A Prayer for Year's End

Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings, with your most gracious favor, and further us with your continual help, that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy name; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

If you've not yet recited the lines you memorized a few miles above Tintern Abbey (ha), try to catch me before the roast on Friday. If that doesn't work, use whatever means possible to avoid a zero--even employing extreme measures, if necessary: since Katelyn W. knew she'd be recuperating and unable to participate on Wednesday, she recorded herself w/ her eyes shut, reciting her lines before going under the oral surgeon's knife.

Also, I MUST have all take-home finals in my possession by Friday night!

BRING YOUR BOOKS BACK, PLEASE, EVERYONE!! Otherwise, you or your parents will be stuck holding a huge bill after graduation.

SCHEDULE CHANGE: please read

ON SECOND THOUGHT...

let's make the film on Wednesday at 7:00. As it turns out, the Alum Soccer Team will be visiting WCA on Tuesday evening to subject themselves to annihilation by our varsity team.

Please spread the word of the schedule change.

Tuesday Evening and Last Year's Class

This Tuesday, May 12, you're invited to our house at 7:00 to watch a film--perhaps the recently remastered movie version of F. O'Connor's Wise Blood. Please bring the following items in hand or in your head, depending:

--Memorized excerpt from "Lines...Tintern Abbey"

--Completed, legible, take-home final exam

--How to Read Literature Like a Professor (Jack & Patrick, I think yours are still out!)

--$10-$12 for Cracking the A.P. Exam (Patrick OR Jack--I can't remember...)

We'll provide drinks, popcorn, and maybe Owen's amazing oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Just for laughs, here's a link to a similar event w/ some of last year's class members:

Take-Home Final Exam

The take-home final exam for this course has three options. Choose one below.

Option 1. This take-home final exam essay is comprehensive over the last three periods of English literature -- the Romantic, Victorian, and Modern periods. Here is the topic. Choose one poem from these four poets of the Modern period -- T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, and Philip Larkin. In a short essay discuss how the poem represents the continuation of a process or a trend that began with the Romantics and continued through the Victorians into the Modern period. In your essay, you may refer to one -- but only one -- additional work of literature, poetry or prose, from the Romantics and Victorians.

Option 2. This take-home final exam essay is comprehensive over all seven periods of English literature -- the Anglo-Saxon, Medieval, Renaissance, 18th-Century, Romantic, Victorian, and Modern periods. Here is the topic. Choose a poem from two different periods of English literature that you feel merit comparison. In a short essay discuss how the ideas, images, or perspectives in these two poems are similar, dissimilar, or represent some noteworthy pattern of development over time.

Option 3. This take-home final exam essay asks you to write about three poems from the beginning, the middle, and the end of English literary history. We began this course of English literature with "Caedmon's Hymn," the first recorded poem in the English language. Using "Caedmon's Hymn" as a starting-point, discuss any notable developments & changes you see in English literature by comparing it with one poem from the Medieval, Renaissance, 18th-century, Romantic, or Victorian periods and one poem from the Modern period.

You may hand-write your essay on lined paper and bring it with you to the Evanses' house next Tuesday evening, or you may e-mail as an attachment or in the body of the e-mail message to:

jdmevans@uga.edu

by next Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. The essay should be between 250 and 500 words.

Who likes notecards?

With some sympathy, I hereby remind you to write up notecards for two primary novels and one secondary novel (or novella or play) for Thursday, April 29, including the following information:
Title
Author

Major characters
Minor characters
Point of view
Major conflict(s)
Major plotline
Subplots (just a couple)
Specifics of a couple of tricky relationships--romantic or otherwise
Tone
Denouement

Also be up to snuff on Arnold, Hardy, and Browning, and of course, expect a quiz.

On Monday, Mrs. Delaplane will sub for those of you not in A.P. Calculus, while the rest of you will take a practice Calculus test.
We (as in the nurses' vernacular "we"-- which really means "you") will take--and if time permits--review one last, complete, practice A.P. Lit. test on Tuesday, the 5th.

Our A.P. test itself is on Thursday, May 7th.

Don't worry about the final exam: I assure you that it'll seem like child's play after four hours with the College Board. Remember that your memory work from "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" will be due at the same time.

I hope to play you John Cleese's rendering of some of The Screwtape Letters on...on...

Unit 5 Test: The Romantics

WCA AP ENGLISH 2009

UNIT 5 TEST: THE ROMANTICS

Write a short essay response to two of the following following three
questions. Each of your answers should be about 250 words (i.e., the
equivalent of one printed double-spaced page).

1. As you will recall, in the "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth says poetry is "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity." This is the prototypical Romantic definition, illustrated again and again not only in Wordsworth's poetry but in the poetry of other Romantics as well. Illustrate the aptness of the definition by discussing three poems, each by a different Romantic poet -- Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, or Wordsworth himself. In your discussion of each poem, cite a specific passage in which Wordsworth's definition is particularly well-exemplified.

