AP Literature (Barraza)

Fall 2018

Unit: William Faulkner’s “The Bear”

COGs: Centers of Gravity

In response to your reading of William Faulkner’s “The Bear,” you will write a 1-2 page critical response stemming from a chosen passage in the story. You need to be CONCISE: quote what you will discuss, and discuss what you quote.

To begin, quote the portion of text you feel acts as a central moment in the “The Bear,” (I call these COGs, or centers of gravity). You can select your passage from anywhere in the story. A COG might be a sentence or a passage. It should not be too long; however, it should serve to illuminate Faulkner’s intention for the entire story or a major component. You need to cite your passage (using MLA citation), so I can access the whole passage if I need to in reading your work. This should be the header to your paper (the copy I gave you is ten pages long—absent of printed numbers, however).

It helps if you annotate or mark potential COGs that you come across as you read (this was your Thursday night homework; once you have finished the assigned reading and can consider the piece as a whole, choose the section of the story that you feel acts as one of these centers.  The passage may reflect a significant theme, have elements of repetition that seem noteworthy, or contain a central image, metaphor or significant discovery around which the rest of the reading develops. 

Beneath your quoted COG passage, OBSERVE the elements that shape this COG; consider how the writer’s choices (in language and syntax) shape meaning in this moment of the text.  A close reading should never be a summary of the reading or passage or a personal reflection,but should relate specific elements of the piece you have observed and be isolated to the intentions of passage or larger work. (Rules associated with analytical writing apply here.)

You are graded for three elements in a close reading:

• You have set up the assignment correctly (see examples).
• You have specific observations of the passage.
• You connect those observations to the emerging ideas of the COG.

I believe, both as a matter of common sense and from my own personal experience, that the discipline of reflecting as you read has the potential to change the quality of attention that you pay to a text, a particular goal of an AP literature class. If you read with the idea that there is something you want to save from your readings, you read differently.

SAMPLE COG:

12 AP COG Sample Story of An Hour

Please complete Faulkner’s “The Bear” and prepare at least two insightful responses to the story in preparation for Thursday’s class: http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/alumni/faullkner-the-bear.pdf

Dear Students, 

Below is a list of foods/ingredients that surface in the novel. Feel free to make something traditional to New Orleans, or simply use the foods/ingredients to come up with something on your own.   Please note that you are not making great amounts of food to feed an entire class. Because there are approximately 33 students in each of the two AP Lit classes, respectively, making a “taste” or “small bite” will be sufficient. The foods listed below are not in any specific order. Nonetheless, here are a few inspiring images followed by a few words written by Ignatius in his journal entitled, The Journal of a Working Boy, or, Up from Sloth:

“Personally, I have found that a lack of food and comfort, rather than ennobling the spirit, creates only anxiety within the human psyche and channels all of one’s better impulses only towards the end of procuring something to eat. Even though I do have a Rich Inner Life, I must have some food and comfort also.”

Potato salad          

Red beans and rice

Turkey

Ham

Roast

Chili

Seafood (crab)

Figs or fig spread

Cheese dip

Steak

Lobster

Pork & Beans

Cake

Cream puffs

Ice cream

Seven up soda

Coffee with chicory

Brownies

Macaroons

Doughnuts

Pizza (not frozen)

Potato chips (potato, not corn)

Spanish rice

Garlic

Meatballs

Jumbalaya

Peas

Stew

Bread (French)

Bananas

Cashews

Cookies

Olives

Spaghetti

Fried chicken

Vegetable-beef soup

Sausage

 BBQ

Watermelon

Eggplant

“Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor (Page 459 in Perrine Book) 

“A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner (Page 538 in Perrine Book)

PLEASE bring your Perrine book to class on Monday.

Below are a few links you might want to explore before Wednesday:

(Related to food)

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/04/458427033/a-confederacy-of-dunces-cookbook-a-masterpiece-revisited-in-recipes

http://deepsouthmag.com/2015/10/12/in-the-kitchen-with-ignatius-reilly/

http://www.wwno.org/post/louisiana-eats-ignatius-love-culinary-tribute-confederacy-dunces

(1-Hr Documentary on John Kennedy Toole)

The Omega Point: John Kennedy Toole

Please begin reading the play in class today:

Click to access Streetcar.pdf

AP English: Literature & Composition

A Confederacy of DuncesCulminating Essay Choices

(Barraza: Fall 2018)

1. A Confederacy of Dunces uses the element of time, or the allure of a particular time, in a distinct way. Show how John Kennedy Toole’s manipulation of time contributes to the effectiveness of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.
2. As a satire on human folly, consider how the novel advocates for changes in social or political attitudes or traditions.
3. In questioning the value of literary realism, Flannery O’Connor has written, “I am interested in making a good case for distortion because I am coming to believe that it is the only way to make people see.” Write an essay in which you “make a good case for distortion,” as distinct from literary realism. Analyze how important elements of A Confederacy of Dunces are “distorted” and explain how these distortions contribute to the effectiveness of the work.
4. Consider how A Confederacy of Dunces depicts the conflict between mother and son. Analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work.
5. “The true test of comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter.” Consider how John Kennedy Toole’s novel awakens “thoughtful laughter” in the reader.
6. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Consider one or more characters in the novel that play(s) a significant role in showing how the alienation reveals the surrounding society’s assumptions or moral values.
7. “And, after all, our surroundings influence our lives and characters as much as fate, destiny or any supernatural agency”—from Pauline Hopkins’ Contending Forces. Consider how the City of New Orleans shapes the psychological or moral traits in any of the characters found in A Confederacy of Dunces.
8. Matthew J. Bruccoli writes the following about The Great Gatsby:

            The Great Gatsby is a classic—a novel that is read spontaneously by pleasure-seekers and under duress by students. A popular classroom fallacy holds that classics are universal and timeless. Literature has staying power, but it is subject to metamorphosis. Every reader’s response to a work of fiction is determined by his or her presuppositional bias, beliefs, experience, and knowledge.

Consider your own critical engagement with A Confederacy of Dunces, particularly the contemporary connections you’ve been able to make in your own reading. Write an argumentative essay that derives from your own critical attention to a particular aspect of the novel.

Due Date: Friday, October, 5th. Please note that papers must weave in textual evidence in order to be considered valid arguments. Papers must be 3-5 pages in length, utilizing the proper MLA guidelines.

Please use the following link below to complete your reading of “The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People”

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/844/844-h/844-h.htm