Speaking of Courage/Notes

AGENDA:

WRITING:  Work on metafiction stories

DISCUSSION: Think, Pair, Share and post a group comment regarding these questions.

 

Speaking of Courage:

(1) To begin with, why is this story called "Speaking of Courage"? Assume the title does NOT hold any irony. In what sense does this story speak of courage?

(2) Why does Norman Bowker still feel inadequate with seven metals? And why is Norman's father such a presence in his mental life? Would it really change Norman's life if he had eight metals, the silver star, etc.?

(3) What is the more difficult problem for Norman--the lack of the silver star or the death of Kiowa? Which does he consider more and why?

(4) Why is Norman unable to relate to anyone at home? More importantly, why doesn't he even try?

 

  Notes:

(1) In "Notes," Tim O'Brien receives a letter from Norman Bowker, the main character in "Speaking of Courage." Why does O'Brien choose to include excerpts of this seventeen page letter in this book? What does it accomplish?

(2) Consider for a moment that the letter might be made-up, a work of fiction. Why include it then?

(3) In "Notes," Tim O'Brien says, "You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the shit field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain it." What does this tell you about O'Brien's understanding of the way fiction relates to real life?

(4) Compare and contrast possible versions of Kiowa's death in "Speaking of Courage" and the end of "Notes".  Who is responsible?

End of Marking Period

AGENDA:

Please work on completing your portfolio for the marking period: Sedaris and Nature Essay, Metafiction Story

Reminder: Friday, Rene Denfeld Master Class, periods 3/4
If you are going to be absent for the AP US trip, please listen to this interview and post a comment:

http://wxxinews.org/post/connections-rochester-reads-2017-enchanted-rene-denfeld

READINGS: You should be caught up in The Things They Carried--pg. 136

For Wednesday, read "Speaking of Courage"

Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong

AGENDA:

WRITING:  Marking period projects:  Sedaris Essay. Nature Essay, Metafiction Story

READING: Me Talk Pretty, essays, The Enchanted, The Things They Carried

Master class: March 31 periods 3 and 4 Rene Denfeld

Marking period ends March 31

 View A Soldier's Sweetheart

http://blip.tv/lostin24/a-soldier-s-sweetheart-part-1-of-3-2467255

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A0LEVv7N8tBYtlIAI7APxQt.?p=a+soldiers+sweetheart&fr=yhs-pty-pty_extension&fr2=piv-web&hspart=pty&hsimp=yhs-pty_extension#id=1&vid=0f062ddcbb987838ff9f93ab90bd8759&action=view

Magic Realism and The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong

Magic Realism

"My most important problem was destroying
the lines of demarcation that separates what
seems real from what seems fantastic"
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A narrative technique that blurs the distinction between fantasy and reality. It is characterized by an equal acceptance of the ordinary and the extraordinary. Magic realism fuses (1) lyrical and, at times, fantastic writing with (2) an examination of the character of human existence and (3) an implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite.

 Characteristics of Magical Realism
Hybridity—Magical realists incorporate many techniques that have been linked to post-colonialism, with hybridity being a primary feature.  Specifically, magical realism is illustrated in the inharmonious arenas of such opposites as urban and rural, and Western and indigenous.  The plots of magical realist works involve issues of borders, mixing, and change.  Authors establish these plots to reveal a crucial purpose of magical realism:  a more deep and true reality than conventional realist techniques would illustrate.
Irony Regarding Author’s Perspective—The writer must have ironic distance from the magical world view for the realism not to be compromised. Simultaneously, the writer must strongly respect the magic, or else the magic dissolves into simple folk belief or complete fantasy, split from the real instead of synchronized with it.  The term "magic" relates to the fact that the point of view that the text depicts explicitly is not adopted according to the implied world view of the author.  As Gonzales Echevarria expresses, the act of distancing oneself from the beliefs held by a certain social group makes it impossible to be thought of as a representative of that society.
Authorial Reticence—Authorial reticence refers to the lack of clear opinions about the accuracy of events and the credibility of the world views expressed by the characters in the text.  This technique promotes acceptance in magical realism.  In magical realism, the simple act of explaining the supernatural would eradicate its position of equality regarding a person’s conventional view of reality.  Because it would then be less valid, the supernatural world would be discarded as false testimony.
The Supernatural and Natural—In magical realism, the supernatural is not displayed as questionable.  While the reader realizes that the rational and irrational are opposite and conflicting polarities, they are not disconcerted because the supernatural is integrated within the norms of perception of the narrator and characters in the fictional world.
english.emory.edu/Bahri/MagicalRealism.html 



DISCUSSION GROUPS:
HMWK: POST A COMMENT TO THE INTERPRETIVE QUESTIONS Level 2 and  Allegorical/Symbolic Question Level 3

"The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong"

Level 2:  Interpretive questions.
In "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," what transforms Mary Anne into a predatory killer? Does it matter that Mary Anne is a woman? How so? What does the story tell us about the nature of the Vietnam War? 

