First thing... you are all assigned to create a "wrestling entertainment" character and costume for next week.
OK, just kidding about that one.
So recall that your assignment is to work with your partner(s) to produce an "extension" to one of today's homework questions (162-171). This means either: elaboration, additional evidence, new idea about the topic, comparison/application to some other text or idea, new question about the topic, disagreement/debate or alternate answer, or answer to one of my follow-up questions. Or... something! Please comment to the previous post, since this is where the original questions/answers are.
And of course... the following students have a complete first draft essay due on 4月25日: Teresa, Esther, Jane, Ted, Rea, Emma, Jenny, Joy, Meg, Peggy, Sherry, Sydney, Ting, Tracy. Carol is 4月22日, and I believe a couple of you were trying to arrange an alternate time? (Please e-mail.) I prefer that you share the essay to me on Google Docs, but .doc, .rtf, or .pdf e-mail attachment is OK too. Thanks.
Next week's texts: This is an easier week than usual, I promise... Hurston (biography & "How It Feels to Be Colored Me"), Cullen ("biography, "Incident," & "Heritage"), Wright (biography & "The Man Who Was Almost a Man"), Hughes (biography, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers, " "I Too," Song for a Dark Girl," "Note on Commercial Theatre," "Theme for English B")
Homework: The following students should post a question about the text(s) by the indicated author... Viola (Hurston), Tady (Hurston), Crystal (Cullen), Ken (Cullen), Natalie (Wright), Winnie (Wright), Qian (Hughes), Clara (Hughes)
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This is Natalie, and I am going to post a question about the text of Wright.
ReplyDeleteIn Wright's text "The Man Who Was Almost a Man", the author uses African-American English to represent the black speakers and at the same time uses 'standard English' to represent the narrator. However, comaring to another African-American author Hurston who uses 'standard English' in her "How It Feels to Be Colored Me", these two examples make me wonder what is the purpose for African-American authors to use African-American English or 'standard English' in written text?
If the answer is 'to reveal one's ethnicity' or 'to show one's ethnic mark', how come Hurston does not use it? Or is it because Wright intends to show that Dave in "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" is 'less intelligent'?
Another question about Wright is that I wonder why he decides the title "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" in the past-tense? Is it because he has to tense-agreemnet with the content? Or there are other explanations? Also, I think the 'Almost a Man' in the title is interesting enough for further discussing. What is 'almost' mean? For Wright, what is a 'man', and how to be a 'total man'?
This is Tracy, Clara, Sherry, and Jenny.
ReplyDeleteTracy’s answer had already spoken out our minds. But, as professor advised us to answer the changing narrator part on p.2821 and p.2826, we reexamine those pages. There’s an outsider as first-person narrator on p.2821 & 2826. One has no name but her tone is just like a fan of Serafin. The other one is a doctor (I guess) named Graciela. When the story comes to mention the happy ending soap operas, the fan-like narrator comes up to introduce the real protagonist. The narrator speaks out the protagonist’s goodness. The protagonist is a good girl (at least it is so in some point of view). Yet, that is not how her husband thinks or how American appreciate her.
When the foreign bride comes to America, people would only see her life in pieces. Not much attention would put to the foreign bride. Her life appears like pieces by different people who bump into her, like a doctor. Therefore, her story was constructed like fragment puzzles putting together, containing her fantasy like dreams, cruel violence put on her, and her father’s love.
This is Crystal, posting a question for Cullen:
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this ethical piece of work "Heritage," I noticed that there were several italicized words appearing throughout the poem. Why did Cullen do this? When I read the lines with italics, it seemed like hearing another person speaking, yet I am not sure if he deliberately managed to make the readers feel about this.
This is Clara asking a question about Hughes.
ReplyDeleteI really like the poem of Huges and be attracted by its rhyme. However, I still can’t quite understand the description of his biography: “He modeled his stanza forms on the improvisatory rhymes of jazz music…(Norton, p.2264)" What does the meaning or principles of the rhymes of jazz music? Besides, I am curious about the title of “Theme for English B”. Is "English B" just a rhyme, or a metaphor?
This is Hsu Qian Yu. Here is the question for Hughes.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading poems from Hughes, I have to say that I agree with Clara. I am also attracted by Hughes’ poems. I notice that all Hughes’ poems in the anthology are written in first person point of view. I think that this feature makes his poems have strong effect. In The Negro Speaks of River, for instance, the repeated “I” strongly expresses the emotion of the speaker. Also in I, Too, the last stanza, I, too, am America shows the firm belief the speaker. I wonder that if first-person narrative is one of the strategies Hughes usually uses in his poems. If he does so, what kind of purpose is Hughes trying to achieve?
This is Tady and I have a question about Hurston.
ReplyDeleteIn page 2160, when she describes the jazz music, what is the importance of this paragraph? I think she uses many colors to describe what she felt in her mind when listening, and it formed a comparison to the white friend's behavior. What is the importance of this kind of comparison?
By the way, Ken and Winne says they had emailed for absence in this class.