Week of May 21: 'Anthem' by Ayn Rand

We will be looking at Ayn Rand's novella Anthem, which is available at Project Gutenberg as a free download. It is also available for free at Amazon for Kindle users.

Click here for background information about this 20th-century Russian-American philosopher and author

We will consider this allegorical work as a product of its time and place, and we will consider how the social and political influences around her shaped her thinking.

And we will be critical in our thinking.

Iliad: Notes

Here is an excerpt from C. M. Gayley's Classic Myths in English Literature to help you with your reading of Homer's Iliad.

Click here for a  map of Greece.  You wil have to click on the type of map you want to view.  Choose "myth map.")  Here are the BBC video clips about the history of the actual Troy.

Gordimer and Achebe

Here are interviews with South African writer Nadine Gordimer and Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe.

Works Cited Sample

Due Wednesday, May 3, the works cited sample should follow the MLA guidelines in format and content.

Make sure your paper has 1" margins and is double spaced throughout.  Don't add more space between lines.  Remember, citations that are longer than one line must be formatted with hanging indentations. You can make the adjustment using the ruler or by going into the paragraph format pull-down  menu and choosing "hanging" under the "special option.

The two-sentence annotation should include a statement of what the site is about and what you found most useful or interesting. 

Here is a sample:

Sandy Carlson

Works Cited

Auschwitz.org. 2 May 2012 http://auschwitz.org/ >

This Web site focuses on the museum and memorial to Holocaust victims who suffered at Auschwitz.  This site has an extensive gallery of artwork created by concentration camp inmates.

Holocaust Literature

During the week of April 30, we will be looking at the Holocaust literature in our text:  from Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi, from Night by Elie Wiesel, and "When in Early Summer" by Nelly Sachs.

Dante's Inferno

We'll be reading from Dante's Inferno after the April break.  You'll find the text here. Please read Cantos I, III, V, and XXXIV. It's a challenging and amusing text once you get in the groove with it.  You can read about Dante's life here to put the text in context.  Here are the contents of the Divine Comedy for the ambitious among us!

Below is a summary of some of those rings of hell:

Goethe's Faust

Read the excerpts from Goethe's Faust for Monday, April 3.  The tab above will take you to the complete text.  Click here to view some incredible lithographs depicting this story.

Apropos of Nothing: Your Daily Dose of Poetry

Here's a link to Billy Collins's Read 180 site, which has links to some great poetry resources at the Library of Congress.

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

Click here for the Project Gutenberg complete etext version of this drama.

Here is some information about the playwright, Henrik Ibsen.

Haiku

Haiku

Zen Parables

Zen Parables

Here is some basic information about Zen Buddhism, and here is a great little video introduction to Buddhism.

Rumi: Mystic Poet

Rumi's poems will form the basis of journal entries and some discussion the week of February 27.

Rumi

Here is an interesting Web site dedicated to Rumi. Here's a bit of Rumi's bio from that site: 

 Rumi was born on the Eastern shores of the Persian Empire on September 30, 1207, in the city of Balkh in what is now Afghanistan and finally settled in the town of Konya, in what is now Turkey. Today three countries claim him as their national poet: Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan. However none of these countries as they are today actually existed back then. Iran was called the Persian Empire, a monarchy, and it was quite larger than it is today. It included all of today's Iran and Afghanistan also parts of Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey and Iraq. Turkey had not yet formed then and Afghanistan was part of the Khorasan Province in the old Persian Empire. Rumi's life story is full of intrigue and high drama mixed with intense creative outbursts. Rumi was a charming, wealthy nobleman, a genius theologian and a brilliant but sober scholar, who in his late thirties met a wandering and wild holy man by the name of Shams. In Rumi's own words, after meeting Shams he was transformed from a bookish, sober scholar to an impassioned seeker of the truth and love.

Click here for information about whirling dervishes.

Ogonkwo's Obituary

You are Nwoye, Okonkwo's son and a recent convert to Christianity.  You have just learned that your father has committed suicide following his traumatic experiences with your church and government that are now running the village.  It is your job to write your father's obituary, and you have 30 minutes to complete it before the paper goes to press.

How to Write an Obituary

The obituary documents the deceased person's life.  It informs the public of death and gives information about planned funeral and memorial services. The goal of the obituary is to demonstrate respect and honor for those who have passed, while informing those who remain of his or her death.

1.  Begin with the announcement. It should include who the person is, the date they died, and where they died. The cause of death is optional. Be short and concise. All this can be typically included in one sentence.