2. The story Rat tells in "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" is highly fantastical. Does its lack of believability make it any less compelling? Do you believe it? Does it fit O'Brien's criteria for a true war story? 

3.  Find three symbols in this chapter and explain them.

4.  Find three specific quotes and scenes from the chapter that illustrate Mary Anne’s change.  Also, explain Mary Anne’s transformation.  Does she go crazy?  Or does she simply change?

5.  Explain the whole “cave scene”.  What is going on?  What has Mary Anne become?  Make a list of all of graphic imagery from that scene.

6. Does it matter what happened, in the end, to Mary Anne? Would this be a better story if we knew, precisely, what happened to her after she left camp? Or does this vague ending add to the story? Either way, why?

Level 3 Allegorical/Symbolic Questions   What does this short story tell the reader about the nature of humanity?  About war?

Metafiction Story Assignment

AGENDA:

After completing your Sedaris and Nature essays, your last assignment will be to try your hand at writing a metafiction story:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2160101_write-metafiction.html

https://www.thoughtco.com/metafiction-2207827

How to Tell a True War Story/More about Metafiction

After reading Tim O’Brien’s, “How to Tell a True War Story,” discuss the following questions 

1.The narrator in this story retells events from the first-person point of view. What impact does this more intimate point of view have on you, the reader?

2.O’Brien is a master of imagery and detail. Talk about some specific images and descriptions he uses that bring the story's setting and events to life for you and place you “in the moment” among the harsh conditions of the Vietnam conflict. In what ways does he attempt to show that war may even be beautiful or majestic?

3.O’Brien begins and ends the narrative by recounting the story of Curt Lemon’s death. Discuss the reactions of the females who hear the story (Curt’s sister and the older woman at the end of the story). What does their silence and/or denial say about the human tendency to turn away from harsh truths?

4.Why did Rat shoot and mutilate the young water buffalo? Can you empathize with the emotions behind his actions? What parallels can you draw between this violent act and the narrator’s contention that, “A true war story…makes the stomach believe?”

5.Early on in this piece the narrator states, “A true war story is never moral.” Do you agree? Why or why not? Later, Mitchell Sanders suggests that the moral is that no one listens. What do you suppose he means by this?

6.Throughout the story the narrator philosophizes about the nature of truth when it comes to war stories. Discuss ways in which the truths of war are complex, contradictory and far from black-and-white. What do you think is meant by the statement near the end of the story, “A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”

7.How might this story relate to your own worldview?

http://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-things-they-carried/how-to-tell-a-true-war-story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGEDTB-UEcg 

http://bigthink.com/experts/timobrien

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C48fWkljK28 

https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/Vietnam/callowaythings.html

About metafiction:
https://litreactor.com/columns/thats-so-meta-writing-a-story-about-writing-a-story 

http://www.geneseo.edu/~johannes/Metafiction.html 

http://study.com/academy/lesson/metafiction-definition-examples.html 

http://ronaldbrichardson.com/uncategorized/top-twenty-one-metafictional-works-the-story-that-swallows-its-tale/

http://www.novel-writing-help.com/metafiction.html

Margaret Atwood's "Happy Endings":

http://occonline.occ.cccd.edu/online/swells/Happy%20Endings.pdf

Young Arts Competition 2018

http://www.youngarts.org/writing

Postmodernism/Metafiction

AGENDA:

  Finish nature essays

EQ:What is postmodernism?

The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain tendencies in post-World War II literature. It is both a continuation of the experimentation championed by writers of the modernist period (relying heavily, for example, on fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc.) and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature. Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature. However, unifying features often coincide with Jean-François Lyotard's concept of the "meta-narrative" and "little narrative," Jacques Derrida's concept of "play," and Jean Baudrillard's "simulacra." For example, instead of the modernist quest for meaning in a chaotic world, the postmodern author eschews, often playfully, the possibility of meaning, and the postmodern novel is often a parody of this quest. This distrust of totalizing mechanisms extends even to the author; thus postmodern writers often celebrate chance over craft and employ metafiction to undermine the author's "univocal" control (the control of only one voice). The distinction between high and low culture is also attacked with the employment of pastiche, the combination of multiple cultural elements including subjects and genres not previously deemed fit for literature. A list of postmodern authors often varies; the following are some names of authors often so classified, most of them belonging to the generation born in the interwar period: William Burroughs (1914-1997), Alexander Trocchi (1925-1984), Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), John Barth (b. 1930), Donald Barthelme (1931-1989), E. L. Doctorow (b. 1931), Robert Coover (1932), Jerzy Kosinski (1933-1991) Don DeLillo (b. 1936), Thomas Pynchon (b. 1937), Ishmael Reed (1938), Kathy Acker (1947-1997), Paul Auster (b. 1947)^[1], Orhan Pamuk (b. 1952).

