Final thoughts

It is time for us all to go in different directions.  It is never good bye because hearts filled with familiarity and love are never that far away.  This is still a school blog, but I encourage you all to write a final note or letter to your peers.  So, keep it clean and hopeful for the future is full and dreams are real.

Parent Child Relationships

Parent child relationships are the foundation for which all future relationships are formed.  In looking at the parent child relationships in Beloved and in one other text we have read this year, I want you to compare and contrast them and then explain what is revealed through these relationships.

Ex: Compare/contrast Hamlet and Gertrude to Sethe and Beloved.
Explain the relationship between Hamlet and his mother.
Explain the relationship between  Sethe and Beloved.

Then explain what both relationships reveal about this idea. Be sure to keep the entire text in mind when forming your deductions and in coming to conclusion.  Please have textual evidence to support your thinking.

Faulkner’s Ideas

In this week’s blog, I want you to examine what Faulkner says in his Nobel Banquet Speech.   
Read his speech and determine if his novel As I Lay Dying does what he says is the role of the artist.

Write a letter to one of the characters using both the speech and the novel as your support to answer the question: Does the novel do what Faulkner says writers should do in a piece of writing?

Your letter should be a couple paragraphs answering the question and addressing a specific character.

Character Letter

I beleive in the power of letter writing.  Writing to a specific person is about trying to say something specifically to that person: an audience is given, a purpose for writing is given, and a common conversation is created. 

So, this week, I want you to write a letter to a character in Crime and Punishment.  In your letter, I want you to give them advice.  Explain to them what they have done and what you think they should do to fix the problem.  Be sure to examine not just the short term effects of the solution, but also the long term effects.  Look at the novel as a whole. 

Let’s talk about Power

This week we will explore power and how it is created, used, and the effects of power.  There are many different philosophies about power and how it is created.  Some take it, some earn it, some weasel their way into it, and some are asked to take it because they understand it.  

Some people abuse their power by working to oppress those under them, some use it to serve those  those under their command, some fail and are usurped by those who want to take it.  With the creation of power and the use of power come many different results. 

I want you to watch this clip from the movie, The Last Castle. This the basic storyline from IMDB: “Robert Redford stars in this action drama as General Irwin, a respected three-star tactician whose career ends in disgrace when he's court-martialed and sent to The Castle, a maximum security military prison. Irwin quickly butts heads with the facility's autocratic warden, Colonel Winter (James Gandolfini), who runs his command with an iron fist, even killing prisoners when he deems it necessary. Irwin rallies his fellow convicts into a rag-tag army and leads them in a revolt against Winter, an action that the warden is ready to repel by violent means.”      

Analyze the scene. Look at voice, behavior, body language, actual language, and the like to determine how the power dynamic between these two men works.  

Then, I want you to pick a scene from Crime and Punishment that you think illustrates a similiar rendition of power and explain how the film and the novel both establish commentary on power. You must have specific evidence from both pieces to support your answer. 

The Role of Art

Read this piece on Brainpickings: The Great Naturalist John Burroughs on Art, the Courage to Defy Convention, and the Measure of a Visionary.

In reading this piece, decide if you agree with what he is saying or not. Explain what you believe is the role of art and the artist. Then once you have explained what the role of art is society, determine if Dostoevsky has achieved your expectation of the role of art in the novel Crime and Punishment.

Be sure to include textual evidence from both the novel and the Brainpicking’s piece to support your thinking. As you go through, feel free to read your peer’s responses. If you feel so inclined, post a comment to a response. Be respectful and thoughtful in your response.

Shame

Listen to this podcast by Tracy K. Smith.  It is called The Slowdown.  Each week she features new poems and talks for about five minutes.  The poem I want you to examine is “In Memory of Shame.”

Look at what is being said about shame and how it is acquired and why it matters.  Analyze the poem and then apply this idea of shame to a character in your choice book.  Think about why they experience shame, who gave it to them, and how it has affected them.

You are looking at two-three full paragraphs for this post.

Choice Books—a connection

    The things we read in this class are considered timeless in that they transcend a particular time and speak to what it means to be human.  The character flaws, the themes, the philosophical ideas all can be examined across a wide variety of literary genres and mediums.  
     With that being said, it is important that as readers of not just texts, but readers of the world, we should be able to recognize when these timeless conversations are present and how new time periods try to enter that conversation.  
      For your first blog, I want you to look at your choice book and choose one aspect—characters flaws, themes, philosophical ideas—and look around your world to do a comparison.  Choose one song, one film, one episode in a series, a poem, a video game, etc. and explain how you see the timelessness of your chosen text live and breathe within your chosen piece. 

     This should two-three paragraphs—please have textual evidence. 
     1. A description of the item you are analyzing in your choice book
     2. A description of the item you are analyzing in the chosen medium or genre 
     3. This is where you connect them together and reveal what you notice that is the same, different, 
         and why it matters.