2. In the "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth's answer to the question "What is a poet?" is: "He is a man speaking to men: a man . . . endued with more . . . enthusiasm and enderness . . . than are supposed to be common among mankind." Illustrate the aptness of this definition by discussing three poems, each by a different Romantic poet -- Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, or Wordsworth himself. State as clearly as possible how each poem represents a
particularly effective application of Wordsworth's definition.

3. At the end of the passage from "Tintern Abbey" which you are memorizing, Wordsworth indicates that the effect of the poetic imagination on poets and readers is that "we see into the life of things." What does he mean? Illustrate what you think he means by discussing three poems, each by a different Romantic poet -- Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, or Wordsworth himself. In your discussion of each poem, cite a specific passage in which the concept of "seeing into the life of things" is especially prominent.

This exam should be printed out and handed in by 8:00 on Monday morning, April 27. Or, if you prefer, you may submit it by e-mail to: jdmevans@uga.edu or lynngate1@yahoo.com by 10:00 p.m. on Sunday April 26.

Also, remember the reading assignment for Monday is: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Break, Break, Break," "Crossing the Bar," and "Ulysses."

Details

Keep your eye on the prize as we head into the home stretch these next couple of months, focusing particularly on your analytical skills in poetry throughout April. If you're behind on your reading, either in Poetry 180 or Cracking the A.P., now is the time to catch up. You'll be doing extensive written work with the former, and the latter contains invaluable advice for the upcoming A.P. exam. (IF you'll do what this book suggests, you'll practically be guaranteed one free semester's worth of college credit, if not TWO semesters' worth.) PLEASE READ, and also memorize the essentials of "The Idea Machine," (their phrase, not mine) the "Big 5 for Prose," and the "Big 5 for Poetry."

Headmaster James and I already have agreed to swap out class dates during April, in order to gain a couple of full mornings for practicing our respective classes' A.P. exams. We'll probably see what coffee shop will allow us to monopolize their conference room for a couple of mornings and meet there (preferably Two Story, but I'll keep you posted).

Continue to work on your Wordsworth memorization, which should be a snap after the excerpt from Chaucer's Prologue. This will be due mid-May.

Please line up one of the following dystopian/post-apocalyptic books by April 15, after which we'll move onto something a little more hopeful with which to wrap up the schoolyear--probably one of C.S. Lewis' works.

Again, check the library for the following titles, and ask them to order a book for you if they don't currently have your preference on the shelf. Thrift stores also are teeming with these:

*The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
1984, by George Orwell
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
**A Canticle for Liebowitz, by Walter Miller
The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood

*a student favorite
**an Evans favorite

March Forecast and Godspeed

All of us back home will be keeping you wonderful students in our prayers faithfully while you're in Cedar Rapids this week. Know that you'll be exhausted sometime around Saturday or Sunday, when the adrenaline starts wearing off. You can ward off drama by expecting this, shrugging it off, and looking for creatively pro-active ways to help the flood victims.
Remember to "keep the main thing the main thing."

I'll write up a barebones outline of this month's syllabus, possibly subject to change:

Mondays and Thursdays:
Continue to work your way through The Enlightenment and 18th-Century Writers, and expect a unit test sometime around March 30th.

Wednesdays:
March 18-- This month's reader's choice novels must be completed by this date, as you'll most likely be doing an in-class A.P. essay question (a bona fide question from a previous year's test) for a grade. I'll also need your signatures to verify the completion of this task. For those of you reading Heart of Darkness, I strongly suggest you add Things Fall Apart to the assignment, and compare/contrast the two.
**IF you need help with your paper, this will be the time to arrange a lunch or after-school meeting with me.

March 25--Papers due; remember to incorporate principles from Foster's book, along with anything you can apply from the Cracking the A.P. book as well.

Foster, Round 2; paper on "A Jury of Her Peers"

Below I will finish out the points I especially want you to remember from the final chapters of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, chapters 25 through "Envoi." Your quiz Wednesday will cover these points:

Ch. 25: Foster's saying, "Don't read with your eyes"--or better yet, use Sam's emphasis: "don't read w/ YOUR eyes" as you consider the cultural context; the essential question of the "last-chance-for-change" story; what criteria Foster uses about bigotry and prejudice in his reading selections, and where he absolutely draws the line.

Ch. 26: irony trumps everything; be able to give a couple of examples of 20th century authors who use irony liberally and a couple of well-known titles in which irony is critical; be able to give a clear enough definition of irony; besides irony's trumping everything, be able to explain why it doesn't work for everyone (e.g. the reaction to Salmon Rushdie's The Satanic Verses); why Foster suggests that everything he has explained in the book flies out the window when irony comes in.

