Free-write: e.e. cummings

Our free-write today comes from American modernist e.e. cummings's "A Poet's Advice to Students":

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people : but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself. 

Do you agree with cummings that you can be taught to think, believe, or know, but not to feel? Reflect on this in a five-minute free write.  Remember, you must not stop writing during the five minutes.  If you can't think of what to write, write "I can't think of what to write."

Free-Write: Just a Minute (Flashback for RWA)

I’ve only just a minute,

Only sixty seconds in it.

Forced upon me, can’t refuse it,

Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it,

But it’s up to me to use it.

I must suffer if I lose it,

Give an account if I abuse it,

Just a tiny little minute,

But eternity is in it.

-Dr. Benjamin E. Mays

What does this poem 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."  You've only just five minutes.

Literature: Rebecca Brown's "Forgiveness"

Sometimes you need to cut off your own arm in order to come of age.  That's kind of what this story is about.

Rebecca Brown: Forgiveness

As you read, be sure to keep track of vocabulary with the Vocabulary Study Tracker

After reading and annotating, answer the following questions:

1. Choose three events in the story that you feel are most important.  Briefly summarize each event and explain why you feel it is most important.

2. How would you describe the relationship between "you" and "I" at the beginning of the story?  Use two quotation sandwiches.

3. The story starts off with a figurative expression "give my right arm for you" that becomes very literal.  Let's pay attention to figurative language.  In class, with "Handful of Dates" we talked about simile.  A simile is a figurative comparison using like or as.  Find four similes in the story and discuss what you feel the writer is trying to say with the simile.  What is the function of the use of figurative language in each instance.  Use one quotation sandwich for each simile.

4. How does "I" change from the beginning of the story to the end?  Do you think I has come of age?  Use two quotation sandwiches to answer this question.

Free-write: Sa'di

Sa'di was a great Persian poet and philosopher who lived in Shiraz, Iran in the 13th century.  He wrote the Gulistan in which he recounts:

I never complained of the vicissitudes of fortune, nor suffered my face to be overcast at the revolution of the heavens, except once, when my feet were bare, and I had not the means of obtaining shoes. I came to the chief of Kfah in a state of much dejection, and saw there a man who had no feet. I returned thanks to God and acknowledged his mercies, and endured my want of shoes with patience...

This story speak to the number of old sayings to the effect that whenever you feel you have it bad, there's always someone who has it worse.  What do you think about this?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember: don't stop writing for the duration of the five minutes.

Free-write: Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes wrote "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" in which he concludes:

We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.

What does it mean to build a temple for tomorrow "strong as we know how"?  What does it mean to be "free within ourselves"?  Reflect on that for five-minutes in a free-write.  Remember you must not stop writing for the five minutes.

Literature: Reginald McKnight "The Kind of Light That Shines on Texas"

This is a nice coming of age story that is actually part of the pool of CUNY Start curriculum stories, but one we did not do in class.  You get to enjoy it now.

Reginald McKnight- The Kind of Light That Shines on Texas

Remember to use as you read your Vocabulary Study Tracker

After reading and annotating twice, answer the following questions:

1.     Choose three events in the story that you consider to be important.  Briefly summarize each event (and provide the page number where it can be located) and then discuss why you have selected it.  In what way does the event reveal significant aspects of a character or characters.

2.     How would you describe Clint’s relationships with the two other African American children in his class?  What parts of the text support your ideas?  Use two quotation sandwiches.

3.     How would you describe Clint’s relationships with most of his white classmates?  What parts of the text support your ideas?  Use two quotation sandwiches.

4.     Why do you think Ah-So didn’t speak in class?  What parts of the text support your ideas.  Use two quotation sandwiches.

5.     How would you would describe Clint as a person?  What evidence from the story supports your use of these adjectivs.  Use at least two quotation sandwiches.

Free-write: Octavio Paz's The Labyrinth of Solitude

En cada hombre late la posibilidad de ser o, más exactamente, de volver a ser otro hombre.

 translation

In every man there is the possibility of his being--or, to be more exact, of his becoming once again--another man.

What does this mean?  We were other people before?  How so?  Reflect on this in a five-minute free-write.

Free-write: Flannery O'Connor

One of my favorite authors Flannery O'Connor wrote in a letter once,

We are a generation of wingless chickens...

What do you suppose she meant by that?  Reflect on it in a free-write for five minutes.

Literature: Junot Diaz's "Drown"

Our fiction piece is another coming of age story by Dominican-American writer Junot Diaz: Drown.  It tells the story of a Dominican teenager growing up in New Jersey with his mother, working as a drug dealer and avoiding his best friend visiting home from college.

Remember to use your  Vocabulary Study Tracker as you read.

As you read, trace the relationships Yunior has with other people.

How would you describe his relationship with his mother?

What is his relationship with his father?

What is his relationship with Beto?

How is his relationship with his neighbors and neighborhood?

Then, I ask that you consider the title.  Can you find scenes of drowning in the story?

Why is the story called Drown?

Who is drowning?

What is the person/are the people drowning in?

Lastly, do you think Yunior has come of age in this story?  Why or why not?

Free write: The size of you

Our free-write today is a quote from Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet.  It's a book that is a little bit like Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, where a narrator kind of discusses himself and reflects on what happens to him.  Pessoa called it a "factless autobiography"--take that how you will. Anyway, take 5 minutes to think about this quote with your pen, writing (WITHOUT STOPPING) on what you feel it means and maybe how you identify with it it or don't identify with it.

I am equal in size to whatever I see
Not hemmed in by the size I am.

 By the way, if you're interested in sharing your free-writes, you can type them into the comments section or you can email them to me for an audience of one.

Free Write: Writing a memory away

This free-write is kind of more of a writing exercise based on a quote from Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground (this translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky). The Underground man is the narrator in this novel that is written as a sort of personal journal of sorts.  Here the Underground man is wondering why he writes his thoughts rather than just thinking them to himself.

Here is the quote:

[M]aybe I will indeed get relief from the writing. Today, for example, I'm particularly oppressed by one distant recollection. I recalled it clearly the other day, and it has since stayed with me like a nagging musical tune that refuses to be gotten rid of. And yet one must get rid of it. I have hundreds of such recollections; but some one out of a hundred emerges every now and then and oppresses me. I believe for some reason that if I write it down, I shall then be rid of it. So why not try? Finally: I'm bored, and I constantly do nothing. And writing things down really seems like work. They say work makes a man good and honest. Well, here's a chance, at least.

So try a five minute free-write doing one of two things:

1) Reflect on why you might write your thoughts and experiences down.  What value might it have for you?

OR

2) Is there a memory that you kind of want to get rid of?  Try writing it down and reflecting on it.  Then crumble it up and throw it away.

Fiction: Sherman Alexie's "This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona"

This is a really nice story--you might even find that it's a coming of age story.  Over the next week or so, I encourage you to keep your fiction reading practices in shape by reading and annotating this story---oh, but remember, background helps.  This story deals with Native American characters living on a reservation.  It would be good to get some background on reservations.  Check out this link:

Background on Indian Reservations

Remember also to track vocabulary words that you're learning.  You can do so with this

Vocabulary Study Tracker

As you read an annotate the following story, review the questions at the end which are an abbreviated version of a discussion journal, and will help you to write literary analysis paragraphs to build an interpretation for the story.  You are welcome to email me your work for feedback.

Story: This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona