. It is because the air Is full of writing, because the wave is still: that nothing Will harm these frail strangers, That high over Fuji in an earthcolored sky the fingers Will not fall; and the blue men 10 Lean on the sea like snow, and the wave like a mountain leans Against the sky. In the painter s sea All fishermen are safe. All anger bends under his unity. But the innocent bystander, he merely 15 Walks round a corner, thinking of nothing : hidden Behind a screen we hear his cry. He stands half in and half out of the world; he is the men, But he cannot see below Fuji The shore the color of sky; he is the wave, he stretches 20 His claws against strangers. He is Not safe, not even from himself. His world is flat. He fishes a sea full of serpents, he rides his boat Blindly from wave to wave toward Ararat. The Great Wave at Kamagawa Katsushika Hokusai, 1831 woodblock pring 138

142 A D V A N C E D P L A C E M E N T E N G L I S H Not my Best Side U. A. Fanthorpe I Not my best side, I'm afraid. The artist didn't give me a chance to Pose properly, and as you can see, Poor chap, he had this obsession with 5 Triangles, so he left off two of my Feet. I didn't comment at the time (What, after all, are two feet To a monster?) but afterwards I was sorry for the bad publicity. 10 Why, I said to myself, should my conqueror Be so ostentatiously beardless, and ride A horse with a deformed neck and square hoofs? Why should my victim be so Unattractive as to be inedible, 15 And why should she have me literally On a string? I don't mind dying Ritually, since I always rise again, But I should have liked a little more blood To show they were taking me seriously. I I 20 It's hard for a girl to be sure if She wants to be rescued. I mean, I quite Took to the dragon. It's nice to be Liked, if you know what I mean. He was So nicely physical, with his claws 25 And lovely green skin, and that sexy tail, And the way he looked at me, He made me feel he was all ready to Eat me. And any girl enjoys that. So when this boy turned up, wearing machinery, 30 On a really dangerous horse, to be honest I didn't much fancy him. I mean, What was he like underneath the hardware? He might have acne, blackheads or even Bad breath for all I could tell, but the dragon-- 35 Well, you could see all his equipment At a glance. Still, what could I do? The dragon got himself beaten by the boy, And a girl's got to think of her future. I I I I have diplomas in Dragon 40 Management and Virgin Reclamation. My horse is the latest model, with Automatic transmission and built-in Obsolescence. My spear is custom-built, And my prototype armour 45 Still on the secret list. You can't Do better than me at the moment. I'm qualified and equipped to the Eyebrow. So why be difficult? Don't you want to be killed and/or rescued 50 In the most contemporary way? Don't You want to carry out the roles That sociology and myth have designed for you? Don't you realize that, by being choosy, You are endangering job prospects 55 In the spear- and horse-building industries? What, in any case, does it matter what You want? You're in my way. 139

143 St George and the Dragon Uccello ( ) National Gallery, London Looking at Point-of-View: Three Perspectives for One Poem 1. Look at the painting closely. Based on your knowledge of myth and legend, what are some initial inferences you can draw concerning the figures depicted in the painting? In other words, what are some of the characteristics you assume each character embodies? The Maiden / The Dragon / The Knight? Now read your stanza and then answer the following questions: 2. In what ways does your speaker reinforce or affirm the assumptions you made about him/her/it? 3. In what ways does your speaker reject or go against the assumptions you made about him/her/it? 4. Once you have heard the responses from the other groups, please answer the following question: Why is the knight interested most in maintaining the paradigm represented in the painting? Homework: Taking all of Not My Best Side into consideration, along with the comments of your peers, write a short response (½-1 page) in which you discuss what you believe to be one of the main ideas in this poem. Specifically discuss how the different points of view are significant in expressing this idea. For this assignment, your first sentence needs to be your thesis statement. Lance Bala 140

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145 Decoding Shakespeare s Language Students need to understand that Shakespeare s language differs from their own partly because of the limitations of their English, partly because of some changes, most of them superficial, in the language since 1600, partly because Shakespeare wrote poetry. Faced with Shakespeare, kids are trying to deal with at least four discrete sets of language problems: 1. CONVENTIONS: Shakespeare writes for the theater. 1. Exposition ( atmospheric description ) 2. Boy actors 3. Impenetrability of disguises 4. Soliloquy 5. Aside 6. Royal address and reference 2. WORDS: Shakespeare writes with a rich vocabulary. 1. modern words kids don t know 2. words whose meanings have shifted 3. words now obsolete 4. words that never gained currency 5. lost idioms 3. INFLECTIONS: Shakespeare writes in early modern English. 1. Familiar pronouns & verb inflections (-st) 2. Obsolete third person inflections (-th) 3. Some rare obsolete plural forms (as eyen for eyes) 4. Question formation 4. POETIC LANGUAGE: Shakespeare writes poetry. 1. meter [apostrophe clipping omitted words inverted word order] 2. sound patterns [rhyme alliteration assonance consonance] 3. rhetorical devices [antithesis apostrophe oxymoron paronomasia] 4. figurative language [metaphor simile personification ] 5. shifts in parts of speech 6. playfulness with language [irony puns insults] 7. allusions and proverbs 8. patterns of imagery 142

146 Early Modern English Grammar D The Second Person Familiar Modern English has dropped a set of pronouns and verbs called the "familiar" or "thee and thou" forms once used among close friends and family and to children, inferiors, animals, and inanimate objects. These old forms did, though, survive into Elizabethan England and appear frequently in Shakespeare. They correspond roughly to the tu forms of the Romance languages, the ty forms of the Slavic languages, the su forms of Greek, and the kimi forms of Japanese. Shakespeare will have characters shift from the you to the thou forms with purpose. Singular Plural 1st 2nd 3rd 1st 2nd 3rd Subject [nominative] I thou he/she/it we you they Object [accusative] me thee him/her/it us you them Possessive adjective [genitive] my mine* thy thine* his/her/its our your their Possessive pronoun mine thine his/hers/its ours yours theirs *Substitute forms used before a noun beginning with a vowel D Second person familiar verb inflections Second person singular (familiar): adds the ending est, st, or st. Some irregular verbs: Examples: thou givest, thou sing st irregular example: thou wilt hear present: past: you are have will can shall do thou art hast wilt canst shalt dost you were had would could should did thou wast hadst wouldst couldst shouldst didst The negative of the second person familiar is formed by adding the word not after the verb. Examples: thou art not, thou canst not, thou couldst not D Third person singular verb inflections The third person singular often substitutes th for more modern s. Examples: she giveth (for she gives), it raineth every day (for rains) Skip Nicholson; All Rights Reserved 143

147 Romeo and Juliet / 2.2 Juliet O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore are you Romeo? Deny your father and refuse your name; Or, if you will not, be but sworn my love, And I ll no longer be a Capulet 5 Tis but your name that is my enemy; Romeo, doff your name, And for your name, which is no part of you, Take all myself. Romeo I take you at your word. 10 Call me but love, and I ll be new baptiz d; Henceforth I never will be Romeo. Juliet What man are you that thus bescreen d in night So stumble on my counsel? Romeo By a name 15 I know not how to tell you who I am. My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself, Because it is an enemy to you; Had I it written, I would tear the word. Juliet My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words 20 Of your tongue s uttering, yet I know the sound. Are you not Romeo, and a Montague? Romeo Juliet Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike. How came you hither, tell me, and wherefore? The orchard walls are high and hard to climb, 25 And the place death, considering who you are, If any of my kinsmen find you here. Romeo With love s light wings did I o erperch these walls, For stony limits cannot hold love out, And what love can do, that dares love attempt; 30 Therefore your kinsmen are no stop to me. Romeo Alack, there lies more peril in your eye Than twenty of their swords! Look you but sweet, And I am proof against their enmity. 35 Juliet I would not for the world they saw you here. Romeo I have night s cloak to hide me from their eyes, And but you love me, let them find me here; My life were better ended by their hate, Than death proroguèd, wanting of your love. 40 Juliet By whose direction found you out this place? Romeo By love, that first did prompt me to inquire; He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes. I am no pilot, yet, were you as far As that vast shore [wash d] with the farthest sea, 45 I should adventure for such merchandise. Juliet You know the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek For that which you have have heard me speak to night. Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny 50 What I have spoke, but farewell compliment! Do you love me? I know you will say, Ay, And I will take your word; yet, if you swear, You may prove false: at lovers perjuries They say Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo, 55 If you do love, pronounce it faithfully; Or if you think I am too quickly won, I ll frown and be perverse, and say you nay, So you will woo, but else not for the world. In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond, 60 And therefore you may think my behavior light, But trust me, gentleman, I ll prove more true Juliet If they do see you, they will murther you. 144

148 Than those that have [more] coying to be strange. I should have been more strange, I must confess, But that you overheard, ere I was ware, 65 My true love passion; therefore pardon me, And not impute this yielding to light love, Which the dark night hath so discoverèd. Romeo Lady, by yonder blessèd moon I vow, That tips with silver all these fruit tree tops 70 Juliet O, swear not by the moon, th inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her [circled] orb, Lest that your love prove likewise variable. Romeo What shall I swear by? Juliet Do not swear at all; 75 Or if you will, swear by your gracious self, Which is the god of my idolatry, And I ll believe you. Romeo If my heart s dear love Juliet Well, do not swear. Although I joy in you, 80 I have no joy of this contract to night, It is too rash, too unadvis d, too sudden, Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say it lightens. Sweet, good night! This bud of love, by summer s ripening breath, 85 May prove a beauteous flow r when next we meet. Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest Come to your heart as that within my breast! Romeo O, will you leave me so unsatisfied? Juliet What satisfaction can you have to night? 90 Romeo Th exchange of your love s faithful vow for mine. Juliet Romeo I gave you mine before you did request it; And yet I would it were to give again. Would you withdraw it? for what purpose, love? Juliet But to be frank and give it you again, 95 And yet I wish but for the thing I have. My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to you, The more I have, for both are infinite. [Nurse calls within.] 100 I hear some noise within; dear love, adieu! Anon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true. Stay but a little, I will come again. [Exit above.] Romeo O blessèd, blessèd night! I am afeard, Being in night, all this is but a dream, 105 Too flattering sweet to be substantial. [Enter JULIET above.] Juliet Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed. If that your bent of love be honorable, Your purpose marriage, send me word to morrow, 110 By one that I ll procure to come to you, Where and what time you will perform the rite, And all my fortunes at your foot I ll lay, And follow you my lord throughout the world. [Nurse. Within.] Madam! 115 Juliet I come, anon. But if you mean not well, I do beseech you [Nurse. Within.] Madam! Juliet By and by, I come To cease your strife, and leave me to my grief. 120 To morrow will I send. Romeo So thrive my soul Juliet A thousand times good night! [Exit above.] Romeo A thousand times the worse, to want your light. Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books, 125 But love from love, toward school with heavy looks. [Retiring] 145

