http://youtu.be/rPK5dnE9CS4

W 06/29

Homework: Read Robert Frost bio. and Design, The Road Less Traveled, Directive, Once, Then Something
Read Theodore Roethke bio. and My Papa's Waltz,
Allan Ginsberg bio and Howl (all parts) and A Supermarket in CA
Jack Kerouac bio. all poems and the intro to the Beats on the left side of the page.

These bios and poems are all potential quiz material. Read them carefully.

H 06/30
Homework:
The Confessionalists
Sylvia Plath bio. all poems and we'll discuss Metaphor in class. Also, on the left, the brief guide to Confessionalist poetry.
Anne Sexton bio. all poems.
Robert Lowell bio. Skunk Hour, Man and Wife.
John Berryman, bio. all posted Dreamsong poems.

Wednesday Class

I will want you guys to be ready for a quiz on all of the reading selections for Tuesday. (Biship, Moore, Stevens) Class discussion is the only way I know that homework is getting done and since I am not hearing much from most of you, I feel that I have to use other means to get a sense of where you're at with the reading and understanding of it.

Have a sense of who wrote the poems and a good feeling for the most memorable lines. Any biographical materials are also fair game.

There will be more reading assigned for this week, but you will not be responsible for it for Wednesday.

See you soon and thanks,
s

Movie Day: The Fall

Let's make this happen.

On the Trancendental.

Tuesday 06/21 Homework
Read:
THE YELLOW WALLPAPER by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

About The Angel in the House

The Mark on the Wall by Virginia Woolf

On Stream-of-Consciousness

Also, here.

Read the bio and poems of ee cummings here.

Wednesday 06/22 Discussion of Gilman, Woolf and Cummings.
Moving into Modernism.
Homework: Read T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Ezra Pound's biographical information plus The River Merchant's Wife and In a Station at the Metro and William Carlos Williams, read bio and all poems.

Thursday 06/23

Discussion of Modernism and Eliot, Pound, and Williams. As we do this week's hefty reading, begin considering selecting one for a thoughtful reading response. You might do a mock book review or compare themes in a couple of the piece. You could write a letter from one of the poets to another.
A brief glimpse at Imagism.
Read: Wallace Stevens, the bio. (remember I might quiz at any moment on any of these) and the poems: Sunday Morning, The Snowman, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour, The Emperor of Ice Cream and The Idea of Order at Key West.

Read Marianne Moore, bio. and all of the poems.

Elizabeth Bishop: Bio. plus The Fish, At the Fishhouses, In the Waiting Room, One Art
Tuesday 06/28 Discussion of Modernism and Moore, Stevens, Bishop, etc. Be sure you are caught up on reading and can talk across poems and poetry during our discussion.


Thursday: Discussion continues. Reading Response Homework due. Two double-spaced, typed, full-pages minimum. (12 pt. font, times new roman or garamond).

Walt Whitman Levis Commercial

Readings in American Lit.

READINGS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE LA390/01
06/13/2011-07/08/2011
Tuesday through Thursday 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.
KH 224
Sophia Kartsonis
zeldaville@yahoo.com

Text: We will work with various online texts. You are expected to read, note and bring in relevant print-outs.
Additionally, we will be watching many videos in here. The Voices and Visions series is invaluable for giving you a sense of the authors. Your attendance will be docked if you text, talk, sleep or open your laptop during these. (I will count you absent for any of the above, and that will mean dropping the course with the stringent absence policy I have for summer—see belowJ

Course Policy:
Attendance:
Because we are taking a fast train through the subject matter, as summer courses often require, attendance will be crucial. We will be reading a lot and dealing with that reading in class with writing assignments and activities.
You will be afforded one absence for reasons I will not need to know. I do not excuse any absence after that first one and if you accrue two absences (as the course is so short,) I will likely ask that you drop the course. Please don’t inform me as to the reason for your absence. What time you missed you will be expected to catch up on your own with the blog. Some things cannot be caught-up. Quizzes, class discussions, videos. Ideally, for a decent grade, you will be here every one of our too-few days.

Tardies: After two you have an absence.

Grades: You will be graded heavily on class participation and attendance: (30%) Your written work will comprise 70% of your total grade. Perfect attendance does not mean that you have that 30% guaranteed. I expect lively discussions and real engagement with the topics. I hate to resort to pop quizzes, but I have decided that we will be having quizzes many days before we begin discussion. It will be good for you to be prepared, have done the reading and to know that you will be quizzed.

The written work will consist of some reading responses, in-class exercises and at least one artistic or ekphrastic interpretation of the material. Please be generous and thoughtful in your class discussions.

Cell Phones: Please turn them off. Brain surgery can wait.

