Outside Reading: Book Review due 2/21/11

2/20/11

“In Brief: Stolen World” by Steven Kurutz

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704150104576122670901396508.html

In this book review, Steven Kurutz writes about Jennie Erin Smith's investigative book, Stolen World. Although this piece is supposed to be a book review, ¾ of the essay seems to be a summary of the events in the book while the other ¼ is Kurutz personal opinion on Smith's book without a trace of evidence or proof. The language is professional, yet somehow detached. He subjectively summarizes mostly. His syntax is clear and simple without any flourishes. “ The book's primary subject is...” Randomly, he diverges from his clear, simple style for a completely different kind of syntax. For example, Kurutz writes, “His name: Leon Leopard.” Instead of adding suspense or interest, these randomly placed divergences from his simple syntax is confusing to the reader. Near the end, he writes that “there's something startling or funny on nearly every page” while also claiming that Smith is “clearly smitten with her smuggler subjects”. Though these statements seem to be the only opinions in his essay, Kurutz fails to provide any textual evidence, but rather leaves the reader to believe his word alone.

Since this can barely pass as a book review, I do not see any critical perspectives present in the slightest.

Outside Reading: Reflective Essay due 2/21/11

2/20/11

“Secret Skin” by Michael Chabon

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/10/080310fa_fact_chabon

In this reflective Essay, Michael Chabon relates to the reader his experience as a child of being transfixed with superheroes and comic books. The narrative style is knowledgeable, in that he is looking back at his child self with additional insight. The tone of the piece is reflective and musing. Although grown up, he still writes about the idea of superheroes with the wonder and yearning it usually receives. He achieves this by employing devices such as colorful imagery and diction. When writing about Superman's ability to fly, he writes that it “evolved under the red sun of Krypton. And yet you had only to tie a towel around your shoulders to feel the strange vibratory pulse of flight stirring in the red sun of your heart.” He uses metaphors to accurately relate a relationship to the readers. For example he writes that there were costumed crime-fighters before Superman, but only as there were “pop quartets before the Beatles”. As for syntax, Chabon uses catalogues and parallelism regularly to hammer home his points. His similes are also very vivid and on point. When he writes about how superhero costumes are always disappointing in real life, he compares it to “one of those deep-sea creatures which evolved to thrive in the crushing darkness of the seabed, so that when you haul them up to the dazzling surface they burst.” To avoid being repetitive in naming comic characters, Chabon switches it up by making allusions like the “spider bite of inspiration”, which obviously is a reference to Spiderman.

This tone would not work for an AP essay because in an AP essay, the writer should be clear and to the point. This essay is colorful and although entertaining, would probably be inappropriate.

Outside Reading: Editorial Column due 2/21/11

2/20/11

“Real Family Values” by Unnamed Author

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/opinion/24thu3.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

In this editorial, “Real Family Values”, the author applauds President Barack Obama's decision to end governmental defense of the Defense of Marriage Act in court cases. The author is obviously in favor of this decision which the reader notices immediately from their language. The author says that the President “came to the right conclusion”. When writing about the Republicans who oppose the move, the author writes that they continue to “pander and promote intolerance”. The author's diction also makes their opinions obvious. They refer to the law as “unconstitutional” and “atrocious” and based in “bigotry”. The syntax is simple and to the point. What is lacking from this piece is any type of argument. Instead of arguing why the President's decision was the right one, the author just states that it is while simply stating that those who disagree are wrong, point blank. The author claims at the end of his essay, “It is discrimination, plain and simple.” All of these elements together impacts the reader's response to the content of the piece in a negative way. While it will be embraced by those who already hold the same values of the author, it will push away those on the fence because it is biased with no trace of evidence.

If this piece were an AP essay, the speaker's voice would be completely inappropriate because there is not a sign of factual evidence, only one sided opinions.

Class Notes 2/7/11 to 2/21/11

I was absent for the majority of this time frame so class notes for this week is not required of me.