149 Rank Occur Word lord good 3 83 love 4 70 father 5 70 man * 6 67 king 7 56 time 8 52 think 9 49 look heaven mad(ness) night mother god soul eye death play world hear life nature dear * heart pray true young/ th son * words indeed dead thoughts call fear follow matter blood day find part sweet ear * queen head fire live * fair * believe end England lost murther noble old poor seem faith Rank Occur Word hand honor lie * sleep spirit brother Denmark drink grief sword tongue farewell fit * grow little player purpose remember sound * watch act answer body cause command daughter fortune grace grave * honest lady light * majesty marry * mind question reason revenge sense virtue air fellow free mark * please swear bear* bed damned die * drown duty friend haste right state villain HAMLET: Word Count Rank Occur Word work face fool * gentlemen kill passion brain Dane fine * foul judgment name Norway offense proof/ ve strange action business deed draw full ground hell help hour husband joy maid peace tears * three uncle breath buried crown danger guilty knave late marriage memory news obey phrase place Phyrrhus rank * return seal'd second soft star understan wind wisdom age arms * Rank Occur Word black confess custom dread effect excellent hope land letters mouth patience sea shame sick sight sure woe adieu beast charge conscienc dream eat fashion fault heavy lack list * music note particular power secret service soldiers sun table violence wife wrong year * angel beard breathe cold dare * dust false feed fingers foils feneral ghost health noise season * sister Rank Occur Word sorrow strook wholesome woman beauty choice course discourse double dull fare fat fie gracious hit home hot laugh moon prithee quiet ready slain truth wicked wits choose circumsta cock * color commission conceit disposition dumb figure flesh fly * hard liberty mass * methinks morning mortal motive nunn'ry piece read report silence skull stir sudden terms treason trumpet vile snow 146

150 Hamlet Word Study RULES OF THE GAME You will choose one of the topics under the number that ends your school ID number. In each set, the first number is the word's rank (the list includes numbers 1 through 70); the second is the number of times the word occurs in the play. You will want to find specific mentions of your word in the text of the play, although the concrete detail you use in your study certainly need not all be from lines in which your word appears. Ending in "1" Ending in "2" Ending in "3" rank no. word rank no. word rank no. word lord good 3 83 love mad(ness) night mother life nature dear * dead thoughts call sweet ear * queen lost murther noble sleep spirit brother Ending in "4" Ending in "5" Ending in "6" rank no. word rank no. word rank no. word 4 70 father 5 70 man * 6 67 king god soul eye heart pray true fear follow matter head fire live * old poor seem Denmark drink grief Ending in "7" Ending in "8" Ending in "9" rank no. word rank no. word rank no. word 7 56 time 8 52 think 9 49 look death play world young/ th son * words blood day find fair * believe end faith hand honor sword tongue farewell Ending in "0" rank no. word rank no. word rank no. word heaven indeed lie * hear part fit * England 147

151 E N G L I S H S H A K E S P E A R E Shakespeare s Plays Plays ranked by length Plays ranked by unique words Play Lines Words Spchs Play Unique words 1 HAMLET HAMLET CORIOLANUS HENRY V CYMBELINE CYMBELINE RICHARD III TROILUS AND CRESSIDA OTHELLO KING LEAR TROILUS AND CRESSIDA HENRY IV, PART TWO ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA HENRY IV, PART ONE KING LEAR RICHARD III WINTER'S TALE HENRY VI, PART TWO HENRY IV, PART TWO HENRY VI, PART ONE HENRY V CORIOLANUS TWO NOBLE KINSMEN WINTER'S TALE HENRY VIII ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA HENRY VI, PART TWO TWO NOBLE KINSMEN ROMEO AND JULIET OTHELLO HENRY IV, PART ONE LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ROMEO AND JULIET HENRY VI, PART THREE RICHARD II MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR HENRY VI, PART THREE MEASURE FOR MEASURE KING JOHN LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST HENRY VIII AS YOU LIKE IT ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL RICHARD II TITUS ANDRONICUS MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING MEASURE FOR MEASURE MERCHANT OF VENICE MACBETH HENRY VI, PART ONE PERICLES TAMING OF THE SHREW TIMON OF ATHENS KING JOHN MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR TWELFTH NIGHT MERCHANT OF VENICE JULIUS CAESAR AS YOU LIKE IT TITUS ANDRONICUS TAMING OF THE SHREW TIMON OF ATHENS TEMPEST PERICLES TWELFTH NIGHT MACBETH MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING TEMPEST JULIUS CAESAR MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA COMEDY OF ERRORS COMEDY OF ERRORS 2522 Total: Total: Average: Average: 3609 High: High: 4700 Low: Low:

152 Some Ideas for Shakespeare Compilations FATHERS AND SONS The Comedy of Errors Hamlet Polonius & Laertes 1 Henry IV Julius Caesar Brutus & Lucius King Lear Gloucester & Sons Romeo and Juliet The Winter s Tale MOTHERS AND SONS Coriolanus Volumnia & Coriolanus Hamlet Macbeth Lady Macduff & son Richard III Margaret & Richard Titus Andronicus MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS Romeo and Juliet The Winter s Tale FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS As You Like It Hamlet Henry VIII King Lear The Merchant of Venice Midsummer Night s Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles Romeo and Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Titus Andronicus The Winter s Tale FRIENDS As You Like It Rosalind & Celia King Lear Kent to Lear Merry Wives of Windsor Mrs Ford & Mrs Page A Midsummer Night s Dream Helena & Hermia Much Ado about Nothing Beatrice & Hero; Benedick & Claudio Othello Emilia & Desdemona Twelfth Night Antonio to Sebastian; Sir Toby & Aguecheek SIBLINGS The Comedy of Errors Hamlet Measure for Measure Twelfth Night The Taming of the Shrew 149

153 150

154 KING LEAR 1.1: Teaching Notes The lists and tables here are intended to help an instructor see more quickly some of the textual elements worth exploring in the opening scene of King Lear. Text and performance considerations necessarily wait on each other. But, as Professor Miriam Gilbert of the University of Iowa points out, questions about the text come first, then questions about performance. 1 The vocabulary list divides words, somewhat arbitrarily, into three categories. The first is made up of some that many students might see as obsolete but that in fact appear in the contemporary, though often formal, writing of educated speakers of English. The second consists of words now obsolete; these are glossed in most editions of the play. The third contains the dangerous words, those most students know but not with the meaning they have in the text. Appear, for example, in Gloucester s comment that it appears not which of the Dukes he values most, (4) has the now lost meaning of to be apparent, clear, or obvious. Often the combination of context and cognates will help, as with Lear s To thee and thine hereditary ever / Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom. (76 77) The word hereditary appears to be our modern adjective, but the context makes it clear that Lear uses it here as a noun. The word s lexical associations should help a reader recognize that it stands where we would use the noun heirs. For many, though, a modern ear will have to rely on an understanding of character, theme, and tone to discern a problem. Reading sometime in Lear s calling Cordelia my sometime daughter (117) with the sense of occasional or on and off does damage to the line that Shakespeare intends as an abrupt renunciation, the culmination of a rejection so strong that it prompts Kent s first cry of protest. The play s opening scene provides examples of the use of the thou/thee forms that reward investigation. Lear uses thee throughout to pull Goneril and Regan emotionally closer to himself. Ironically, he will use it to cast Cordelia aside. He has called her you from the start: What can you say (82) your sisters (83), Mend your speech. (91), mar your fortunes (92) The you form normally shows respect; thou and thee mark a lack of respect, either because affection makes respect unnecessary or because words and actions have overcome any respect. So the familiar form can be affectionate or denigrating. Sir Ian McKellen wears two wedding rings as Lear in the 2007 Royal Shakespeare Company production, telling Paul Lieberman in an interview that the king married twice, once to the mother of the depraved older daughters, then to a beloved second Queen Lear [who] died in childbirth. 2 From what Lieberman calls the complex feelings in the recesses of the king s mind, may grow the respect he shows Cordelia But when she gives him a response he does not want, he first shifts to the familiar to remind her that she is his child and must show obedience But goes thy heart with this? (103). When that fails, the familiar becomes the withering medium of his curse: Let it be so: thy truth then be thy dower! (105) Shakespeare reinforces the notion when he has Lear revert to calling Cordelia you, when they are reunited in Act 5, even before he acknowledges that he recognizes her. We can speculate on other relationships. Goneril and Regan, incapable of affection, use the polite forms even on each other. Lear calls France you, but shifts when France takes up Cordelia, Thou hast her, France, let her be thine. (259) France and Kent call Cordelia thou ; Goneril and Burgundy call her you. Clearly, there s food for interpretative study. The prosody of the play s opening scene can lead into rich discussion. Shakespeare clearly marks the distinction between the court assembly that dominates the scene and the more private conversations that begin and end it. Lear s commanding presence changes the lines to verse, where they stay until he exits. Noticing where, how, and why the two shifts occur will prepare a tool that will become more and more useful throughout the play. Shakespeare will have characters share lines of blank verse, sometimes to pull them close to each other, sometimes to underscore conflict. In this scene the most dramatic examples lie in the increasingly fiery exchange between Lear and Kent who interrupt each other s lines, if not always each other s speech, no fewer than seven times in the forty six lines that pick up speed from the pattern ( ). Shakespeare begins to draw France and Cordelia together when he has them share line 220, although both are talking to Lear. By their next shared line, though, France is easing her away from the family that has turned on her, Well may you prosper! / Come, my fair Cordelia. (279) Neither Goneril nor Regan shares a line with anyone else until they unite to gang up on Cordelia, [Regan] Prescribe not us our duty. [Goneril] Let your study / Be to content your lord. (273 74). Finally we list the antitheses that so enhance France s taking up of Cordelia. They come in happy time, too, helping to smooth into courteous behavior what could be played as rougher treatment of a Cordelia who has not openly consented to the bargain. (Does she look wistfully back at Burgundy as she leaves?) 1 Miriam Gilbert. Lecture. The Shakespeare Center, Stratford upon Avon. 19 June Ian McKellen, interviewed by Paul Lieberman for The Knight Who Would Be King, Los Angeles Times, 14 October 2007, F1, Print. 151

155 Shakespeare: King Lear D Act 1, Scene 1 Kent Gloucester Kent Gloucester Enter Kent, Gloucester, and Edmund. I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall. It did always seem so to us; but now in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the Dukes he values most, for equalities are so weighed, that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety. Is not this your son, my lord? His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to't. 10 Kent I cannot conceive you. Gloucester Sir, this young fellow's mother could; whereupon she grew round wombed, and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault? 15 Kent I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper. Gloucester But I have a son, sir, by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account. Though this knave came something saucily to the world before he was 20 sent for, yet was his mother fair, there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged. Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund? Edmund Gloucester No, my lord. My Lord of Kent. Remember him hereafter as my honourable friend. 25 Edmund My services to your lordship. Kent Edmund Gloucester I must love you, and sue to know you better. Sir, I shall study deserving. He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again. [Sound a sennet.] The King is coming. Enter one with a coronet, King Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, and attendants. 30 Lear Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester. Gloucester I shall, my lord. Exit with Edmund Lear Mean time we shall express our darker purpose. Give me the map there. Know that we have divided In three our kingdom; and 'tis our fast intent 35 To shake all cares and business from our age, Conferring them on younger strengths, while we Unburthen'd crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall, And you, our no less loving son of Albany, We have this hour a constant will to publish 40 Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy, Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love, Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn, And here are to be answer'd. Tell me, my daughters 45 (Since now we will divest us both of rule, Interest of territory, cares of state), Which of you shall we say doth love us most, That we our largest bounty may extend Where nature doth with merit challenge? Goneril, 50 Our eldest born, speak first. Goneril Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter, Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty, Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare, No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour; 55 As much as child e'er lov'd, or father found; A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable: Beyond all manner of so much I love you. 152

