Discussion Questions--Mudbound/Stories DUE

AGENDA:


TEST:


Directions: Select JUST 1 of the 3 essay topics and write a few paragraphs of response.
1. Power and Greed were two common themes in this book. Where did they appear, and how do they differ in their manifestations?
2. Sacrifice was a theme that was very prevalent in this book. Who were the characters most affected by this theme, and how did they allow sacrifice to change their lives?
3. Ronsel endures many different trials before the end of the book. What are some of these trials and what lessons does he learn through these experiences?






Discussion Questions

1. The setting of the Mississippi Delta is intrinsic to Mudbound. Discuss the ways in which the land functions as a character in the novel and how each of the other characters relates to it.

2. Mudbound is a chorus, told in six different voices. How do the changes in perspective affect your understanding of the story? Are all six voices equally sympathetic? Reliable? Pappy is the only main character who has no narrative voice. Why do you think the author chose not to let him speak?

3. Who gets to speak and who is silent or silenced is a central theme, the silencing of Ronsel being the most literal and brutal example. Discuss the ways in which this theme plays out for the other characters. For instance, how does Laura's silence about her unhappiness on the farm affect her and her marriage? What are the consequences of Jamie's inability to speak to his family about the horrors he experienced in the war? How does speaking or not speaking confer power or take it away?

4. The story is narrated by two farmers, two wives and mothers, and two soldiers. Compare and contrast the ways in which these parallel characters, black and white, view and experience the world.

5. What is the significance of the title? In what ways are each of the characters bound --- by the land, by circumstance, by tradition, by the law, by their own limitations? How much of this binding is inescapable and how much is self-imposed? Which characters are most successful in freeing themselves from what binds them?

6. All the characters are products of their time and place, and instances of racism in the book run from Pappy’s outright bigotry to Laura’s more subtle prejudice. Would Laura have thought of herself as racist, and if not, why not? How do the racial views of Laura, Jamie, Henry, and Pappy affect your sympathy for them?

7. The novel deals with many thorny issues: racism, sexual politics, infidelity, war. The characters weigh in on these issues, but what about the author? Does she have a discernable perspective, and if so, how does she convey it?

8. We know very early in the book that something terrible is going to befall Ronsel. How does this sense of inevitability affect the story? Jamie makes Ronsel responsible for his own fate, saying "Maybe that's cowardly of me, making Ronsel's the trigger finger." Is it just cowardice, or is there some truth to what Jamie says? Where would you place the turning point for Ronsel? Who else is complicit in what happens to him, and why?

9. In reflecting on some of the more difficult moral choices made by the characters --- Laura's decision to sleep with Jamie, Ronsel's decision to abandon Resl and return to America, Jamie's choice during the lynching scene, Florence's and Jamie's separate decisions to murder Pappy --- what would you have done in those same situations? Is it even possible to know? Are there some moral positions that are absolute, or should we take into account things like time and place when making judgments?

10. How is the last chapter of Mudbound different from all the others? Why do you think the author chose to have Ronsel address you, the reader, directly? Do you believe he overcomes the formidable obstacles facing him and finds "something like happiness"? If so, why doesn't the author just say so explicitly? Would a less ambiguous ending have been more or less satisfying?

Mudbound Stories (cont.)

AGENDA:

Morning Reflection: Karina Le--"To This Day"--Shane Koyczan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltun92DfnPY


WRITING: Work on stories. Due next Friday, Sept. 30

HMWK:   Finish reading Mudbound for Friday book discussion

Mudbound, Part 2

AGENDA:

Morning Reflection: 

Mudbound: Think, Pair, Share Discussion; Post responses on the blog!

Go over the material in the handout.  Discuss questions at the end of each section with a partner.  Post your responses in  comment for credit today.  What other questions do you have about the characters and your reading so far?

WRITING:  Continue to work on your short story.  Make sure you have posted a URL for your padlet!

CONTESTS: Bennington
Scholastic
Young Arts   http://www.youngarts.org/

HMWK: Finish Part 2 of Mudbound for Monday's discussion

Mudbound (cont.)

