Week 18 (01/11/2010-01/15/2010)

Pick only one topic from the suggested topics below and write an essay about 250 words to develop the central idea based on the topic.

Essay Topics on The Catcher in the Rye

1. Think about Holden’s vision of the nature of childhood and adulthood. Are the two realms as separate as Holden believes them to be? Where does he fit in?

2.Many novels and plays focus on individuals involved in a struggle to find themselves or to
seek a purpose in life. Sometimes the effort pays off; sometimes it doesn’t. Focusing on
Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, write an essay in which you explain Holden’s search or
struggle throughout the novel, assess to what extent it succeeds, and analyze how it
contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

3. As a member of the English Department, you are trying to persuade the school board to adopt
this novel as required reading for 10th grade American Literature (both Honors and Dream).
Write the speech you will deliver. See “suggestions” below regarding refuting arguments.

4.As one of Holden’s teacher (or principal), complete a recommendation form for the boarding
school that Holden has applied to. Refer to the additional handout for content ideas.

Boarding School Application
Dear Teacher or Administrator,
Holden Caulfield has applied to the Betterman Boarding School. Please complete this
recommendation as truthfully as possible. We are especially interested in the asterisked
categories. Include specific references to support your views.
 Candidate’s name
 Age
 Name of parent or guardian
 Gender
 Address, City, State
 Attendance record
 Physical appearance
 Academic record
 *Attentiveness in class
 *Intellectual ability
 *English (spelling, language usage, favorite books, essay writing, etc.) or Oral Comm.
 Character and personality evaluation
 *Peer relationships (interaction with others)
 *Leadership abilities
 *Perseverance
 *Concern for others
 *Emotional maturity
 Other comments, observations, thoughts, concerns, etc about the candidate
 Overall assessment of the candidate’s potential
 Your name, signature, and date

5. Holden's Scrapbook: Compile a scrapbook of memorabilia that Holden might have collected or come across during the novel. All artifacts must be captioned with where he got it, its significance to him, and the page you found it on. Think of the images that keep recurring in the novel, the places Holden travels to, and anything he collects. This project will be assessed based on the amount of memorabilia collected and its presentation. As a benchmark, expect to get at least ten pieces of memorabilia for your scrapbook.

6. Ordinary People and Holden Caulfield: Rent the 1980 Robert Redford film Ordinary People (winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture). It is the story of a family struggling to deal with the accidental death of a teenage son. Compare the situations in the film with the situations that occur with the Caulfields in The Catcher in the Rye. How much of Holden's behavior has been affected by the death of Ally? Compare and contrast Conrad's grief with that of Holden.

Some guidelines and suggestions
 Really think about the topics. A seemingly simple topic may be harder to support. Make
sure you can support your position.
 You may write in first person or third person, whichever is more suitable for your topic.
 You may use any type of essay format as long as the format is appropriate and is
organized in a logical, understandable, and effective manner. In writing an argumentative
essay, you can also refute opposing arguments.
 Supporting evidence must be smoothly incorporated. (I suggest not starting your sentence
with a quote.) Additionally, it should come from throughout the novel.

1/14/2010

Aim: What is the key idea the poet conveys through the poem "Digging"?

Do Now: Read the poet by Heaney about "Digging" and make a list of imagery that remind you of childhood.

Digging

  Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

HW #61 There is a central extended metaphor of digging and roots, which shows how the poet, in his writing, is getting back to his own roots (his identity, and where his family comes from). The poem begins almost as it ends, but only at the end is the writer's pen seen as a weapon for digging.

Notes:

This poem is like Follower, as it shows how the young Heaney looked up to his elders - in this case both father and grandfather.

Seeing his father (now old) “straining” to dig “flowerbeds”, the poet recalls him in his prime, digging “potato drills”. And even earlier, he remembers his grandfather, digging peat. He cannot match “men like them” with a spade, but he sees that the pen is (for him) mightier, and with it he will dig into his past and celebrate them.

