sample approaches, assignments, and materials
TRANSCRIPT
Sample Approaches, Assignments, and Materials
Cheryl Nixon
Department of English, University of Massachusetts Boston
“Now at the beginning of September, the plague raging in a dreadful manner, and the number of burials in our parish increasing more than was ever buried in any parish about London of no larger extent, they ordered this dreadful gulf to be dug; for such it was, rather than a pit.
I got admittance into the churchyard […] saw a man go to and again […] as if he was in
great agony […] He said nothing as he walked about, but two or three times groaned very deeply, and loud, and sighed as he would break his heart.
When the buriers came up to him they soon found he was neither a person infected or
desperate […] but one oppressed with a dreadful weight of grief indeed, having his wife and several of his children, all in the cart that was just come in with him, and he followed in an agony and excess of sorrow. He mourned heartily, as it was easy to see, but with a kind of masculine grief that could alone not give itself vent by tears, and calmly desiring the buriers to let let him alone, said he would only see the bodies thrown in, and go away […] but no sooner was the cart turned round, and the bodies shot into the pit promiscuously, which was surprise to him […] I say, no sooner did he see the sight, but he cried aloud unable to contain himself; I could not hear what he said, but he went backward two or three steps, and fell down in a swoon.” (Longman 1C, 2303-5).
What is this text about? How can we decipher it? London Plague Prose text, report-like writing
What event/scene is being described? Bodies being thrown into a pit Man feeling grief for dead family
What text is this? Students can locate and explore the text based on a short excerpt: Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year…which Happened in
London…in 1665 (1722)
Details of the “Great Plague” of 1665: Source: Museum of London website: museumoflondon.org.uk Bubonic Plague, passed by rats and fleas 60-80% who catch disease die Fever, vomiting, painful swellings on neck, armpits, groin (buboes) 100,000 Londoners died in seven months (20% of population)
Images of plague: Image in Longman 1C, pages 2304-05 Guildhall Library website: https://guildhalllibrarynewsletter. wordpress.com/tag/great-plague/
Bills of Mortality: Museum of London website museumoflondon.org.uk
Diary of Samuel Pepys: Longman 1C, pages 2016-19; www.pepys.info
June 7th 1665. This day […] I did in Drury-lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon their doors and "Lord have mercy upon us" writ there—which was a sad sight to me…
August 16th 1665. It was dark before I could get home; and so land at church-yard-stairs, where to my great trouble I met a dead corpse, of the plague, in the narrow ally, just bringing down a little pair of stairs …
Harvard University Library’s Open Collections Program: Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics
http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/plague.html
Contains a list of digitized materials on the Great Plague. Clicking on
list allows you to find primary sources scanned by Harvard:
Hopefully, with…
New enthusiasm for text, author, time period New insight into literature’s cultural context New interest in literature’s role in recording, reflecting on,
shaping, and creating its cultural moment New appreciation for literary language and form’s
transformation of historical events
Heightened attention to close reading New skills in inquiry-based analysis New interest in primary source location and evaluation
Triggers curiosity, desire to know more See older literature as window on new world, new knowledge
Enacts process of inquiry discovery Learn meaningful question-asking
Encourages close reading Hone close reading skills through excitement of looking for “clues”
Allows preliminary interpretation-formation Engage in preliminary research-type exploration Allow formation of preliminary interpretations
Emphasis on primary sources Emphasis on cultural/historical contexts Emphasis on literary history
Indebted to academic database revolution Indebted to scholars making high-quality materials
accessible on internet Indebted to “history of the book,” “cultural studies”
approaches
Emphasis on open-ended exploration Emphasis on inquiry (questioning) Emphasis on connecting texts (contextualizing, synthesis) Creation of short, low-stakes exercises Creation of opportunities for sharing, collaboration
Reversal of “top down” lecture/headnote on background Embrace of internet
Use process to point students towards high-quality sources Use process to ask students about research (“how did you find that”?)
Our answer to scientific method! Example: My literary method:
Enter a literary world: mind, eyes, & ears open! Close read Create questions Read again, developing interpretations
Read again, thinking inwards (to literary theme, structure) Read again, thinking outwards (to cultural contexts, theory) Read aloud
Form meaning Maintain openness
“Mystery text: what is it?” Example: Defoe
“Illustrate the text” Example: Blake; Rossetti and Pre-Raphaelite Painting
“Edit the text” Example: Whitman; Shakespeare
“Interview the author” Example: Brooks; Hawthorne
“Surround the text”: create a cultural web Example: British Library; Mass Hist, UNC, Library of Congress
Example: Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year
Assignment: Text given to students without revealing key information
(author, title, time period, topic) Encourage student to work in groups/partners Allow students to engage in open-ended process of
inquiry (in or out of class) Students can generate questions (can then determine how to
find answers, assign questions to specific groups) Instructor can limit research to specific websites
Example #1: William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience
Source: www.blakearchive.org (Library of Congress, UNC)
Assignment: Randomly assign each student a Blake poem. Studying the images on blakearchive.org, each student must
pick two illuminations (two versions of the same illuminated poem; the archive has 13 “copies”) that seem to offer different interpretations of the poem.