156 Cordelia [Aside] What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent. Lear Of all these bounds, even from this line to this, 60 With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd, With plenteous rivers and wide skirted meads, We make thee lady. To thine and Albany's [issue] Be this perpetual. What says our second daughter, Our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall? Speak. 65 Regan I am made of that self metal as my sister, And prize me at her worth. In my true heart I find she names my very deed of love; Only she comes too short, that I profess Myself an enemy to all other joys 70 Which the most precious square of sense possesses, And find I am alone felicitate In your dear Highness' love. Cordelia [Aside] Then poor Cordelia! And yet not so, since I am sure my love's 75 More ponderous than my tongue. Lear To thee and thine hereditary ever Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom, No less in space, validity, and pleasure, Than that conferred on Goneril. Now, our joy, 80 Although our last and least, to whose young love The vines of France and milk of Burgundy Strive to be interess'd, what can you say to draw A third more opulent than your sisters'? Speak. Cordelia Nothing, my lord. 85 Lear Nothing? Cordelia Lear Nothing. Nothing will come of nothing, speak again. Cordelia Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty 90 According to my bond, no more nor less. Lear How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little, Lest you may mar your fortunes. Cordelia Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me: I Return those duties back as are right fit, 95 Obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sisters husbands, if they say They love you all? Happily, when I shall wed, That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty. 100 Sure I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all. Lear Cordelia Lear Cordelia But goes thy heart with this? So young, and so untender? So young, my lord, and true. Ay, my good lord. 105 Lear Let it be so: thy truth then be thy dower! For by the sacred radiance of the sun, The mysteries of Hecate and the night; By all the operation of the orbs, From whom we do exist and cease to be; 110 Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity and property of blood, And as a stranger to my heart and me Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian, Or he that makes his generation messes 115 To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and reliev'd, As thou my sometime daughter. Kent Good my liege Lear Peace, Kent! Come not between the dragon and his wrath; 120 I loved her most, and thought to set my rest On her kind nursery. [to Cordelia.] Hence, and avoid my sight! So be my grave my peace, as here I give Her father's heart from her. Call France. Who stirs? Call Burgundy. Cornwall and Albany, 125 With my two daughters' dowers digest the third; 153

157 Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her. I do invest you jointly with my power, Pre eminence, and all the large effects That troop with majesty. Ourself, by monthly course, 130 With reservation of an hundred knights By you to be sustained, shall our abode Make with you by due turn. Only we shall retain The name, and all th' addition to a king; The sway, revenue, execution of the rest, 135 Beloved sons, be yours, which to confirm, This coronet part between you. Kent Royal Lear, Whom I have ever honoured as my king, Loved as my father, as my master followed, As my great patron thought on in my prayers 140 Lear The bow is bent and drawn, make from the shaft. Kent Let it fall rather, though the fork invade The region of my heart; be Kent unmannerly When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man? Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak 145 When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour s bound, When majesty falls to folly. Reserve thy state, And in thy best consideration check This hideous rashness. Answer my life my judgment, Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least, 150 Nor are those empty hearted whose low sounds Reverb no hollowness. Lear Kent, on thy life, no more. Kent My life I never held but as a pawn To wage against thine enemies, nor fear to lose it, Thy safety being motive. Lear Out of my sight! 155 Kent See better, Lear, and let me still remain The true blank of thine eye. Lear Now, by Apollo Kent Now, by Apollo, King, Lear Thou swear'st thy gods in vain. his sword.] O vassal! Miscreant [Starts to draw Alb & Dear sir, forbear. Corn. 160 Kent Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift, Or whilst I can vent clamor from my throat, I'll tell thee thou dost evil. Lear Hear me, recreant, On thine allegiance, hear me! 165 That thou hast sought to make us break our vows, Which we durst never yet, and with strain'd pride To come betwixt our sentence and our power, Which nor our nature nor our place can bear, Our potency made good, take thy reward. 170 Five days we do allot thee, for provision To shield thee from disasters of the world, And on the sixth to turn thy hated back Upon our kingdom. If, on the tenth day following, Thy banished trunk be found in our dominions, 175 The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter, This shall not be revok'd. Kent Fare thee well, King; sith thus thou wilt appear, Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here. [To Cordelia.] The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid, 180 That justly think'st and hast most rightly said! [To Regan and Goneril.] And your large speeches may your deeds approve, That good effects may spring from words of love. Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu, He'll shape his old course in a country new. Exit Flourish. Enter Gloucester with France and Burgundy, attendants. 185 Cordelia? Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord. Lear My Lord of Burgundy, We first address toward you, who with this king Hath rivalled for our daughter. What, in the least, 154

158 Will you require in present dower with her, 190 Or cease your quest of love? Burgundy Most royal Majesty, I crave no more than hath your Highness offered, Nor will you tender less. Lear Right noble Burgundy, When she was dear to us, we did hold her so, But now her price is fallen. Sir, there she stands: 195 If aught within that little seeming substance, Or all of it, with our displeasure pieced, And nothing more, may fitly like your Grace, She's there, and she is yours. Burgundy I know no answer. Lear Will you, with those infirmities she owes, 200 Unfriended, new adopted to our hate, Dowered with our curse, and strangered with our oath, Take her, or leave her? Burgundy Pardon me, royal sir, Election makes not up in such conditions. Lear Then leave her, sir, for by the power that made me, 205 I tell you all her wealth. [To France.] For you, great King, I would not from your love make such a stray To match you where I hate; therefore beseech you T' avert your liking a more worthier way Than on a wretch whom Nature is ashamed 210 Almost t' acknowledge hers. France This is most strange, That she, whom even but now was your best object, The argument of your praise, balm of your age, The best, the dearest, should in this trice of time Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle 215 So many folds of favour. Sure her offence Must be of such unnatural degree That monsters it, or your fore vouch'd affection Fall into taint; which to believe of her Must be a faith that reason without miracle 220 Should never plant in me. Cordelia I yet beseech your Majesty If for I want that glib and oily art To speak and purpose not, since what I well intend, I'll do't before I speak that you make known It is no vicious blot, murther, or foulness, 225 No unchaste action, or dishonoured step, That hath deprived me of your grace and favour, But even for want of that for which I am richer A still soliciting eye, and such a tongue That I am glad I have not, though not to have it 230 Hath lost me in your liking. Lear Better thou Hadst not been born than not t' have pleased me better. France Is it but this a tardiness in nature Which often leaves the history unspoke That it intends to do? My Lord of Burgundy, 235 What say you to the lady? Love's not love When it is mingled with regards that stands Aloof from th' entire point. Will you have her? She is herself a dowry. Burgundy Royal King, Give but that portion which yourself proposed, 240 And here I take Cordelia by the hand, Duchess of Burgundy. Lear Nothing. I have sworn, I am firm. Burgundy I am sorry then you have so lost a father That you must lose a husband. Cordelia Peace be with Burgundy! 245 Since that respect and fortune are his love, I shall not be his wife. France Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor, Most choice forsaken, and most loved despised, Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon, 250 Be it lawful I take up what's cast away. Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st neglect My love should kindle to inflamed respect. Thy dowerless daughter, King, thrown to my chance, Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France. 255 Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy 155

159 Can buy this unprized precious maid of me. Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind, Thou losest here, a better where to find. Lear Thou hast her, France, let her be thine, for we 260 Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see That face of hers again. [to Cordelia.] Therefore be gone, Without our grace, our love, our benison. Come, noble Burgundy. [Flourish. Exeunt all but France, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia] France Bid farewell to your sisters. 265 Cordelia The jewels of our father, with washed eyes Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are, And like a sister am most loath to call Your faults as they are named. Love well our father; To your professed bosoms I commit him, 270 But yet, alas, stood I within his grace, I would prefer him to a better place. So farewell to you both. Regan Prescribe not us our duty. Goneril Let your study Be to content your lord, who hath received you 275 At fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted, And well are worth the want that you have wanted. Cordelia Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides, Who covers faults, at last with shame derides. Well may you prosper! France Come, my fair Cordelia. [Exeunt France and Cordelia.] 280 Goneril Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most nearly appertains to us both. I think our father will hence to night. Regan That's most certain, and with you; next month with us. Goneril You see how full of changes his age is; the observation we 285 have made of it hath not been little. He always loved our sister most, and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off appears too grossly. Regan 'Tis the infirmity of his age, yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself. 290 Goneril The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look from his age to receive not alone the imperfections of long ingraffed condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them. 295 Regan Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent's banishment. Goneril There is further compliment of leave taking between France and him. Pray you let us hit together; if our father carry authority with such disposition as he bears, this last 300 surrender of his will but offend us. Regan We shall further think of it. Goneril We must do something, and i' th' heat. [Exeunt.] 156

160 KING LEAR 1.1 Teaching Notes for a Close Reading Exercise 1. Vocabulary line Current words word 1 6 moiety 2 9 brazen (v) 3 19 saucily 4 43 amorous 5 43 sojourn 6 51 wield 7 60 champaign 8 61 mead 9 62 issue ponderous opulent dower propinquity mess hence vassal aught beseech trice alms choleric Obsolete words line word 1 21 whoreson 2 71 felicitate? 3 82 interess miscreant forbear durst nor nor sith aught / naught therewhital line Danger words word 1 4 appears 2 10 conceive 3 15 issue 4 20 fair 5 27 study 6 34 fast 7 39 constant 8 40 several 9 48 bounty space self metal square hereditary how fit happily mess sometime(s) nursery fork dread reserve pawn right like even fold want purpose portion study hit 157

161 2. Familiar and Formal Address Characters who use formal address: Speaker addressed form line Kent to Gloucester you 7 Gloucester to Edmund you 13 Edmund to Kent you 25 Kent to Edmund you 26 Lear to Albany you 38 Goneril to Lear you 51 Regan to Lear you 72 Lear to Cordelia you 82 Cordelia to Lear you 89 Lear to Burgundy you 187 Burgundy to Lear you 191 Lear to France you 205 France to Burgundy you 235 Burgundy to Cordelia you 243 Goneril to Cordelia you 273 Regan to Goneril you 283 Goneril to Regan you 284 France to Lear your 211 Characters who use familiar address: speaker addressed form line France to Cordelia art 247 Lear to Goneril thee 62 Lear to Regan thee 76 Kent to Cordelia thee 179 Kent to Lear thou 143 Lear to France thou 259 Lear to Cordelia thy 102 Lear to Kent thy 151 Summary There are 26 pairs of characters 8 use the familiar forms (5 of those are Lear) 1 character changes his form of address (Lear to Cordelia) 3. Prosody Lines 1 31 are prose (Kent, Gloucester, and Edmund) Lines are verse (the court scene) Lines are prose (Goneril and Regan) So: Prose accounts for 54 lines, or 18% of the scene Verse accounts for 248 lines or 82% of the scene No character uses any prose while King Lear is on stage. Lear has the first line of blank verse; Cordelia has the last. When Goneril and Regan are left alone, they fall immediately into prose. Both Kent and Gloucester change from prose to blank verse when Lear enters. 158

