SCHOLASTIC/POETRY CYCLES/Prayer for the Dying

AGENDA:

SCHOLASTIC CONTEST:  LAST DAY!
Upload your submission.  Print out your submission form and get it signed by parent/guardian over the weekend.  Return form on Monday!

POETRY CYCLES:  Make sure your completed poetry cycle is uploaded to Google Classroom

PRAYER FOR THE DYING:  Finish reading for Tuesday. There will be an open book essay test on the book on Tuesday--more practice with literary analysis using MLA citation.  You may want to post-it note key sections of the book to refer to.

Post a response to these questions and questions 1-4 from previous post.

5. Jacob is a veteran of the Civil War. How does his experience there affect the way he behaves in the crisis in Friendship? How did the war change him?
6. How would you describe the relationship between Jacob and Doc? How do their different ideas about the world lead to different strategies for handling the outbreak in Friendship?
7. How does Jacob’s relationship with Marta affect his behavior in the outbreak? How do his priorities as a father and husband conflict with his responsibility to the town?

NEXT WRITING ASSIGNMENT: A short story using second person POV (at least 4 pages).  These stories have proved to be potential Sokol contest winners in past years.  Second person POV is hard to write, but can be very effective and dramatic.   You might want to take a look at some past SOKOL
winners from our school.

Poetry Cycles Due/Finish Prayer for the Dying

Agenda:

Finish reading Prayer for the Dying for next Tuesday's class. Read Ch. 5 and 6 for Friday.

Be sure to blog responses for questions 1-4.  Post here.

Work on Scholastic entries.

Work on new short story assignment if you have completed your poetry cycle:

Second person short story (minimum 4 pages double-spaced)--Prayer for the Dying



Discussion Questions (Post responses)
1. The book is narrated in the second person, addressing the main character, Jacob, as “you.” Who is speaking? Why do you think the author chose this mode to tell the story?

2. When Jacob is called to take care of Clytie, he has a very hard time pulling the trigger. Look at the passage (p. 49) in which he has to convince himself to kill her. Why does he agonize when he knows it’s the right thing? What does it mean that he’s “still clinging to some dream of innocence, blamelessness”? Does he continue to cling to that dream later in the story?

3. Why does Jacob elect to bleed and treat the bodies of some victims, even after Doc has told him not to, and even though he knows he’s putting himself in danger? Why is precision and diligence so important to him even when everyone around him is worried only about survival?

4. What role does religious faith play in the story? How does it influence Jacob, Chase, and other citizens of Friendship? Is their faith rewarded?

About Job

Set in Uz, an obscure land far from Israel, during an unknown time period, the book of Job focuses on questions about God's justice and why good people suffer. Throughout the book, Job, his wife, and his friends speculate on why he, an upright man, suffers. Job accuses God of being unjust and not operating the world according to principles of justice, and his friends believe that Job's sin caused his suffering. Job decides to talk directly to God.

God reminds him that the world has order and beauty but is also wild and dangerous. While we do not always know why we suffer, we can bring our pain and grief to God and trust that He is wise and knows what He's doing.

Scholastic/Prayer for the Dying

AGENDA:

Create an account with Scholastic.

http://www.artandwriting.org/

Select an entry from your poems (a collection is 1-5 poems), short stories (up to 3,000words), flash fiction, essays, plays, etc. that you would like to submit and upload it.  Deadline is December 4th!  Do not submit until you have proofread it thoroughly!  Do not put your name on the submission--only the title!  Follow the instructions, look at examples.

Reader Response to A Prayer for the Dying:
Select a passage from your reading in Prayer for the Dying that strikes you, as a reader, as being very strong.  Post a comment including the page number of the passage and a quote from it.

Complete poetry cycles for Wednesday.

Prayer for the Dying

A Prayer for the Dying

Here is a link to Michael Lesy's Wisconsin Death Trip  (an inspiration for O'Nan's novel).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Death_Trip

Read review:

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/a-prayer-for-the-dying/

Poetry cycles/Prayer for the Dying

AGENDA:

Continue working on your poetry cycles.  Be sure you provide a back story for the poems, either with an introduction or with a chronology at the end.  Be sure to title each poem, print each poem separately on a page, and title the entire poetry cycle.

HMWK:  Over the Thanksgiving break, read to Ch. 5 in A Prayer for the Dying (pg. 94).

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving break!

