To wrap up the unit on identity, we will be reading The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. Published in 1951, this story features typical, poignant, and sometimes crude episodes from protagonist Holden Caufield’s searching journey to New York City. The story begins:

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.”

We will be reading the novel together in class, though silent reading will occasionally be assigned. Students will be responsible for tracking themes and symbols throughout the book (by using a tracking sheet) and for completing study questions as we read.

Complete the following poll. You may select multiple answers.

Catcher resources:

Character Map

Click for an interactive map of Manhattan

Reading guide Ch 1-4

[goog doc="dc4kzt6f_55fzfc5hd6"]Catcher notes[/goog]

Catcher Pics

[Show as slideshow]

Allie's baseball mitt

American Museum of Natural History

Field of Rye

Carousel in Central Park

Central Park, N.Y.

Duck on a frozen pond

Red hunting cap

Old-time skates

Pencey Prep

Radio City Music Hall

Museum of Art

J.D. Salinger

Custom Cover

Catcher Videos

Related posts:

1. Arguement and Logical Fallacies Update: take the quiz [QUIZZIN 7] The following presentations contains...
2. Literary terms Literary elements are the parts, or components of a story....
3. Independent Novel Study As the name implies, independent study will involve you reading...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

[goog doc="dc4kzt6f_22gvbsdq64"]Class Notes[/goog]

Raisin Study Questions

Raisin Study Questions

19.31 KB, pdf, 2 hits, 2010-03-11

US Literature II, Handouts

A Raisin in the Sun was first produced in 1959 and anticipates many of the issues which were to divide American culture during the decade of the 1960s. Lorraine Hansberry, the playwright, was an unknown dramatist who achieved unprecedented success when her play became a Broadway sensation. Not only were successful women playwrights rare at the time, but successful young black women playwrights were virtually unheard of. Within its context, the success of A Raisin in the Sun is particularly stunning.

In part because there were few black playwrights—as well as few black men and women who could attend Broadway productions—the play was hindered by a lack of financial support during its initial production. Producers hesitated to risk financial involvement in such an unprecedented event, for had the play been less well-written or well-acted, it could have suffered an incredible failure. Eventually, however, the play did find financial backing, and after staging initial performances in New Haven, Connecticut, it reached Broadway.

Compounding the racial challenges the play posed was its length of nearly three hours as it was originally written. Because audiences are not accustomed to plays of such length, especially by a newcomer, a couple of significant scenes were cut from the original production. (These scenes are sometimes included in later renditions.) These scenes include Walter’s bedtime conversation with Travis and the family’s interaction with Mrs. Johnson. In addition, the scene in which Beneatha appears with a “natural” haircut was eliminated in the original version primarily because Diana Sands, the actress, was not attractive enough with this haircut to reinforce the point of the scene. This scene would become more crucial as cultural ideas shifted.

Lorraine Hansberry–>

Lorraine Hansberry was born in 1930, and was the first African-American woman to win the Best American Play award from the New York Drama Critics Circle. She was the fifth woman and the youngest American to ever have done so. She was given this award for her play, A Raisin in the Sun, which was written when she was in her twenties, and was first performed on Broadway in 1959.

Lorraine Hansberry started writing when she was a young woman. When she was 22 years old, she declared to her later-to-be husband, Robert Nemiroff:

I am a writer. I am going to write!

Her husband then later became her literary executor (the person in charge of handling her writing) after her early death due to cancer, when she was 34 years old.

When she was a college student, she wrote a piece for her school magazine which foretold the driving concerns which would form the basis for A Raisin in the Sun:

What is it exactly that we Negroes want to see on the screen? The answer is simple reality. We want to see film about a people who live and work like everybody else, but who currently must battle fierce oppression to do so.

Even so, when she had completed writing A Raisin in the Sun, Ms. Hansberry could not quite believe what she had accomplished. As described in her autobiographical work To Be Young, Gifted and Black:

…I had turned the last page out of the typewriter and pressed all the sheets neatly together in a pile, and gone and stretched out face down on the living room floor. I had finished a play; a play I had no reason to think or not think would ever be done; a play that I was sure no one would quite understand…

Where did Lorraine Hansberry get the impetus to carry forward her vision through her writing? As Robert Nemiroff related it, she “had herself as a child been almost killed in such a real-life story”4 as the one depicted in her play.

In addition to these works, Ms. Hansberry also wrote another play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, a novel Les Blancs, and Lorraine Hansberry: The Collected Last Plays, in addition to numerous magazine and newspaper articles, and other work in progress, left unfinished when she died. No matter how famous Ms. Hansberry became, though, and no matter how much she achieved during her brief lifetime, she never forgot her commitment to carrying forward her ideals to the young people who would follow her.