Class Notes 1/24/11 to 2/7/11

• Claiming a book belongs to an era ---> Existential, Romantic
• Claiming a book has characteristics of an era, but isn't in the right time frame ---> existential, romantic

Medievalism and Allegory

• east to west movement of Renaissance (included)
• dominated by Church
• being an author isn't valued -> they just rework old stories

Medieval Literature:

• texts written during Europe's "Middle Ages" (500-1500 AD)
• epic tales of magnificent individuals who support the social order

Allegory:

• a type of extended metaphor in which objects and persons within a text represent meanings that lie outside the text
• create a unified message about the represented ideas, persons, events, etc
• verisimilitude and internal motivation is not necessary 

Medieval Allegory:

• hallmark of medieval literature
• commonly personified abstract qualities such as envy, truth, gluttony, or events like death
• concerned with "important" matters - the meaning of life and death, the route to salvation/damnation

Everyman:

• most common allegory - character who represents all of mankind
• character is unnamed or given vague and general personal characteristics
• setting is "mythic" or has a fairytale quality somehow "outside" of time

The Divine Comedy:

• epic poem by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and 1321
• allegorical vision of the Christian afterlife
• considered to be emblematic of the medieval world view

Archetypal and Mythological Criticism

• studies the connections among apparently disparate texts in order to understand how an individual text is faithful to and how it deviates from common patterns
• archetype: a plot, character, setting, symbolic event - any element of fiction that we see repeated over and over with its core meaning unchanged
• critics theorize that archetypes are literary reflections of experiences widely shared by humanity
• Northrop Frye attempted to systematize literary criticism
• postulated that there is essentially one story being told over and over - some works tell the whole story, some focus on a small part of it - but almost all can be placed into this greater context
• Archetypal mythois:
• Romance - the hero represents the values of the culture overcoming obstacles on his way to accomplish a socially desirable goal (quest) - endorses society
• Tragedy - movement from a desirable world into an undesirable world - hero falls through an error - endorses society
• Comedy - movement from an undesirable world into a desirable world - hero is an average man - endorses society
• Irony - "anti-romance" - starts at the bottom and ends at the bottom - doesn't endorse society

Novel

• extended fictional prose pieces
• anything under 50,000 words is usually considered a "novella"
• novels always contain a narrative
• by the end of the 19th century, the novel had displaced all other forms of literature in popularity due to 
• the growing middle class with their increased literacy rate and disposable income
• cheaper production and distribution of materials
• publication of novels in serial form
• the introduction of a system of circulating libraries
• common types of novels
• Prose Romance - set in historical past with a plot that emphasized adventure - characters sharply drawn as villains or heroes - protagonist is isolated from society
• Novel of Incident - narrative focuses on what the protagonist will do next and how the story will turn out
• Novel of Character (psychological novel) - focuses on protagonist's motives for what they do and how they'll turn out
• Novel of Manners - defines social mores of a specific group, often the upper-middle class, which control the actions of the characters
• Epistolary Novel - first person narrative that progresses in the forms of letters, journals, or diaries
• Picaresque Novel - relates the adventures of an eccentric or disreputable hero in episodic form
• Historical Novel - set in a period earlier that that of the writing
• Regional Novel - represents accurately the habits, speech, and folklore of a particular geographical section
• Bildungsroman - means novel of growth in German - fictional autobiography about the development of the protagonist's mind, spirit, and character
• Roman a clef - means "novel with a key" in French - imaginary events with real people disguised as fictional characters
• Roman-fleuve - French term for a narrative that has a common theme or range of characters that strech across a number of novels
• Sociological - depicts the problems an injustices of society, making moral judgments and offering resolution
• Stream of Consciousness - presents total range of thoughts, memories, associations of a character in uninterrupted, endless flow
• Gothic - combines a desolate setting and mysterious events to create an atmosphere of terror
• Gothic Romance - presents a stormy love relationship with a violent, brooding atmosphere
• Satirical - reveals human folly and vices through wit, scorn, ridicule, and exaggeration, with hope for reform

Literary Terms

Forms of Repetition:

• Anaphora - emphasizing words by repeating them at the beginnings of neighboring clauses
• Antistrophe (epistrophe/epiphora) - the repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences
• Anadiplosis - repetition of a word or phrase from the end of one clause or phrase at the beginning of the next clause or phrase
• Diacope - repetition with only one or two words between each repeated phrase
• Epizeuxis - repetition of words in immediate succession, for vehemence or emphasis
• Polysyndeton - repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses
• Alliteration - repetition of initial sounds, usually consonants
• Assonance - use of similar vowel sounds repeated in successive or proximate words containing different consonants
• Consonance - the repetition of consonants or consonant patterns, especially at the ends of words

Forms of Parallelism:

• Antithesis - establishing a clear, contrasting relationship between two ideas by joining them together or juxtaposing them, often in parallel structure

Forms of Inversion:

