A Year in the Life of an English Class

One of the important things that I hope students will take away from our unit on All Quiet on the Western Front is the eormous POPULARITY of the war — especially in the early years.  Here are links from English poet Rupert Brooke, who was a very powerful voice for the British war effort as the conflict began.  His collection of sonnets entitled 1914 captures the nationalist energy of the time, and it may give students an idea of how different attitudes at that time were — compared to the way we think about war in the 21st century.

As I read over these poems, I can’t help but be struck by the absolutely bizarre logic that he writes in his verses.  In one example, he declares that England is much better off because of the opportunity to go fight and die in France.  He celebrates the fact that, in the form of a war — or perhaps of a soldier,

“Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
   And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
   And we have come into our heritage.”

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As an exercise to start thinking about the young men in O’Brien’s stories, I have asked my seniors to write about the things they carry — or plan to carry — as they begin the next part of their lives. 

I’m not planning on going anywhere soon, but I have made many moves… not surprisingly, the list of things changes.  But here are some of the things that I have carried since leaving home, back when I was 18 years old and on my way to college:

1.  I carried two musical instruments, a clarinet and a saxophone.  Both of these instruments got packed again when I went to Italy between my second and third years of college, and the saxophone still comes with me wherever I go.  Since high school, the saxophone has been a big part of who I am and what I do.  Wherever I’ve lived or worked I’ve made friends and (very little) money by playing music.  Even though I don’t play or practice very regularly, I can’t imagine being anywhere for more than a few days without my horn.  When I think about my life in different places, it’s often defined by the kind of playing I did:  In college I was in the marching band, then the jazz band, then many orchestra pits.  Then I was back home in Milwaukee, living at my parents’ house and sitting in at The Estate and The Main Event, the two local jazz clubs.  Then I was back in Boston, sitting in at sessions at the Central Square VFW and the Cantab Lounge, every once in a while going to New York for the Sunday morning jam session at the Village Gate.  Then I moved to Caracas and played at Juan Sebastian’s bar — even started my own working group and recorded a CD.  In Portugal I never played at all, except with students at the high school where I worked, but now, here in Florida, I’m happily playing again…

All the way through high school and into college I carried, for some reason I still don’t understand, a mummy.  It was a seventh grade social studies project — I’d wrapped up a doll in rags, and the mummy came with me everywhere.  Eventually, though, it had to go.

I’ve always brought music with me.  In college, it was two boxes of one hundred casette tapes and some Vinyl albums, then a few hundred CD’s plus the Cassettes and Vinyl.  Now it’s a 500 gig hard drive, but soon I suspect it’ll all be up in the cloud and I won’t have to bring any of it with me.

I also have carried around a collection of books, which I started to acquire when I left my parents’ house.  The collection started small — I think I had all of Vonnegut’s novels, in paperback, and a few books that had been given to me by my parents, or which I had borrowed (or appropriated, or stolen) from their library.  That collection has expanded ro a few hundred,  now that I’ve bought more books, and found many in schools — abandoned by students, or lost in the shffle of moving from place to place.  In Venezuela someone who had worked for Britanica sold me the 1991 encyclopedia and their Great Books collection.  While I seldom open any of these, I love having them on the shelves.  There are my diaries, too… from Indonesia (summer of 1986) and  Italy (1989-90).  Then there are two albums of incriminating photos from college.  Someday maybe I’ll digitize them… or lose them…

Since living in Venezuela, my wife and I have carried a lot of art around with us, too.  We have a lot of paintings and sculptures, purchased from artists and friends of artists.  Each painting and sculpture has some kind of a story behind it, and I’m glad we have been able to bring them with us.

So that’s it:  A small art collection, a book collection, a music collection, and a saxophone.  That’s what I carry.

What does it say about me?

It makes me look a lot more “artsy” than I think I am — I wouldn’t describe myself as the kind of guy people would think of as an artistic or literary person.

Drawn to the Shaper’s songs – his language and his music — Grendel repeatedly visits the mead hall.  While he listens, he is confronted with an enormous problem:  Language, which Grendel has previously used to define the world and to describe the accidental, ugly, and “mechanical” rise of men, is being used to re-define the world.  And in this new definition, the world is a beautiful place – made by generous Gods for the generous, good, kind, and peaceful humans, and Grendel is a horrible demon outcast.

Language, which was Grendel’s way of defining the world, is now defining Grendel.  And although he doesn’t like being defined in this way, the story is so beautiful (with Grendel’s curse and all) that Grendel is moved to believe it – or at least believe that this order and kindness exist in the world.  But while watching the shaper, Grendel trips over the body of a man who has been robbed and murdered.  This dead body provides Grendel with yet another piece of evidence that proves that NONE of the world that the Shaper sings about is true.  Here’s how Grendel describes this feeling:

“Imagination, I knew.  Some evil inside myself pushed out into the trees.  I knew what I knew, the mindless, mechanical bruteness of things, and when the harper’s lure drew my mind away to hopeful dreams, the dark of what was and always was reached out and snatched my feet. “ (Gardiner, 54)

This “dark of what was and always was” is embodied by the Dragon – who seems to appear to Grendel various times in the previous scene, but in the form of snakes, which he interacts with.  So it makes sense that he goes to the Dragon in order to understand what life is all about.  As you view Grendel’s conversation with the Dragon, pay attention to the world vies that this Dragon has.  Compare it to your own thoughts of HOW one ought to live, and WHY things are the way they are.