162 4. Shared Lines Line Begun by Ended by 92 Lear Cordelia 102 Lear Cordelia 117 Lear Kent 136 Lear Kent 151 Kent Lear 154 Kent Lear 157 Lear Kent 158 Kent Lear 163 Kent Lear 190 Lear Burgundy 192 Burgundy Lear Line Begun by Ended by 198 Lear Burgundy 203 Lear Burgundy 210 Lear France 220 France Cordelia 230 Cordelia Lear 238 France Burgundy 244 Burgundy Cordelia 264 Lear France 273 Regan Goneril 279 Cordelia France 5. Antithesis France s speech on Cordelia: line 247 rich poor 248 choice forsaken 248 loved despised 250 take up cast away cold inflamed neglect respect 253 dowerless queen 256 unprized precious 159

163 KING LEAR 1.1 Text Questions Familiar forms of address Does Shakespeare have Burgundy address Cordelia as you or thou? Why? Does he have France address Cordelia as you or thou? Why? Lear calls Cordelia you in lines 82, 91, and 92. But he shifts to thy in line 102 and will not call her you again. Why does Shakespeare have him change? Why does Lear say call Goneril and Regan thou/thee/thy in lines 62 and 76, while he is still calling Cordelia you? Kent addresses Lear by titles only, without pronouns, calling him good my liege, Royal Lear, my king my father my master my great patron. Why does he shift suddenly to thou in line 143? Prosody Why does Shakespeare have Kent, Gloucester, and Edmund speak in prose in lines 1 31? Why does he shift to verse for the court scene of lines ? Why does he shift back to prose for the balance of the scene? To which character does Shakespeare give the first line of blank verse in the scene? What comment might he be making about him? To which character does Shakespeare give the last line of blank verse in the scene? What comment might he be making about her? Shared Lines Shakespeare will often have two characters share a line of blank verse, usually to subtly indicate a closeness, sometimes to quicken the pace of an exchange. (Occasionally it s not Shakespeare at all but a type compositor or editor who has split the line.) What purposes can we reasonably attribute to the sharing of the following lines? Lear and Kent in lines 117 and 136 Kent and Lear in lines 154 and 158 Lear and Burgundy in lines 190 and 198 Lear and France in line 264 Regan and Goneril in line 273 Cordelia and France in line

164 Antithesis and Paradox Shakespeare structures the King of France s comment on Cordelia around a set of antitheses, beginning with rich poor in line 247. List six or seven more examples from that speech. Then decide what impression of Cordelia they are intended to make on the audience. What impression of France do they create? What impression of Lear? of Burgundy? Word Order Shakespeare will alter the normal order of words in an English sentence in order to keep the meter of a line of verse or to emphasize a word or phrase by moving it to the end of a phase or sentence. Rewrite the following lines, putting the words back in their normal order. Then decide why he makes each change. (Words have been omitted in some places here; you do not need to replace them.) he shall to my bosom/be as well neighbour d As thou my sometime daughter. ( ) Ourself, by monthly course, With reservation of an hundred knights By you to be sustained, shall our abode Make with you by due turn. ( ) The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid, (179) He ll shape his old course in a country new. (184) We shall further think of it. (301) Word omission Shakespeare will often omit words we would not drop in normal speech. (The verb to go often disappears, as it does in line 28). Again, he s often preserving the meter or adding emphasis. What words are missing from these lines? The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid, (179) Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind. (257) Shifting Parts of Speech Shakespeare will often create a new word by changing the part of speech of a familiar one. France says Cordelia s misdeed must be monstrous by verbalizing the noun monster: Her offence/must be of such unnatural degree/that monsters it (217). Explain the similar shifts in the following lines: Thou losest here, a better where to find. (258) And find I am alone felicitate In your dear Highness love. (71 72) 161

165 KING LEAR 1.1 Production Questions 1. If Lear plans to divide his kingdom among his three daughters, why do Kent and Gloucester talk as if they already know he is going to split it between Albany and Cornwall? (1 6) 2. Why does Kent change the subject so suddenly and quickly? (7) 3. Does Edmund hear what his father says about him? (8 21) If so, how does he react? If not, does someone enter with him at line 1? Who? 4. In what tone does Gloucester deliver the comments about Edmund? Are they comments bitter insults? good humored joking? didactic warnings? something else? Is his audience for these lines Kent or Edmund or himself or some combination of the three? 5. What is the subtext of Edmund s line I must love you? (26) Do you want the actor to say must in a tone that shows that he means he feels a desire? he feels a social obligation? he is obliged to follow his father s unreasonable orders? Something else? 6. Does Edmund react to Gloucester s statement that away he shall again? (28) If so, how? 7. To whom is Lear speaking in the first part of line 33? Where did the map come from? What does it look like? Does Lear take it? put it on a table? the floor? the wall? 8. How big a crowd is on stage here? Do you want a huge court assembly with a score of unnamed courtiers looking on? Is it more of a family gathering? Something else? 9. We learn in line 44 that it s a special day at court. How does Lear say lines 41 44? How do those on stage react? Cordelia? Burgundy? France? Kent? Goneril? Regan? 10. Has Lear prepared this speech? Is he delivering it impromptu or from notes? How attentively is each of the others listening? Why? 11. Why on earth does Lear suddenly break away from announcing his favorite daughter s engagement to start the love test? Notice that Shakespeare doesn t even let him wait until the end of a line. 12. The parenthetical lines do not appear in the Quarto version of the play. Should they be included here? If so, in what tone do you want the actor to read them? 13. Do Goneril and Regan know this game is coming? Are they delivering prepared speeches? 14. Shakespeare has Lear mention Goneril and Regan s children, knowing that neither has one to inherit the kingdom (lines 62 and 76). Is he mocking them or their husbands? Implying a request? a command? something else? 15. What possible topics or themes of the play might Shakespeare be signaling this early in these lines: Out of my sight! See better, Lear, and let me still remain The true blank of thine eye. (154 56) a wretch whom Nature is ashamed Almost t acknowledge hers. ( ) That we our largest bounty may extend Where nature doth with merit challenge (48 49) be Kent unmannerly When Lear is mad. (142 43) To plainness honour s bound, When majesty falls to folly. (145 46) Who covers faults, at last with shame derides. (278) 162

166 Close Reading Practice King Lear Act 1, scene 1 Diction 1 Cordelia [aside]: And yet not so, since I am sure my love s More ponderous than my tongue DISCUSS APPLY 1. What meaning of her love for her father does Cordelia intend by the word ponderous? 2. What impression of the love her sisters have described does the word ponderous imply? (And, for fun, are those implications Cordelia s or Shakespeare s?) Write a comment about yourself or someone else in which you use a word normally reserved for physical size or weight or the like to describe an abstract part of personality. Diction 2 France: Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy Can buy this unprized precious maid of me DISCUSS APPLY 3. What different meanings can the King of France intend by using the word waterish? 4. How would the line s effect change if the word river fed is substituted? Write two lines of blank verse in which a descriptive word carries a quibble similar to Shakespeare s. Detail 1 Goneril: Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter, Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty, Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare, No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour; As much as child e'er lov'd, or father found; A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable: Beyond all manner of so much I love you DISCUSS APPLY 5. What irony does Shakespeare intend by the detail in Goneril s profession that her love makes speech unable? 6. Which of the other details she mentions might impress Lear? Compose a list of at least five details Shakespeare might have had Goneril mention that could have made her profession of love more convincing. 163

167 Detail 2 Cordelia: It is no vicious blot, murther, or foulness, No unchaste action, or dishonoured step, That hath deprived me of your grace and favour, But even for want of that for which I am richer A still soliciting eye, and such a tongue That I am glad I have not DISCUSS APPLY 7. Cordelia gives specific examples of the vicious blot and foulness she says she does not have. What general term would encompass the two virtues she names? 8. Why is the line more effective than if she simply named a general category of virtue? Rewrite the last two lines mentioning hand and ear as details instead of eye and tongue. Imagery 1 Lear: Now our joy, Although our last and least, to whose young love The vines of France and milk of Burgundy Strive to be interessed DISCUSS APPLY 9. What is the effect of Lear s using the images of vines and milk instead of directly naming Cordelia s two suitors? 10. How would the audience s reaction differ if Lear simply said to whose young love two princes strive to be interessed? Compose a list of six places countries, states, or regions and identify an appropriate image similar to Lear s for each. Imagery 2 Lear: For by the sacred radiance of the sun, The mysteries of Hecate and the night; By all the operation of the orbs, From whom we do exist and cease to be; Here I disclaim all my paternal care DISCUSS APPLY 11. What do the images of sun, night, and orbs reveal to the audience about Lear s state of mind in this speech? 12. Into what categories could you fit the set of images in these lines? Write a brief paragraph in which you use imagery of light from the sky to create a tone for a reader. Lear: Cordelia: DISCUSS APPLY Syntax 1 So young, and so untender? So young, my lord, and true What is the effect of Shakespeare s having Cordelia echo in her answer the syntax of her father s question? 2. The pattern of blank verse is broken by the syntax in these two lines. What ideas might Shakespeare be suggesting by that break? Write two lines of blank verse in which one character answers another; have the character echo the syntax of the question in the answer. 164

