Songs of the Day

11.8.11 -- http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi702586393/ 
11.6.11 -- 





11.2.11:

Watch Daft Punk - Da Funk (ipod) in Music  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
 
9.26.11: 

The Wildest Swing Dancing - Harlem Congaroos... by Tushratta
9.23.11: Sister Nancy -- "Bam Bam"

Sister Nancy - Bam Bam (Audio MP3 Stream)

9.22.11: Phil Phillips -- "Sea of Love"

Unit 7 -- Walt Whitman and Emily Dickenson

Unit Six -- American Gothicism / AntiTranscendentalism

Opening: As usual, I would like you to spend a few minutes reviewing the Georgia Performance Standards, essential questions, and key terms.  Doing this should prepare you for the unit, and help you understand on which aspects of the texts to focus as you read.

ELAALRL3 The student deepens understanding of literary works by relating them to their contemporary context or historical background, as well as to works from other time periods.

(you have seen this one before).

ELAWLRL1.3.a.i The student identifies and analyzes elements of poetry from various periods of world literature and provides evidence from the text to support understanding; the student:

• a. Identifies, responds to, and analyzes the effects of diction, syntax, sound, form, figurative language, and structure of poems as these elements relate to meaning.
• i. sound: alliteration, end rhyme, internal rhyme, terza rima, consonance, assonance

ELAALRL2 The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of theme in a work of American literature and provides evidence from the work to support understanding.




Essential Questions:

• What draws people toward things that are mysterious?
• Are people generally good or generally evil?
• Think about the Transcendentalists' philosophy for a moment. With which of their ideas would you disagree?

Key Terms:

• Gothicism
• Narrative Poem
• End Rhyme / Internal Rhyme
• Alliteration
  
  
  MINI LESSON:Before you start:
  
  What is original sin?
  How did the Transcendentalists feel about it?
  
  If you cannot explain these two questions, you probably need to call me over for a little conversation. It would not make much sense progressing without knowing these things and being able to explain them well.
  
  Just like every other movement in American Literature you have studied (Puritanism, Rationalism, Romanticm, and Transcendentalism) Gothicism (also called Dark Romanticism) is a reaction to the movement that came before it. Gothicism is a little different because it coincides with Transcendentalism. Sometimes the Dark Romantics are known as Anti-Transcendentalists for this reason.
  
  First, let's review the Transcendentalist philosophy:
  
  1. They believed that everyone was absolutely pure and that each individual is a part of God.
  
  2. They believed that people's thoughts and intuition were the voice of God.
  
  3. They did not believe in institutions like government because they thought the individual human mind was the strongest power in the universe.

What would your argument to this philosophy be? Are all people good? Is the voice inside people's heads the pure voice of God?

Let's review the lives of some of the Dark Romantics to see if we can predict how they would answer these questions:

 

Nathaniel Hawthorne's great grandfather was one of the judges in the Salem witchcraft trials during Puritan times. During these trials, nineteen people and two dogs were hanged, and one man was crushed to death by stones all in the name of God. Nathaniel Hawthorne was embarrassed by this, so he changed the spelling of his to lessen the association with his relative, a minister and a judge who sentenced people to cruel deaths because other people accused them of being evil. Hawthorne would become famous for his novel The Scarlet Letter and short stories like "The Minister's Black Viel" and "The Birthmark" in which he criticises the Puritan culture. How would Hawthorne feel about the Transcendental philosophy? Reread thier beliefs if you need to.

 

Herman Melville was not a trained and educated writer like Emerson, Thoreau, or Hawthorne. He instead made his early living in the merchant marine as a sailor because of the fiancial breakdown in his family. Melville, who wanted to become a writer, was working on a ship as early as twelve years old. While sailing around the globe, Melville witnessed many things he would not have seen at his home in New York. One sight that reportedly effected him severely were the cannibals he saw in the South Pacific. Melville would write Moby Dick later in his life. Moby Dick was a novel about a ship captain, Ahab who was so obsessed with killing a white whale that ate his leg that he sacrifices his entire ship and all the men on it. Was Ahab pure of mind to sacrifice all the men he was charged with leading? Would a man who witnessed people eating human flesh agree that everyone was good and pure?

Edgar Allen Poe's mother died when he was very young, his stepfather disowned him when he went to college, and all three of his wives died from tuberculosis. Poe developed terrible addictions to opium and alcohol. By today's standards, he was probably insane. Poe's stories and poetry all feature characters who begin with a small grain of evil in their minds which eventually takes over. Many biographers argue that every one of Poe's stories represent something inside his mind.

In short, the Dark Romantics, after reviewing their life experiences thought that the Transcendental philosophy was severely flawed. They saw that people could be evil, insane, unpure, or generally not 100% good like the Transcendentalists thought. Unlike the Transcendentalists, they believed in original sin, and that it was responsible for the evil that existed inside of everyone.