Gamzon's Poetry Cycle (some poems)

The Conspirator’s Daughter:

A poetry cycle about Anna  Suratt, daughter of Mary Surratt who was hanged with three others as part of the “Lincoln conspiracy”

Epigraph

She was an only daughter, and had lived with her mother, who was a widow.

 Poor Anna! I can never forget her look, or the sound of that restless footstep in the room above me. The two haunt me yet, and will until my dying day. It matters little to that poor mourner, that the whole trial has been declared by authority unconstitutional and illegal. That does not bring back the dead, nor lessen the grief of the survivor, nor can it blot out the shame and disgrace which will forever attach itself to the nation, which suffered such flagrant abuse of power to pass unnoticed and unrebuked.  –Virginia Lomax

A Five-turn Knot

           I really did not think Mrs. Surratt would be swung from the end of it, but she was, and it was demonstrated to my satisfaction, at least, that a five-turn knot will perform as successful a job as a seven-turn knot.—Colonel (Captain) Christian Rath

Upstairs in his room at the penitentiary,

the hangman prepared

four nooses for the executions,

carefully measuring out the lengths

of Boston hemp brought in

from the Navy Yard,

cutting and saving one last length of rope

for mother-- just in case--still praying

he would not need it the next day.

Three seven-turn knots

for three of the condemned.

Three regulation hangman knots

neatly wound military style.

The captain slighted the fourth

coiling only five turns.

A shoddy job, he must have thought,

or perhaps his heart was not in it

or  he was tired

and placed it aside.

The ropes still needed testing, though.

He tied each noose to a tree limb

and a bag of buckshot,

then tossed the bag to the ground.

The ropes performed successfully

as they would the next day.

Stretched taut, the ropes held

All four lifeless bodies slowly swinging

in the sweltering heat of a July afternoon--

the coiled knot of the noose

underneath four white hoods

tight against each left ear.

Morning, Noon, and Night

                I found this in the back room of the first floor of Mrs. Surratt’s house. The back part was all sealed, and my curiosity was excited by noticing a piece torn off the back. I opened the back and found the likeness of J. Wilkes Booth, with the word “Booth” written in pencil on the back of it.— Lieutenant John W. Dempsey, May 19, testimony for the prosecution

Louis Weichmann tried to kiss me and gave me presents.

One was a carte-de-visite of an elderly man sitting in a chair,

one arm around his grandson’s shoulders,

the other holding the young lad’s hand.

The old man’s eyes gaze down at his granddaughter

who is seated on the ground, a finger raised to her lips,

perhaps rebuking the playful dog sitting at her feet. 

The picture is titled Morning, Noon, and Night.

Leaning against the old man’s chair is the mother,

her head tilted to one side, looking wistfully at the camera.

She reminded me of mother, so I placed it on the mantel

in the back room of our boardinghouse on H street.

One day, Honora Fitzpatrick and I went to a daguerrean gallery

to have her picture taken.  Much to our delight and surprise,

we saw some pictures of  the actor, my brother’s new friend--

Mr. Booth. We bought two photographs of him.

But when Johnnie saw the photographs he was angry

and told me to tear them up, throw them in the fire,

or he would take them from me.  So I hid them behind

the sentimental lithograph Louis Weichmann had given me.

And this was the proof they used against mother.

Source:

(That picture belonged to me; it was given to me by that man Weichman, and I put a photograph of John Wilkes Booth behind it. I went with Miss Honora Fitzpatrick to a daguerrean gallery one day to get her picture; we saw some photographs of Mr. Booth there, and, being acquainted with him, we bought two and took them home. When my brother saw them, he told me to tear them up and throw them in the fire, and that, if I did not, he would take them from me. So I hid them. I owned photographs of Davis, Stephens, Beauregard, Stonewall Jackson, and perhaps a few other leaders of the rebellion. My father gave them to me before his death, and I prize them on his account, if on nobody else’s. I also had in the house photographs of Union Generals—of General McClellan, General Grant, and General Joe Hooker.)

Anna E. Surratt, testimony for the defense, May 30, 1865.

A Pallet, A Pillow and a Prayer

               

“Don’t forget to send the pillow upon which her head rested and her prayer beads, if you can find them--these things are dear to me.”—Anna Surratt, letter to General Hartranft, July 9, 1865

The Washington Arsenal  was reopened

to hold the prisoners and conduct the trial.

Mother’s cell was 3 ½ feet wide, 7 feet long,

 7 feet high with a straw-filled pallet

for sleeping on the cold floor.  A metal bucket

rested in one corner of the cell, reeking,

waiting to be emptied by the young guards

who snickered about  the womanly red flow

that plagued mother  and made her ill.