Questions: How does Blake’s coloring, shading, additions, etc. set the tone of the poem? What word(s) in the poem seem emphasized by each version?
Images can be projected in class as students explain ideas.
Example #1: William Blake: www.blakearchive.org
Copy R, Fitzwilliam Museum Copy Y, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Example #2: Christina Rossetti’s Poetry and Pre-Raphaelite Painting
Sources: Birmingham Museum (preraphaelites.org), Tate Britain, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Delaware Art Museum, victorianweb.org, rossettiarchive.org
Assignment: Randomly assign each student a Rossetti poem. Using a museum website, student must locate a Pre-
Raphaelite painting that “illustrates” the poem. Questions: How does the poem “match” painting? How does
the painting echo the poem’s mood, symbolism, etc? What words in the poem are emphasized by the painting?
Student can bring/email URL and explain ideas to class. Class can create art “exhibit” out of selections.
Example #2a: Christina Rossetti’s Poetry and Pre-Raphaelite Painting
“Sleeping at Last” (1893)
Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over, Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past, Cold and white, out of sight of friend and of lover, Sleeping at last.No more a tired heart downcast or overcast, No more pangs that wring or shifting fears that hover, Sleeping at last in a dreamless sleep locked fast.Fast asleep. Singing birds in their leafy cover Cannot wake her, nor shake her the gusty blast. Under the purple thyme and the purple clover Sleeping at last.
Sir John Everett Millais, Ophelia (1851-1852)
Tate Britain: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-ophelia-n01506
Example #2b: Christina Rossetti’s Poetry and Pre-Raphaelite Painting
“Sleeping at Last” (1893)
Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over, Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past, Cold and white, out of sight of friend and of lover, Sleeping at last.No more a tired heart downcast or overcast, No more pangs that wring or shifting fears that hover, Sleeping at last in a dreamless sleep locked fast.Fast asleep. Singing birds in their leafy cover Cannot wake her, nor shake her the gusty blast. Under the purple thyme and the purple clover Sleeping at last.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “Mariana in the South—Compositional Study” (c.1857)
Birmingham Art Museum # 1904P434: preraphealites.org
Example #2c: Christina Rossetti’s Poetry and Pre-Raphaelite Painting
“I loved you first: but afterwards your love” (1893) Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda. – Dante Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore, E sol ivi con voi rimansi amore. – Petrarca
I loved you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? my love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be –
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’
With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.
Ford Maddox Ford, Romeo and Juliet (1869-1870)
Delaware Art Museum: emuseum.delart.org:8080
Example #1: Walt Whitman’s Manuscript Writing Source: www.waltwhitman.archive (UNebraska-Lincoln)
Assignment: In preparation, download series of manuscript jpegs. Randomly assign each student (or pair) a manuscript. Student must type a transcription/transliteration of the
manuscript. Questions: What do you “see” about Whitman’s writing
process? What do you learn about this individual poem? What words are crossed out? Why? What ideas seem to be emphasized through revision?
In class, students can compare their work to the “official” transliteration on website.
Example #1: Walt Whitman’s Manuscript Writing
After death. Others hold levee in life,— ^
After death ^Now ^
When I am looked back upon, I will I hold I levee, after death, I lean on my left elbow—I take ten thousand lovers, one after another, by my right hand.— www.waltwhitman.org: uva.00133
Example #2: William Shakespeare’s Sonnets Source: http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca Internet Shakespeare Editions (U Victoria) Assignment:
In preparation, locate “Facsimiles: The Sonnets, Quarto 1 (1609)” on internetshakespeare
Randomly assign each student (or pair) one sonnet. Student must transcribe sonnet (can be done in class). Questions: What is unclear about the sonnet? Highlight
strange “errors”! What words do you not know? Is uncertainty due to unclear printing or complex word usage?
Student must then footnote unknown words: look them up the OED and define in footnote.
Example #2: William Shakespeare’s Sonnets 6 Then let not winter’s wragged hand deface, In thee they summer ere1 thou be distil’d: Make sweet some viall; treasure thou some place, With beautits2 treasure ere it be selfe kil’d: That use is not forbidden usery,3
Which happies those that pay the willing lone;4
That’s for thy selfe to breed an other thee, Or then times happier be it ten for one, Ten times thy selfe were happier then thou art, If ten of thine ten times refigur’d thee, Then what could death doe if thou should’st depart, Leaving thee living in posterity? Be not selfe-wild for thou art much too faire, http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/facsimile/book/UC_Q1_Son/3/?zoom=500
To be death’s conquest and make wormes thine heire.
