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(Mostly) Canonical Modernists
Marianne Moore , "Poetry" (1921), Heath, pp. 1372-73; T. S. Eliot , "The Waste Land" (1922), Heath, pp. 1312-26; Wallace Stevens , "Sunday Morning" (1923), Heath, pp. 1394-98; "Anecdote of the Jar" (1923), Heath, p. 1402; Gertrude Stein , "Four Saints in Three Acts" (1927), Heath, pp. 1196-9. TURN IN l-PAGE PAPER OR 3 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway , The Sun Also Rises (1926) TURN IN l-PAGE PAPER OR 3 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
The Harlem Renaissance
Langston Hughes , "When the Negro Was in Vogue" (1940), Heath, pp. 1500-06; "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (1921), Heath, pp. 1488-89; "The Weary Blues (1923), Heath, pp. 1489-90; "Big Meeting" (1935), Heath, pp. 1492-1500; Countee Cullen , "From the Dark Tower" (1924), Heath, p. 1512 "Yet Do I Marvel" (1925), Heath, p. 1513; Gwendolyn B. Bennett , "Advice" (1927), Heath, p. 1517; Arna Bontemps , "A Black Man Talks of Reaping" (1927), Heath, p. 1519; Sterling A. Brown , "When de Saints Go Ma'ching Home" (1927), Heath, pp. 1521-25 "Slim in Hell" (1932), Heath, pp. 1529-32 "Remembering Nat Turner" (1939), Heath, pp. 1533-34; Claude McKay , "Harlem Shadows" (1920), Heath, pp. 1559-60 "America" (1921), Heath, pp. 1560-61; Anne Spencer , "For Jim, Easter Eve" (1949), Heath, pp. 1565-66
TURN IN l-PAGE PAPER OR 3 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Family Dis/Connections
Katherine Anne Porter , "The Jiltingof Granny Weatherall" (1930), Heath, pp. 1352-58; Willa Cather , "Old Mrs. Harris" (1932), Heath, pp. 1041-76; Meridel LeSueur , "Annunciation" (1935), Heath, pp. 1655-62; William Faulkner , "Barn Burning" (1938), Heath, pp. 1410-22; TURN IN l-PAGE PAPER OR 3 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Zora Neale Hurston
Hurston , Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) TURN in 1 PAGE PAPER OR 3 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (last day to turn in second one-page paper)
The one-page papers are to be polished essays with titles and are to be no longer than one SINGLE-spaced page. In such a paper you should explore in depth some aspect of the work,being discussed that week (e.g., the significance of water imagery, the significance of gender or race, the impact of style, the functions of minor characters, why a given work should or shouldn't be part of the canon). One way to brainstorm for paper ideas is to focus on what you find troubling or puzzling in a given work and to try to figure out why or to make sense of inconsistencies.
The one-page papers are self-scheduled, though I do list final deadlines for each one. You can thus fit these papers into your own schedule and write on topics that particularly intrigue you. On weeks when you choose not to turn in a one-page paper you will turn in three discussion questions instead.
You are to come up with three discussion questions--questions that could make for good class discussion. Coming up with good questions is not easy. You want them to be thought-provoking, not merely eliciting factual answers. Think about what troubles or puzzles you. Think about something that might be controversial, something that members of the class might have differing views on. Instead of asking "What is implied by the last line in Wharton 's story?" you could ask "How do the ways the two women have been characterized contribute to the impact of the last line?" Be creative too. Try thought experiments like asking what would happen if the race of the main character were changed or how the story might differ if it had been written by James instead of Glaspell.
The pedagogical activity that took off in most unexpected ways was inviting small groups (about five students each) to find a creative way of putting the week's readings in dialogue--to prepare something to present to the rest of the class on Friday. I gave the groups about 20 minutes to prepare on Wednesday, and many spontaneously scheduled additional meetings on Thursday. Only after the first presentations did I remember my usual concern for student accountability, and I mentioned that participation here would comprise part of the class participation grade. But I didn't really need to. Students were so excited about their projects that they didn't need additional carrots.
The projects energized students, engaging them with readings in a new way, getting them to learn something about characters through role playing that they could never learn just through discussion. They also found ways to learn from one another, in this class of very mixed abilities (two-thirds were underclass students but some of our best upperclass majors were also enrolled). I'd more or less expected all that. What I didn't expect was how these projects gave voice to perspectives that weren't otherwise expressed in class, even though I like to think I encourage alternative perspectives, encourage students to be resisting readers--which includes resisting my readings.
During the week that we read Freeman, Gilman, and Glaspell and the week after we'd read Chopin, one group presented a group therapy session for the marginalized children of The Awakening, "The Revolt of 'Mother'," and "The Yellow Wall-Paper." Another group, in addition to its Sally Jessy Raphael-style interviews, offered brief commercial spots. Two men--in this class where there were seven men altogether, a class taught by an admittedly feminist teacher, and in a school that only two years before had started admitting men--two of these men acted out a spot for a hotline for abused husbands. What pleased me about their skit is that they found an outlet for some of the ambivalence they must have felt when reading murderous portrayals of husbands.