I am available to conference with you at any time throughout the course. Please contact me in class or through the email address and we can set a time to meet.
JUNE (flowers brought to you by April showers—exact rhyme
T 14 Introduction.
Literary Terms
The Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance
Homework: Read Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants
http://www.gummyprint.com/blog/archives/hills-like-white-elephants-complete-story/
Read Fitzgerald’s Winter Dreams
http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/winterd/winter.html
and be prepared to discuss the central themes of each, character development, tone, plot and effectiveness of dialogue. What does each reveal and withhold about their character’s motivations? To what effect? From the literary terms glossary be able to distinguish between a protagonist and a narrator. Also, try to get a feel for the antagonist. If you’re unclear about point-of-view, let me know and we’ll go over them more thoroughly. This site has all of those, plus the terms omniscient and omnipotent. Be able to define all of the italicized words and use them in tomorrow’s class discussion.
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/terms/Literary.Terms.html
W 15
Read the poems of Langston Hughes and all of the introductory material on the main page. The links to the poems are on the right side of the page. Read the biographical material of Walt Whitman and all of the Songs of Myself poems, I Sing the Body Electric, When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd and When I Heard the Learned Astronomer. Be prepared to discuss the occasion of the poem: When Lilacs Last...
Read the biography of Emily Dickinson and the poems: Hope is the thing with feathers (254)
I cannot live with You (640) I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (280) I heard a Fly buzz (465) I like to see it lap the Miles (43) I measure every Grief I meet (561)
I taste a liquor never brewed (214) I tie my Hat—I crease my Shawl (443) I'm Nobody! Who are you? (260) It was not Death, for I stood up (510) It's all I have to bring today (26) Knows how to forget! (433) Like Brooms of Steel (1252) Luck is not chance (1350) My life closed twice before its close (96) One day is there of the series One Sister have I in our house (14) Safe in their Alabaster Chambers (216) The Outlet (162) The Savior must have been a docile Gentleman (1487) The Soul selects her own Society (303)


H 16
Watch the Voices and Visions video(return to the library).
Homework: Write a poem in imitation of either Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson or Langston Hughes. The poem must be a minimum of twenty lines and be typed. It will be due at the beginning of class on Tuesday 06/21.

Extra Credit for Entering this Contest--If you're interested, I'll help you, let me know.

EPOC Poetry Contest – 2011 ComFest
GUIDE LINES
Email submission with ComFest in the subject line to: hanseatin@columbus.rr.com
Submit up to 3 poems with no more than 40 lines each by: June 15, 2011
Address any and/or all of the following topics: Mountain Top Removal, Factory Farming,
Plastic Bags, Nuclear Power, Fracking, EWaste
Last Name – First Name
Child or Adult (18 years +)
E-mail
Title of Poem 1
Topic of Poem 1
Title of Poem 2
Topic of Poem 2
Title of Poem 3
Topic of Poem 3
PRIZES
Winners in both, the Children’s and the Adult Category receive 1st, 2nd or 3rd cash prizes ranging from $10 to $100 and/or ComFest T-Shirts/Memorabilia as well as a reading of their poems on one of the ComFest Stages.
Check in at the Solar Stage on 6/25 at 4:30pm if you would like to write a poem during our EcoPoetry Workshop with poets, facilitators and music.
Disclaimer:
The transcribers of these poems are not responsible for their accuracy in trying to decipher submissions that are handwritten .
Support the Environment with Your Voice!
WHAT IS ECO POETRY?
EcoPoetry conjures vivid details, rich history and intense nature imagery that channels the audience’s energy toward environmental activism. While staying true to their poetic intent, poets and audience explore the 3 Rs (reuse, recycle, reduce by weaving nature into language: connecting literary imagination to our landscape, natural history, and a sense of environmental urgency. Several formats lend themselves to EcoPoetry:
Call-and-Response Poems will reflect on sustainable farming practices, reversing watershed damage and minimizing air pollution through immersing rather than confronting the listener.
Personification Poems lead the listeners through role and group readings. Participants enjoy different poetic styles as a tool to address ecological issue thus encouraging them to engage in literary arts and environmental projects.
Traditional Poetry reveals the lyricist as relying solely on writing itself to promote change, i.e. the traditional strengths of poetry, its powers of observation, to teach others to be aware of the intimate connections between human beings and nature, to document the importance of nature, and most importantly, to call for the importance of human stewardship. Activist Poetics, both environmentalist and feminist in nature, enact a partnership ethic with nature, intended to alter, and better our communities.
The above and other forms of Interactive Poetry must pertain to Water, Soil, Air or Noise Pollution, Environmental Conservation or Preservation Issues. To express your concern for the degrading environment and awaken the audience, no other restrictions apply because poetry and the environment belong to everybody – or is that wishful thinking?
Discovering the limitations of environmental poetry as either promising hope or forecasting doom, brings about the understanding that they are similar in that they consider human beings as dominant over nature, with the power to either cure or destroy the planet. Poets may suggest a different approach such as a partnership with nature, whereby poetry could eventually lead to a change in individual ethics.
While listening to and/or engaging in creating poetry to protect the environment, we are reminded that the wild is still present and we must act to preserve rather than tame the still free and unmanaged. Recognizing this necessity, poetry can serve as a powerful means for environmental stewardship.