Eh 200 Class 8 Summer 2010

Class Eight:

Housekeeping:

Week Two: Min-Review (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Last week we covered a lot of ground. Here are the highlights:

·  One of the things I want you to begin to notice this week is that a lot of the terms that we will be using to examine stories are terms that can be as easily applied to the world of the stories we read as they can be to the world as you experience it.

·         Literature is not “something” external to you. Literature “is” you.

·         “The Gift of The Magi” by O. Henry and “Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

·         We talked about how writing works here: It is your responsibility to fix both the issues that I point out as being wrong on your papers _and_ to correct the parts of your papers that do not meet the standards I discus in class (so good note taking is key!)

We had some new terms show up:

·         Boredom:  The inability to demonstrate your desired level of “class” within a given “setting.”

·         Plot: The series of events in a story that are linked by causal relationships.

·         Abstract thinking: Thinking characterized by the ability to use several concepts to make and understand arguments. The ability to understand the properties shared by a variety of specific items or events.

·         Work: activities undertaken to maintain or advance a social position.

·         Professional: Someone who adheres to a specific set of ethical standards that privilege the interests of an occupation over the interests of the worker.

·         Workforce: An abstract concept that refers to all the individuals contributing to a nation’s economy at any one time.

·         Tone: An emotional quality or aspect of a literary work. The way the story makes you “feel.”

· We talked about “frames,” and how they might be used to look at literature.

We concluded with the following writing prompts and ideas:

How do people from different economic (income) backgrounds work? Describe to me how you envision lower-income, middle-income, and upper-income people your age working.  What are the similarities and differences?  Again, begin with definitions for these terms. We will discuss a class definition shortly.

This led to some useful observations…

This week, we will be continuing with these ideas, and developing new ideas.

Let’s start with the homework.

In-Class Writing: (Suggested: 7 Minutes)

One of your assignments was to write a two-page précis on “Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds.” Let’s get it out. Take a few moments and re-read it. Then, on the back, I want you to summarize in a paragraph what you think the story is saying about the relationship between play (or work) and its relationship with lower-income financial status and setting.

Class Discussion: (Suggested: 5 Minutes)

Your other assignment today was to begin work on paper two. Here was the prompt:

Paper Two prompt. At this point, you have read three stories, all of which touch on issues related to play and work, though in different ways. You job is to draft a paper that clearly articulates how and why specific scenes from one of these stories either relate or do not relate to work as the concept can be related to concepts of income and class.

This paper will, again, require that you develop good working definitions for your key terms, and then that you develop your argument and explanations through close readings of the stories in question.

In-Class Writing: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Let’s take some time to outline, first, what we did and how we did it, and, then, where we are encountering difficulty with the prompt and the assignment.

Group Discussion: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Group Presentations: (Suggested: 5-10 Minutes)

Break

In-Class Writing: (Suggested: 10 minutes)

·         Where do your work expectations of the world of work come from? Why do you think this has occurred? Do you just expect to do the “work” you end up doing, or are there specific reasons  for why you  expect to do this work?

Group Discussion: (Suggested: 5-7 minutes)

Discuss your response to the question.

Class Discussion: (Suggested: 5 minutes)

Mini-Lecture: Cultural References.(Suggested: 5-10 minutes)

Stories make cultural references.

A cultural reference is like an extra FRAME the narrator gives to the reader to HELP him or her INTERPRET the specific details that relate to  the concepts we have considered this semester: Class, income, play, work, setting, plot, tone.

This is something all of us do all the time. We all broadcast details about ourselves to the rest of the world so that people will know what to make of us. How do we do that?

????

As we think about Cultural References, we need to think about a related idea:

These authors are not writing for _YOU_. They are writing for an culture you are probably not part of, and we need to figure out what some features of that culture may be, generally, before we can start looking at cultural references too closely.

This is like the world of work — where your personal cultural is not the primary subject at hand. Rather, it is the cultural environment of where you work and the way people interact in that environment.

What are some characteristics of the cultures that are being addressed in some of these stories?

Okay, given that, what might some relevant cultural references be in these stories?

I’ll get you started: Let’s consider the gruesome Death of Old Man Windpeter in “The Untold Lie.”

What’s going on here? What does this look like to YOU how is this different than it might be interpreted for someone in the audience this story was intended for?

In-class writing: (Suggested: 5 Minutes)

Group Work: (Suggested: 5-10 minutes)

Begin with a discussion of your writing, then take up this idea:

What are some examples of cultural references that you are familiar with? Consider a show or movie that references something outside of itself, particular to the cultural that has produced it.

Generally speaking, your income and class determines how or if you are aware of different kinds of cultural references.

If you’re not familiar with the reference, you do not “get it.”

So how do we look for these things in a story?

Well, we begin by thinking about the potential relevance of events or descriptions as they might appear to the people the story associates with a particular culture.

But we can all begin looking for them by asking ourselves one question: How do specific details that speak to the culture being represented impact our understanding of that culture.

Groups Report/Class Discussion: (Suggested: 5 minutes)

Group work and presentation on Cultural References. (Suggested: 10 minutes)

Cultural references an be EXPLICIT or IMPLICIT. That is to say, they narrator may go our of his or her way to call your attention to them. However, at other times, you will only be able to understand the cultural reference by considering a story from the perspective of the cultural that produced it, or from the perspective of the people who are represented in the story.

Let’s consider the “glorious?” Death of Old Man Windpeter!

How does this event look to you?

How might this interpretation be different than that of the “boys” who see it as “something glorious?” Isn’t that a weird word?

Let’s begin by looking for explicit cultural references in these stories. Each group take a story,  identify what you can find, and then be ready to report. Let’s start working with The Untold Lie.

Homework: Revise Precis for Submission.

Read and Annotate Up to mape 237 of Stphen Crane’s “Maggie: A Girl of The Streets”