A table and wash basin in the other.

Four times a day, the prisoners were fed:

soft bread, salt pork or soup, coffee or water.

Mother would not eat at first until finally

Her hunger was unendurable.

We prayed into the night. Then I watched her rest

her head upon the pillow on her wretched pallet.

What dreams she had—I can only imagine—

I know my own.

Sources:

Prison cells in the female ward (these cells were twice as large as the men’s cells) were cleared and inspected.  Shuck mattresses were delivered to the cells and nails were taken out of the walls to ensure that the prisoners would not harm themselves or possibly others.

The prisoners’ meals usually consisted of coffee or tea, bread and salted meat.  After finishing their meal, the bowl in which their beverage was served was removed.  No other items would be brought in to the cell.

Each cell measured 7′ by 3 ½′ by 7′ with solid masonry walls eighteen inches thick. Their iron doors opened alternately to the north and south to prevent the prisoners from communicating with each other.

Poetry Cycles/ Contests/New Book---A Prayer for the Dying

AGENDA:

Work on Poetry Cycles---Due on Wed. 11/28

Contests--See previous posts--Scholastic, Princeton, Gannon

A Prayer for the Dying Discussion questions

READING GROUP GUIDE

A Prayer for the Dying
A Novel
by Stewart O’Nan
ISBN-10: 0-312-42891-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-42891-4
About this Guide
The following author biography and list of questions about A Prayer for the Dying are intended as resources to aid individual readers and book groups who would like to learn more about the author and this book. We hope that this guide will provide you a starting place for discussion, and suggest a variety of perspectives from which you might approach A Prayer for the Dying.
About the Book
Set in Friendship, Wisconsin, just after the Civil War, A Prayer for the Dying tells of a horrible epidemic that is suddenly and gruesomely killing the town's residents and setting off a terrifying paranoia. Jacob Hansen, Friendship's sheriff, undertaker, and pastor, is soon overwhelmed by the fear and anguish around him, and his sanity begins to fray. Dark, poetic, and chilling, A Prayer for the Dying examines the effect of madness and violence on the morality of a once-decent man.
About the Author
Stewart O’Nan’s novels include Last Night at the Lobster, The Night Country, and A Prayer for the Dying. He is also the author of the nonfiction books The Circus Fire and, with Stephen King, the bestselling Faithful. Granta named him one of the Twenty Best Young American Novelists. He lives in Connecticut.

Discussion Questions
1. The book is narrated in the second person, addressing the main character, Jacob, as “you.” Who is speaking? Why do you think the author chose this mode to tell the story?
2. When Jacob is called to take care of Clytie, he has a very hard time pulling the trigger. Look at the passage (p. 49) in which he has to convince himself to kill her. Why does he agonize when he knows it’s the right thing? What does it mean that he’s “still clinging to some dream of innocence, blamelessness”? Does he continue to cling to that dream later in the story?
3. Why does Jacob elect to bleed and treat the bodies of some victims, even after Doc has told him not to, and even though he knows he’s putting himself in danger? Why is precision and diligence so important to him even when everyone around him is worried only about survival?
4. What role does religious faith play in the story? How does it influence Jacob, Chase, and other citizens of Friendship? Is their faith rewarded?
5. Jacob is a veteran of the Civil War. How does his experience there affect the way he behaves in the crisis in Friendship? How did the war change him?
6. How would you describe the relationship between Jacob and Doc? How do their different ideas about the world lead to different strategies for handling the outbreak in Friendship?
7. How does Jacob’s relationship with Marta affect his behavior in the outbreak? How do his priorities as a father and husband conflict with his responsibility to the town?
8. How do you interpret the book’s ending? What is Jacob choosing when he returns to Friendship? What do you imagine happening to him next?
9. Is Jacob sane at the end of the book? How does the author demonstrate the changes in his mind as conditions worsen?
10. “You’ve stopped believing in evil,” the narrator says of Jacob early in the story (p. 6). “Is that a sin?” Is there evil in this story? Does Jacob come to see it by the end?
11. How do the book’s two epigraphs relate to each other? Why do you think the author chose them?
12. Jacob is committed throughout the book to saving Friendship, and willing to sacrifice himself if necessary. Is he naïve? Does his commitment to principle do more harm than good in the end? Begin working on second person short stories.

CONTESTS:  Sokol, Gannon, and of course, Scholastic!