• Anastrophe - figure of speech involving an inversion of the ordinary Western order of words
• Chiasmus - figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point; that is, the clauses display inverted parallelism
• Antimetabole - repetition of words in successive clauses, but in transposed grammatical order

~~~~~~~~~Outside Connections~~~~~~~~

Outside Reading: Editorial Column due 1/10/11

1/9/11

"The First Drafts of American History" by Adam Kirsch

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/opinion/08kirsch.html

In “The First Drafts of American History”, Adam Kirsch writes about two recent attempts to cover up the past. When the Constitution was read aloud in the House of Representatives this past Thursday, the section that stated a House seat was worth “three-fifths of all other persons”, meaning non-whites, was skipped over. Also recently, the publishing company NewSouth Books announced they will be printing an edited version of Mark Twain's “Huckleberry Finn” that will replace the word “nigger” with “slave”. Kirsch analyzes the implications of these decisions and disagrees with the alteration of history and literature.

Kirsch makes the opposing opinion seem foolish by his specific diction when writing about it. He wrote that the idea of skipping over the Constitution's euphemism “stumbled out of the gate” and ended in “embarrassed silence”.

Kirsch uses logic to solidify his point. He puts very nicely that if you “start eliminating everything offensive in literary history, you’ll have little left” and that “trying to distract us from something ugly only makes the ugliness harder to miss.”

Kirsch crafts his persona by approaching the subject with an open mind rather than a raised fist. Instead of immediately accosting those responsible for these changes, he understands how a person can believe it to be appropriate. “I began to feel torn, because I could imagine the effect that its deluge of epithets would have on a young reader, especially a young black reader.” By being sympathetic to the opposing side, what he has to say seems to be more reliable and relatable than if he was furiously condemning it. This makes it more likely for a reader with an opposing opinion to consider changing their stance.

The way that Kirsch creates his voice impacts my response in a positive way. His logical train of thought is understandable and it solidifies my own opinion on the subject. I too, believe that it is foolish to skip over parts of the Constitution or replace words with euphemisms because that erases history. I would rather feel uncomfortable reading Huckleberry Finn aloud as a group in English class than pretend like it never happened.

The speaker of this editorial would be appropriate for an AP Essay in a way because of it's rational thought process. On the other hand, it probably wouldn't score very high because there aren't solid proofs to back up claims made by the author.

Outside Reading: Reflective Essay due 1/10/11

1/9/11

"Letting Go" by David Sedaris

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/05/080505fa_fact_sedaris

“Letting Go” by David Sedaris is mainly about his experience with cigarettes. Though the essay is Sedaris' accounts of some past events in his life, there is no sense of emotion. The tone is very straight forward, direct, and matter-of-fact. The structure in which he presents some events in his past is like his thought process. It is sporadic, choppy, and unfinished. It is as if he is musing to himself aloud.

Sedaris creates his matter-of-fact tone by not mentioning any residing feelings he has about any of the events he recounts. For example, he writes about how he destroyed a pack of his mom's cigarettes and how she beat him heavily afterwords for it. By simply stating the events then moving on to the next thought without commenting on any emotions he felt, the reader feels as if he is nonchalantly recalling it.

Almost a whole third of Sedaris' essay is set aside where he writes about his dislike for cigarettes since childhood. He uses pejorative diction when writing about them like voodoo doll, depressing, neglect, unpleasant, bothered, etc. This shows his obviously negative point of view regarding cigarettes. All of a sudden, right after his denouncement of this bad habit, he writes, “When I started smoking myself...” The fact that he makes no effort to explain this action solidifies his matter-of-fact tone. His lack of explanations also makes the reader feel as if they are in Sedaris' mind, following his sporadic train of thought as he muses to himself rather than relating the story to someone. He skims through the facts without reflecting on the whys.

His sporadic train of thought becomes more evident as his essay continues. He begins to write about a trip he made to Vancouver with his friend. The audience expects him to relate something of importance that happened on that trip but instead, Sedaris' goes off on a tangent about what kind of person smokes what kind of cigarette. He gives no kind of resolution to the story he began to write about but becomes entangled in listing off cigarette stereotypes. The reader can only assume he gets lost in his thoughts because once he finishes, he writes about how there were creepy drunk people in Canada and ends his piece. This random ending that had no connection whatsoever to what he began to write about is a telltale sign that this essay is meant only to be glimpse inside of his mind.

This essay definitely would not work for an AP Essay because there is no intention with the information Sedaris' provides. They are merely musings and are not meant to prove any kind of point.