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169 Acting Companies: Performance Preparation Editing 1. Make copies of the scene for everyone in the company 2. Read the scene aloud going around the group. As you read, circle any words and phrases you don t understand. 3. For those words, decide on a definition. Only if you feel a pressing need, get a definition from notes, dictionary, or the teacher. 4. Read the scene again, deciding together what each speech means. 5. Read the scene again, deciding on the objective of each character. Agree on the subtexts. 6. Decide how your passage fits into the context of the act and the whole play. 7. Read the scene again to edit out lines. Remember that your performance is limited to ten minutes, but cut only lines unessential to the scene s meaning. 8. Read the scene again; decide if the editing works. Casting 9. When everyone has a comfortable understanding of the scene, cast parts. 10. If you don t have enough people in your company, you may have members double, that is, play two roles or, if the extra characters have only one or two lines, you might find other ways to work the scene. 11. If you have too many people, you may split larger parts (have two Violas, for instance) or consider including choral reading. 12. Appoint a director to oversee the whole production. Blocking 13. Read thorough the scene, locating character entrances and exits. They do not have to be in the places the original script has them. 14. Decide on appropriate placement and movements for the characters and write them into your script. 15. Move through the blocking several times, talking about what to do is not the same. Are you avoiding lining up like prisoners awaiting execution? Characterization 16. Read through your lines silently and aloud many times until you re sure you understand what you want every word, phrase, and sentence to mean. 17. Identify your character s objective in the passage. 18. Decide what words, phrases, or ideas need to be stressed and indicate them on your script. 19. Decide where pauses are appropriate and indicate them on your script 20. Identify your movements and gestures. 21. Read your part aloud many times. You are to memorize the part fully, but you should feel comfortable with it when you perform for the class. You will not read your lines during the performance. 22. Enjoy yourselves. But remember that you will play the scene straight. Parodies forfeit all credit. Furniture, Props, Costumes 23. Decide if you need furniture. Remember that classroom desks can be trees, walls, nearly anything. 24. Decide what props you need and who will bring them. Rehearse at least twice with all the physical pieces you will use. 25. Decide on costumes. These should not be elaborate but should clearly suggest your character. Rehearse 26. Rehearse your scene several times. Remember the more you practice, the more relaxed you will be. 27. Get on your feet and go through the scene, acting out the parts. 28. Use your notes on blocking to help you decide where to come in, where to stand, which direction to turn while speaking, where to exit, and the like. 29. Listen to your director for suggestions about changes in blocking, movement, inflections, pauses, characterization, and the like. 30. Consider making a video of your rehearsal. Then watch it and decide what you want to improve. Improve it. 31. Recruit someone from outside your team to act as prompter during your performance. adapted from Shakespeare Set Free. 166

170 Group Participation Evaluation Name of group: Play: Date: Criteria (1 (low 10 (high) own name member member member member member 1 Attended all meetings Present at all scheduled meetings 2 Came on time to all meetings 3 Was positive Helped the group move toward success 4 Completed responsibilities Indicate which responsibilities (e.g., actor, leader, editor, recorder, wardrobe, research, video, or specify which other) 5 Worked as a group member Total possible: 50 Positive comments: Negative comments: (if any) Folger Shakespeare Library [Alice Kotake, Honolulu] 167

171 Live Performance Reviews Some purposes of viewing live performances for students are to acquaint them with final productions, to familiarize them with different genres, to expose them to what is possible and to heighten their skills of analysis. At a play, you want to watch, among other things: the actors the staging the audience Assess the actors: Are they believable? Why or why not? Can you hear them? Does it seem like the characters are listening to each other and responding as people? Are the actors movements distracting or a part of the character? Was there any energy? Which characters were most memorable? Why? The staging includes sets, lights, sound effects, makeup/costumes, props, and overall blocking (movement around the stage). Describe and evaluate the sets, lights, and sound. Did these things seem unified? Did they help the overall meaning of the play? Why or why not? Was the stage balanced? Did the movements of the characters seem random? Purposeful? Were there any dominant or symbolic uses of color, etc.? Audiences play a large role in the total theatre experience. Size and responsiveness are key elements to the actors performances. Did the audience laugh appropriately? Was there applause? Did the audience talk about the performance during or after the show? What did they say? Why? The following table describes the criteria on which your performance reviews will be evaluated. ACTING STAGING AUDIENCE QUALITY OF WRITING 5 Adds more depth to actor evaluation. Adds valid areas for judgement and supports all opinions. 4 Addresses all of the questions above. 3 May leave out some details and one of the questions. Doesn t support judgement with specifics. Adds more depth. Adds valid areas for judgement and supports all opinions. Addresses all of the questions above May leave out some details and one of the questions. Doesn t support judgement with specifics. Really looks at the audience and gives specifics of reactions. Explains the reactions. Addresses all of the questions above May leave out some details and one of the questions. Doesn t support judgement with specifics. 2 Very brief. No/few details. Very brief. No/few details. Leaves this one out or too vague. 1 Can barely tell if show was seen. Leaves out one of these three sections or more. Can barely tell if show was seen. Leaves out one of these three sections or more. Can barely tell if show was seen. Leaves out one of these three sections or more. Smooth prose, few errors. Does not read like a worksheet. Clear, though brief. No more than asked for. Errors. Some factual or writing problems. May be sloppy and hard to read. Many writing errors and too brief. Could also just be a weak paper. Many writing errors and too brief 0 Nothing Nothing Nothing Nothing Kristina Z YOUNG [kristinayoung@juno.com]wed 8/30/00 16:01 168

172 Annotating a Scene The stage 1. Scenery Describe the scenery at the scene's opening and use marginal notes to show where changes are needed. 2. Costumes Describe the costumes at each character's entrance and with marginal notes where changes are needed. 3. Sound Effects: Show with a marginal note at the appropriate line; indicate if the sound is to precede, accompany, or follow a specific word. Music: Identify the music and show with a marginal note at the appropriate line where it is to begin and where it is to end. 4. Lighting Identify what kind of lighting is to be used; describe colors and brightness; identify characters to be lit differently from the rest of the stage; use marginal notes to indicate lighting changes or spotlights on characters or objects. 5. Properties Identify the props needed for the scene in a separate list at the end of the script. 6. Blocking Indicate in the margin at the appropriate line where characters are to enter, stand, change position on the stage, and exit. 7. Gestures and Business. Indicate marginally gestures to be made by the speaker (or by others on stage) and "business," telling which character is to start and stop doing what at what points The default Bare stage Traditional costume for the play No sounds No music No stage lighting; natural lighting only on stage and house No props All actors grouped at center stage down No gestures or stage business The script 1. Cut lines Indicate lines to be cut by a single line through the words to be deleted. 2. Rearrange lines Indicate lines to be moved by arrows or by recopying. All lines as printed 3. Reassign lines Indicate lines to be given to different characters by changing the speech label. 4. Stress Indicate words or phrases to be stressed by underlining. Monotone delivery 5. Pauses Indicate pauses by a double slash: [//]. No pauses 169

173 Character Analysis Sheet a place to start Physiology 1. Sex 2. Age 3. Height and weight 4. Color of hair, eyes, skin 5. Posture and character center 6. Appearance the impression your physical appearance creates (sloppy, neat, dirty, clean, stylish, tacky, etc.) 7. Defects (deformities, abnormalities, diseases) Sociology 8. Class (lower, middle, upper) 9. Occupation (type of work, hours, income, working conditions, feeling about job, suitability for job, career ambitions) 10. Education (amount, kind of schools, marks, favorite subject, poorest subject) 11. Home life (parents: are they living? are they divorced? Do they work? Do you have siblings? Your family status: single? married? with children?) 14. Position in the community (community leader, very social, few friends, loner, etc.) 15. Political affiliations 16. Amusements, hobbies Psychology 17. Sex life 18. Moral standards 19. Personal goals (major emotional wants or needs which you would like fulfilled) 20. Frustrations, chief disappointments 21. Chief sources of pride, satisfaction, fulfillment 22. Chief fears, inhibitions, superstitions, phobias Favorites / Allergies Religion 13. Nationality Rosemary Walsh, DukeEllington High School for the Arts, Washington, DC 170

174 SHAKESPEARE A MIDSUMMER NIGHT S DREAM Act 1, Scene 2 Enter QUINCE the carpenter and SNUG the joiner and BOTTOM the weaver and FLUTE the bellows mender nd SNOUT the tinker and STARVELING the tailor. Quince 1 Bottom 1 Quince 1 Bottom 1 Quince 1 Bottom 1 Quince 1 Bottom 1 Quince 1 Bottom 1 Quince 1 Is all our company here? You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip. Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our enterlude before the Duke and the Duchess, on his wedding day at night. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point. Marry, our play is The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves. Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom the weaver. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant? A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love. Bottom 1 Quince 2 Flute 2 Quince 2 Flute 2 Quince 2 Flute 2 Quince 2 That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes. I will move storms; I will condole in some measure. To the rest yet my chief humor is for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. The raging rocks And shivering shocks Shall break the locks Of prison gates; And Phibbus' car Shall shine from far, And make and mar The foolish Fates. This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players.this is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is more condoling. Francis Flute the bellows mender. Here, Peter Quince. Flute, you must take Thisby on you. What is Thisby? a wand'ring knight? It is the lady that Pyramus must love. Nay, faith; let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will. 171

175 Bottom 2 Quince 2 Bottom 2 Quince 2 Starveling 2 Quince 2 Snout 2 Quince 2 Snug 2 Quince 2 Bottom 2 Quince 2 All And I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too. I'll speak in a monstrous little voice, "Thisne! Thisne! Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear! thy Thisby dear, and lady dear!" No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby. Well, proceed. Robin Starveling the tailor. Here, Peter Quince. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother. Tom Snout the tinker. Here, Peter Quince. You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug the joiner, you the lion's part. And I hope here is a play fitted. Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. Let me play the lion too. I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me. I will roar, that I will make the Duke say, "Let him roar again; let him roar again." And you should do it too terribly, you would fright the Duchess and the ladies, that they would shrike; and that were enough to hang us all. That would hang us, every mother's son. Bottom 2 Quince 3 Bottom 3 Quince 3 Bottom 3 Quince 3 Bottom 3 Quince 3 Bottom 3 I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us; but I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you and 'twere any nightingale. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet fac'd man; a proper man as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely gentleman like man: therefore you must needs play Pyramus. Well; I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in? Why, what you will. I will discharge it in either your strawcolor beard, your orange tawny beard, your purple in grain beard, or your French crown color beard, your perfit yellow. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all; and then you will play barefac'd. But, masters, here are your parts, and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by tomorrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse; for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogg'd with company, and our devices known. In the mean time I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you fail me not. We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains, be perfit; adieu. At the Duke's oak we meet. Enough; hold, or cut bow strings. Exeunt 172

176 Rhythm and Meter Say! I like green eggs and ham! I do! I like them, Sam-I-am! And I would eat them in a boat. And I would eat them with a goat And I will eat them in the rain. And in the dark. And on a train. And in a car. And in a tree. They are so good, so good, you see! So I will eat them in a box. And I will eat them with a fox. And I will eat them in a house. And I will eat them with a mouse. And I will eat them here and there. Say! I will eat them ANYWHERE! I do so like green eggs and ham! Thank you! Thank you, Sam-I-am! And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend. If you pardon, we will mend. And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearnèd luck Now to scape the serpent s tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call. So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends. [Exit.] (A Midsummer Night s Dream, ) If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumb red here While these visions did appear. 173