Happy New Year, Seniors!

Congratulations on reaching the second half of your senior year!  Looking ahead, most of you will be starting your university careers in about nine months.  In less than five months — just over a hundred days, if you’re counting — you’ll be finishing up high school, going to graduation, and saying goodbye to our school.  In my experience, it goes fast.

So you have a very short time to finish whatever you want your high school years to mean.  A very short time to establish your legacy here at our school, to complete the story of your childhood.  Knowing this, I would like to invite you to think a little bit about what you anticipate that legacy being, and to consider things that you still can do to make your education complete. 

One of the things about being so close to adulthood is the wide range of choices available to you.  At this point, what you decide to learn, and the extent to which you learn it, is entirely up to you.  The same is true of your friendships:  The extent to which you give of yourself is all up to you.  Like life, high school ends.  This might be a good time to start thinking about your time here as a limited opportunity.  In a couple of months, you’ll say goodbye to this class, these buildings, these teachers, and many of your friends.  That means that you have a couple of months to decide what kind of an exit you’ll make.  Will you walk away from your school and your friends feeling that you gave as much as you could?  That you are bringing away with you the love of your friends and some significant knowledge?

For the next few months, I’m going to ask you to keep in touch with these ideas by writing a letter every couple of weeks.  I’ll read them and respond to them.  In these letters, you can share any thought that you want.  You can talk about goals that you have or challenges that you face.  You can write about your hopes for college or things that you’ll miss from this life here at our school.  You can talk about projects that you’re working on, or anything else that strikes you as important.  You can be as personal or as impersonal as you want to be.  My goal in assigning you this task is to keep you writing, and also to invite you to keep evaluating where you are and where you’re going.  Here’s a little reflection of my own:

Prior to the new year, we looked at two important works of literature:  Macbeth and Beowulf.  The Macbeth unit was a new risk for me, as I experimented with lessons that put students in charge of understanding the play and coming up with their own interpretations.  It was a lot of fun for me to learn how this play can be experienced and interpreted today — even by students who just sort of “have to” deal with reading Shakespeare.  In the notes that I took over the course of these lessons, I learned a lot about how to guide this trip in a better way, but for the most part, I enjoyed the trip — and I hope that students did, too.  In the end, I think that this group of students understood Shakespeare better than any other group that I have taught in a classroom setting.  So that’s good.  I would very much like to find ways to apply the same kinds of lessons to the other works that we will study, although these plans are tough to make.  In Beowulf, I would like to think that some of you got to enjoy reading the poem and that many of you at least enjoyed the story of this first superhero.  I’m hopeful that our study of Grendel will be rewarding for you.

Well, that’s about it for now.  Have a great new year, class of 2012!

My parents' backyard

One of my favorite things about working in international schools is a traditional activity that I do right before everyone leaves for the winter holidays:  I ask students to write about their favorite holiday celebration, and they write and talk about their families and how they celebrate together.  So today, that’s what I’m doing with my English classes.  Here’s my own example:

My family is a mix between the cold, stoic, quiet American North (me) and the warm, tropical, loud Caribbean islands (my wife).  We met in Venezuela, where I started to understand that celebrations in South America are a lot different from what I was used to up in the North.  The Venezuelan parties I remembered involved drinking Johnny Walker, making a traditional Venezuelan bread called “Pan de Jamon,” dancing Merengue, and watching a million different private firework shows — mostly enormous explosions from low-altitude missiles known as house wreckers (tumbaranchos) and mother-in-law killers (“matasuegras”). 

Contrast with Wisconsin:  We drive up to the farmhouse, a quarter of a mile from the two-lane road without streetlights.  A barking dog emerges from the house, and as I get out of the warm car, the cold greets my face and turns my breath to a thick vapor.  The smoke from the chimney perfumes the air, and a couple of lights adorn the bushes.  Christmas in Wisconsin — at least for me — means a reunion of our small family (My parents, my sister’s family, and our troup of three).  We sit by the fire, read the paper, read magazines, talk and have civil, moderate disagreements about politics and economics, and watch the Packers on Sunday.  My daughter ties fishing flies using my dad’s fly vice.  Our Christmas party lasts until about 9pm. 

My parents' house in Wisconsin

Then we go to Miami for New Year’s.  Down in Miami, the party usually starts at about 11:00.  Usually we’re with someone’s family, which means that there are about a hundred people in the backyard — little kids, grown-ups, teenagers.  There’s music and dancing,

By now you have found a poem that speaks to you somehow.  There’s something about it that you like.  Maybe it’s the ideas that you see – Perhaps it’s the way the poem sounds.  It might be that you find some interesting or provocative images, or maybe there’s something else that draws your attention to the poem.