When she died, her ex-husband inscribed these lines from her Brustein play on her tombstone:

I care. I care about it all. It takes too much energy not to care…the why of why we are here is an intrigue for adolescents; the how is what must command the living.

Historical Overview

Into what milieu was Lorraine Hansberry born? What was America like when she was growing up? What experiences would she have had as a student? What was this country like when she reached adulthood?

In order to understand the historical background of A Raisin in the Sun, it is necessary to understand the impact of the United States Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education school desegregation decision. That law changed the previous “separate but equal” status of education in the South.

“Separate but equal” meant that until the 1954 ruling, black children and White children were separated into different schools. There were no exceptions to this segregationist policy. Also, public facilities such as parks, theaters, etc., had sections and utilities segregated by race. This was because of what were known as “Jim Crow laws,” which were not real laws, but local statutes which everyone followed.

Until the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling and other civil rights activity in the 1950s, it was very dangerous for people of different races to be friends. Works of literature from that time, such as Strange Fruit by Lillian Smith, depict the outrageous injustice of that time.

In addition, any black person who challenged these Jim Crow statutes in any way was subject to abuse, arrest, or lynching (being hung by a lawless mob). Heroes such as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mrs. Rosa Parks, however, challenged these Jim Crow laws and “separate but equal” protocols through boycotts, marches, and other nonviolent means, which often originated in black churches.

At the time Ms. Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun, then, the country was being forced for the first time to truly put into practice Abraham Lincoln’s words in reference to the Civil War freeing the slaves about a century before:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal.”

Even after the school desegregation ruling, however, it took quite some time for the schools in the South to be integrated. Children who tried to go to schools previously off-limits to them were harassed, humiliated, had rocks thrown at them, were set upon by dogs, and otherwise threatened and persecuted. Churches with predominantly black congregations were bombed, and church members, including children, were killed. Families who moved into previously all-white neighborhoods had crosses burned on their front lawns by the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups, and were subject to being terrorized in many other ways.

This situation occurred mainly in the South, but the North was not that much better off when it came to these kinds of injustices; they were just more subtle. It has been said that one of Lorraine Hansberry’s purposes in writing A Raisin in the Sun was to show that things were not much better in the North in the 1950s than they were in the South.

Jewell Handy Gresham-Nemiroff said this of Hansberry’s vision:

…She had to possess a powerful cosmic sense of the magnitude of human struggle in the modern world waged by ordinary men and women. Such battles against themselves and others, against wretchedness, and against fate she believed to be of comparable worth as dramatic material to the woes of ancient kings and queens in whom grave flaws of character led to disaster.

Related posts:

1. The American Dream The central idea behind A Raisin in Sun is the...
2. Intro to Huck Finn This article will introduce the reader to Huck Finn with...
3. Catcher in the Rye Intro To wrap up the unit on identity, we will be...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

As this unit progresses, you will form your own notion of what the American Dream is. In class, we will also read other people’s idea of what it means. The following is from an old speech by Barack Obama:

In big cities and small towns; among men and women; young and old; black, white, and brown – Americans share a faith in simple dreams. A job with wages that can support a family. Health care that we can count on and afford. A retirement that is dignified and secure. Education and opportunity for our kids. Common hopes. American dreams…

What is unique about America is that we want these dreams for more than ourselves – we want them for each other. That’s why we call it the American dream. We want it for the kid who doesn’t go to college because she cannot afford it; for the worker whose wondering if his wages will pay this winter’s heating bill; for 47 million Americans living without health care; for the millions more who worry if they have enough to retire with the dignity they have earned.

When our fellow Americans are denied the American dream, our own dreams are diminished. And today, the cost of that dream is rising faster than ever before. While some have prospered beyond imagination in this global economy, middle-class Americans – as well as those working hard to become middle class – are seeing the American dream slip further and further away.

President Barack Obama, 2007–Read the full speach

He is not alone in his ideas of what the American dream means. Here are two items we read in class.

• Obama Dream Abridged
• King Dream Abridged

“Let America be America Again”

Hear it:

Read it:

“Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes (printable)

Related posts:

1. More Native American Myths Here are a few videos telling Native American myths. This...
2. Native American and Puritan Images As we read some Native American myths and a couple...
3. Letter from Birmingham Jail Written in sitting in jail in 1963 following a protest...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Jim Crow laws made racism legal

The term originated with a traveling show in which a white man imitated stereotypes of African Americans. Later, that name was used in society. For instance, special railroad car on trains were for blacks only and were called “Jim Crow Cars.” This became the standard term for laws and acts designed to promote segregation and disfranchisement of African Americans.