177 THE STORY ABOUT PRODUCTION Lear, king of Britain, a petulant and unwise old man, has three daughters: Goneril, wife of the duke of Albany, Regan, wife of the duke of Cornwall, and Cordelia, for whom the king of France and duke of Burgundy are suitors. Intending to divide his kingdom among his daughters according to their affection for him, he bids them say which loves him most. Goneril and Regan profess extreme affection, and each receives one third of the kingdom. Cordelia, disgusted with their hollow flattery, says she loves him according to her duty, not more nor less. Infuriated with this reply, Lear divides her portion between his other daughters, with the condition that he, with 100 knights, shall live with each daughter in turn. Burgundy withdraws his suit for Cordelia, and the king of France accepts her without dowry. The earl of Kent takes her part and is banished. Goneril and Regan reveal their heartless character by refusing their father the maintenance they had promised, and finally turning him out of doors in a storm. The earl of Gloucester shows pity for the old king, and is suspected of complicity with the French, who have landed in England. His eyes are put out by Cornwall, who receives a death wound in the affray. Gloucester s son Edgar, who has been traduced to his father by his bastard brother Edmund, takes the disguise of a lunatic beggar, and tends his father till Gloucester dies. Lear, who has gone mad from rage and ill treatment, is taken by the disguised faithful Kent to Dover, where Cordelia receives him. Meanwhile Goneril and Regan have both turned their affections to Edmund. Embittered by this rivalry, Goneril poisons Regan and takes her own life. The English forces under Edmund and Albany defeat the French, and Lear and Cordelia are imprisoned, by Edmund s order. Cordelia is hanged, and Lear dies from grief. The treachery of Edmund is proved by his brother Edgar. Gloucester s heart has Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief, Burst smilingly. Albany, who has not abetted Goneril in her cruel treatment of Lear, takes over the kingdom The rule for producing Shakespeare's plays is that no words are ever to be added. Directors often move lines, though, or assign them to other characters and are always free to cut words, lines, or whole scenes. The director must also add stage "business," since the text gives little. There is no "right" way to do a Shakespeare play since setting, too, always reflects directorial not authorial decision. so directors must decide in what general place and time they are going to set a play..shakespeare s plays get moved frequently. We ve seen The Tempest set in tropical islands, fantasy islands (yes!), and outer space. We ve seen Hamlet wearing everything from armor to pyjamas to jeans and cowboy boots. Tonight s production of King Lear will use modern dress and sets. Now you think as a producer/director: What setting will you use? What kids of costumes will you choose for each of the characters? What colors will you have dominate the sets and costumes? What one special effect will you use to enhance your production? (Money s no object.) What music will help your production, and in what scenes? SIX IDEAS King Lear can be studied as a definition. Choose one or two major characters and watch what they say and do to give definition to one of these terms: love duty madness loyalty evil sight/blindness The summary of King Lear is adapted from Margaret Drabble, The Oxford Companion to English Literature, revised 5th ed., Oxford: Oxford UP, Print. The Long Beach Shakespeare Company The Richard Goad Theater Long Beach Our High School Drama d English Pasadena 174

178 THE FOOL Fools were popular well before Elizabethan times, In the Middle Ages, jesters were common as household servants to the rich. They often wore the traditional costume of the coxcomb (jester s cap) with hells, and a motley (multi coloured) coat Their role to entertain with witty words and songs, and to make critical comment on contemporary behaviour. An allowed fool, such as Feste in Twelfth Night, was able to say what he thought without fear of punishment. Lear s Fool is all licensed, and so can speak frankly and critically about anything and anyone, especially his master, the king He acts as a kind of dramatic chorus, an ironic commentator on the action he observes,, constantly reminding Lear of his folly. Lear is relentlessly used as the butt of the Fool s barbed comments. The Fool moves easily between different styles of humour: stand up comedy ( Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav st thy golden one away ), song ( Fools had ne er less grace in a year... ), rhyme or proverb ( Fathers that wear rags / Do make their children blind... ); and innuendo ( She that s a maid now. ) Some of the Fool s words may be puzzling, but all carry significance for Lear s plight For example, So out went the candle, and we were left darkling, spoken as Goneril begins to undermine Lear s sanity, eerily prophesies the blindness and confusion that follow. From his first appearance, his special relationship with Lear is evident. It allows him to escape punishment for his stinging criticisms, and sees him following Lear selflessly into the storm, almost as if he were Lear s alter ego, his second, more sane self One production highlighted the relationship between Cordelia and the Fool by beginning with an ominous tableau of them with their necks linked by a hangman s noose. And it s not unusual to cast the same actor to play both roles, another way to leave an echo in an audience s mind. SOME GRAMMAR OF EARLY MODERN ENGLISH Familiar pronouns: Modern English has dropped a set of pronouns and verbs called the familiar or thee and thou forms once used among close friends and family and to inferiors children, animals, and inanimate objects. These old forms did, though, survive into Elizabethan England and appear frequently in Shakespeare. Singular 1st I me my, *mine 2nd thou thee thy, *thine 3rd he, she him, her his, hers Plural 1st we us our, ours 2nd you (ye) you your, yours 3rd they them their, theirs *forms used before a noun beginning with a vowel or unpronounced h Verb forms: The second person singular (familiar) adds the ending est, st, or st. Examples: thou gives, thou sing s Here are the forms of some irregular verbs: present you are have will thou art hast wilt past you were had would thou wert hadst wouldst present you can shall do thou canst shalt dost past you could should did thou couldst shouldst didst Third person verb endings: The third person singular often substitutes th for s. Examples: she giveth (for she gives) it raineth every day (for rains) HEARING SHAKESPEARE We talk about seeing or going to, a play or a movie. People in Renaissance England, though, spoke of hearing a play. We watch to see what happens. They knew what was to happen; they listened for how it sounded. The biggest challenge Shakespeare s plays pose for us is not that the language is old; it isn t; it s Modern English. The challenge is that it s poetry. Nearly all of Lear is written in blank verse, that is, in unrhymed iambic pentameter lines of five feet, each one an iamb, or set of two syllables, the first of which is unstressed and the second of which is stressed like the word to DAY. Cordelia tells her father that she loves him, according to my bond, no more, nor less. Although that rhythm is entirely natural to English speech, Shakespeare will often do things we are not used to in order to accommodate the beat. Words will come in an unusual order, as when France says, Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon instead of Here I seize upon thee and thy virtues. Words even disappear at times, as in Let s away for Let s go away. It takes most people about 15 minutes to get used to the rhythms and word order and to be comfortable with the language. The best advice is to relax and listen to it as music. The meaning will come. Honest. The second challenge comes from the grammar (see the panel to the left). The third challenge is Shakespeare s huge vocabulary. There are a few tricks for dealing with it, but in the theater it s best to let the actors help define the words with tone and gesture. This table might help with six common words: here there where to hither thither wither from hence thence whence 175

179 The Witches Spell Shakespeare Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1 Background Effects 1 Witch Thrice the brinded cat hat mew d 1 2 Witch Thrice: and once the hedge pig whin d. 1 3 Witch Harpier cries: tis time, tis time. 1 1 Witch Round about the caldron go; 2 In the poison d entrails throw. 2 Days and nights hast thirty one 2 Swelter d venom sleeping got, 3 Boil thou first i the charmed pot! 3 All Double, double toil and trouble; 3 Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble. 1 & 3 2 Witch Fillet of a fenny snake, 2 In the caldron boil and bake; 2 Eye of newt, and toe of frog, 2 Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, 1 Adder s fork, and blind worm s sting, 1 Lizard s leg, and howlet s wing, 1 For a charm of powerful trouble, 1, 2 & 3 Like a hell broth boil and bubble. 3 All Double, double toil and trouble; 3 Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble. 3 3 Witch Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, 1 & 2 Witches mummy, maw and gulf 3 Of the ravin d salt sea shark, 3 Root of hemlock, digg d i the dark 1 & 2 All Double, double toil and trouble; 3 Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble. 1, 2 & 3 1. Wind Group 1 = Sounds of wind 2. Dogs (wolves & the like) Group 2 = Dogs howling &c. 3. Birds (owls & the like) Group 3 = Owls hooting &c. 176

180 Hamlet Soliloquy Analysis Hamlet's soliloquies O that this too, too solid flesh would melt O what a rogue and peasant slave am I To be or not to be 'Tis now the very witching time of night Now might I do it pat How all occasions do inform against me... Claudius's soliloquies , O my offence is rank And England, if my love thou hold'st at aught... Some questions 1. Who delivers the soliloquy? 2. In what act and scene the soliloquy occur? 3. What specific incident or what words of other characters seem to prompt the soliloquy? 4. What actual facts does the soliloquy contain about the plot? about the character's motivation and actions? 5. What general mood or frame of mind is the character in at the point of the soliloquy? What one dominant emotion would you have an actor work to communicate through the soliloquy, and what are your second and third choices? Should the actor show a shift in emotion or attitude? At what point? 6. What inferences can we draw from the soliloquy about the character's attitudes toward circumstances, other characters, life, or fate? Have any of those attitudes changed? 7. Does the soliloquy seem to divide naturally into parts? How many parts, and where are the divisions? Do the main ideas appear to be arranged in a deliberate order? 8. Does one question or problem dominate the soliloquy? Do any answers or solutions appear? 9. Do any words, phrases, or grammatical constructions recur during the soliloquy? What effect would they create on stage? 10. What images in the soliloquy would you have an actor try to stress? How do they relate to the rest of the play? Do any images recur during the soliloquy? 11. What figurative language stands out in the soliloquy? What irony? Would you have the actor stress it in delivery? How? 12. Do you want the actor standing, sitting, leaning, crouching? Where on the stage should the actor stand? Do you want the actor to move during the soliloquy? At what point in the speech and to where on the stage? Does the text give the actor any business during the soliloquy? Do you want to add some? Where and what? 13. How do you want the actor to read the soliloquy? At what general pace should it proceed? Where should the pace change? Where do you want the actor to pause, and for how long? That facial expressions do you want the actor to use, and where should they change? 14. What scenery and what props should be visible during the soliloquy? Do you want to project any images onto the stage? What kind of lighting would be most effective? Would it change? Would any sound effects enhance the soliloquy? 177

181 Writing with Shakespeare Study While reading: Dialectical journal Summarize each act briefly, with key actions Assign titles, chosen from the words in the text, to acts or scenes Collect pieces of thick text hard parts, great parts, pattern parts Respond to those quotations in your journal with Questions on words or actions Ideas for staging Connections to anything you find relevant Before casting: Application paragraphs Name three roles you would like to play: one major, one character part, one minor. Identify a key line or pattern of words in each role, and write a paragraph for each role, explaining how you see yourself delivering those lines. During rehearsal: Helpful questions for actors in your company Write out thoughtful questions to help other actors clarify certain lines for you. You are their first audience. Help them connect. Deliver the questions on paper or electronically and then work on those you receive about your role. Write back, but also enact the answer on stage. After casting: Character development Identify the lines that create complexity, tension, or contradiction in your character. Or is your character all one way? not many characters in Shakespeare are. List important single words or phrases that you particularly want to shape, pop, spring, thrust, squeeze, wring, bubble up, spit, holler, or toot for your audience. Research option: look up these words in the Oxford English Dictionary and the Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare. Record in your journals what alternate meanings were used around Shakespeare s time (OED) and other uses of these words in this and other plays. What can these rich possibilities do for your role? Write a creative response to your character: a biography or sequel, a poem or missing scene, an interior monologue, or any other literary writing that will help you make this character your own. The only limits are Shakespeare s own words; you must resonate with them. Paul Sullivan; Austin; Skip Nicholson, Los Angeles 178