AGENDA:

Morning Reflection:---Isabella
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t88X1pYQu-I


Look over new contests

WRITING:  Continue to work on your short story.  Make sure you have posted a URL for your padlet!

HMWK: Read Part 2 of Mudbound for Thursday discussion

Scholastic Art and Writing Awards

Go to:

http://www.artandwriting.org/

BOA Birthday Bash

We have 10 tickets for this.  Are you interested?  Let Ms. Gamzon know.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/boa-benefit-birthday-bash-tickets-26328531346

Writing Historical Fiction

AGENDA:

Morning Reflection: Azana
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xe6nLVXEC0

1. Read over article:

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-Historical-Fiction

2. Conduct research.  Create a padlet of imges for setting and character descriptions.  Sketch out your characters and the conflict.  Fill out "Exit ticket" for today

3. Work on your short story.

4. HMWK:     Read to page   107   for Tuesday.  I will have more books for you on Monday (please don't worry if you do not have a book about catching up).

Bennington Young Writers Contest

Go to:



https://admissions.bennington.edu/register/youngwriters

Mudbound

AGENDA:

Morning Reflection:

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

Work on short stories and think, pair, share QUESTIONS 1-4 below.  Post your responses as comments.

Mudbound

Hillary Jordan, 2008

Algonquin Books

340 pp.

ISBN-13: 9781565126770

Summary

A gripping and exquisitely rendered story of forbidden love, betrayal, and murder, set against the brutality of the Jim Crow South.

When Henry McAllan moves his city-bred wife, Laura, to a cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta in 1946, she finds herself in a place both foreign and frightening. Laura does not share Henry's love of rural life, and she struggles to raise their two young children in an isolated shotgun shack with no indoor plumbing or electricity, all the while under the eye of her hateful, racist father-in-law. When it rains, the waters rise up and swallow the bridge to town, stranding the family in a sea of mud.

As the McAllans are being tested in every way, two celebrated soldiers of World War II return home to help work the farm. Jamie McAllan is everything his older brother Henry is not: charming, handsome, and sensitive to Laura's plight, but also haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, comes home from fighting the Nazis with the shine of a war hero, only to face far more personal—and dangerous—battles against the ingrained bigotry of his own countrymen. It is the unlikely friendship of these two brothers-in-arms, and the passions they arouse in others, that drive this powerful debut novel.Mudbound reveals how everyone becomes a player in a tragedy on the grandest scale, even as they strive for love and honor.

Jordan's indelible portrayal of two families caught up in the blind hatred of a small Southern town earned the prestigious Bellwether Prize for Fiction, awarded biennially to a first literary novel that addresses issues of social injustice.

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Dallas, Texas, and Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA
• Education—B.A., Wellseley College; M.F.A., Columbia
   University
• Awards—Bellwether Award; Alex Award (American Library
   Assoc.); Fiction of the Year (New Atlantic Independent Book-
   sellers Assoc.)
• Currently—lives in New York State, soon in New York City
Hillary Jordan is the author of two novels: Mudbound, published in March 2008, and When She Woke, published in October 2011, both by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. She received a BA from Wellesley College and an MFA from Columbia University. She grew up in Dallas, TX and Muskogee, OK and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Mudbound
Mudbound is a story of betrayal, murder and forbidden love set in on a cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta in 1946, during the height of the Jim Crow era. The story is told in alternating first-person narratives by the members of two families: the McAllans, the white family that owns the farm; and the Jacksons, a black family that works for the McAllans as share tenants. When two sons, Jamie McAllan and Ronsel Jackson, return from fighting World War II, the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms sets in motion a harrowing chain of events that test the faith and courage of both families. As they strive for love and honor in a brutal time and place, they become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale and find redemption where they least expect it.

When She Woke
"When she woke, she was red. Not flushed, not sunburned, but the solid, declarative red of a stop sign." Hannah Payne’s life has been devoted to church and family. But after she’s convicted of murder, she awakens in a new body to a nightmarish new life. She finds herself lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, with cameras broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for whom observing new “chromes”—criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to match the class of their crime—is a sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red; her crime is murder. The victim, says the state of Texas, was her unborn child, and Hannah is determined to protect the identity of the father, a public figure with whom she shared a fierce and forbidden love.

