AP English III

Language and Composition

Scott Poe

2007-2008

AP English III – Language and Composition

Course Description

Because college writing demands the student come prepared to write for a variety of subjects and to demonstrate preparedness in the use of expository, analytical, and argumentative composition skills, AP English Language and Composition represents a diverse curriculum designed to move students to the next academic level. The purpose of this course is aligned with the purpose of the College Board goals for AP English Language and Composition which states, “to enable students to read complex texts with understanding and to write prose of sufficient richness and complexity to communicate effectively with mature readers?

Reading: In alignment with the Kentucky Core Content, this course will survey North American Literature exploring a variety of genres. Reading for the course will include prose written in a variety of periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts in addition to numerous selections from multimedia, i.e. propaganda, political cartoons, satirical comics, music videos, movies, advertisements, paintings, photographs and even computer-mediated communication sources. Students will analyze and respond to the world around them and learn to demonstrate an understanding of the history of North American Literature and its evolution. Reading content also includes both primary and secondary sources and requires students learn to synthesize information into compositions and properly cite the sources gaining a comprehensive knowledge of the accepted style sheets of the Modern Language Association (MLA).

Writing: This course requires expository, analytical, and argumentative writing assignments that are based on readings representing a wide variety of prose styles and genres. To meet that requirement, students will gain confidence and learn to write effectively both across the curriculum and for the real world environment. The course will guide the student to place their learning focus on developing content, understanding purpose and appreciating audience. Writing tasks are designed to give students the practice necessary to make them writers who can compose in different modes and for different purposes. Students will read and analyze AP English Language Released Exams and sample essays from apcentral.collegeboard.com to gain self-awareness and confidence in the “how” to write. Frequent writing conferences and peer reviews for all major essays are planned to support student’s efforts to improve their writing. In addition to major essays, students will keep a dialectic journal on all readings and participate in a research project which includes significant reading and writing as well as visual interpretation.

This course will encompass all rhetorical modes: patterns of organization aimed at achieving a particular effect in the reader.

Narration and Description: modes whose primary purpose is stirring the reader's emotions.

Process analysis Cause/Effect, Comparison/Contrast, Illustration, Definition, and

Classification/Division: aim at helping readers understand a subject, exploring its functions, causes, consequences, relationships to other subjects, meaning, or nature.

Argumentative and Persuasive: seek to change readers' attitudes or actions with regard to specific subjects

Language: In developing sophisticated reading and writing skills, students explore and describe how language works. They learn to observe and analyze the words, patterns, and structures that create subtle effects of language. They learn to describe language, demonstrating working knowledge of parts of speech, structural patterns, awareness of connotation and shades of meaning in context.

Purpose and Modes of Discourse

as writers, students will:

employ a variety of rhetorical structures appropriate for various purposes and audiences;

subordinate parts to an effective whole and create appropriate transitions between them;

adopt the conventions of the appropriate discipline or discourse community when writing for a particular audience.

as readers, students will:

identify the purpose and modes of discourse and explain their relationship to rhetorical structure;

explain how the parts of discourse are related to each other and to the whole;

recognize the conventions of different genres and historical periods, and identify the assumptions authors have made about their audiences.

The Development of Discourse

as writers students will:

gather information and ideas, discover patterns, and develop their sense of purpose;

select and arrange information and ideas effectively for given purposes and modes of discourse;

communicate ideas and experiences to an intellectually sophisticated audience.

as readers students will:

recognize main ideas and purposes and explain inferences about an author's intentions;

evaluate the connections between ideas at different levels of generality, including the adequacy of evidence;

evaluate the value and validity of the writer's message in relation to its historical, social, or cultural context.

The Language of Discourse

as writers students will:

shape language in a variety of rhetorical patterns so that sentence structure, diction, and figures of speech serve purpose, audience, and strategy;

explain how one's choices of language produce intended effects.

as readers students will:

discern and describe in an appropriate vocabulary how the arrangement of language creates a voice;

identify major devices that control tone and structure; show how they serve rhetorical purposes.

Both the reading and the writing tasks for the course will help students gain textual power, making them more alert to an author's purpose, the needs of an audience, the demands of subject, and the resources of language: syntax, word choice, and tone. By the late spring of the school year, students will have nearly completed a course in effective writing and critical reading. The writing skills that students learn to appreciate through close and continued analysis of a wide variety of prose texts can serve them in their own writing as they grow increasingly aware of these skills and their pertinent uses.

As this is an AP (college-level) course, performance expectations are high, and the workload is challenging. Students are expected to complete a minimum of five hours of course work a week outside of class. Often, work involves long-term writing and reading assignments. Effective time management is important.

Major AssessmentsSemester Final Exams

Both exams are cumulative and focus on the –isms of American Literature.Major writing assignments

Persuasive SpeechOn-demand/timed writingsRhetorical Analysis This I believePersonal Reflection on Writing

Transcendentalism notebookPerformance AssessmentsDialectical Journal

ETS Criterion

Because of the tremendous volume of essays that must be graded each year, the class will utilize the ETS Criterion essay scoring service: in brief, for each major writing assignment students will submit drafts to the online service and revise essays based on the immediate feedback provided. Each student will be given the opportunity while online to brainstorm before beginning the essay draft. For major non-timed writing assignments, a student may not submit a final draft until he or she achieves the highest score possible and addresses the problems identified by the grading service. As the program cannot “read,” it may identify a stylistic “choice” as an error. The student must identify these choices and then explain why he or she chooses to include it in the essay for it to be deemed acceptable. This service will allow students to receive immediate feedback on writing fundamentals so as to allow the teacher more time to provide feedback on style and content.

At home Timed WritingsEvery Monday by midnight each student must submit to ETS Criterion two (2) typed rhetorical analysis entries. The assignments will be made available well in advance; students may work ahead as they see fit; however, once the assignment is closed it will not be reopened. It would be wise to print out a hard copy to prevent any unforeseen technical errors. Each submitted essay will be kept in an online portfolio, but when any graded analyses are returned they will keep in the student three-ring binder. Each initial submission will be limited to 40 minutes to replicate the time limits of the AP test; however, after the initial graded submission, students will have two weeks to revise and resubmit until each student is satisfied and request a rescore. It will be the student’s responsibility to revise and resubmit within the two week period, The teacher will not remind students nor will the teacher allow for extensions beyond the 2 week period.

Vocabulary This class will use a vocabulary list titled Vicious Vocabulary. Every Friday students will be quizzed over 20 words and every 50 words will have a Review quiz.

Rhetoric JournalEverything received in this class on the subject of writing (grammar, style, tone, revision) along with all work must be kept in a labeled section of a 3-ring AP notebook.