Post the following responses to your blog:

2. On which side of the divide do you fall? Are you closer to being a Transcendentalist or a Dark Romantic? Explain your answer with a short paragraph.

3. Read either "The Black Cat" or "Hop-Frog", both by Edgar Allen Poe. As you read, keep the Dark Romantics' beliefs in mind because you will be asked to point out these beliefs in the story later. \

4. Write a 2-3 paragraph response to the story you read. You should explain what you thought of the story as well as how well it illustrates how the Dark Romantics disagreed with the Transcendantalists. You need to provide at least a line or two of direct textual evidence from the story you chose to prove your claim.

You can also see the video a little larger here.

5. Once of Poe's most famous works was "The Raven", a poem he wrote while his second wife was literally dying in the next room. Read the poem (more than once), and then write a response (at least two paragraphs) that includes a few lines that stuck out to you. Add another paragraph or two that should explain how this poem represents an anti-Transcendental idea. As always, responses with direct evidence are always better than those that do not.

6. Look over the text of The Raven once more.  Provide evidence from the poem for each of the following elements:

• End Rhyme
• Internal Rhyme
• Alliteration

CLOSING:
7. Review your responses to the essential questions, Georgia Performance Standards, and key terms in the opening of this unit.  How have you addressed these elements in your work.  Explain to me how you have done this, and provide evidence from your work to support your claims.


When you are finished, review your work to be sure it contains everything I've asked for, and then leave me a comment to this post to remind me to read your work.

Self-Evaluate Your Work!!

Unit Three -- Renaissance Poetry

Unit Five -- Romaticism and Transcendentalism

Opening: Let's start where we always do -- with a discussion of the standards this unit will address. Take a moment to read the Georgia Performance Standard I have pasted below:

ELAALRL2 The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of theme in a work of American literature and provides evidence from the work to support understanding.  The student:

a. Applies knowledge of the concept that the theme or meaning of a selection represents a universal view or comment on life or society and provides support from the text for the identified theme.

b. Evaluates the way an author’s choice of words advances the theme or purpose of the work.
c. Applies knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme.


Essential Questions:



What is theme?

How is imagination important? Is it more important than rational thought?

Are people essentially good or evil?

Key Terms:


Romanticism

Transcendentalism

Theme



1. ON YOUR BLOG: Read the standard one more time. What is a theme? Would you know one when you saw it? Could you provide evidence to support what you say? Take a moment to post to your blog what this standard might mean, and while you are at it, what this thing called theme" is.  You may also provide answers to the essential questions if you like.  However you decide to respond to this post, be sure to make some sort of prediction as to what this unit may be addressing.

Mini-Lesson -- Washington Irving was a straight-up pimpdaddy. Just look at him. If there was MTV then, he would have been on Cribs. He crashed parties at the White House, and he rolled the tightest whips. Most of this is true.

Irving was probably The United States’ first home-grown celebrity, and you are probably familiar with some of his stories like "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". These stories are some of the best examples of American Romanticism, a style of writing that required people to use their imaginations.

Irving was so famous that some of the stories he created are still accepted as fact today. Have you heard the story about Christopher Columbus proving the earth was round? That is fact, right? NOPE.

This myth (as well as some others) were created from Washington Irving’s stories. Irving wrote a children’s book about Columbus in which the explorer wanted to prove the world was round. The fact is that everybody already knew it was round at the time. In fact, globes were a popular thing with which people decorated their homes.


It is not hard to believe that so many people would take Irving’s stories for fact. People needed a little fiction and imagination to get away from their lives because living in the United States during this time (the 1820s-40s) was not the most enjoyable. Most people lived in large cities like Boston, New York (which quadrupled in population in twenty years), and Philadelphia. These places were nasty. People threw their trash and sewage in the street; horse droppings were everywhere; if a horse dropped dead, it would stay in the street to rot; thousands of children and adults were homeless; pirates would come ashore and rob people in the cities; gangs controlled sections of many these cities, and a cholera epidemic killed up to one hundred people a day.

Romanticism is the school of thought that emphasizes intuition over logic, and feeling over reason. You should immediately recognize how this is different from the Rationalist (Franklin / Age of Reason) school of thought. Romantics felt that reason and logic can only go so far for someone who is homeless and starving, or suffering the side-effects of the Industrial Revolution like pollution and being injured in large factories.

Be careful not to confuse Romanticism with what we commonly call "romantic" today. They are a little bit different. We call lovey-dovey movies and stories romantic today because it is a kind of Romanticism in that they depict relationships in the way we would imagine them, and not the way they actually are.

The Romantics believed there were higher truths than reason and logic, and they felt this could be accomplished by listening to one’s heart, or using one’s imagination to reach better places than where they were physically.