Metafiction is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion. It is the literary term describing fictional writing that self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in posing questions about the relationship between fiction and reality, usually using irony and self-reflection. It can be compared to presentational theatre, which does not let the audience forget it is viewing a play; metafiction does not let the reader forget he or she is reading a fictional work.

Metafiction is primarily associated with Modernist and Postmodernist literature, but is found at least as early as the 9th-century One Thousand and One Nights and Chaucer's 14th-century Canterbury Tales. Cervantes' Don Quixote is a metafictional novel, as is James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824). In the 1950s several French novelists published works whose styles were collectively dubbed "nouveau roman". These "new novels" were characterized by their bending of genre and style and often included elements of metafiction. It became prominent in the 1960s, with authors and works such as John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse, Robert Coover's The Babysitter and The Magic Poker, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and William H. Gass's Willie Master's Lonesome Wife. William H. Gass coined the term “metafiction” in a 1970 essay entitled “Philosophy and the Form of Fiction”. Unlike the antinovel, or anti-fiction, metafiction is specifically fiction about fiction, i.e. fiction which self-consciously reflects upon itself

Things They Carried

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=tim+O%27brien+things+they+carried&FORM=HDRSC3&adlt=strict#view=detail&mid=8BB7D06A8BE68E16D5218BB7D06A8BE68E16D521

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ivNokqT74

Start at 15:00

From Shmoop

WHY SHOULD I CARE?

The Vietnam War: It's a tough pill to swallow. Maybe you're sick to death of hearing yet another Doors' song in yet another Vietnam War-era movie... or just bummed out by the never-ending stories of relentless carnage.

Or maybe you just feel alienated by the subject matter. You can't really comprehend it. You want to read something that speaks to you.

The Things They Carried is about war, sure. But, first and foremost, it's about a dude named Tim O'Brien struggling with two super-universal issues: communication and memory.

Tim O'Brien saw some horrific stuff, and now he's trying to communicate with a wider audience. And even if you've never been to war or seen anything truly hair-raising, you know what that's like. Have you ever tried to communicate what love/fear/sorrow/getting wasabi up your nose really feels like? And have you ever failed?

We're guessing the answer is yes.

Tim O'Brien lost some beloved people both before and during the war, and now he's trying to remember them with such clarity that they're resurrected. Even if you've never seen anyone die (or killed anyone), you should know what that's like. Have you ever stared at a picture of someone you've loved and lost—a grandmother, a first love, a summer camp buddy—and tried to burn their face into your memory?

We're guessing the answer is yes.

So while you might not be able to comprehend the horrors that Tim O'Brien has seen, you understand in a larger, human way what he's going through. Sure, he's not trying to communicate the feeling of getting wasabi up his nose... he's trying to communicate the feeling of pulling a dead friend's corpse from a lake full of raw sewage. But he's still trying and still failing. And maybe he's not trying to resurrect a summer camp pal... he's trying to resurrect a Vietnamese academic whom he killed. But he's still trying to make that person live again via memory.

What makes The Things They Carried tick is the fact that it manages to be comprehensible and alien all at once. So while you might never understand what war looks like, smells like, or sounds like, The Things They Carried will allow you to (begin to) understand how soldiers feel after returning from war: scarred, but shockingly relatable.

HOMEWORK:   For Thursday, read "Spin," "Love," and "On the Rainy River."

The Things They Carried

AGENDA:

Work on "Nature" essays.

Morning Reflection:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N-EwdXEepQ

HMWK:  Read to pg. 38 for Tuesday  "The Things They Carried"

"What they carried was partly a function of rank, partly of field specialty. As a machine gunner, Henry Dobbins carried the M-60, which weighed 23 pounds unloaded, but which was almost always loaded. He also carried between 10 and 15 pounds of ammunition draped in belts across his chest and shoulders."

"The things they carried were largely determined by necessity. Among them were P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellant, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, and two or three canteens of water."

"They carried the land itself--Vietnam, the place, the soil-powdery-orange-red dust that covered their boots and fatiques and faces. They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity."

"They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intanigbles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specifc gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide...They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing."

* Briefly discuss the differences between "literal" things that the soldiers carried and "figurative" things. What are some "literal" and "figurative" things that the students carry with them every day to school?

Nature Essays

AGENDA:

Continue to work on your nature essay.  Think about the STRUCTURE of the essay from the work
we did on Annie Dillard and Brian Doyle.

Need ideas?

Nature writing website:
http://naturewriting.com/ideas/




Sedaris Essays completed?

SUBMIT PLAYS TO GEVA THEATRE--Extra Credit!

Harvard-Radcliffe essays--Extra Credit!