Major Assignments Persuasive Speech (Rationalism Unit): Based on research of a controversial topic students will prepare and deliver a 6-8 minute persuasive speech. The speech will include a visual aid as well as incorporate three of the six pieces of support found. Students will submit a hard copy that includes proper MLA format for all sources used. This synthesis piece will be the initial exploration of the AP synthesis essay. Romantic/Transcendental Notebook (Transcendentalism Unit): Students will take selections from Romantic and Transcendental writers and connect the passage to an image that reflects an element of that passage (tone, purpose, theme). This assignment addresses issues of visual literacy and its connection with the written word.60 Literary Minutes (Realism/Modernism Unit): In an exercise adapted from Prospero’s Magic by Michael Degen, students will assume the roles of characters within the novel and prepare to interview/be interviewed based on textual evidence.This I believe (Modernism/Post-modernism Unit): This assignment is rooted in the popular NPR series (www.thisibelieve.org) students will explore their personal beliefs based on

books they’ve read or a personal experience. This personal essay uses the skills necessary to effectively address the “defend, challenge, qualify” AP essay as it requires the student to address the ambiguity of existence and formulate an opinion based in his or her reality.Create your Own AD: This assignment uses information gained from The Bedford Reader on visual texts then expands by using Ad dissection 101: exposing media manipulation http://ideas.wisconsin.edu/ad101/, culminating in students creating an ad of their own and “pitching” their ad campaign to the class.Personal Reflection on Writing after having read Stephen King’s On Writing, students will reflect on skills they’ve developed over the year and information gleaned from Crafting Expository Argument and Writing with Style. Students will develop their own memoir on their writing process: from seed of an idea, through the revision process, to final draft. Dialectal Journal: The purpose of the Response Log is to record the personal reactions toward literary assignments while reading. Personal responses are a major part of the Advance Placement experience! Once readers make reading personal, it is more interesting to learn, and easier to remember. In addition, these responses can be helpful when writing essays. A final benefit to the logs is that they can help facilitate class discussion.

Course Materials

Class Texts and Teacher resources:A copy of each text will be available in the classroom. ISBN numbers are provided for easy search and purchase online or at local bookstore

Classroom Text: The Language of Literature, McDougal Littell ISBN 0-618-60139-2Applebee, Arthur N., et.al. The Language of Literature. Dallas: McDougal Littell, 2006.REQUIRED Purchase: A Pocket Style Manual ISBN 0-312-40684-3 (Buy used on Amazon.com)Additional texts to be used; a copy of each will be available in the classroom:The Bedford Reader 8th edition ed. Kennedy, Kennedy, Aaron ISBN 0-312-39939-150 Essays: a portable anthology ed. Samuel Cohen ISBN 0–312–41205–3Crafting Expository Argument by Michael Degen ISBN: 0966512588Prospero’s Magic by Michael DeganWriting with Style 2nd Edition by John Trimbel ISBN: 0130257133On Writing: a memoir of the craft Stephen King ISBN: 0684853523ETS Criterion www.criterion.ets.org fee required.

Additional texts:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain); The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne); Teaching a Stone to Talk and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Dillard); In Our Time (Hemingway); The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger); The Glass Menagerie (Williams); Macbeth (Shakespeare); The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald); In Cold Blood (Capote); Oranges and The McPhee Reader (McPhee); All the Pretty Horses (McCarthy); The Yellow Wallpaper (Gilman); Pentimento (Hellman); Arctic Dreams (Lopez); Inventing the Truth (Zinsser, ed.); Anthem (Rand); others.

Films:Macbeth, The Glass Menagerie, In Cold Blood, others as appropriate.

Essays by:Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, Richard Selzer, Gore Vidal, Zora Neale Hurston, S.I. Hayakawa, Ron Kovic, George Orwell, Nancy Mairs, E. B. White, John McPhee, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gay Talese, N. Scott, Momaday, Donald Murray, Barry Lopez, Anna Quindlen, Tom Wolfe, Ellen Goodman, Lewis Thomas, Virginia Woolf, Jonathan Swift, Donald Hall, Malcolm X, James Boswell, Frederick Douglass, William Styron, Richard Rodriguez, Edmund Wilson, Oscar Wilde, Roger Angell, Elizabeth Drew, Sir Thomas More, Vera Brittain, Jack London, Margaret Freyer, Mike Barnicle, others.

Full text handouts on short stories, essays, speeches, letters, and poems will be provided or the URL (Web address) from which copies may be downloaded.

Similarly, it is recommended that students purchase copies of paperback books to highlight and make margin notes in them. If a book is furnished to a student for his or her use, the student is responsible for returning the book at the designated time in the same condition in which it was furnished to him or her.

Monday’s –Tentative Schedule - AP Day. As stated in the course objectives, this is a preparation course for the AP test, therefore we will spend nearly every Monday preparing for that examination. At every possible instance, the content will be taken from the literary period currently addressing. Please be present and prepared to focus on an aspect of the AP test.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, the use of another's IDEAS or WORDS without properly crediting the source is unethical, academically dishonest, and illegal.  In many colleges, plagiarism can result in a student being expelled from school.  Each student should be certain that he or she understands exactly what constitutes plagiarism.  It will not be tolerated in this class and will result in an automatic zero (0) on the applicable assignment. 

In addition to a "zero tolerance" policy on plagiarism, the following policies will also prevail in this class:

Students are expected to do their own work.  Any evidence of copied work or cheating in any way will result in a grade of zero (0) on the assignment, test or quiz for all parties involved.   

It is impossible for the teacher to know the subject of a conversation which occurs during a quiz or test; therefore, any talking during a quiz or test, whether related to subject matter or not, will result in a grade of zero (0) for all parties involved.

Grading CalculationsThe final grade is determined on a point system. Your class average at any given time is determined by the points earned divided by points available. Point values are determined

primarily by degree of difficulty, and level of complexity and importance to the unit/course objectives.

Grades may initially be lower than those which students have been accustomed. It is important to remember that advanced placement grades are weighted and that only the semester average is reported on a student's transcript. Student grades are based upon essays, presentations, tests, participation and productivity. Each assignment should demonstrate a student's grasp of the concepts and content discussed. All assignments are returned in a timely manner. Not every assignment is graded. It is to the student's benefit, however, to do each and every assignment. Keeping up with the assignments will help improve presentation and participation grades and keep test scores high as well. Thus, it is expected that students will complete and realize the importance of doing all assignments (including homework) as an aid to independent study.

All assignments are due on the assigned date. Late assignments (except those due to excused absences) will be downgraded one letter grade every day late (Saturday and Sunday = 2 days). Virtually all homework assignments are announced in advance and/or posted online. Thus, late assignments due to excused absences are due on the next class meeting date or will be downgraded one letter grade every day late. Exception: Major assignments that are announced well in advance are due on the assigned date and will receive a zero if turned in late. Students will be advised in advance of any project for which late work is unacceptable. Late work due to computer/technology failure is unacceptable.

Make up work is the student’s responsibility.  

Students are expected to be in school on days of quizzes, tests and timed in-class writings (in other words, every day). If a student is absent on any such date AND the absence is excused, the student may make up the test, quiz, or writing AFTER school within ONE week of the excused absence on the immediately following “make-up day". Generally, the date and time is in ESS on Tuesday or Thursday beginning at 3:15 PM.

Materials Required

Each day, please bring the following materials to class:

two black or blue pens two pencils (mechanical or sharpened) highlighters (pack of 5) one 3 ring binder (at least one inch with a minimum of  six dividers)

o Vocabularyo online Timed Writings/ in class Timed Writingso Rhetorical Toolboxo Practice AP testso Literatureo Clean loose-leaf paper (no spiral bound!)

class novel, text, or play: whatever the assigned reading is at the time

Miscellaneous requirements

Internet Access (Each student has access at school if not at home.)