GANNON POETRY CONTEST

http://www.gannon.edu/Academic-Offerings/Humanities-Education-and-Social-Sciences/Undergraduate/English/Poetry-Contest/

PRINCETON POETRY CONTEST

https://arts.princeton.edu/about/opportunities/high-school-contests/poetry-contest/

TEST---Thomas and Beulah

AGENDA:

Work on test identifications and essays.  Post on Google Classroom.

Work on poetry cycle for major project grade.

Poetry Cycles

Agenda:

Watch end of video--test on Thomas and Beulah on Tuesday

Work on poetry cycles.

Rita Dove

AGENDA:

View video of Rita Dove

Begin work on poetry cycles

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/video-hirsch-dove-political-poetry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKJKWYQyB0M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwdMXj2p1TQ

Poetry Cycle Assignment

Writing Assignment:


Begin working on Poetry Cycle assignment:
Similar to Thomas and Beulah, consider some characters in your own life, or imagined characters, or actual historical characters. Imagine the significant chronological dates in their lives--high points and low points. consider how to construct a series of 8-10 (preferably more) poems that tell a story (narrative poetry) and explore these key moments and occasions.

• a. Your poetry cycle should consist of 8-10 poems
• b. Your poetry cycle should be accompanied by a chronology to support the key dates and occasions you chose to write about.
• c. At least two of the poems should explore the same event from two different perspectives or viewpoints (like "Courtship" in Thomas and Beulah). These poems can have the same title.
• d. Place one poem per page, single-spaced, 12 point type in a clean font and be sure to title each poem. you may want to title the entire cycle as well. Use italics for dialogue, songs, memories, etc as you observe in Rita Dove's work. Experiment with different stanzaic forms and poetic styles.
• e. Poems can, of course, be narrative or lyric, but remember that the overall cycle is a narrative and must tell a story of a life or lives although we only see "fragments" or moments/snapshot

Rita Dove

Take notes about imagery and image patterns

Visit website:


www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=6719

Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove
© Walter Benefield
Mar 9, 2001

Like snapshots in a photo album, Rita Dove’s award winning collection of poetry "Thomas and Beulah" provide glimpses into the lives of two people in love living together yet apart in an imperfect world. Dove mixes biographical, historical and social elements to create a journey of love, marriage, life and death in 1920's Middle America. Dove’s collection of narrative poems are based loosely on the lives her maternal grandparents.
The journey begins with Thomas in the poem entitled “The event.” Thomas and his friend Lem venture out of Tennessee onto a river boat "with nothing to boast of but good looks and a mandolin", which is a pear shaped stringed instrument. This departure by Thomas would eventually bring him to Akron, Ohio and Beulah.

The poem "Courtship" has Beulah on one "Fine evening...waiting-for what? A magnolia breeze, someone to trot out the stars?" Beulah meets Thomas. "Promises" a poem of marriage contains one of the most beautiful verses in the collection. "A deep breath, and she plunged through sunbeams and kisses, rice drumming the both of them blind." In that, most natural of processes after marriage comes children. "Variation on Guilt" shows Thomas the expecting father in a hospital waiting room less than pleased when "the doors fly apart...It's a girl, he can tell by that smirk." Thomas and Beulah in all have four children all girls.

Dove poetizes the emotional subject of sickness and death in several poems in the collection. In a more descriptive poem "Thomas at the wheel" shows Thomas in his car and eventually "he lay[s] down across the seat, a pod set to sea, a kiss unpuckering", having a heart attack. The poem "Company" is a tragic but fitting near end to the collection, Beulah leaves her dying husband this message, "listen: we were good, though we never believed it."

"Thomas and Beulah" is one personal history told from two perspectives and does not hold to a precise line of chronology and only the most rational of critics would protest; Dove the consummate artist creates her own order of things.

Delving into research before writing this review of "Thomas and Beulah" I unearthed some disturbing facts about this award winning collection of poetry.

Rita Dove received the Pulitzer Prize for this work in 1987. Many considered the eighties a time of upsurge in the popularity of poetry with increases in published works as proof. Despite the positive climate, the New York Times newspaper respected for its quality literary coverage never reviewed “Thomas and Beulah.” I only make light of these facts because there are other fine works like “Thomas and Beulah” that go unnoticed by those who are suppose to notice.

Rita Dove/Bennington

AGENDA:

Last call for Bennington entries

View more poems from Rita Dove

Coffeehouse readings/The Village