End of Invisible Man Discussion ?'s, etc.

Today in class you are answering discussion questions in groups. Click here for the discussion questions. Each student must hand in their own answer sheet, and these are due tomorrow.

Also, I modeled a rubric based on the one the College Board has devised for the 1996 free response question. You can find it here. I will hand back your essays tomorrow. They have been corrected, I just want to underline some things on your respective rubrics.

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Grace, I want you to visit Sparknotes.com and read up on The Color Purple in order to augment your reading of the text. That way you'll get the sophisticated evidence for that novel too.

Jeanette, sorry, but Harvard students have yet to comprise a Sparknotes entry for No-No Boy. I'm going to try to sign you into a database to do some searching around for good stuff.

Existential Journey Chart

Today in class you will be working in pairs to complete this existential journey chart.

AP Lit: Blindness Motif Power Point Presentation

Here's a word document of the powerpoint presentation from last week. When you see a theme, symbol, image, action, or object repeated througout a book, which seems to have significance to the overall meaning of the work, underline and jot down the quotes so you can refer to them later.

Click here to access the Google doc version of the powerpoint.

AP Lit: Booker T. Washington & Tuskegee Institute

Today in class we read the text of Booker T. Washington's speech at the opening of the Atlanta Exposition. Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee Institute, a college Ralph Ellison attended and depicts in the first few chapters. In case you missed the speech, it can be found here:

AP Lit: Homework 2/20

Today in class we took a quiz on chapter two (no makeups!) Everyone needs to make sure they keep up on the reading, as this is a thick book and a thick book (pages & symbolism).

For tonight, I just want you to write a half page explaining the doctor's affect on the narrator. How does the doctor in chapter three (the golden day) describe the narrator? What is the doctor's opinion about Mr. Norton and the school in particular.

Due tomorrow.

AP Lit: Invisible Man Project Sheet

Hey there. Here's the project sheet for The Invisible Man. Although the project isn't due until March 16th, I'd start working on it now, as most options require that you synthesize or analyze throughout the novel. (Click on the picture to enlarge.)

A sweet resource for this project may be Invisible Man Online. It has tons of stuff about tons of stuff related to the novel.

For those of you who choose the ballad option, I will be posting examples and links to assist you in using this genre.

For those of you who are choosing the symbolism route (either the paper or the posters), here are two nice charts of symbols as they relate to theme, etc. I nabbbed them from the Invisible Man Online site. Enjoy.

AP Lit: Louis Armstrong

In case you missed it, we did a little quizzy thingy in class today. We also discussed the homework, and talked and wrote a little bit about Louis Armstrong's "Black and Blue."

Here's Armstrong, and text of the song.

(from http://www.photos12-vintage.com/images/FRN03049_122.jpg)

Black and Blue
- Louis Armstrong

Cold empty bed...springs hurt my head
Feels like ole ned...wished I was dead
What did I do...to be so black and blue

Even the mouse...ran from my house
They laugh at you...and all that you do
What did I do...to be so black and blue

Im white...inside...but, that dont help my case
Thats life...cant hide...what is in my face

How would it end...aint got a friend
My only sin...is in my skin
What did I do...to be so black and blue

(instrumental break)

How would it end...i aint got a friend
My only sin...is in my skin
What did I do...to be so black and blue

(from http://www.lyricsfreak.com/l/louis+armstrong/black+blue_20085352.html)

In your journal, explore either the author’s words or the musical things you hear going on. Try to describe the sounds you hear. May you focus on:
• the instruments
• the structure
• Armstrong’s voice
• the mood of the song
• or…if you’re a wimp (☺), just focus on the words

From Sparknotes.com

Ellison works blues and jazz—specifically that of Louis Armstrong—into the novel to complement the narrator’s quest to define himself. Because jazz depends on the improvisational talents of individual soloists and because it developed primarily among African-American musicians, it serves as an elegant and apt metaphor for the black struggle for individuality in American society. It also makes an appropriate soundtrack, as it were, for a novel about the search for such individuality. Armstrong, widely considered the most important soloist in the history of jazz, almost single-handedly transformed jazz—which originally evolved as a collective, ensemble-based music—into a medium for individual expression in which a soloist stood out from a larger band.

In the Prologue, the narrator listens specifically to Armstrong’s “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue.” This track relates directly to Invisible Man on a thematic level, as it represents one of jazz’s earliest attempts to make an open commentary on the subject of racism. Fats Waller originally wrote the song for a musical comedy in which a dark-skinned black woman would sing it as a lament, ruing her lighter-skinned lover’s loss of interest in her. Later, however, Armstrong transformed the piece into a direct commentary on the hardships faced by blacks in a racist white society. Like Invisible Man, the song’s lyrics emphasize the conflict between the singer/speaker’s inner feelings and the outer identity imposed on him by society. The narrator listens to Armstrong sing that he feels “white inside” and that “my only sin / is in my skin.” By placing this song in the background of his story without directly commenting on it, Ellison provides subtle reinforcement for the novel’s central tension between white racism against blacks and the black struggle for individuality.

AP Lit: Invisible Man Homework

Hello folks...for tomorrow:

In the prologue, we meet the narrator, the invisible man (x). What can you tell about him? More specifically, cite two character traits evident in the prologue and explain them.

For each, make sure to:
Say it (Topic Sentence)
Show it (Textual Details)
Explain it (Your Commentary)

Also, today in class we did the following:

• Listened to Louis Armstrong's "Black and Blue" (we'll discuss it further tomorrow)
• watched a video gamish version of the prologue that I purloined from YouTube (if you'd like to see it again, do a search for "invisble man ellison" and it's like the second or third entry. I'd embed it here but I can't access it through school.
• Read the beginning of the prologue in class in preparation for tomorrow's discussion.
• Lastly, we discussed the overall structure of Invisible Man. See the illustration below to compare the major works we have discussed so far this year.

AP Lit: Invisible Man Reading Schedule

Here you go, folks. I'm giving this out in class, as well, but if you are without while at home, here you go.

AP Lit: Stream of Consciousness, etc.

For Monday :

Make sure to have Invisible Man. I'll be distributing a reading schedule.
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On Monday we will watch our films.
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Homework:
Now it’s time for you to take a stab at stream of consciousness writing. Remember, one type of stream of consciousness is meant to capture the interior monologue that a character is having.

Choose one of the following options:
- create a character in a situation and attempt to capture the interior monologue he or she is having
- try your best to capture your stream of consciousness at this moment OR from your SOC during sometime yesterday

Classwork & Discussion that led to the homework:
Remember, in class on Thursday and Friday we read excerpts from John Dos Passos' The Big Money & James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and focused on the authors' use of stream of consciousness and its intended effect. Notice how Dos Passos achieves an angry tone by omitting periods and standard English grammar (the pace is quickened) and notice how Joyce...well...again, I'm not sure what any of that means. But notice the onamatopoeietic words & what not :).

The Big Money


Finnegan's Wake - Chapter One