Literature: Gary Soto's "Oranges"

The following poem has a coming of age theme so that you can use it to dialogue with some of the fiction we read in class and that you may have read on here.  Read the poem and follow the provided annotation guidelines. 

Oranges by Gary Soto with Annotation Guidelines

Then, answer the following questions to build an interpretation. Remember to practice Quotation Sandwich format with these questions.

1. How does the boy feel at the beginning of the story? Choose a quote to support your answer.

2. What did the saleslady know or understand about the boy? Why did she let him pay for the chocolate with the orange? Choose a quote to support your answer.

3. What is the significance of the young couple’s visit to the drugstore? Use this quote to explain your answer: “We entered, the tiny bell bringing a saleslady down a narrow aisle of goods. I turned to the candies tiered like bleachers, and asked what she wanted.”

4. Why is the setting, especially the weather, important to this story? Choose a quote to support your answer.

5. Does the boy come of age at the end of the story? First, define what coming of age means to you. Then, explain whether or not the boy in the story goes through this change. Choose a quote to support your answer. (Try not to repeat a quote that you used already in Questions #1-5.)

Nonfiction: The Black Panthers on Education

 

You read Assata Shakur's Chapter 10, which ends with her going back to school. Here, you can read about her experience in college and with education in Chapter 12, but first, I'd like you to read another text on education from Black Panthers founder Huey Newton. These two chapters are cut down, but they're still both long. So we're going to try a simple annotation strategy. As you read Newton's chapter, I want you to mark the parts where you see a problem in education P and the parts where you see the consequence of the problem C. Then as you read Assata Shakur's chapter, I want you to mark the problem parts in the same way and look for solutions and mark them S.

Huey Newton, excerpt from Revolutionary Suicide.

Assata Shakur, excerpt from Chapter 12 of Assata: An Autobiography

Finally, putting your reading into practice, write a manifesto, a call to action, following this format: Manifesto for Revolutionary Education.

Recommended Viewing: We Need Heroes

This music video "Black Superman" invites people of color to see themselves/ourselves as heroes.  By the way, the singer in this video is a Hostos CUNY Start instructor!! Bet you didn't think Hostos CUNY Start could be this cool. Check it out!

Free-write: Henry David Thoreau

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." 

–Henry David Thoreau

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Literature (Flashback) and Writing Exercise: Richard Wright and the Haiku

You remember our good friend Richard Wright, don't you? You know already and hopefully remember that Richard Wright expatriated to France, where he died.  He spent his last year of life writing haikus.  The Haiku is a Japanese poetic form, a three-line poem where the first line contains 5 syllables, the second line contains 7 syllables, and the third line contains 5 syllables.  Check out these Richard Wright haikus and try writing some of your own.  Maybe submit one as a comment.

I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away.


From across the lake
Past the black winter trees
Faint sounds of a flute.


With a twitching nose
A dog reads a telegram
On a wet tree trunk.


Naked to the sky
A village without a name
In the setting sun.


A spring pond as calm
As the lips of the dead girl
Under its water.


A blacksmith’s hammer
Beating the silver moon thin
On a cool spring night.

Sun is glinting on
A washerwoman’s black arms
In cold creek water.


Burning autumn leaves,
I yearn to make the bonfire
Bigger and bigger.


I had long felt that
Those sprawling black railroad tracks
Would bring down this snow.


A sleepless spring night:
Yearning for what I never had
And for what never was.


Scarecrow, who starved you,
Set you in that icy wind,
And then forgot you?


Late one winter night
I saw a skinny scarecrow
Gobbling slabs of meat.

Grammar: Advanced Subject-Verb Agreement Practice #2 (With Prepositional Phrases)

Advanced Subject-Verb Agreement Practice #2

(With Prepositional Phrases)

PRACTICE:     Put parenthesis around the Prepositional Phrases if there are any.  

Circle the subject. Draw two lines under the verb.

Mark SV Errors if there are any. Or mark it “Correct.”

Make corrections.

1. The pen and the paper is on the desk.
2. The box of chocolates are on the shelf.
3.  Every one of the students have practised very hard.
4. The skill of understanding personal communications is crucial to good business.
5. Not many people know the truth about the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

6. The number of people who are mobile phone owners rise every year.

7. Some people believe that learning a new languages wastes time.

8. A great many success stories are due to hard work.

9. The comedy team of Abbott and Costello were world famous.
10. One of us know the answer.

Writing Exercise: Create a story through three questions

In this exercise, you’ll use three questions to stimulate creative thought. You can write these questions yourself, but I’ll give you some examples to show you what to do.

You want to answer the questions as quickly as you can, with whatever ideas pop into your mind. Write as much or as little as you wish, but just allow the words to flow without pondering too much what you want to say.

Example 1:

1.            Who just snuck out the back window?

2.            What were they carrying?

3.            Where were they going?

Example 2:

1.            Who is Tony?

2.            Why is he crying?

3.            What is he going to do about it?

Example 3:

1.            Whose house is Sonya leaving?

2.            Why was she there?

3.            Where is she going now?