A powerful reimagining of The Scarlet Letter, When She Woke is a timely fable about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of the not-too-distant future, where the line between church and state has been eradicated and convicted felons are no longer imprisoned and rehabilitated, but “chromed” and released back into the population to survive as best they can. In seeking a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah unknowingly embarks on a journey of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she once held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith and love.

Awards
Mudbound won a 2009 Alex Award from the American Library Association as well as the 2006 Bellwether Prize for fiction, founded by author Barbara Kingsolver and awarded biennially to an unpublished work of fiction that addresses issues of social justice. It was the 2008 NAIBA (New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association) Fiction Book of the Year, was long-listed for the 2010 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and named one of the Top Ten Debut Novels of the Decade by Paste Magazine. Mudbound was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, a Borders Original Voices selection, a Book Sense pick, one of twelve New Voices for 2008 chosen by Waterstone's UK, a Richard & Judy New Writers Book Of The Month, and one of Indie Next's top ten reading group suggestions for 2009.

When She Woke was the #1 Indie Next pick for October 2011 and one of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Literary Fiction picks for the fall. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

Discussion Questions
1. The setting of the Mississippi Delta is intrinsic to Mudbound. Discuss the ways in which the land functions as a character in the novel and how each of the other characters relates to it.
2. Mudbound is a chorus, told in six different voices. How do the changes in perspective affect your understanding of the story? Are all six voices equally sympathetic? Reliable? Pappy is the only main character who has no narrative voice. Why do you think the author chose not to let him speak?
3. Who gets to speak and who is silent or silenced is a central theme, the silencing of Ronsel being the most literal and brutal example. Discuss the ways in which this theme plays out for the other characters. For instance, how does Laura's silence about her unhappiness on the farm affect her and her marriage? What are the consequences of Jamie's inability to speak to his family about the horrors he experienced in the war? How does speaking or not speaking confer power or take it away?
4. The story is narrated by two farmers, two wives and mothers, and two soldiers. Compare and contrast the ways in which these parallel characters, black and white, view and experience the world.
5. What is the significance of the title? In what ways are each of the characters bound—by the land, by circumstance, by tradition, by the law, by their own limitations? How much of this binding is inescapable and how much is self-imposed? Which characters are most successful in freeing themselves from what binds them?
6. All the characters are products of their time and place, and instances of racism in the book run from Pappy’s outright bigotry to Laura’s more subtle prejudice. Would Laura have thought of herself as racist, and if not, why not? How do the racial views of Laura, Jamie, Henry, and Pappy affect your sympathy for them?
7. The novel deals with many thorny issues: racism, sexual politics, infidelity, war. The characters weigh in on these issues, but what about the author? Does she have a discernable perspective, and if so, how does she convey it?
8. We know very early in the book that something terrible is going to befall Ronsel. How does this sense of inevitability affect the story? Jamie makes Ronsel responsible for his own fate, saying "Maybe that's cowardly of me, making Ronsel's the trigger finger." Is it just cowardice, or is there some truth to what Jamie says? Where would you place the turning point for Ronsel? Who else is complicit in what happens to him, and why?
9. In reflecting on some of the more difficult moral choices made by the characters—Laura's decision to sleep with Jamie, Ronsel's decision to abandon Resl and return to America, Jamie's choice during the lynching scene, Florence's and Jamie's separate decisions to murder Pappy—what would you have done in those same situations? Is it even possible to know? Are there some moral positions that are absolute, or should we take into account things like time and place when making judgments?
10. How is the last chapter of Mudbound different from all the others? Why do you think the author chose to have Ronsel address you, the reader, directly? Do you believe he overcomes the formidable obstacles facing him and finds "something like happiness"? If so, why doesn't the author just say so explicitly? Would a less ambiguous ending have been more or less satisfying?
(Questions from author's website.)

Mudbound Assignment

Mudbound Writing Assignment

EQ: How does reading Mudbound relate to your major writing assignment? 