An e-mail address (school or personal)

Timeline

First Semester

Unit 1: Orientation to Class ProceduresSyllabus ExpectationsETS Criterion OrientationVocabulary

Unit 2 Rhetoric Unit Crafting Expository ArgumentWriting With Style50 EssaysAP test introduction

Unit 3 Native Amer. Lit./Puritanism Slave Narratives Puritan writings (textbook)Hawthorn: Scarlet LetterMiller: The Crucible (textbook)Critical Review/persuasionDialectical Journal

Unit 4 Rationalism Essays (textbook)Pamphlets (textbook)Speeches (textbook)Persuasive Speech (textbook)Introduction of Defend, Challenge, Qualify questionMLA/APA Citation50 EssaysLiterary Interpretation

Unit 5: Romanticism Gothic/Transcendentalism

HawthorneIrvingThe Fireside PoetsEmersonThoreauWhitmanDickinsonReflective EssayDialectical Journal

Second Semester

Unit 6 Realism/Naturalism Twain: Huckleberry FinnChopin: The AwakeningCrane: The Red Badge of CourageBierce: short storiesLondon: short storiesIntroduction Language Analysis

QuestionDialectical Journal

Unit 7 Modernism Wilder: Our Town Steinbeck: East of Eden Faulkner: As I Lay DyingFitzgerald: The Great Gatsby Hansberry: A Raisin in the Sun“This I Believe”

–www.thisibeleive.org Introduction of Synthesis QuestionKing: On WritingResearch ProjectDialectical Journal

Unit 8 Southern Gothic O’ConnorWheltyMcCullersFaulknerKCCT: state testingAP Objective test reviewComparison/Contrast EssayDialectical Journal

Unit 9 Post Modernism Student ChoiceAlternative Book Report

Unit 10 AP Final Preparation Final Test taking tips Test taking strategiesWriting review

Resources overview

Textbooks The following books were selected to take students from novice writers (a prescriptive and rule oriented approach to writing) to the much more fluid approach used by veteran writers. The overarching idea driving the creation and analysis of writing is “What do you know and how do you know it?”

The Language of Literature, McDougal Littell provides a diverse cannon of American literature and demonstrates the historical, intellectual, philosophical, technological progression from Native American writing to our current Post Modern writing. Through the study readers recognize the ambiguity of how amazingly little the human condition has changed (the fear, discrimination, and suspicion of the puritans to the poverty and discrimination of the Bundrens) but discover how the presentation of these narratives has evolved as American society and culture have evolved.

Crafting Expository Argument by Michael Degen provides clear, concise and objective instruction on the process of writing and how to develop complexity and connectivity within an essay through the use of scaffolded exercises and prescriptive revision and organizational techniques.

The Bedford Reader 8th edition ed by Kennedy, Kennedy, Aaron provides specific instruction on Rhetorical Methods (or Modes) providing exemplar essays (contemporary and archaic) to examine and analyze. The 8th edition also added a “new visual dimension,” which examines the reading of visual texts. “Chapter 1 . . . provides a short course in thinking critically about the visual . . . [as] a range of visuals – ads, cartoons, photographs, paintings— open the ten rhetorical chapters. Along with accompanying text and questions, these openers invite students’ own critical reading and show how the rhetorical methods work visually. Finally several of the book’s selections take visual images as their focal points and model the close reading encouraged of students.” -- taken from the Preface for Instructors pp v-vi

Writing With Style 2nd edition by John Trimble expands on the prescriptive approach to writing and develops a more organic and holistic approach to essay writing.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King explores one writer’s experiences (albeit a famous one) as a developing writer and how his process developed over time.

50 Essays: A Portable Anthology ed. by Renee H. Shea and Lawrence Scanlon provides students with a plethora of persuasive essays (50 actually) intended to represent the scope of rhetorical appeals, modes, and techniques.

Novels and PlaysChopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York: Dover, 1993.Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. New York: Dover, 1990.Degen, Michael. Crafting Expository Argument. Dallas: Telemachos, 2004.Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. New York: Vintage, 1985.Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Dover, 1994Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Penguin Group, 1986King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. New York: Pocket Books, 2000.Larsen, Nella. Passing. New York: The Modern Library, 2002.Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin Group, 1976.Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York: Penguin Group, 1976.Steinbeck, John. East of Eden. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.Trimble, John. Writing with Style: Conversations on the Art of Writing 2 nd ed . New Jersey: Prentice

Hall, 2000Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn. New York: Dover, 1994.Wilder, Thorton. Our Town. New York: Harper Collins, 2003.

Unit Plan:

Rhetorical Modes Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4

Introduce: AP Test Introduce: Rhetorical

Triangle: Subject, Audience, and Speaker.

Children’s Book Modeling Exercise: First Day Jitter’s

Explain Exercise: Identify Subject, Audience, Persona and Purpose in Tony Blair’s “The Rights We Enjoy, The Virtues We Owe”

Identify Subject, Audience, Persona and Purpose in Tony Blair’s piece

Discuss homework Introduce: Aristotle’s

Rhetorical Appeals: Logos, Pathos, Ethos

Relate Aristotle’s Appeals to First day Jitters

Rhetorical Appeals picture exercise

Identify rhetorical appeals in “Thirty-eight who saw the Murder Didn’t Call the Police.”

Explain Exercise: Identify Rhetorical Appeals in Tony Blair’s “The Rights We Enjoy, The Virtues We Owe”

Identify Rhetorical Appeals in Tony Blair’s

Discuss homework Assign 50 Essays book Introduction: Tone Relate tone to First day

Jitters Dam Letter Exercise Exercise: Identify tone

and tonal words in Tony Blair’s “The Rights We Enjoy, The Virtues We Owe”

Film Review Tone Exercise

Orwell “Shooting an Elephant” pg. 276

Identify Rhetorical Appeals in Tony Blair’s

Discuss homework Introduction: SOAPStone Model SOAPStone using

Orwell’s essay Discuss Orwell’s essay

using the SOAPStone model for discussion

Orwell Essay take-home quiz

Multiple Choice Strategies handout

Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Kingston Quiz Kingston Essay SOAPStone Discussion CEA Day 1: Introduce

writing to show pg. 34-35 Angelou’s

“Graduation” pg. 9 (SOAPStone)

CEA Assignment one pg. 42

Kingston (SOAPStone)

Angelou Quiz Angelou SOAPStone

Discussion CEA day 2: clauses and

phrases pg. 132; PrPP pg 137-138

Momaday’s “The Way to Rainy Mountain” pg. 265 (SOAPStone)

CEA grammar assignment pg. 167

CEA writing to show assignment one

Angelou SOAPStone

Momaday Quiz Momaday SOAPStone

Discussion Description: Style

AnalysisDillard’s “The Stunt Pilot” pg. 87 (SOAPStone) CEA grammar

assignment Momaday

(SOAPStone)

Dillard Quiz Dillard SOAPStone

Discussion CEA Day 3: Writing to

Show Assignment two pg. 42

Hogan’s “Dwellings” pg. 149 (SOAPStone)

Writing to show assignment two pg. 39

Dillard (SOAPStone)

Unit Plan: Rhetorical ModesDay 11 Day 12 Day 13 Day 14

Woolf Quiz Woolf SOAPStone

Discussion. Woolf and Hogan

comparison discussion.