Many people around the world thought Americans were unsophisticated and stupid, and the Rationalists tried very hard to prove that this was unfair and untrue. Romantics, on the other hand, told stories of ordinary people, like Rip Van Winkle or Natty Bumppo who were unsophisticated and were able to rise to the level of hero. They wanted to prove that Americans were more innocent than Europeans, and that true knowledge was not found in libraries, but in adventures.

Romantics also focused on nature in their writing since they thought it was a way to escape from the loud city, as well as a way to hear ones intuition.

Work Period:Read either Rip Van Winkle or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and then post the following to your weblog:
Better yet, listen to Rip Van Winkle as you read it. Please take the time to open the text file since reading and listening together will be the most useful, especially since you will need to find textual evidence later.
Rip Van Winkle Audio:




2. What about the story did you find particularly Romantic? You may want to reread the section on Romanticism again to refresh your memory. Give at least two examples with direct evidence for each.

3.
You can also find this video in my assignments folder in my drop box. If you view it there, you will be able to watch it full-screen. You can also view it here.

How does this poem illustrate all three of the main themes of Romanticism? Make sure you provide evidence for each claim you make.

BEFORE MOVING ONTO THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS UNIT, YOU SHOULD BE SURE YOU CAN ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

a. What is original sin?

b. How did the Puritans feel about original sin?


c. How did the Rationalists differ from the Puritans?


d. What are the main themes of Romanticism?

Georgia Performance Standard ELAALRL2 states that you should be able to identify themes and support them with evidence. I will expect that you can do this at this point.



That should have been easy.

Now we are going to investigate the central themes of another group of Romantics called the Transcendentalists.

Another Mini-Lesson:

By the mid-1800s, the United States was still in search of its literary identity. America had popular writers like Washington Irving, but they still did not have the heavy hitters to match up with some of England's poets and essayists. The United States wanted to declare literary independence from England, much like the political separation that happened almost one hundred years earlier.


It was a good time for Americans to want to assert themselves in the literary world. Learning was very popular at the time. Most Americans wanted to improve their minds in one way or the other. Some of the most popular things to do were attending lectures on topics from astronomy to botany to physics to philosophy. Groups pushing for the abolition of slavery and increased rights for women were also forming during this time.



This strive for independence began for the most part during a hiking trip and dinner with a guest list that would include some of the United States' most famous literary figures: Nethaniel Hawthorne, Herman Mellville, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. It was at this outing that these men decided that the United States should have writers as good as England's William Shakespeare, and that this would never happen unless they made an effort to do so. These men's dreams would soon be realized in two separate groups -- The Transcendentalists and the Dark Romantics, sometimes known as "anti-transcendentalists".



The Transcendentalists:



The Transcendentalists were Romantics who adopted philosophies from many other places and cultures. They believed that the individual human mind was one of the most powerful instruments in the world, and that the individual mind was connected to all others through what was known as the "oversoul", a collection of everyone's soul that we all share.



Transcendentalists believed that God spoke through people's minds and their hard work. Since they believed this, they also believed that every human was absolutely good and pure. They did not believe that the origianl sin committed by Adam and Eve made the rest of us sinners. Why would God communicate through an impure mind? They also believed that God could communicate to people through nature and a persons intuition.



Since God spoke through individuals, Transcendentalists did not belive that institutions like the governemnet or organized religion were effective. They believed that if a person was truly in touch with their surroundings, they could transcend these physical and man-made things to connect with God. The Transcendentalists' optimism and overall trust in the goodness of all people made them popular with outsiders who would often enjoy their lectures.



Please read the following (all of these can be found in the red anthology):

from "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

from "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. When you are through reading, post a 1-2 paragraph response to each piece of writing to your blog. Be sure to concentrate more on what you thought of each piece of writing. Try to include at least one piece of direct evidence with each response (remember standard #1). This should be something that stuck out to you about the particular piece of writing.

6. Next, write explain how each piece is a good example of Transcendentalism by identifying the central themes I described earlier in the post. Use what you read above, and prove that each piece is a good example with a paragraph supported with direct evidence (one paragraph each).

NEXT . . .

Check this guy out. If you do not see the video here, you can find it in my assignments folder. I have called it Wilderness:

7. How can you apply Transcendental philosophy to the man in this video? I'm sure you could easily spend a couple paragraphs telling me how. I also know it would be easy for you to back up whatever you say with direct evidence from the texts you have already read. If you are really into it, you might read a little of Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Just choose a couple sections you think you would like.

CLOSING:

Revisit the response you made to the opening segment (#1).  Explain how you feel the work you have done addresses the Georgia Performance Standards for this unit.  You may also want to provide more specific answers to the essentail questions.

Self-Evaluate Your Work!!

Once you are finished, leave me a comment so I know to view your work.