Mudbound and the other literary works we will read are models for your writing.  They are EXEMPLAR TEXTS.  Your writing assignments correspond each marking period to aspects of contemporary style and themes.
STYLE:   Multiple perspectives and historical fiction
THEMES: Racism post WWII in the American South, families,
African-American soldiers in WWI, life in the Mississippi Delta farming 

DUE DATE: week of Sept. 26, first draft 

What we're actually looking for in your short story now that you have brainstormed an idea and have begun working on it: 

1. Length: minimum 5 pages, Times New Roman 12 pt. font, double-spaced

2. Historical Setting: Set your story in the time and place you are interested in and have done research about.  The details of this time period should be apparent in your story.  Use a padlet or the graphic organizers to take notes.
http://padlet.com/wall/ihgzk6ztes 

3. Characters:  Just like Mudbound, your story should have multiple perspectives and be told by at least 3 characters whose voices are interwoven throughout the story.
Switch between characters by skipping a space and putting the character's name in capital letters centered above his or her section.   Write in the first person point of view from each character's unique perspective.

4. Conflict:  Your story should have a significant conflict or incident that involves your characters.  Create a key moment for the characters to interact if possible.  Be sure to resolve the conflict.

5. DETAILS: As always, SHOW, DON'T TELL

Mudbound--Multiple Perspectives/Historical Fiction

Mudbound by Hilary Jordan

AGENDA:

Morning Reflection:

 http://www.ted.com/talks/jamila_lyiscott_3_ways_to_speak_english?language=en

Sign up for Morning Reflections

Go to website:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88195380

Listen to interview on NPR
Read excerpt

Interview with Hilary Jordan:

http://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm/author_number/1538/Hillary-Jordan

More about Mudbound:

http://www.hillaryjordan.com/books-mudbound.php

About this book

In Jordan's prize-winning debut, prejudice takes many forms, both subtle and brutal. It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband's Mississippi Delta farm --- a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family's struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land. Jamie McAllan, Laura's brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not --- charming, handsome, and haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come home with the shine of a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South. It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion.

The men and women of each family relate their versions of events and we are drawn into their lives as they become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale. As Barbara Kingsolver says of Hillary Jordan, "Her characters walked straight out of 1940s Mississippi and into the part of my brain where sympathy and anger and love reside, leaving my heart racing. They are with me still." 

Discussion Questions 

1. The setting of the Mississippi Delta is intrinsic to Mudbound. Discuss the ways in which the land functions as a character in the novel and how each of the other characters relates to it.

2. Mudbound is a chorus, told in six different voices. How do the changes in perspective affect your understanding of the story? Are all six voices equally sympathetic? Reliable? Pappy is the only main character who has no narrative voice. Why do you think the author chose not to let him speak?

Crtical Praise

"A supremely readable debut novel... Fluidly narrated by engaging characters . . . Mudbound is packed with drama. Pick it up, then pass it on." 

— People, Critic’s Choice, 4-star review

"A compelling family tragedy, a confluence of romantic attraction and racial hatred that eventually falls like an avalanche... The last third of the book is downright breathless... An engaging story." 

— Washington Post Book World

"In Hillary Jordan's first novel, Mudbound, the forces of change and resistance collide with terrible consequences." 

— The New York Times

"Stunning... You are truly taken there by Jordan's powerful, evocative writing and complex characters." 

— Boston Globe

Hillary Jordan reading an early chapter of Mudbound

Follow along

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=hillary+Jordan&FORM=HDRSC3#view=detail&mid=053D91D37942704B565D053D91D37942704B565D

Multiple Perspectives:

http://www.the-writers-craft.com/point-of-view-in-literature-perspectives.html 

Objective: Part 1 The author of this book wrote in a first person narrative. These first chapters introduce us to all the different the narrators, and we learn that this book will be told through their perspectives.

1) 1) Genre Introduction: Give a short introduction about first person narrative and other POVs. Explain what it is, how it is used, and why an author might choose this form of narrative for a story like this one.