Didion Quiz Didion SOAPStone

Discussion. CEA Day 5: Introduce

writing to show

Mitford Quiz Mitford SOAPStone

Discussion. Example: Style Analysis

Ascher Quiz Ascher SOAPStone

Discussion CEA Day 6: Review PrPP,

ADVSC, punctuation.

Process Analysis: Style Analysis

Didion’s “On Keeping a Notebook” pg. 79 (SOAPStone) Grammar exercise:

combing sentences using ADVSCs pg. 162

Woolf SOAPStone

assignment three: The Athlete

Mitford’s “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” pg. 255 (SOAPStone)

CEA Writing to show assignment three: The Athlete

Didion SOAPStone

Ascher’s “On Compassion” pg. 35 (SOAPStone)Mitford SOAPStone

Review E3 samples pg. 36. Do E3 & SH exercises pg. 45

Peer review writing to show assignment three

Sanders’ “The Inheritance of Tools” pg. 331 (SOAPStone)Ascher SOAPStone

Day 16 Day 17 Day 18 Day 19 Wilson Quiz Wilson SOAPStone

Discussion. Definition: Style Analysis

Liu’s “Notes of a Native Speaker” pg. 205 (SOAPStone)Wilson SOAPStone

Liu Quiz Liu SOAPStone

Discussion. Anzaldua’s “How to

Tame a Wild Heart” pg. 22 (SOAPStone)

Liu SOAPStone

CEA Day 8: combining sentences with conjunctive adverbs pg. 136, 152

Peer review writing to show assignment four: Ordinary Action

5 elaborated comp, comp-complex sentences pg. 152

Anzaldua Quiz Anzaldua SOAPStone

Discussion. CEA Day 9: Share crafted

sentences. Revise previous writing to show assignments. Review editing pg 48

Mairs’ “On Being a Cripple” pg. 231 (SOAPStone)Anzaldua SOAPStone

Unit Plan: Rhetorical ModesDay 21 Day 22 Day 23 Day 24

CEA Day 10: Revision: Rewrite vs. Re-see. Student final drafts pg. 46-48

Peer review revised writing to show assignment

Type new draft of writing to show exercise

Check revised writing to show

Coffer Quiz Coffer SOAPStone

Discussion. Ericsson’s “The

Ways We Lie” pg. 120 (SOAPStone)

Coffer SOAPStone

Ericsson Quiz Ericsson SOAPStone

Discussion. CEA Day 11: Peer editing

with peer review sheet. Rose’s “I Just Wanna

Be Average” pg. 316 (SOAPStone)

Final draft of revises writing to show on day 22

Check types writing to

Rose Quiz Rose SOAPStone

Discussion. CEA: PaPP pg 137-138 Tanner’s “There Is No

Unmarked Woman” pg. 409 (SOAPStone)

PaPP exercises pg 168-169

Rose SOAPStone

show Ericsson SOAPStone

Day 26 Day 27 Day 28 Day 29 Barry Quiz Barry SOAPStone

Discussion.Mukherjee’s “Two Ways to Belong in America” pg. 272 (SOAPStone)Barry SOAPStone

Mukherjee Quiz Mukherjee SOAPStone

Discussion.Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” pg. 284 (SOAPStone) Final draft of writing

to show exercise due Mukherjee

SOAPStone

Plato Quiz Plato SOAPStone

Discussion.Rodriguez’s “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” pg. 292 (SOAPStone)Plato SOAPStone

Rodriguez Quiz Rodriguez SOAPStone

Discussion. Cause/Effect: Style

AnalysisWinn’s “Television: The Plug-In Drug” pg. 465 (SOAPStone)Rodriguez SOAPStone

Day 31 Day 32 Day 33 Day 34 Buckley Quiz Buckley SOAPStone

Discussion.Machiavelli’s “The Moral’s of the Prince” pg. 221 (SOAPStone)Buckley SOAPStone

Machiavelli Quiz Machiavelli SOAPStone

Discussion. Argument: Style Analysis

Hearne’s “What’s Wrong with Animal Rights?” pg. 138 (SOAPStone)Machiavelli SOAPStone

Hearne Quiz Hearne SOAPStone

Discussion.Sullivan’s “What Are Homosexuals For?” pg. 380 (SOAPStone)Hearne SOAPStone

Sullivan Quiz Sullivan SOAPStone

Discussion.

Sullivan SOAPStone

RationalismJeffersonStanton

RomanticismN/A

SubSilko

SatireSwiftSedaris

TranscendentalismKingThoreauEighnerWhite

RealismLincolnDouglassTruthTan (dialect)

Unit Plan: Puritanism Unit Length: 32 Days

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Puritanism Notes Unit Preview Preview homework Read Puritan Unit

introduction.

Puritan Notes cont. Discuss reading Puritan Intro DVD Preview homework Bradford’s “Of

Plymouth Plantation excerpt”

Literature WS:2:A

Review Puritan notes Discuss reading and

homework. Toolbox: Anaphora and

Inversion Preview homework Bradstreet poems

(Textbook and handout)

Literature WS:2:B Literature WS:2:A

Discuss reading Read selected poems Review Lit WS:2:B Preview homework Taylor Poems

(textbook and handout)

Literature WS:2:C Literature WS:2:B

Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Discuss worksheet Discuss Verbs, Adverbs,

Prepositions, Conjunctions, and Interjections

Preview homework Language: WS:1:2 Language: WS:1:1

Discuss worksheet Toolbox: Metaphor,

Simile, and Jeremiad: Edwards’ sermon

Preview homework Edwards’ “Sinners in

the Hands of an Angry God”

Literature WS:2:D Language: WS:1:2

B:2:2 Discuss Edwards’ sermon Toolbox: Repetition:

Edwards’ rhetoric Introduction to The

Crucible Miller’s “Why I

Wrote The Crucible” Literature WS:2:D

Witchcraft video and video guide

Language Quiz review

Video guide

Day 11 Day 12 Day 13 Day 14 Cont. reading The

Crucible Act I Cont. reading The

Crucible Act I B:2:3 Cont. reading The

Crucible Act I Preview homework Write two questions

about Act I for the fishbowl

Literature WS:2:E

Fishbowl discussion for Act I

The Crucible Act 1 Quiz Watch The Crucible (Act

I)

The Crucible Act I Quiz

Fishbowl participation

Unit Plan: Puritanism Day 16 Day 17 Day 18 Day 19

Cont. reading The Crucible Act II

Cont. reading The Crucible Act II

B:2:4 Cont. reading The

Crucible Act II Preview homework

Fishbowl discussion for Act II

The Crucible Act II Quiz Watch The Crucible (Act

Write two questions about Act II for the fishbowl

Literature WS:2:F

II)

Literature WS:2:F The Crucible Act II

Quiz Fishbowl part.

