Meeting Re-Cap for Monday, July 27th.

Hi Everyone:

I would like to give you a quick update on last week’s meeting, but first I should let everyone know that the next meeting will be Monday, August 10^th, at 9:00 A.M. in room 2209.  The assignment is the same as it was for the last meeting, but this time simply apply it to chapters 16-end of Invisible Man.  Once again, if you were not able to make the meeting last Friday, please add a thoughtful comment in the comment box below.

We started the meeting with a review of the question types of the AP Exam and the modes of writing we will be employing this year.  We then took some notes on modes of criticism, namely New Criticism as it relates to AP Literature and Post-Modern Criticism and its lenses as it relates to possibilities for research in the second half of the year (see a friend’s notes if you missed this). 

We then tried an exercise that will be a feature of the class during the year. As practice for passage analysis, students broke up into groups and chose a few sentences from either Invisible Man or Invisible Cities.  From there they marked up the sentences, creating codes and diagrams intended to demonstrate to the class what they thought were the essential elements of the writer’s style.  The responses were very interesting, with students picking up on Ralph Ellison’s acerbic and often exaggerated use of metaphor and his heavily rhythmic use of syntax and punctuation, which approximates conversational speech or an orator’s techniques.  These and other insights were an excellent way to begin questioning how these stylistic idiosyncrasies tie into the threads of meaning in the texts.

We were not left with much time to talk about the first half of Invisible Man, unfortunately, but it was a very exciting start.  Students brought up Ellison’s interesting tendency to push situations to a breaking point, causing almost utter disbelief in the reader.  Metaphors are very in-your-face and surreal (e.g. the paint factory with its “Optic White).  One student made the great point that the narrative seems to follow a build-up and crescendo effect, beginning each new episode in a relative “real” world and building to a point that feels like a bad dream.  Another student noticed that there is a birth and rebirth pattern in the story.  I spent a little time talking about the implied historical figures in the story: Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey (all worth looking up).  We noted that a central thematic concern in the book is a questioning of systems of control.  Who is really in control, where is the real source of power, and why must the real source of power be hidden behind a veil (e.g. Mr. Bledsoe, Mr. Brockaway)?  Some of the last things brought up were the Invisible Man’s eviction speech scene and the Trueblood scene, which will be a perfect gateway to get into the deepest issues of the book, but for now we’ve got a great macro view of how the book is structured.

Thank you, and we’ll see you next time, Mr. Telles.

Friday Meeting Re-Cap: Invisible Cities.

Hi Everyone:

Here is a quick re-cap of last Friday’s meeting, which went very well.  We started the meeting with a brief discussion of the differences between AP Language and AP Literature, which I’ll discuss again briefly when school starts, and we also talked about the three writing activities on the AP exam itself, which should not be taken as an indication that the class is going to be test-centered, but as an opportunity to point out what kinds of writing we will be primarily focusing on this year.  The writing on the AP Lit exam isn’t unique to the exam and is transferrable to college-level writing in the humanities.

I then asked the class for their reactions to Invisible Cities, and from there we discussed the book for the rest of the meeting.  Reactions were generally favorable, even when mixed with bemusement or confusion.  One student found the descriptions of the cities to be perplexing but exciting, and she was kept wondering what leaps of invention the author would come up with next.  Another liked the symmetry of the cities, the way elements of the cities mirrored each other and seemed to have an internal logic.  A student commented that she found the cities became increasingly more interesting as the book went on, and the final cities were the most vivid and memorable.  All of these comments struck me as surprising since most years I find that students respond more strongly to the Khan / Polo discussions than the city descriptions, but this year students seemed to like the inventive detail more than the philosophy.

From here I asked some leading questions, e.g. is there a plot?  Is there an internal tension or conflict that is being worked out?  This prompted a response in which one student, who generally liked the book, felt that ultimately nothing in the book spoke to her as a person, and she was wondering if she was missing something.  One student said that she thought that the tension between expanding one’s control or one’s “empire” to the point where it can not be sustained is a central problem; there is nothing one can do to stop the corruption that builds up beyond one’s reach.  Another student felt that the tension between being immersed in the concrete detail of life (symbolized by Polo) and working with abstractions (symbolized by Khan) was at the root of things.  I offered that the book seems to be working out the limitations of language and storytelling.  How do we get across experience: through concrete detail, through emblematic or symbolic gestures?  Can the complexity of experience even be told directly or must it be suggested?

We talked about many other issues: representations of women in the book, the dual impulses of fear and desire that run through the book, the fact that the book subtly encourages the reader to side with Polo, and the depth of the last paragraph of the book. 

If you could not join us, please add your comments on any of these issues in the comment box below, and explain yourself as fully as you can.  Thanks for reading, Mr. Telles.

Date and Instructions for the Next Meeting, Monday, July 27th (Invisible Man Chapters 1-15)

Hi Everyone:

My next post will be a quick re-cap of our meeting on July 10^th, but before I get to that I should first announce that the next meeting will have to be shifted a bit from the originally planned date.  We were originally going to meet Friday, July 24^th, but I need to change the date to Monday, July 27^th, 9:00 A.M. in room 2209.  Sorry about the change (but you get a few extra days!)

This time we will discuss chapters 1-15 of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.  The assignment for these chapters is very similar to the last assignment.  Here are the retooled directions:

Description: This assignment is a hybrid which combines the skill of responding to a passage in an exploratory and provisional way (as in the traditional quotation response journal) and something approaching the more focused and formal skill of the AP-style passage response (Question 2) on the AP Literature exam.  Use the rubric that you were given before the end of the school year to guide you through the shorter quotation responses.  The same rubric is applicable to the longer portion of the assignment, only rather than including personal connections and open-ended questions, you should maintain your focus on what is being asked of you in the directions.

Directions:

Part One:  After reading chapters 1-15 of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, respond to four passages from throughout the text.  Try to choose passages that do one of two things: 1) In preparation for the bildungsroman unit during the school year, try to choose passages that advance, complicate, or illuminate the main character's social, intellectual, or creative development.  In other words, what are the big moments of change and what do they reveal?  OR 2)  Try to select passages that contain things that seem to jump out of the narrative as highly unusual, grotesque, uncomfortable or incongruous.  Try to make some sense out of these things or make connections to the larger story.

As always, Keep in mind these fundamental questions: why does your passage matter so much, and how does your passage function on its own and in relation to the rest of the book?  Each response has a 60 word minimum.

Part Two:  Write one longer response to a passage, around 300-500 words.  You simply want to choose a passage that exemplifies one of the two threads above but seems especially important.

***For those who did not make it to the meeting last Friday, please read my description of the discussion below and write a 300-500 word contribution in the comment section.