Like slavery before it, people started to reject these ideas. Twain wrote Huck Finn in the 1880s, in part, as a response to the south’s effort to limit economic and physical freedom of freed slaves.

State sanctioned laws, beatings, mob violence, and lynching persisted through the Civil Rights movement in the 50s and 60s. Supreme court said the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional, a law that stated: “That all persons…shall be entitled to full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other public amusement.” Again the Supreme Court, in 1896, said in Plessy v. Ferguson that equal accommodations, even if separate, are just fine. Adding that “separate but equal” accommodations did not stamp the “colored race with a badge of inferiority.”

With government approval, all were free to limit where blacks could vote, eat, drink, socialize and educate.

For more information and images, watch the video below about the Jim Crow Museum

Related posts:

1. A Raisin in the Sun Intro A Raisin in the Sun was first produced in 1959...
2. Harlem Renaissance Explained Our unit on the American Dream begins with an exploration...
3. Intro to Huck Finn This article will introduce the reader to Huck Finn with...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Here is Dr. King’s note regarding the text of the letter:

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray. the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings) was composed under somewhat constricting circumstance. Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly Negro trusty, and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me. Although the text remains in substance unaltered, I have indulged in the author’s prerogative of polishing it for publication.

In response to recent violence, they stated:

• Demonstrations led by “outsiders” are “unwise and untimely”
• Negotiation is the best way to solve racial injustice
• Demonstrations “incite hatred and violence”
• The police should be commended for the calm manner in which they have handled everything.

Here is short video with some background.

Dr. King uses expertly uses logos, ethos and pathos in his response as well as a variety of rhetorical techniques, including the use of aphorisms.

Here is the portion of his letter that we read in class: Letter from Birmingham Jail (3 hits)

“Letter from Birmingham Jail” Questions
Answer the following on a separate sheet of paper.

1. Why will Dr. King respond to the clergymen?
2. There are two aphorisms in the 3^rd paragraph.  List and explain the meaning of one.
3. How are the steps in a nonviolent campaign similar to the Declaration of Independence?
4. Give an example of a failed negotiation.
5. What is the purpose of “direct-action?”
6. According to Dr. King, what is the difference between a just law and an unjust law?
7. Does Dr. King support evading or defying the law? Explain his reasoning.
8. Dr. King counters the claim “that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence.”  What type argument does King demonstrate in his counter?
9. In your own words, describe who Dr. King describes as real heroes. What type of argument is he demonstrating?
10. In one sentence, state what you think is the main message of Dr. King’s letter.

Related posts:

1. Declaration of Independence Perhaps the most influential document in American history, The...
2. Arguement and Logical Fallacies Update: take the quiz [QUIZZIN 7] The following presentations contains...
3. Age of Reason group work General directions: Create a PowerPoint presentation for your group’s prompt....

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

1. Intro–Purpose of document
2. How things should work
3. How the King violated the ideal
4. How the colonist tried to correct it
5. What must now be done to reach the ideal

The following notes give a brief history of the colonist struggle against Britain, which reflects the parts of the D of I (the process that they went through to achieve their purpose is important, not the historical details).

[Show as slideshow]

As you read the document, note how the language and structure is appropriate for the audience and purpose.

Also, the final version is different from what Thomas Jefferson wrote.  Jefferson wrote a couple passages dealing with slavery, which were deleted by the Second Continental Congress.  To understand these passages, you need to translate Jefferson’s words into your own.  Read this page for instructions on how to do this, then complete the worksheet with the deleted passages ( translating the declaration of independence).

Read it ( Declaration of Independance), or watch actors read below.

Related posts:

1. Unit One Review US Lit II Unit 1 Topic Review This first unit...
2. Age of Reason group work General directions: Create a PowerPoint presentation for your group’s prompt....
3. Letter from Birmingham Jail Written in sitting in jail in 1963 following a protest...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

[QUIZZIN 7]
The following presentations contains the notes for argument (logos, ethos, and pathos) and logical fallacies and the homework that goes with it. Remember, this is the foundation for most types of communication will help you to not only be a good student, but a good voter, citizen, consumer, employee, etc.
[goog doc="dc4kzt6f_109gtph32dm"]Logical Fallacies Notes[/goog]

These worksheets were completed in class and rely on the notes.

Name that Fallacy
How do they persuade

Related posts:

1. Quoting sources for your arguement An important skill for all upper level papers is the...
2. Catcher in the Rye Intro To wrap up the unit on identity, we will be...
3. Literary terms Literary elements are the parts, or components of a story....