Day 21 Day 22 Day 23 Day 24 Cont. reading The

Crucible Act III Cont. reading The

Crucible Act III B:2:5 Cont. reading The

Crucible Act III Preview homework Write two questions

about Act III for the fishbowl

Literature WS:2:G

Fishbowl discussion for Act III

The Crucible Act III Quiz Watch The Crucible (Act

III)

Literature WS:2:G The Crucible Act II

Quiz Fishbowl participation

Day 26 Day 27 Day 28 Day 29 Cont. reading The

Crucible Act IV Cont. reading The

Crucible Act IV B:2:6 Cont. reading The

Crucible Act IV Preview homework Write two questions

about Act III for the fishbowl

Literature WS:2:H

Fishbowl discussion for Act IV

The Crucible Act IV Quiz

Watch The Crucible (Act IV)

Literature WS:2:H The Crucible Act IV

Quiz Fishbowl participation

Day 31 Day 32 Day 33 Day 34 Review for Exam Unit Exam

Unit Exam

AssessmentParticipation: 10% of total gradeBellringer:B:2:1 – B:2:6 6 x 5 pts.

= 30 pts.

Discussion:Fishbowl Discussions 4 x 2 pts.

= 8 pts.

Homework: 20% of total gradeLiterature:WS:2:A – WS:2:H 8 x 10 pts.

= 80 pts.

Language:WS:1:1, WS:1:2 2 x 15 pts.

= 30 pts.

Quizzes: 30% of total gradeLiterature:Crucible Quizzes Act I-IV 4 x 15 pts.

= 45 pts.

Language:Parts of Speech Quiz 1 x 25 pts.

= 25 pts.

Exams and Papers: 40% of total gradeUnit Exam 1 x 100 pts.

= 100 pts.

Unit Plan: Rationalism Unit Length: 32-35 Days Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4

Rationalism Notes Unit Preview Selected Phillis

Wheatley poetry

Rationalism Notes cont. Read selected Phillis

Wheatley poetry Toolbox: Allusion Preview homework Read Equiano’s

Interesting Narrative Write two questions

about Equiano for the fishbowl

Literature WS:3:A

Fishbowl discussion for Equiano’s Interesting Narrative.

Toolbox: Allusion Preview homework Franklin’s

Autobiography Literature WS:3:B Language: WS:2:1 Literature WS:3:A

Discuss reading and worksheet

Review Language homework

Preview homework Language: WS:2:2 Literature WS:3:B Language: WS:2:1

Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Discuss worksheet Toolbox: Aristilian

Triad: Pathos, Logos, Ethos

Discuss Pronoun-Antecedent agreement

Preview homework Crevecoeur Lettres

d'un Cultivateur Américain

Literature WS:3:C Language: WS:2:3

Review Artistotlian Triad Discuss reading and

worksheet Toolbox: Rhetorical

Question Preview homework Henry’s “Speech to

the Virginia Convention”

Literature WS:3:D Language WS:2:4 Literature WS:3:C

B:3:2 View Selections from

The Patriot Discuss particular

attention to Henry’s use of the Aristilian Triad.

Toolbox: Anecdote, Inductive, Deductive Reasoning

Preview homework Paine’s “The Crisis” Literature WS:3:E Language WS:2:5 Literature WS:3:D Language WS:2:4

Discuss reading and worksheet paying particular attention to Paine’s use of the Aristilian Triad and anecdote.

Toolbox: Parallelism Preview homework Jefferson’s “The

Declaration of Independence”

Literature WS:3:F Language WS:2:6 Literature WS:3:E Language WS:2:5

Day 11 Day 12 Day 13 Day 14 Discuss worksheet Review Language work Language WS:2:7 Quiz

Language WS:2:7 Quiz

Review for Exam Rationalism Exam Persuasive writing

pre-writing exercise

Introduction to Persuasive Speech assignment

Public Speaking video Video Guide Video Guide Persuasive writing

pre-writing exercise

Unit Plan: Rationalism Day 16 Day 17 Day 18 Day 19

Toolbox: Thesis Statement

Persuasive Writing workshop: Thesis

Thesis statement exercise

Toolbox: Topic Sentence Persuasive Writing

workshop: Topic Sentences

Topic Sentence exercise

Persuasive Writing workshop: Finding Support

Library demonstration Library Research Three support

Toolbox: Transitions Persuasive Writing

workshop: Transitions Transition exercise

Thesis statement exercise

materials Topic Sentence

exerciseDay 21 Day 22 Day 23 Day 24

Toolbox: Conclusions Persuasive Writing

workshop: Conclusions Conclusion Exercise Introduction Exercise

Persuasive Writing workshop: Rough Draft

Rough Draft Conclusion Exercise

Persuasive Writing workshop: Workshop and teacher conferences by request

Persuasive Writing workshop: Peer Reviews

Time to edit Rough Draft Second Draft

Day 26 Day 27 Day 28 Day 29 Persuasive Writing

workshop: Peer Reviews Teacher conferences Final Draft

Persuasive Writing workshop: Library to Publish papers

Persuasive Writing workshop: Library to Publish papers

Review: Reading is not Speaking! Public Speaking tips

Persuasive Speeches Day 1

All Drafts due

Day 31 Day 32 Day 33 Day 34 Persuasive Speeches Day

3 Persuasive Speeches Day

4 Persuasive Speech make-

up day if necessary Persuasive Speech make-

up day if necessary

AssessmentParticipation: 10% of total gradeBellringer:B:3:1 – B:3:3 3 x 5 pts.

= 15 pts.

Discussion:Fishbowl Discussions 1 x 2 pts.

= 2 pts.

Homework: 20% of total gradeLiterature:WS:2:A – WS:3:E 5 x 10 pts.

= 50 pts.

Language:WS:2:1, WS:2:6 6 x 15 pts.

= 90 pts.

Quizzes: 30% of total gradeLanguageSubject-Verb, Pronoun Antecedent = pts.

1 x pts. Persuasive Speech 1 x 30 pts.

= 30 pts.

Exams and Papers: 40% of total gradeUnit Exam 1 x 100 pts.

= 100 pts.

Persuasive Paper 1 x 100 pts.

= 100 pts.

Realism/Regionalism/Naturalism Survey of Authors

Primary Works

Literary PeriodGroup 1 Rise of Realism 408-422

Historical ContextGroup 2Voices from the Civil War- pg. 476

- Theodore Upson- Walt Whitman- Major Sullivan Ballou- Alexander Hunter- Abraham Lincoln- Susie King Taylor- Frederick Douglass- Mary Chesnut- Seth M. Flint

Survey of Authors/Primary WorksGroup 3/4RomanticsoAmerican Indian Oratory – pg. 446

- Black Hawk- Chief Joseph

oAmbrose Bierce- pg. 466- An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

oVoices from the Civil War- pg. 476- Theodore Upson- Walt Whitman

- Major Sullivan Ballou- Alexander Hunter- Abraham Lincoln- Susie King Taylor- Frederick Douglass- Mary Chesnut- Seth M. Flint

o Stephen Crane- pg. 484- A Mystery of Heroism

o Jack London- pg. 495- To Build A Fire

oMark Twain- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

oKate Chopin- The Awakening

Harlem RenaissanceUnit Overview

Two weeks prior to Week One, Assign Booklet project, due on the Day One of Week One.

