Assignments Over Break

Read Huck Finn through chapter 33.

Complete the analytical vocabulary assignment explained below.

Vocabulary and Analytical Sentences

Chapters 1-18

As we talked about recently, the words that you use in your writing have a significant effect on the voice you create. Accordingly, this activity will help you learn the definitions of some “mature” and “academic” words, and also help you apply them to your thinking about Huck Finn.

For each word, you’ll need to complete a two part process. After you look up the definition of the word, write down a meaningful definition; this will complete part one. Make sure you put this definition in your own words: do NOT just copy and paste! The second step is to create a statement (maybe 2-3 sentences) making an analytical observation about Huck Finn that uses this new word. (You can change the form of the word if necessary). It’s important to avoid making a sentence that is simply a plot summary. Instead you need to analyze a character, theme, idea, etc, much like we’ve been doing in our class discussions. In fact, you can even use some of the observations from our class discussions. Remember, analysis presents an observation (a reference to a specific event or events in the text) and then seeks to explain why that observation is important or significant to the story.

Also, please use this as an opportunity to focus on creating mature sentences. I recommend typing this assignment so you can revise as you go along; my example sentence below underwent at least 10 revisions before I decided to leave it alone. Notice you’re only being given a few words, so I expect high quality thinking and writing.

Here is an example:

0.) ambivalence: (Noun) a sense of uncertainty; undecided conflict between two emotions.

Huck’s ambivalence about his living conditions, the fact that he can be content under the rules of the widow but then quickly readapts to the harsher living environment with Pap, serves as an important indication of his malleable character. Because it is not in Huck’s nature to make up his mind fixedly, this indecision allows for perhaps his greatest act of open-mindedness-- the ability to come to see Jim as a person.

1.) juxtapose
2.) ostensible
3.) incongruous
4.) conventional
5.) ephemeral
6.) elicit

Reading Due Monday

Read through Chapter 18!

Reading Due Friday

Huck Finn Chapters 6-10

Reading Due Wednesday

Remember that Chapters 1-5 of Huckleberry Finn are due tomorrow. At the end of the previous post, there is a link to a free, web-based copy of Huck Finn for you to use in case you don't have your own copy. Please note that the web version does not flow from chapter to chapter. Instead, when you finish with chapter 1, you will need to click on chapter 2 on the left hand side of the screen.

Congratulations! You are finally done with Romanticism!

We will be working with Mark Twain as we transition to Realism, which will include working with the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Although copies are available through the library to check out, I strongly recommend that you get your own copy so that you can take notes on your own text. Our first reading assignment will be due on Wednesday, so you have a few days to get a copy, either paper or electronic.

In the meantime, you will be discussing two other Twain stories on Monday and Tuesday. Here is the calendar for next week:

Monday: Discuss "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (509)
Tuesday: Discuss "Life on the Mississippi" (496)
Wednesday: Discuss Chapters 1-5 of Huckleberry Finn.

More information about Huck Finn reading below.

For our reading of Huckleberry Finn, pay careful attention to the following topics. I suggest that you mark these topics in your text (or on a post-it). If you want to be extra fancy, you can also color-code these different ideas in your notes.

Supersition
The role of the river
Women (and their influence on Huck)
Religion
Education
Class Consciousness
Racial Identity
Clothing
Money/Wealth/Acquisitiveness (wanting to acquire stuff)
Deception
Search for Approval
Protectiveness

Here is a link to an electronic copy, if you do not have your own yet.

Due Thursday

Read Whitman's "Song of Myself" 456-460.

Due Wednesday

Read the poem, "Thanatopsis" on page 202
Read the poem, "I heard a Fly buzz when I died" (379)

Then, create a brief Venn-ish diagram chart, that looks at similarities and differences between these two poems. Consider comparing things like, subject matter, verse form, diction, imagery, figurative language.

This will be similar to your Bradford/Smith chart and can be created as the three columns below, if you don't prefer to use the circles of a "real" Venn diagram.

Bryant
Bryant/Dickinson
Dickinson

Read and think about the following poems by Emily Dickinson:

"There's a Certain slant..." 369
"I never saw..." 374
"Tell all the Truth" 375
"I felt a Funeral" on page 378
"Because I could not stop"380
"The Bustle in a House" 383
"As imperceptibly" 386
"There is a solitude" 389
"This is my letter" 390


Also--

Just in case I forget to finish up the lecture on literary schools in the Romantic time period, here are the notes which we began in class last Thursday.