2.  Recount the main events in the person's life, beginning with his or her birth and birthplace.
Try to remember specific instances when he made a difference in the lives of others in his community and family. Instead of just listing her achievements, tell a brief story about some of them. Keep an eye out for moments that speak eloquently of his character and disposition

3.  Include a list of schools attended, degrees received, vocation and hobbies.

4.  Include who the person is survived by. Include, in this order, immediate family members (spouse and children or parents and siblings step-children) and secondary family members (aunts, uncles, grandchildren, close cousins).You can include spouse names such as Mary (John), John (Anna), ...

5.  Announce when and where the funeral, burial, wake and/or memorial service will take place.

6.  Conclude with a statement regarding where memorial contributions can be sent, if applicable.

Oedipus the King

Click here for a readers' theater version of the play, courtesy of PBS.  It's only 11 pages, and it's a fair introduction of the story.  Please read this in preparation for our class work.

Here is a translation of the complete play.

Here is a fun and intelligent. website that contains some thought-provoking stuff about Oedipus and some other long-dead Greeks.

If you're game, there is a version of the play available on YouTube in 14 parts.  This version stars the brilliant Canadian actor Christopher Plummer.

Chinua Achebe: Resources

'Repairing the Damage'
Through his fiction and non-fiction works, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe has sought to repair the damage done to the continent of Africa and its people as a result of European colonization. This is best exemplified in his most famous novel "Things Fall Apart," one of the first African novels written in English to achieve national acclaim. Set in the 1890s, the novel deals with the impact of British colonialism on the traditional Igbo society in Nigeria. Published in 1958 – just two years before the end of a century of British rule in Nigeria – the novel celebrates its 50th anniversary of publication this year.

Library of Congress, 9/24/08

Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart tells the story of Okonkwo, a leader in an Igbo village in Nigeria in the 1890s, as he deals with his own personal struggles as well as the impact of British colonialism. The book describes the rich culture and complexities of Igbo society, articulating an insider’s sense of the African experience.

Library of Congress, 12/08

Achebe's Favorite Passage
The author reads to the Library of Congress on his 78th birthday here.

Information about Nigeria
This link to PBS includes demographic information about the African nation as well as information about Chinua Achebe.

Author Video
'An Evening with Chinua Achebe'

National Endowment for the Humanities resources are here. Excellent background to Things Fall Apart:

An Introduction to Nigerian Culture from L.J. Perales on Vimeo.

Sundiata

Sundiata Click here to learn more about Mali.  The CIA will tell you what you need to know.

Selections from Genesis

February 4, 2012

Gilgamesh Resources

Read here to learn about the discovery of the tablets telling the story of Gilgamesh.

Here's a plot summary of the epic.

Here it is as poetry.

What you might want to know about ancient Sumeria is here. 

 "The Battle with Humbaba" (Double click the image to open the album.)

The Battle with Humbaba

The Death of Enkidu:

The Death of Enkidu

The Flood:

The Story of the Flood

The Return:

January 31, 2012

20 Questions to get to Know you as a Reader

Reading Survey

1. If you had to guess…
How many books would you say there are in your house? _____
How many books would you say you’ve read in the last twelve months? _____
2. How did you learn to read?
3. Why do people read? List as many reasons as you can think of.
4. What does someone have to do or know in order to be a good reader?
5. What kinds of books do you like to read? Why?
6. How do you decide which books you’ll read? How do you find these books?
7. Who are your favorite authors? (List as many as you’d like.)
8. Have you ever reread a book? _____ If so, can you name it/them here?
9. How often do you read at home?
10. When you are asked to read something for school (like a chapter in a book or a
packet of information), where and when do you usually read it? Why?

Getting To Know Yourself as a Reader

1. How long can you read at one sitting? What do you have to do to make it longer?
2. What do you have to do to remember what you read?
3. What kind of place can you study in?
4. What do you need to do while reading to help yourself make sense of what you read?
5. If you write while you read, what kinds of written signs do you use to help yourself understand
what you read? (Color codes? Stars? Underlining? Arrows?)
6. What do you have to do when you are sleepy while you are studying?
7. What kinds of reading are easy for you? What kinds are hard?
8. Do you read differently for one subject than another? If so, how is it different?
9. What are the best times for you to read?
10. What else do you know about yourself as a reader?

'Cultural Significance'

Students in English II read, discuss, and write about both classical and contemporary world literature (excluding British and American authors) through which students will identify cultural significance. They will examine pieces of world literature in a cultural context to appreciate the diversity and complexity of world issues and to connect global ideas to their own experiences. Students will continue to explore language for expressive, informational/explanatory, critical, argumentative and literary purposes, although emphasis will be placed on explanatory contexts. In addition to literature study, students will:

• Examine non-literary texts related to cultural studies.
• Research material to use primarily in clarifying their own explanatory responses to situations and literary-based issues.
• Critically interpret and evaluate experiences, literature, language, and ideas.
• Use standard grammatical conventions and select features of language appropriate to purpose, audience, and context of the work.

--Public Schools of North Carolina