Students will present their projects on the day of the author discussion.

Week OneBackground information/Overview:

What was/is the Harlem Renaissance? What/where is Harlem? What does Harlem represent to (African-)Americans?

Monday: Introduction to Harlem: Students’ impressions of Harlem Harlem, then and now Harlem, by Walter Dean Myers

Tuesday: Langston Hughes Student presentation of Langston Hughes “An Experiment in Reading a Poem”

Wednesday: Different Voices, Different Perspectives Jigsaw on five essays

Thursday: Views of Harlem—Past and Present Poets Student presentation of Countee Cullen Countee Cullen’s poem, “From a Dark Tower Jean Toomer’s poem, “Reapers” Langston Hughes’s poem, “The South” Students assigned to bring in magazines to cut up for

tomorrow’s activity and to think of a specific social issue that interests/concerns them

Friday: An Artist with a Message Romare Bearden and his art Student collages; finish and bring in on Monday Students assigned to read “Near White” and “Brownskin

Blues” by Claude McKay for Wednesday

Week TwoHow does environment and experience shape perspective?

Monday: Growing up in Harlem Student presentation of Claude McKay Uptown, by Bryan Collier “The Tropics of New York,” by Claude McKay

Tuesday: “Is That Really What He Means?” Student presentation of James Weldon Johnson “I Sit in My Room,” by Jean Toomer Students assigned James Weldon Johnson’s Autobiography of

an Ex-Colored Man to be read by Monday, and given “Linear Array” handout to complete as they read

Wednesday: Claude McKay on Intra-Racial Racism and Alienation from Self “Brownskin Blues” “Near White”

Thursday: “Collaborating with the Author” Student presentation of Jean Toomer Student presentation of Gwendolyn Bennett Gwendolyn Bennett’s “Wedding Day”

Friday: Putting Words to the Faces—Putting Faces to the Words James Van Der Zee and his art Writing dialogue for Van Der Zee photographs

Week ThreeHow did the Harlem Renaissance affect (African-)American culture?

Monday: Discussion of James Weldon Johnson’s Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

“Linear Array”—Character Students assigned Culminating Essay, due on Friday of Week

Four (the last day of the unit) Students assigned excerpt from Passing by Nella Larsen, to be

read by MondayTuesday: Continue discussion of James Weldon Johnson’s Autobiography of an Ex-

Colored Man Thematic Exploration

Wednesday: What’s the Big Idea? Student presentation of Nella Larsen “Passing”

Thursday: A Sense of Place Student acrostic poems

Friday: You’ve Got To Pay Your Dues, If You Want To Write the Blues Overview of Harlem Renaissance music styles Writing the Blues

Students assigned Charles Johnson’s essay, “The Negro Renaissance and its Significance”

Week Four

How does art, music, and literature aid in the understanding and appreciation of other cultures?

Monday: Zora Neale Hurston Student presentation of Zora Neale Hurston Begin Reader’s Theatre of Mule Bone, by Hurston and Hughes Students reminded their essays are due Friday Students sign up for Rent-Party Presentations

Tuesday: Reader’s Theatre of Mule Bone Continue Mule Bone Discussion of Mule Bone

Wednesday: So What? Student presentation of Charles Johnson Preview Rent Party

Encourage students to dress in costumes from the time period—show photographs

Convincing the museum Board of DirectorsThursday: Wrapping It Up

Continue to convince the museum Board of Directors Preview for Rent-Party

“Harlem Night Club,” by Langston Hughes Discuss the role of black entertainers in white clubs View dance clip from Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton

Club Students reminded to dress up, if they would like, in

costumes from the time periodFriday: Rent Party!

Students’ essays due Student presentation of collages, place poems, and blues lyrics Viewing of Jazz Singer during refreshments

MODERNISM

"... the greatest single fact about our modern American writing is our writers' absorption in every last detail of their American world together with their deep and subtle alienation from it." - Alfred Kazin, On Native Grounds, 1942

"Defining modernism is a difficult task. ... A historical definition would say that modernism is the artistic movement in which the artist's self-consciousness about questions of form and structure became uppermost. ... In brief, modernism asks us to consider what we normally understand by the center and the margins." - Heath Anthology, Vol. 2, 4th ed., 887-888.

The Centers of Modernism 1. Stylistic innovations - disruption of traditional syntax and form. 2. Artist's self-consciousness about questions of form and structure. 3. Obsession with primitive material and attitudes. 4. International perspective on cultural matters.

Modern Attitudes 1. The artist is generally less appreciated but more sensitive, even more heroic, than the average person. 2. The artist challenges tradition and reinvigorates it. 3. A breaking away from patterned responses and predictable forms.

Contradictory Elements 1. Democratic and elitist. 2. Traditional and anti-tradition. 3. National jingoism and provinciality versus the celebration of international culture. 4. Puritanical and repressive elements versus freer expression in sexual and political matters.

Literary Achievements 1. Dramatization of the plight of women. 2. Creation of a literature of the urban experience. 3. Continuation of the pastoral or rural spirit. 4. Continuation of regionalism and local color.

Modern Themes 1. Collectivism versus the authority of the individual. 2. The impact of the 1918 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. 3. The Jazz Age.

4. The passage of 19th Amendment in 1920 giving women the right to vote. 5. Prohibition of the production, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages, 1920-33. 6. The stock-market crash of 1929 and the Depression of the 1930s and their impact.

Modernism and the Self 1. In this period, the chief characteristic of the self is one of alienation. The character belongs to a "lost generation" (Gertrude Stein), suffers from a "dissociation of sensibility" (T. S. Eliot), and who has "a Dream deferred" (Langston Hughes). 2. Alienation led to an awareness about one's inner life.

Modernism and the New Negro Renaissance (see my Introduction to the Harlem Renaissance) 1. The relationship between the two is complex. 2. They both share the important motif of alienation. 3. However, American modernism is inspired by the European avant-garde art; the Renaissance represents the unique and distinct experience of black Americans. 4. Modernism borrows from the Renaissance the themes of marginality and the use of folk or the so-called "primitive" material. 5. The use of the blues tradition - important for the Renaissance - is not shared by white modernists; considered too limiting (mere complaint about one's repressed and exploited condition), the blues tradition represents images and themes of liberation and revolt. 6. This relationship requires reevaluation; the Renaissance is important for black and white readers and writers.  (For a detailed discussion of the above-stated elements, read pages 887-914 in Paul Lauter, ed., The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 2, Fourth Ed., 2002.)

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a complicated term, or set of ideas, one that has only emerged as an area of academic study since the mid-1980s. Postmodernism is hard to define, because it is a concept that appears in a wide variety of disciplines or areas of study, including art, architecture, music, film, literature, sociology, communications, fashion, and technology. It's hard to locate it temporally or historically, because it's not clear exactly when postmodernism begins.

Perhaps the easiest way to start thinking about postmodernism is by thinking about modernism, the movement from which postmodernism seems to grow or emerge. Modernism has two facets, or two modes of definition, both of which are relevant to understanding postmodernism.