Here’s what I’d like you to do:

1. Copy the poem into your blog.  Make sure that you give the author credit for it!
2. Write a paragraph about why you like the poem in general.  How did the poem make you feel?  What was it in the poem that makes you like it?
3. Look again – very carefully – at the poem.  Annotate it.  For more on annotation, see the annotation section of the Study Skills Guide.
4. Select three of your favorite lines or phrases.  For each line/phrase that you select, write a sentence or two about why you like it.  If you’re having a hard time finding something specific to say, consider the following suggestions:

• Is there a phrase that helps you to “see” something?
• Does a line or phrase “sound” particularly interesting? 
• Is there a rhythm that you can describe, or a rhyme that connects two ideas or words?
• Does the repetition of a phrase or word help you to see a key idea?
• Are there startling or interesting words or phrases – or combinations of words or phrases that you would not expect to see?
• Did a particular metaphor or simile stand out for you?

After you have written about the poem, share it with someone else in the class.  Read the whole poem out loud, then explain why you like it.

If you have time, go back and find a picture that illustrates your poem.

Who is right at the beginning of Antigone?  Which character do you admire the most?  Which do you identify with?

• Antigone, who insists on burying her brother, even though he invaded her city and killed her other brother?
• Creon, who has to protect the city and maintain order by making it illegal to bury or mourn Polynices, who invaded the city and killed his own brother?
• Ismene, who doesn’t break the law, but who stands up for her sister? 
• By the way, is Antigone right to deny Ismene the privilege of standing with her?

 In my own opinion, everyone is right — sort of.  Antigone loved both of her brothers, and she didn’t want either of them to be left unburied and unmourned.   Who can blame her for that?  I also admire her spunk; she’ll be executed, rather than let her dead brother go unburied.  I love the way she confronts Creon.  She’s clear in her reasoning, and she doesn’t give in to any of his arguments.  In fact, I think that she has better arguments throughout her quarrel with Creon.  Then again, Creon has his points.  And he has a huge problem, which I sympathize with:

One thing I learned early on (back when I was trying to be a school administrator) was that backing off of a disciplinary decision or failing to enforce a rule always created problems.  So from the teacher/administrator/disciplinarian point of view, I sympathize with Creon.  He’s dealing with a very unstable situation:  He just took power in a city state that has lived through a foreign invasion — led by one of their own citizens.  Now he is the new, unproven king.  If he backs down, or does something that causes him to be perceived as weak, he might have to deal with another invasion — more instability, which would be bad for everyone.  On the other hand, the person who has defied him is his own neice — who is engaged to his son.  Whatever decision he makes, he will not sleep easily. 

This dilemma would lead me to doubt my own decisions.  Antigone, on the other hand, does not seem to feel any such doubts.  Most of her family is already dead. (Grandfather — killed by her father — Grandmother/Mother — suicide — Father — Dead, after blinding himself and going out into exile in the desert — and her brothers — both dead after killing each other in a civil war).  Since she’s lived through all of that, so the punishment of death would not be much of a deterrant.  Having no fear of death makes her choice a no-brainer:  She has to bury her brother.  But this certainty makes me less sympathetic to her.  I can’t imagine ever having that level of certainty.

But I can’t stand Ismene’s idea that it’s OK to allow the injustice of leaving her own brother be ignored.  I also find it nauseating that she tries to take responsibility for burying him, even when she had nothing to do with it. 

I see a little bit of myself in all three:  Creon, who makes a bad call and then feels like he has to stick with it, even though he probably doesn’t agree with it, and Ismene, who sees things going completely wrong but won’t act, and Antigone, who stands up and does what she knows is right.  In the end, I can find sympathy for all three of them, even though I think that Antigone shows me something good.

In today’s exercise, I’m asking students to look at two different columns of quotes from Macbeth.  In the left-hand column, there are nine short quotes from Lady Macbeth.  These are all things that she has said in acts I-III.  In the right hand column, there are quotes from Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene in Act V. 

I am hopeful that students will see and be able to explain a connection between the line from early in the play and the line from Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking. 

Here are two samples:

Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell

When Lady Macbeth says this line in Act I, she is asking the spirits to come and make her heartless.  She wants the dark smoke of “hell” to hide her deeds from her.

“Hell is murky”

Then, in act V, she says, “Hell is murky” suggesting that maybe she is afraid of what hell might have in store for her.  Could it be that while sleepwalking, she is more fearful than whe was before?

Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us

And show us to be watchers

When Lady Macbeth says this line in Act II, she has just taken control.  She has returned the daggers that Macbeth used to murder King Duncan to the crime scene, and she has smeared the King’s blood all over the guards.  Now she is getting Macbeth together so that he can face the people who are coming into the castle.

In act five, her tone changes.  While sleepwalking she relives the same event, but she’s not speaking in iambic pentameter anymore, and her sentences, like “Put on your nightgown” are shorter, choppier, and more desperate-sounding. 

“Wash your hands.  Put on your nightgown.  Look not so pale.”