Ch. 27: familiarity w/ Katherine Mansfield's "The Garden Party"--read it, please; some familiarity w/ both Foster's and his stellar student's (the third one he mentions) interpretation of the story.

"Envoi": know what this French word means; be able to tell a little something about the disclaimers Foster issues at the end of the book; why does he say you should not only read dead writers?

____________________________________________

DUE ON FEB. 11:

Read "A Jury of Her Peers," and as you read, look for archetypes, motifs, irony, symbolism, etc.--any concept you learned more about from Foster's book. Then write a 2-4-pp analysis of the story in which you try your best to cite instances of FIVE (minimally three) of Foster's ideas exemplified in this story; we deliberately chose one RIFE with possibilities. Use the student's analysis of "A Garden Party" from Foster, pp 267-268, as a guide. If you're a mythology buff (Sam?), try your hand at an analysis like Foster's, in which he compares Laura Sheridan to Persephone in Hades.

Here are a few specifics I'd like you to focus on as you write:

--Remember our mantra: MEMORY, SYMBOL, PATTERN.

--Try to answer Foster's two questions, expending most of your energy on the latter of the two:

1) What does it signify?, and 2) HOW does it signify?

--Avoid plot summary, but get the reader oriented by giving a very brief nod to/synopsis of the basic storyline. (See above.)

--Use specific detail and, when relevant, quotations to back up your points.

--Use vivid verbs

--Try to avoid using pronouns as much as possible, instead replacing them with a variety of more interesting nouns.

--Check for the major editing errors; again, if you print off a copy of your paper in a font you never use and proofread that w/ pen in hand, you'll be surprised at the objectivity you will gain.

Miscellaneous Addenda

It is indeed the case that this week's literary terms test will only contain words starting with 'O' and 'P' ...strange, but true.

The final chapters (pp. 226-281) of Foster's book will be due on Feb. 4. I will post at a later date--either here or on the board--the specifics of what I expect you to know from that section of the book.


Be sure to be in possession of a novel from the A.P. list I gave you by Wednesday, Feb. 11, and have it in hand.

ALSO---please bring $$ to reimburse me for your Cracking the A.P. workbook! We will be starting the book in February.

From Foster: Yes, this will be on the test.

"What happens if the writer is good is usually not that the work seems derivative or trivial but just the opposite: the work actually acquires depth and resonance from the echoes and chimes it sets up with prior texts" (Foster 187).


Listed below are the salient points I want to make sure you know and can apply from the first 24 chapters of Foster's book, taken chapter by chapter.

Intro: Faustian Bargain, ***memory/symbol/pattern***
Ch. 1: major elements of the quest, inc. the real reason vs. the ostensible reason
Ch. 2: significance of food and drink/breaking bread together
Ch. 3: significance of vampires and ghosts, and essential elements of these stories
Ch. 4: basic elements of the sonnet form, lines, stanzas, shape, and the sentence as the basic unit of poetry
Ch. 5: what Foster means when he asserts that there's "only one story."
Ch. 6: significance of Shakespeare in literary allusions
Ch. 7: significance of The Bible in literary allusions, along with major examples
Ch. 8: literary canon and importance of fairy tales, esp. Hansel and Gretel
Ch. 9: the meaning of 'myth' and the widespread misconception about its meaning
Ch.10: importance/meaning of specific elements of weather and water, Fisher King mythology

--Interlude: What does Foster say about writers and intentionality?

Ch.11: violence and its importance on literal and symbolic levels
Ch.12: symbolism--and when it is and isn't universal
Ch.13: Foster's opinion of political writing and his reasons for this opinion
Ch.14: the importance of Christianity and the Christ figure in Western literature
Ch.15: significance of flight and a couple of examples of the flight myth; importance of IRONY
Ch.18: meaning of a character's being submerged in water and coming back out--or not
Ch.19: geography's importance in characterization, theme, symbol, plot, etc.; meaning of "heading south"
Ch.20: use of seasons to strengthen a work-- either predictably or ironically/unexpectedly

--Interlude II: So how many stories are there? And what is/are it/they?
IMPORTANT: be able to define 'intertextuality' and 'archetype' and give examples of the latter.

Ch. 21: the frequency and significance of physical or psychological differences (freq. in the form of a disability) in characters throughout literature--and several examples
Ch. 22: Oedipus myth and significance of sight and blindness, whether metaphorical or literal; importance of darkness and light; the importance of a writer's early introduction of particular facets of a story or traits of a character
Ch. 23: the importance of the heart/heart ailments in literature
Ch. 24: importance of other physical ailments and diseases, and why authors choose particular ones over others; a couple of examples of "choice" illnesses for writers

Be bloody, bold, and resolute.

Macbeth at our house, 8:00 on Thursday, Jan. 15. We will provide the snacks and the editing.