The first facet or definition of modernism comes from the aesthetic movement broadly labeled "modernism." This movement is roughly coterminous with twentieth century Western ideas about art (though traces of it in emergent forms can be found in the nineteenth century as well). Modernism, as you probably know, is the movement in visual arts, music, literature, and drama which rejected the old Victorian standards of how art should be made, consumed, and what it should mean. In the period of "high modernism," from around 1910 to 1930, the major figures of modernism literature helped radically to redefine what poetry and fiction could be and do: figures like Woolf, Joyce, Eliot, Pound, Stevens, Proust, Mallarme, Kafka, and Rilke are considered the founders of twentieth-century modernism.

From a literary perspective, the main characteristics of modernism include: 1. an emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity in writing (and in visual arts as well); an emphasis on HOW seeing (or reading or perception itself) takes place, rather than on WHAT is perceived. An example of this would be stream-of-consciousness writing. 2. a movement away from the apparent objectivity provided by omniscient third-person narrators, fixed narrative points of view, and clear-cut moral positions. Faulkner's multiply-narrated stories are an example of this aspect of modernism. 3. a blurring of distinctions between genres, so that poetry seems more documentary (as in T.S. Eliot or ee cummings) and prose seems more poetic (as in Woolf or Joyce). 4. an emphasis on fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives, and random-seeming collages of different materials. 5. a tendency toward reflexivity, or self-consciousness, about the production of the work of art, so that each piece calls attention to its own status as a production, as something constructed and consumed in particular ways. 6. a rejection of elaborate formal aesthetics in favor of minimalist designs (as in the poetry of William Carlos Williams) and a rejection, in large part, of formal aesthetic theories, in favor of spontaneity and discovery in creation. 7. A rejection of the distinction between "high" and "low" or popular culture, both in choice of materials used to produce art and in methods of displaying, distributing, and consuming art.

Postmodernism, like modernism, follows most of these same ideas, rejecting boundaries between high and low forms of art, rejecting rigid genre distinctions, emphasizing pastiche, parody, bricolage, irony, and playfulness. Postmodern art (and thought) favors reflexivity and self-consciousness, fragmentation and discontinuity (especially in narrative structures), ambiguity, simultaneity, and an emphasis on the destructured, decentered, dehumanized subject.

But--while postmodernism seems very much like modernism in these ways, it differs from modernism in its attitude toward a lot of these trends. Modernism, for example, tends to present a fragmented view of human subjectivity and history (think of The Wasteland, for instance, or of Woolf's To the Lighthouse), but presents that fragmentation as something tragic, something to be lamented and mourned as a loss. Many modernist works try to uphold the idea that works of art can provide the unity, coherence, and meaning which has been lost in most of modern life; art will do what other human institutions fail to do. Postmodernism, in contrast, doesn't lament the idea of fragmentation, provisionality, or incoherence, but rather celebrates that. The world is meaningless? Let's not pretend that art can make meaning then, let's just play with nonsense.

Another way of looking at the relation between modernism and postmodernism helps to clarify some of these distinctions. According to Frederic Jameson, modernism and postmodernism are cultural formations which accompany particular stages of capitalism. Jameson outlines three primary phases of capitalism which dictate particular cultural practices (including what kind of art and literature is produced). The first is market capitalism, which occurred in the eighteenth through the late nineteenth centuries in Western Europe, England, and the United States (and all their spheres of influence). This first phase is associated with particular technological developments, namely, the steam-driven motor, and with a particular kind of aesthetics, namely, realism. The second phase occurred from the late nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century (about WWII); this phase, monopoly capitalism, is associated with electric and internal combustion motors, and with modernism. The third, the phase we're in now, is multinational or consumer capitalism (with the emphasis placed on marketing, selling, and consuming commodities, not on producing them), associated with nuclear and electronic technologies, and correlated with postmodernism.

Like Jameson's characterization of postmodernism in terms of modes of production and technologies, the second facet, or definition, of postmodernism comes more from history and sociology than from literature or art history. This approach defines postmodernism as the name of an entire social formation, or set of social/historical attitudes; more precisely,this approach contrasts "postmodernity" with "modernity," rather than "postmodernism" with "modernism."

What's the difference? "Modernism" generally refers to the broad aesthetic movements of the twentieth century; "modernity" refers to a set of philosophical, political, and ethical ideas which provide the basis for the aesthetic aspect of modernism. "Modernity" is older than "modernism;" the label "modern," first articulated in nineteenth-century sociology, was meant to distinguish the present era from the previous one, which was labeled "antiquity." Scholars are always debating when exactly the "modern" period began, and how to distinguish between what is modern and what is not modern; it seems like the modern period starts earlier and earlier every time historians look at it. But generally, the "modern" era is associated with the European Enlightenment, which begins roughly in the middle of the eighteenth century. (Other historians trace elements of enlightenment thought back to the Renaissance or earlier, and one could argue that Enlightenment thinking begins with the eighteenth century. I usually date "modern" from 1750, if only because I got my Ph.D. from a program at Stanford called "Modern Thought and Literature," and that program focused on works written after 1750).

The basic ideas of the Enlightenment are roughly the same as the basic ideas of humanism. Jane Flax's article gives a good summary of these ideas or premises (on p. 41). I'll add a few things to her list.

1. There is a stable, coherent, knowable self. This self is conscious, rational, autonomous, and universal--no physical conditions or differences substantially affect how this self operates. 2. This self knows itself and the world through reason, or rationality, posited as the highest form of mental functioning, and the only objective form. 3. The mode of knowing produced by the objective rational self is "science," which can provide universal truths about the world, regardless of the individual status of the knower. 4. The knowledge produced by science is "truth," and is eternal. 5. The knowledge/truth produced by science (by the rational objective knowing self) will always lead toward progress and perfection. All human institutions and practices can be analyzed by science (reason/objectivity) and improved. 6. Reason is the ultimate judge of what is true, and therefore of what is right, and what is good (what is legal and what is ethical). Freedom consists of obedience to the laws that conform to the knowledge discovered by reason. 7. In a world governed by reason, the true will always be the same as the good and the right (and the beautiful); there can be no conflict between what is true and what is right (etc.). 8. Science thus stands as the paradigm for any and all socially useful forms of knowledge. Science is neutral and objective; scientists, those who produce scientific knowledge through their unbiased rational capacities, must be free to follow the laws of reason, and not be motivated by other concerns (such as money or power).

9. Language, or the mode of expression used in producing and disseminating knowledge, must be rational also. To be rational, language must be transparent; it must function only to represent the real/perceivable world which the rational mind observes. There must be a firm and objective connection between the objects of perception and the words used to name them (between signifier and signified).

These are some of the fundamental premises of humanism, or of modernism. They serve--as you can probably tell--to justify and explain virtually all of our social structures and institutions, including democracy, law, science, ethics, and aesthetics.