182 S OME R ESOURCES FOR T EACHING S HAKESPEARE General Overviews: Russ McDonald. The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents, 2 nd ed. Bedford/St Martin s, Print. ISBN: J. C. Trewin. The Pocket Companion to Shakespeare s Plays, rev. ed.. London: Mitchell Beazley, Print. ISBN: Leslie Dunton Downer and Alan Riding. Essential Shakespeare Handbook. New York: D. K. Publishing, 2004.Print. ISBN: Editions of the Plays The Cambridge School Shakespeare Series: Hamlet [The Cambridge School Shakespeare] 2 nd ed. Richard Andrews (volume ed.), Rex Gibson (series ed.). Cambridge UP, Print. ISBN 13: Teaching Shakespeare: Louis Fantasia. Instant Shakespeare: A Proven Technique for Actors, Directors, and Teachers. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Print. ISBN 13: For Younger (chronologically or at heart) Readers Barbara Holdridge. Under the Greenwood Tree: Shakespeare for Young People. Owings Mills: Stemmer House, Print. ISBN: Gina Pollinger. Something Rich and Strange: A Treasury of Shakespeare s Verse. New York: Kingfisher, Print. ISBN: Anita Ganeri. The Young Person s Guide to Shakespeare [Book and CD set]. London: Pavilion, Print. ISBN: Renwick St James and James C. Christensen. A Shakespeare Sketchbook. Shelton: Greenwich Workshop Press, Print. Peggy O Brien, ed. Shakespeare Set Free. Washington Square Press (2006): Book 1: Teaching Romeo and Juliet: Macbeth: A Midsummer Night's Dream,1993. Print. ISBN 13: ; Book 2: Teaching Hamlet, Henry IV, Part 1, Print. ISBN 13: ; Book 3: Teaching Twelfth Night, Othello, Print. ISBN 13:

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184 Vocabulary Study: A Guide Use two reference works: o a dictionary, one that includes etymologies. o a dictionary of synonyms and antonyms 1. Transitive / Intransitive Verbs: Note carefully whether a verb is transitive or intransitive. Remember, a transitive verb must be completed by a direct object; an intransitive verb does not take a direct object. (The verb renounce, for instance, is transitive. Someone renounces something ; people don t just go around renouncing. ) 2. Grammatical Patterns / Related Prepositions: If your dictionary gives citations as examples, study carefully which prepositions are associated with the word under study. The dictionary will usually give the prepositions, sometimes in parentheses with the word, more often as part of the definition. Most dictionaries of synonyms list the prepositions clearly. A dictionary of synonyms gives for the word impute the following citation from Shaw: how dare you, sir, impute such monstrous intentions to me? You know from that line that the verb is transitive and that the grammatical pattern is <to impute something to someone.> 3. Pronunciation Know how to say the word. Use the dictionary s pronunciation key, listen for the word, play the sound file on a computer dictionary, or ask. The word is not yours until you can, and do, say it. 4. Grammatical Patterns / Redundant Prepositions: Note from the definition which prepositions are built into the word and avoid repeating them when you use the word. The dictionary defines traverse as to pass or move over, along, or through. Those prepositions ( over, along, and through ) are already included in the meaning of the word traverse, so you do not want to repeat them by writing such redundancies as to traverse across. (Remember the prefix trans?) 5. Synonym study Find the words the dictionary identifies as synonyms for your word. Then find out how the new word is different from its synonyms. No two words have identical meanings. You must know the new idea your new word brings to your knowledge store. 6. Words Used In Definitions: Be wary of words that appear familiar when they appear in a definition. Look them up just as you would the word under study. The dictionary says that reprimand means to reprove, and, indeed, it does. But reprove does not mean to prove again, even though it looks as if it should. Reprove means to scold or to chide; so does reprimand. Watch out. 7. Etymologies: Read carefully the etymology of each word you are trying to learn. You will quickly begin to see patterns that tie new words to words you already know. You ll learn a lot of good stuff, too. 181

185 Force-Feeding Vocabulary The question of vocabulary may have become our greatest concern with the students, and it appears to have got measurably more serious over the past five or six years. It slows their reading and it makes their writing sound infantile, even for those with perceptive minds. Most of our AP students have proved excellent at memorizing words from lists--they ve had eleven years of practice and know how to play the game. They devote one small area on their brain s hard disk to vocabulary storage. It holds words with a synonym for each. They score high on vocabulary quizzes. That s another game they play well. After the quiz, they replace the 25 old words with the 25 new words. And so it goes. The result of all this is that by the time they are graduated, they have acquired 25 new words, the ones for that final quiz, still sitting in that small space in their brain. We ve come to think that they are, as Mr Boffo says, not clear on the basic concept. They make a distinction between the English they hear, speak, read, and write on one hand, and vo-cab on the other. The phrase that turns our blood cold is SAT words. Students who use it are telling us that they are not adding these words to the vocabulary they use for communication; they are adding them to their Test Toolbox, and they do not see any connection between the two groups. We spend a great deal of time feeding words to our students at all levels. They get used to our interrupting them, even come not to notice it any more. We feed them during private conversations, class discussions, and while they re talking with teammates. We do it to introduce them to words we suspect they do not know and to get them to be more specific with the words they do. With a new word, it might sound like this: Student: Teacher: Student: and then what she says might mean yes and it might mean no, and he gets all confused. and her ambiguous answer confuses him. Her ambiguous answer confuses him. We ve found it essential that the student repeat what the teacher says. At first some resist, and we have to tell them that they learn the words by hearing them echo in their own mouths and heads. Student: and then what she says might mean yes and it might mean no, and he gets all confused. T: Her ambiguous answer confuses him. S: Yeah, whatever. T: No, not whatever, Her ambiguous answer confuses him. Repeat that so that your mouth learns the word. S: Her ambiguous answer confuses him. T: Good! S: She has this idea that she wants to give him to do but it, like, isn t probably going to work, you know? T: Her suggestion seems impractical. S: Her suggestion seems impractical. We do it with literary terms as well: S: The way she picks the words helps her meaning. T: Her diction reinforces her meaning. S. Her diction reinforces her meaning. But often just to get them to use words they already know instead of others that are too vague: S: So this thing she has about T: (interrupting) So this concern she has S: So this concern she has Rarely, we stop for a fast explanation S: But he s prejudice for lower class people. T: He s prejudiced against lower class people. Prejudice is a noun, as in a prejudice is a preformed opinion. The adjective you want here is prejudiced. And it governs the prepositions against and in favor of. It s not a bad idea to be prejudiced against black widow spiders. Some might feel a referee is prejudiced in favor of the other team. T: He s prejudiced against the lower classes. S: He s prejudiced against the lower classes. T: Exaggerate that D on the end for me so that I can hear that you re saying it, OK? S: He s prejudiced against the lower classes. When we do assign words, it s almost always from the reading, and we reinforce them orally in this same way, making the kids repeat them. T: You have 90 seconds. Each one of you tell your teammates one thing you are apprehensive about. You must use the word apprehensive in your sentence. (Then we listen to see if any are misusing the word. We don t catch them all, but we try.) It all takes time and alert ears, especially in classes of 30-40, and it keeps us moving around the room, but we find it helps. S: So anyone could see through his lie. T: His lie is transparent. S: Yeah, whatever. T: No, not whatever, His lie is transparent. Sometimes it s sense discrimination we re after: S: Laura is shy. T: Do you mean she s timid or introverted or reclusive? Or something else? We may stop here if the word is one we suspect is one most of the students don t use and if it isn t going to break the flow of a good discussion. 182

186 SENIOR ENGLISH [NICHOLSON] VOCABULARY word p.o.s. in context 1 consular adj This is a consular ship. We re on a diplomatic mission. 2 diplomatic adj This is a consular ship. We re on a diplomatic mission. 3 restricted adj Hey, you re not permitted in there. It s restricted 4 alliance n You re a part of the Rebel Affiance 5 desolate adj What a desolate place this is. 6 counterpart n I am See-Threepio, human-cyborg relations, and this is my counterpart, Artoo-Detoo. 7 score v You ve got a lot of carbon scoring here 8 malfunction v I told him not to go, but he s faulty, malfunctioning. 9 remnant n The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away. 10 exploit v It is possible, however unlikely, that they might find a weakness and exploit it. 11 conjure v Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes clairvoyance n.or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebels hidden fort villainy n You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. 14 hokey adj Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid Vocabulary study Some steps that will help: 1. First study the line from Star Wars and use the context to help you take a guess at the word s meaning. 2. Look the word up in a college dictionary. Use the pronunciation guide to see how the word is pronounced. Have someone say the word for you. Then say it aloud twice. Read the definition in the dictionary. Most words will have more than one sense. Decide in which sense the word is used in the line from the movie. Look at the word s etymology. It will probably help you learn the meaning. Then list words you already know that use the same root or prefix or suffix as the new word. 3. Check to see if the word is listed in a dictionary of synonyms. If it is, read carefully how it differs from other words with nearly the same meaning. 4. Use the word in a real conversation within twenty-four hours. 5. Write the word in a real sentence. 6. Work through the questions below. Some questions on the words: (Be certain to use the word in your response.) 1. What would be the purpose of a consular ship? What is the relationship between a consul and a consulate? What is the difference between a consul and a consulgeneral? The government of another country would send an ambassador to Washington, D.C., but a consul to Los Angeles. Why not the other way around? 2. What might be the purpose of a diplomatic mission? Under what circumstances might you want to give a diplomatic answer to a question? 3. To what restricted areas do you have access? If you could be admitted to one restricted area anywhere, what would it be? 4. With what one country do you think the U.S. should maintain its strongest alliance? Why? What is the difference between an alliance and a confederation? 5. Name one place you consider geographically desolate and tell why you think so. Then name one place you consider spiritually, socially, or emotionally, or intellectually desolate and tell why you think so. 6. Consider the words malfunction, malnourished, malignant, malpractice, malicious, malcontent, and malediction. What does the prefix mal- indicate? 7. What do we call the student body s counterpart to the president of the U.S.? to the U.S. secretary of the treasury? 8. For what purpose might a machine score a piece of cardboard? 9. A remnant is an object; from what verb does it clearly come? 10. What two special talents or traits might you best exploit in your personal life? 11. What symbolic beast could Merlin conjure in Malory s Morte Darthur? 12. Why might a clairvoyant come in handy the day before a lottery drawing? 13. How does the word villainy differ from its synonyms iniquity, corruption, and degeneracy? 14. From what material would hokey pearls most likely be made? 183