1 ere: before 2 beautites: beauties’ 3 usery: usury, lending money at high rates of interest 4 lone: loan
Example #1: Gwendolyn Brooks’ Poetry Source: Poetry Foundation (Audio): Poetry Lectures: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/audioitem/2702 Source: Iowa Digital Library: Virtual Writing University
Archive: http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/vwu/
Assignment: Listen to Gwendolyn Brooks reading/being interviewed. Set students up in pairs. Each pair selects favorite poem and
plans an interview, scripting questions and answers. First student will read poem aloud, answer questions. Second student will introduce the reader/author and ask
questions about the poem. Internet research may be required to answer questions. Interview could be recorded for course audio archive.
Example #1: Gwendolyn Brooks’ Poetry Information needed for author intro:
--Dates, where lived/raised
--Key statements about poetry
--Key ideas that connect poems
Questions about poem:
--What is a kitchenette?
--What is an aria?
--Do these people share a bathroom? Bath?
--What type of imagery did you want to connect
to the dream? Why?
--What type of imagery did you want to connect
to everyday life? Why?
www.poetryfoundation.org/llearning/poem/172080
Example #2: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” Information needed for author intro:
--Dates, where lived/raised --Family history relating to Puritans Questions about story: --What are the obvious themes that people see in the story— do you, Hawthorne, agree with Sparknotes? --What are the less expected themes that people are missing? --Does this connect to Salem Witch Trials? --What type of psychology about faith, community, does the story capture?
www.sparknotes.com www.hawthorneinsalem.org
Example #1: British Library Digital Collections Source: Work with British Library’s “Discover” section:
“Learning: Language & Literature”: http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/index.html
“Virtual Books—Turning the Pages”: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/virtualbooks/
“Literary Landscapes”: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/literland/index.html
“Treasures in Full”: http://www.bl.uk/treasures/treasuresinfull.html
Assignment: Mapping Chaucer’s World Each student/pair is assigned a different online text to explore and
explain to the class. Assignment can ask for connection to literary text: how can you
connect new knowledge to a specific passage in The Canterbury Tales? Create 1-2 slides showing connections.
Many sources are maps/locations: mapping could become theme. End result: Class Powerpoint slideshow/presentation.
Chaucer’s Kent in “Literary Landscapes” http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/literland/index.html
Chaucer’s printing history in “Treasures in Full” http://www.bl.uk/treasures/treasuresinfull.html
Example #2: Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Sources: Collections at the Massachusetts Historical Society, University of
North Carolina, PBS, and Library of Congress (all have primary sources)
Mass Historical Society: Massachusetts Abolitionists: http://www.masshist.org/features/boston-abolitionists Documenting the American South: http://docsouth.unc.edu/index.html North American Slave Narratives: : http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/ PBS: Slavery and the Making of America: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/ Library of Congress: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writer’s Project, 1936-1938: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/
Assignment: Investigating the Debates Shaping Douglass’ Life Each student/pair is assigned a different online text to explore, connect to
Narrative, and explain to the class. Assignments can ask for heightened understanding of historical context:
Example 1: How did both sides of the slavery debate present their arguments? Example 2: How did ex-slaves narrate their experiences?
Can locate sources that shape different types of assignments, such a emphasizing slavery debates or the form of slave narratives.
End result: Class poster session (textual display).
Abolitionist Materials http://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php? item_id=1597&mode=small&img_step=1&&noalt=1&br=1
Slave Narratives
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/albert/albert.html
Slave Narratives from the Federal Writer’s Project (interviews with surviving ex-slaves in 1930s) http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/
Materials-rich (visual, digital) approach to literature Active learning (collaborative, experiential) approach Exploratory learning (open-ended, creative) approach
Engagement with literary text:
Curiosity Excitement Appreciation: aesthetic and historical
Enacts process of inquiry discovery Enacts your “literary method”
“Mystery text: what is it?” Example: Defoe
“Illustrate the text” Example: Blake; Rossetti and Pre-Raphaelite Painting
“Edit the text” Example: Whitman; Shakespeare
“Interview the author” Example: Brooks; Hawthorne
“Surround the text”: create a cultural web Example: British Library; Mass Hist, UNC, Library of Congress
Alice in Wonderland “Turning the Pages” manuscript British Library http://www.bl.uk/turning-the-pages/?id=86825520-a671-11db-a264-0050c2490048&type=book
Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive UVirginia http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/home.html
Emily Dickinson Manuscript Archive HarvardU http://www.edickinson.org
Cheryl Nixon, Ph.D. Chair, Associate Professor
Department of English University of Massachusetts Boston
100 Morrissey Boulevard Boston, MA 02125