Modernity is fundamentally about order: about rationality and rationalization, creating order out of chaos. The assumption is that creating more rationality is conducive to creating more order, and that the more ordered a society is, the better it will function (the more rationally it will function). Because modernity is about the pursuit of ever-increasing levels of order, modern societies constantly are on guard against anything and everything labeled as "disorder," which might disrupt order. Thus modern societies rely on continually establishing a binary opposition between "order" and "disorder," so that they can assert the superiority of "order." But to do this, they have to have things that represent "disorder"--modern societies thus continually have to create/construct "disorder." In western culture, this disorder becomes "the other"--defined in relation to other binary oppositions. Thus anything non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual, non-hygienic, non-rational, (etc.) becomes part of "disorder," and has to be eliminated from the ordered, rational modern society.

The ways that modern societies go about creating categories labeled as "order" or "disorder" have to do with the effort to achieve stability. Francois Lyotard (the theorist whose works Sarup describes in his article on postmodernism) equates that stability with the idea of "totality," or a totalized system (think here of Derrida's idea of "totality" as the wholeness or completeness of a system). Totality, and stability, and order, Lyotard argues, are maintained in modern societies through the means of "grand narratives" or "master narratives," which are stories a culture tells itself about its practices and beliefs. A "grand narrative" in American culture might be the story that democracy is the most enlightened (rational) form of government, and that democracy can and will lead to universal human happiness. Every belief system or ideology has its grand narratives, according to Lyotard; for Marxism, for instance, the "grand narrative" is the idea that capitalism will collapse in on itself and a utopian socialist world will evolve. You might think of grand narratives as a kind of meta-theory, or meta-ideology, that is, an ideology that explains an ideology (as with Marxism); a story that is told to explain the belief systems that exist.

Lyotard argues that all aspects of modern societies, including science as the primary form of knowledge, depend on these grand narratives. Postmodernism then is the critique of grand narratives, the awareness that such narratives serve to mask the contradictions and instabilities that are inherent in any social organization or practice. In other words, every attempt to create "order" always demands the creation of an equal amount of "disorder," but a "grand narrative" masks the constructedness of these categories by explaining that "disorder" REALLY IS chaotic and bad, and that "order" REALLY IS rational and good. Postmodernism, in rejecting grand narratives, favors "mini-narratives," stories that explain small practices, local events, rather than large-scale universal or global concepts. Postmodern "mini-narratives" are always situational, provisional, contingent, and temporary, making no claim to universality, truth, reason, or stability.

Another aspect of Enlightenment thought--the final of my 9 points--is the idea that language is transparent, that words serve only as representations of thoughts or things, and don't have any function beyond that. Modern societies depend on the idea that signifiers always point to signifieds, and that reality resides in signifieds. In postmodernism, however, there are only signifiers. The idea of any stable or permanent reality disappears, and with it the idea of signifieds that signifiers point to. Rather, for postmodern societies, there are only surfaces, without depth; only signifiers, with no signifieds.

Another way of saying this, according to Jean Baudrillard, is that in postmodern society there are no originals, only copies--or what he calls "simulacra." You might think, for example, about painting or sculpture, where there is an original work (by Van Gogh, for instance), and there might also be thousands of copies, but the original is the one with the highest value (particularly monetary value). Contrast that with cds or music recordings, where there is no "original," as in painting--no recording that is hung on a wall, or kept in a vault; rather, there are only copies, by the millions, that are all the same, and all sold for (approximately) the same amount of money. Another version of Baudrillard's "simulacrum" would be the

concept of virtual reality, a reality created by simulation, for which there is no original. This is particularly evident in computer games/simulations--think of Sim City, Sim Ant, etc.

Finally, postmodernism is concerned with questions of the organization of knowledge. In modern societies, knowledge was equated with science, and was contrasted to narrative; science was good knowledge, and narrative was bad, primitive, irrational (and thus associated with women, children, primitives, and insane people). Knowledge, however, was good for its own sake; one gained knowledge, via education, in order to be knowledgeable in general, to become an educated person. This is the ideal of the liberal arts education. In a postmodern society, however, knowledge becomes functional--you learn things, not to know them, but to use that knowledge. As Sarup points out (p. 138), educational policy today puts emphasis on skills and training, rather than on a vague humanist ideal of education in general. This is particularly acute for English majors. "What will you DO with your degree?"

Not only is knowledge in postmodern societies characterized by its utility, but knowledge is also distributed, stored, and arranged differently in postmodern societies than in modern ones. Specifically, the advent of electronic computer technologies has revolutionized the modes of knowledge production, distribution, and consumption in our society (indeed, some might argue that postmodernism is best described by, and correlated with, the emergence of computer technology, starting in the 1960s, as the dominant force in all aspects of social life). In postmodern societies, anything which is not able to be translated into a form recognizable and storable by a computer--i.e. anything that's not digitizable--will cease to be knowledge. In this paradigm, the opposite of "knowledge" is not "ignorance," as it is the modern/humanist paradigm, but rather "noise." Anything that doesn't qualify as a kind of knowledge is "noise," is something that is not recognizable as anything within this system.

Lyotard says (and this is what Sarup spends a lot of time explaining) that the important question for postmodern societies is who decides what knowledge is (and what "noise" is), and who knows what needs to be decided. Such decisions about knowledge don't involve the old modern/humanist qualifications: for example, to assess knowledge as truth (its technical quality), or as goodness or justice (its ethical quality) or as beauty (its aesthetic quality). Rather, Lyotard argues, knowledge follows the paradigm of a language game, as laid out by Wittgenstein. I won't go into the details of Wittgenstein's ideas of language games; Sarup gives a pretty good explanation of this concept in his article, for those who are interested. There are lots of questions to be asked about postmodernism, and one of the most important is about the politics involved--or, more simply, is this movement toward fragmentation, provisionality, performance, and instability something good or something bad? There are various answers to that; in our contemporary society, however, the desire to return to the pre-postmodern era (modern/humanist/Enlightenment thinking) tends to get associated with conservative political, religious, and philosophical groups. In fact, one of the consequences of postmodernism seems to be the rise of religious fundamentalism, as a form of resistance to the questioning of the "grand narratives" of religious truth. This is perhaps most obvious (to us in the US, anyway) in muslim fundamentalism in the Middle East, which ban postmodern books--like Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses --because they deconstruct such grand narratives.

This association between the rejection of postmodernism and conservatism or fundamentalism may explain in part why the postmodern avowal of fragmentation and multiplicity tends to attract liberals and radicals. This is why, in part, feminist theorists have found postmodernism so attractive, as Sarup, Flax, and Butler all point out.

On another level, however, postmodernism seems to offer some alternatives to joining the global culture of consumption, where commodities and forms of knowledge are offered by forces far beyond any individual's control. These alternatives focus on thinking of any and all action (or social struggle) as necessarily local, limited, and partial--but nonetheless effective. By discarding "grand narratives" (like the liberation of the entire working class) and focusing on specific local goals (such as improved day care centers for working mothers in your own community), postmodernist politics offers a way to theorize local situations as fluid and unpredictable, though influenced by global trends. Hence the motto for postmodern politics might well be "think globally, act locally"--and don't worry about any grand scheme or master plan.

Dr. Mary Klages, Associate Professor, English Department, University of Colorado, Boulderhttp://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/pomo.html