187 Language & Composition Adjectival Forms K nowing the adjective form of a noun will often help you eliminate unnecessary words and write with more economy and directness. For the italicized nouns or nominal phrase in each of the following, decide what you think the adjectival form should be. Then substitute the adjective for the phrase in which the noun appears and combine the two sentences into one. Use a dictionary only after you have made your own decisions. There are right answers for the adjective forms, but you will come up with differing changes in the structure of the sentences. No. 0 is done as an example. o. She is a scholar of literature. She has published two books on Pushkin. A literary scholar, she has published two books on Pushkin. 1. His writing is like poetry. It uses many figures of speech. 2. Her life was like a drama. It had a happy ending. 3. We are finishing a study of the theme of Hamlet. We are studying the madness in the play. 4. The sea here is a symbol. It stands for the dangers of the unknown. 5. There are clues in the context. They suggest the writer owes a debt to Milton s Paradise Lost. 6. She uses two devices as transitions. They are conjunctions and word repetition. 7. King Arthur may have been a person from history or a character from fiction. He has inspired many stories. 8. This whole scene has irony. It suggests that Kate may have done some taming of her own. 9. This novel is written in the form of letters. It follows Kim s life over sixty-five years. (This one s a trick; you ll have to go back to the Latin word for letter. ) 10. The scenery looks very real. It stands in contrast to the events of the plot. 11. This story is an allegory. It would speak to people of nearly all cultures. 12. Her speech features many examples of hyperbole. As a result, she becomes comical. 13. The situation here contains a paradox. It is that inaction becomes a form of action. 14. The poem has a pattern of rhythm. The pattern reinforces the theme. 15. The verse is made up of syllables. It is not metrical in the traditional English way. 16. Many Victorian novelists used direct comment by the author in their novels. The comment seems intrusive to many modern readers. 184

188 James Hurst The Scarlet Ibis Making Meanings with Synonyms Remember: A thesaurus is a great place to meet friends, not to pick up strangers. Use a dictionary or a thesaurus to find a synonym for each Word to Own below, and write the synonym in the space provided. Next, write a complex sentence using context clues that make the synonym s meaning clear. An example is provided. Words to Own WORD Synonym Sentence ( underline dependent clause.) vermilion red When the wind blew, the ibis, as red as a cherry, fell from the tree with a thud. 1. imminent 2. infallibility 3. doggedness 4. precariously 5. reiterated Identifying Antonyms For each item below, choose the word or phrase from column B that is the antonym or opposite of the word in column A. Write the letter of the antonym in the blank provided. Use a dictionary or thesaurus if necessary. A B 1. imminent A. compliance 2. precariously B. distant 3. reiterated C. faultiness 4. doggedness D. securely 5. infallibility E. stated once AP English Electronic Discussion Group 185

189 Literary Terms: an incomplete list 1. allegory 2. alliteration 3. allusion 4. ambiguity 5. antagonist 6. apostrophe 7. archetype 8. aside 9. assonance 10. audience 11. ballad 12. blank verse 13. cæsura 14. central idea (theme) 15. characterization 16. climax 17. comedy 18. conceit 19. concrete poetry 20. connotation 21. consonance 22. convention 23. couplet 24. denotation 25. deus ex machina 26. detail 27. diction 28. elegy 29. epic 30. epiphany 31. exposition 32. farce 33. figurative language 34. first person (point of view) 35. fixed form 36. flashback (~forward) 37. foil 38. foreshadowing 39. free indirect style 40. free verse 41. hyperbole 42. iambic pentameter 43. image 44. in medias res 45. irony 46. literal language 47. litotes 48. lyric 49. metaphor 50. meter (iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapest) 51. narrator 52. naturalistic 53. octet 54. ode 55. omniscient (point of view) 56. overstatement 57. oxymoron 58. paradox 59. parody 60. persona 61. personification 62. plot 63. point of view 64. prosody 65. protagonist 66. purpose 67. quatrain 68. realistic 69. resolution 70. reversal 71. rhyme (interior, slant) 72. rhythm 73. romantic 74. satire 75. scan 76. sestet 77. simile 78. soliloquy 79. sonnet 80. speaker 81. stage direction 82. stock character 83. stream-of-consciousness 84. symbol 85. syntax 86. theme 87. tone 88. tragedy 89. understatement 90. unreliable narrator 186

190 VOCABULARY FOR WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE (an incomplete list) WRITER OR NARRATOR alludes to demonstrates heightens/lessens refutes alters depicts hints at repudiates asserts describes ignites reveals changes differentiates implies shifts clarifies dispels inspires shows (weak) compares elicits invokes solidifies conjures up elucidates juxtaposes stirs connotes emphasizes maintains suggests constrains enhances manipulates tackles construes enunciates masters transcends conveys evokes paints twists creates explains portrays uses (weak) delineates explores produces utilizes (über-weak) TOOLS comic details details diction figurative language foreshadowing imagery irony plot details point of view setting symbols syntax tone EFFECTS ON A READER anger awareness connections contrasts empathy imagery, images impact intensity laughter mood pathos / bathos shock lassitude/tedium 187

191 Synonyms from a dictionary of synonyms: foretell, predict, forecast, prophesy, prognosticate mean to tell before hand. Foretell applies to the telling of a future event by any procedure or from any source of information <seers foretold of calamitous events.> Predict commonly implies inference from facts or from accepted laws of nature <astronomers predicted the return of the comet.> Forecast adds the implication of anticipating eventualities and differs from predict in being usually concerned with probabilities rather than certainties <forecast a snowfall of six inches.> Prophesy connotes inspired or mystic knowledge of the future, especially as the fulfilling of divine threats or promises, or implies great assurance in predicting <preachers prophesying a day of divine retribution>. Prognosticate suggests prediction based on the learned or skilled interpretation of signs or symptoms <economists are prognosticating a slow recovery>. caustic, mordant, acrid, scathing mean stingingly incisive. Caustic suggests a biting wit <caustic comments about her singing ability>. ant.p genial Mordant suggests a wit that is used with deadly effectiveness <mordant reviews put the play out of its misery>. Acrid implies bitterness and often malevolence <a speech marked by acrid invective>. ant. benign, kindly. Scathing implies indignant attacks delivered with fierce or withering severity <a scathing satire of corporate life>. proud, arrogant, haughty, lordly, insolent, overbearing, supercilious, disdainful mean showing superiority toward others or scorn for inferiors. Proud may suggest a feeling or attitude of pleased satisfaction in oneself or one s accomplishments that may or may not be justified and may or may not be demonstrated offensively <a proud man, unwilling to admit failure>. ant. humble, ashamed Arrogant implies a claiming for oneself of more consideration or importance than is warranted and often suggests an aggressive, domineering manner <an arrogant business executive used to being kowtowed to>. ant. meek, unassuming Haughty suggests a blatantly displayed consciousness of superior birth or position <a haughty manner that barely concealed his scorn>. ant. lowly Lordly implies pomposity or an arrogant display of power <lordly indifference to the consequences of their carelessness>. Insolent implies insultingly contemptuous haughtiness <suffered the stares of insolent waiters>. ant. deferential Overbearing suggests a tyrannical manner or an intolerable insolence <wearied by demands from her overbearing in-laws>. ant. subservient Supercilious implies a cool, patronizing haughtiness <supercilious parvenus with their disdainful sneers>. Disdainful suggests a more active and openly scornful superciliousness <disdainful of their pathetic attempts>. ant. admiring, respectful adapted from The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms, Springfield: Merriam-Webster, Print. 188

192 TONE: Some words to describe the tone of a work or passage accusing admonitory affectionate allusive ambivalent amused angry annoyed anxious apprehensive audacious authoritative baffled bantering benevolent bewildered bitter blunt bossy brusque burlesque candid casual ceremonial cheerful cheery choleric clinical cold colloquial compassionate complimentary conceited concerned conciliatory condemnatory condescending confident confused contemptuous contentious critical cynical delightful depressed derisive derogatory desolate despairing desperate detached diabolic didactic diffident disappointed disbelieving disdainful disgusted disinterested dispassionate distressed disturbed doubtful dramatic ebullient effusive elated elegiac empathetic encouraging enraged enthusiastic euphoric excited expectant exuberant facetious factual fanciful fatalistic fearful fervent flippant foreboding formal frantic frightened frustrated furious gleeful gloomy grave greedy grim gushy happy haughty hilarious holier-than-thou hopeful hopeless horrific humorous impartial impatient incisive incredulous indignant inflammatory informative insipid insolent instructive intimate introspective ironic irreverent irritated jocund joyful laidback learned lethargic lighthearted loving lugubrious matter-of-fact measured meditative melancholic melancholy mirthful miserable mock-heroic mocking mock-serious moralistic mournful mysterious nervous nostalgic objective ominous optimistic outraged outspoken paranoid passionate pathetic patronizing pedantic pensive persuasive pessimistic petty pithy playful pompous pretentious proud provocative psychotic questioning reflective regretful relaxed reminiscent remorseful resigned restrained reticent reverent romantic rousing sad sanguine sarcastic sardonic satiric scared scornful selfish sentimental serene serious shocked silly simpering sinister skeptical sober solemn somber staid stirring stoic straightforward strident suspenseful suspicious sympathetic taunting tender tense terse thoughtful threatening timorous turgid uncaring unconcerned uneasy unhappy unsympathetic urgent vibrant vitriolic whimsical wistful worried wrathful wry zealous 189

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194 Symbol Suggested revision Revision Guide S t y l e / S t a n c e ds echo gs I SC V Use strong verbs in the active voice. VV W Eliminate needless words. WW This isn t the word you want, is it? [ ] Consider dropping this word or phrase. Express parallel ideas in parallel form. Avoid dead sentences, those with insufficient reason for being. Avoid repeating a word or phrase you ve just used. Do you want this gender-specific language? It might offend some. Stay in the background; avoid mentioning your paper; imply your outline. Use sentence-combining techniques to join closely related ideas. Work for variety in your diction, especially verbs. ~~~ Reword this unclear, inappropriate, or wordy passage. O r g a n i z a t i o n tr Add a transition to get from one idea or paragraph to the next. Make the paragraph the unit of composition. S u p p o r t A S M e c h a n i c s mm p ref Attribute all borrowed words or ideas to their source. Support this idea with specific illustration. Keep related words together; move a misplaced element. Find and correct the punctuation error. This pronoun (or adjective or article) has a confusing referent or none at all. id Find and correct the error in idiomatic construction. SS Find and correct the error in sentence structure. SV Be sure your verbs agree with their subjects. agr Be sure your pronouns agree with their antecedents. X Is there a word missing here?! You ve violated a rule we ve worked on in class. Shame. # Avoid shifting number, person, or tense. Find and correct the error in spelling or diction. 191

195 1. Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding s. 2. In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last. 3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas. 4. Place a comma before a conjunction introducing an independent clause. 5. Do not join independent clauses by a comma. 6. Do not break sentences in two. 7. Use a colon after an independent clause to introduce a list of particulars, an appositive, an amplification, or an illustrative quotation. 8. Use a dash to set off an abrupt break or interruption and to announce a long appositive or summary. 9. The number of the subject determines the number of the verb. 10. Use the proper case of pronoun. 11. A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject. 12. Choose a suitable design and hold to it. 13. Make the paragraph the unit of composition. 14. Use the active voice. 15. Put statements in positive form. 16. Use definite, specific, concrete language. 17. Omit needless words. 18. Avoid a succession of loose sentences. 19. Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form. 20. Keep related words together. 21. In summaries, keep to one tense. 22. Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end. 192