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Jonathan Edwars, author of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

For better or worse, the sermon for which Edwards is probably most famous—or infamous—is the one preached to the congregation of Enfield, Massachusetts (later Connecticut) in July 1741. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” represents in many persons’ minds the bleak, cruel, and hell-bent outlook of Edwards and his Puritan predecessors. But of course such a representation is only a caricature, for Sinners, if it represents anything, stands for only a small part of Edwards’s view of the relationship between humankind and God. As a specially crafted awakening sermon, Sinners was aimed at a particularly hard-hearted congregation. But, at the same time, the awakening sermon and all it expressed—the awful weight of sin, the wrath of an infinitely holy God, and the unexpectedness of the moment when God will execute justice—were integral to Edwards’s theology. This sermon, therefore, deserves to be studied and meditated on for its own sake, but also as part of a larger vision of the spiritual life.

This sermon helps illustrate oratory, or persuasive speaking.  Edward’s goal is convince his audience to live more obedient and repent for their sins.  This sermon, in its time, achieved that purpose.  How?  What about this sermon do you think was so convincing?  How did Edward’s make his argument.  What techniques did he use?  Listen to the sermon and think about the images and what the audience must of felt as they listened to it. You can download a copy here: Sinners Text (8 hits)

Here are the questions from class:

1. Towards the end of the sermon, what does Edwards say sinners can obtain? What must they do to obtain these things?
2. List two images of natural destruction that Edwards uses to depict the wrath of God. Describe why these images are particularly appropriate to Edwards’s message and audience.
3. How does Edwards achieve his purpose (what persuasive techniques does he use)?
4. In which situations (besides drinking and driving and smoking) is it justifiable to use fear to get a person to improve his or her behavior? Can you think of a specific example?

“Sinners in the Hands of and an Angry God”

Audio of the sermon. This is slightly different than the textbook.

Brief Biography of Edwards: Edwards was born in East Windsor, Connecticut, to Timothy Edwards, pastor of East Windsor, and Esther Edwards. The only son in a family of eleven children, he entered Yale in September, 1716 when he was not yet thirteen and graduated four years later (1720) as valedictorian. He received his Masters three years later.

As a youth, Edwards was unable to accept the Calvinist sovereignty of God. He once wrote, “From my childhood up my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God’s sovereignty… It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me.” However, in 1721 he came to the conviction, one he called a “delightful conviction.” He was meditating on 1 Timothy 1:17, and later remarked, “As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from any thing I ever experienced before… I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up to him in heaven; and be as it were swallowed up in him for ever!” From that point on, Edwards delighted in the sovereignty of God. Edwards later recognized this as his conversion to Christ.

In 1727 he was ordained minister at Northampton and assistant to his maternal grandfather, Solomon Stoddard. He was a student minister, not a visiting pastor, his rule being thirteen hours of study a day. In the same year, he married Sarah Pierpont, then age seventeen, daughter of James Pierpont (1659–1714), a founder of Yale, originally called the Collegiate School. In total, Jonathan and Sarah had eleven children.

Solomon Stoddard died on February 11th, 1729, leaving to his grandson the difficult task of the sole ministerial charge of one of the largest and wealthiest congregations in the colony. Throughout his time in Northampton his preaching brought remarkable religious revivals. Jonathan Edwards was a key figure in what has come to be called the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s.

Yet, tensions flamed as Edwards would not continue his grandfather’s practice of open communion. Stoddard, his grandfather, believed that communion was a “converting ordinance.” Surrounding congregations had been convinced of this, and as Edwards became more convinced that this was harmful, his public disagreement with the idea caused his dismissal in 1750.

Edwards then moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, then a frontier settlement, where he ministered to a small congregation and served as missionary to the Housatonic Indians. There, having more time for study and writing, he completed his celebrated work, The Freedom of the Will (1754).

Edwards was elected president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) in early 1758. He was a popular choice, for he had been a friend of the College since its inception and was the most eminent American philosopher-theologian of his time. On March 22, 1758, he died of fever at the age of fifty-four following experimental inoculation for smallpox and was buried in the President’s Lot in the Princeton cemetery beside his son-in-law, Aaron Burr.

Related posts:

1. Unit One Review US Lit II Unit 1 Topic Review This first unit...
2. Jim Crowe and the Harlem Ren The term originated with a traveling show in which a...
3. Audience Purpose Prompt Format Recognizing audience, purpose, prompt and format in the things you...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Due Saturday, September 5.
This is easy extra credit so don’t forget.

Answer and submit the following:
[contact-form]

Related posts:

1. Native American and Puritan Images As we read some Native American myths and a couple...
2. Oral tradition assignment As we read Native American Myths, we are noticing the...
3. The American Dream The central idea behind A Raisin in Sun is the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.