Heaney challenges the stereotype of Paddy with a spade. The stereotype contains some truth - Irishmen are justifiably well known for digging, but Heaney shows the skill and dignity in their labour. We see also see their sense of the work ethic - the father still digs in old age, the grandfather, when he was working, would barely stop to drink.

Note: the pen is “snug as a gun” because it fits his hand and is powerful. Heaney is from County Derry (Northern Ireland) but the poem was published in 1966, before the “troubles”, and this is not a reference to them.

This poem has a looser structure than Follower and looks at two memories - the father digging the potato drills, the grandfather digging turf, for which he was famous as the best digger on the peat bog. The poet celebrates not so much their strength as their expertise. The digger's technique is exactly explained (“The coarse boot nestled on the lug...”). Each man dug up what has real value

Again there are

The onomatopoeia (where the sound resembles or suggests meaning) is obvious in “rasping”, “gravelly”, “sloppily”, “squelch” and “slap”.

There is a central extended metaphor of digging and roots, which shows how the poet, in his writing, is getting back to his own roots (his identity, and where his family comes from). The poem begins almost as it ends, but only at the end is the writer's pen seen as a weapon for digging.

01/15/2010

Aim: How did the author express his grief over his baby brother's death?

Do Now: Read the poem and express what words are used to express the mood.

Mid-term Break

 
  I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close,
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on the left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in a cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Seamus Heaney

Procedure-

HW #62 Write a poem about your childhood.

The poem has a clear formal structure, in three line stanzas with a loose iambic metre. There are occasional rhymes but the poem's last two lines form a rhyming couplet, and emphasise the brevity of the child's life. Many of the lines run on - they are end stopped only in the last line of a stanza, and in three cases the lines run on from one stanza to the next. As in much of Heaney's poetry, there is no special vocabulary - mostly this is the common register of spoken English.

Mid-Term Break

The poem is about the death of Heaney's infant brother (Christopher) and how people (including himself) reacted to this. The poem's title suggests a holiday but this “break” does not happen for pleasant reasons. For most of the poem Heaney writes of people's unnatural reactions, but at the end he is able to grieve honestly.

The boredom of waiting appears in the counting of bells but “knelling” suggests a funeral bell, rather than a bell for lessons. The modern reader may be struck by the neighbours' driving the young Seamus home - his parents may not have a car (quite usual then - Heaney was born in 1939, and is here at boarding school, so this is the 1950s) or, more likely, were too busy at home, and relied on their neighbours to help.

The father, apparently always strong at other funerals, is distraught (very upset) by his child's death, while the mother is too angry to cry. “Big Jim” (apparently a family friend) makes an unfortunate pun - he means to speak of a metaphorical “blow”, of course. The young Seamus is made uneasy by the baby's happiness on seeing him, by hand shaking and euphemisms (evasions, like “Sorry for my trouble”), and by whispers about him. When late at night the child's body is returned Heaney sees this as “the corpse” (not a person).

This contrasts wonderfully with the final section of the poem, where he is alone with his brother. Note the personal pronouns “him”, “his”, “he” - as opposed to “the corpse”. The calm mood is beautifully shown in the transferred epithet (“Snowdrops/And candles soothed the bedside” - literally they soothed the young Heaney). The flowers are a symbol in the poem, but also in reality for the family (a symbol of new life, after death). The bruise is seen as not really part of the boy - he is “wearing” it (a metaphor), as if it could come off. Heaney likens the bruise to the poppy, a flower linked with death and soothing of pain (opiates come from poppies). The child appears as if sleeping (a simile). We contrast the ugly “corpse, stanched and bandaged”, which becomes a sleeping child with “no gaudy scars” - dead, but, ironically, not disfigured. The last line of the poem is most poignant and skilful - the size of the coffin is the measure of the child's life. We barely notice that Heaney has twice referred to a “box”, almost a jokey name for a coffin.

Overall, we note the contrast between the embarrassing scenes earlier and the final section where, alone with his brother, Heaney can be natural.