2) Personal Reaction to Text: Read the introduction with the class. How does this kind of narration make you feel? Do you like it? Do you think it will enhance the plot? Why or why not? What do all the different viewpoints do to the narrative? Why is this not through the eyes of one main character?

3) Small Group Activity: Split the class into groups and assign each group a different form of narrative -- i.e.: third person, second person, omniscient, etc. Have each group re-write this short chapter using their assigned form of narrative. Have each group present their work. Discuss which one was the most effective. Do you think the author made the right choice? Why or why not?

Historical fiction

Objective: Part 1 "Mudbound" fits into a unique genre of literature called Historical Fiction.
 1) Introduction of Genre: Introduce to the class the concept of the historical fiction style of writing. Present the pros and cons of this style of narrative and list some of the reasons why an author would choose this style to write in. Present some examples of this style from books that they have read, or will read later with the class.

2) Group Activity: Split the class into groups and assign each group a different part of these chapters. Have each group study their portion and work together to write a short response to the historical fiction style of that portion. Allow each group some time to present their prepared information.

3) Class Discussion: Read aloud with the class the part where the narrator, presents the different facts about the climate in the south at this time -- i.e.: the politics, the war, the different occupations, the crops, the weather, the relations with the north, etc. Discuss this with the class. How does this language enhance the historical fiction style of the book? How does this make this information a little more believable? Why do you think keeping this informational tone was so important to the author? What did you learn through this dialogue that helped you understand this book and setting better?


WRITING:
Print out "Why I Write" and place in envelope

HOMEWORK:  For Wednesday: Read to pg. 48 in Mudbound

Welcome Back!

AGENDA:

1. Review Course Criteria/Morning Reflection:  Suli Breaks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5vb5L7nOsc

Quickwrite: Your thoughts and post a comment

2. Read Why I Write and Write Your Own Why I Write Letter to Your Self

Why I Write: Jane Hirshfield Writes about Life's Profound Mystery

Date: October 10, 2011

Summary: Prize-winning international poet, translator, and essayist Jane Hirshfield's poetry speaks to the central issues of human existence: desire and loss, impermanence and beauty, and the many dimensions of our connection with others. She tells NWP why she writes.

JANE HIRSHFIELD

Why do I write?

I write because to write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger existence and a profound mystery. A thought was not there, then it is. An image, a story, an idea about what it is to be human, did not exist, then it does. With every new poem, an emotion new to the heart, to the world, speaks itself into being. Any new metaphor is a telescope, a canoe in rapids, an MRI machine. And like that MRI machine, sometimes its looking is accompanied by an awful banging. To write can be frightening as well as magnetic. You don't know what will happen when you throw open your windows and doors.

To write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger existence and a profound mystery.

Why write? You might as well ask a fish, why swim, ask an apple tree, why make apples? The eye wants to look, the ear wants to hear, the heart wants to feel more than it thought it could bear...

The writer, when she or he cannot write, is a person outside the gates of her own being. Not long ago, I stood like that for months, disbarred from myself. Then, one sentence arrived; another. And I? I was a woman in love. For that also is what writing is. Every sentence that comes for a writer when actually writing—however imperfect, however inadequate—every sentence is a love poem to this world and to our good luck at being here, alive, in it.

Joan Didion:
http://genius.com/Joan-didion-why-i-write-annotated

RELATED ARTICLES ON NWP.ORG

• Why I Write: A Celebration of the National Day on Writing
• Poet Laureate Kay Ryan: Poet as Teacher, Teacher as Poet
• Billy Collins: A `Reader's Poet' Reads at NWP's 2009 Annual Meeting

About the Author Jane Hirshfield is the author of seven collections of poetry, including After (shortlisted for England's T.S. Eliot Prize and named a "best book of 2006" by the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the London Financial Times), Given Sugar, Given Salt (finalist for the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award), The Lives of the Heart, and The October Palace, as well as a book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. Her most recent book, a collection of poems entitled Come, Thief was published in August 2011. Hirshfield has taught at UC Berkeley, Duke University, Bennington College and elsewhere, and her many appearances at writers conferences and literary festivals in this country and abroad have been highly acclaimed.


4. Natalie Goldberg's "Test 1"