Unit 4

ELAALRC2 The student participates in discussions related to curricular learning in all subject areas.



Given that i didn't take part in any discussions, i think i had the most difficulty meeting this standard.

I would like to study more about the Harlem Renaissance. I'm interested in studying the Harlem Renaissance because I don't really know that much about it and I feel that it would be a good thing to learn new things and possibly review things I may have already learned but long since forgotten.

The theme to this story is a very interesting one. In this passage it talks about struggle, hard times, and trying to make ends meet. It also said that the Harlem Renaissance was a forced phenomenon. When I read that, i didn't understand why it was described that way. It seems as though it would have happened sooner or later anyway, forced issue or not. Some of the music that we have today was influenced from music hat came from the Harlem Renaissance. Music wasn't the only thing that came out of the Harlem Renaissance, there were poems, books, and albums as well.

Richard Corey

He walked around town, looking like a king. He was rich and people knew it. People that are rich aren't always happy. Obviously being rich wasn't good enough and he was miserable, he took matters into his own hands and ended his own misery.

Mending Wall

This talks a lot about a wall. It talks plenty about how many ways the wall can be destroyed and how it can be rebuilt. I believe that Robert Frost was using psychoanalysis while creating this poem. It never specifically says why people put up their walls. I believe that he wants you to take a closer look at the bigger picture when reading it.

A Dream Deferred

Hughes is talking about disillusionment. I don't think when he says a "Dream" deferred, that he is talking about the American dream as a whole. He may actually be trying to write about the Harlem Renaissance. The important thing is, when you have a dream don't let it be a broken one.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I definitely think that Hughes is using the Harlem Renaissance in this poem. It has to do with somebody that has been by all kinds of rivers, whether it be a real one or a river of doubt for the African American people. It talks about a hut beside a river, a pyramid, and Abraham Lincoln. I don't believe that I understood this poem very well. The most I get out of it is the river is an important symbol of some sort.

Incident

Harlem Renaissance. All the way, I can tell this because a little boy was discriminated against because of his race. He was young and he didn't understand why he was treated differently at all. The Harlem Renaissance had to do with discrimination and hard times for African Americans, this is a very concrete poem that shows a little bit about discrimination effected the mind of a child.

How have you improved on understanding the Georgia Performance Standard you said was most difficult for you?

I didn't participate in any discussions, however I do feel as if I know more about Modernism. If I had to take part in a discussion about this kind of stuff then I believe that I could have a long detailed conversation because a good amount of material was included in Unit 4.

Unit THR33 Dark Romanticism and Realism

ELAALRL4 The student employs a variety of writing genres to demonstrate a comprehensive grasp of significant ideas in selected literary works. The student composes essays, narratives, poems, or technical documents.


I think it means that a student should be able to understand and create different types of writings depending on the genre, and be able to write in that style, given that they understand it. In order to do this i would need to read and understand different types of writing and be able to construct some of my own.

DARK ROMANTICISM

I think that me personally would fall underneath the dark romantics slot. I feel this way because I don't necessarily believe that god is the little voice in my head, and that everyone is pure. I tend to lean the other way because not 100% of people have good intentions or a good conscious.

Hop-Frog

Hop-Frog was a good example of Dark Romanticism because the whole thing basically is a plot of revenge. You could see the evil in more than one person in this story. The one that really stuck out was after the king pushed Tripetta and threw his goblet at her.

"It was interrupted by a low, but harsh and protracted grating sound which seemed to come at once from every corner of the room."

This is the part where Hop-Frog makes it apparent that he is enraged by the kings action. This is the part where you start to see some Dark Romanticism, his rage. The transcendentalists believed that god spoke through your conscious, this cant apply here because why would god want Hop-Frog to feel this way?

The Raven

The Raven was a good example of Dark Romanticism because it was a rather chilling story to red and it felt as if there was evil with in the story, a sort of torment. In the beginning of the story he is obviously distraught. Later you find that someone close to him has died and hes so upset that he wants to get his mind off of it. The rest of the story goes on about there being a raven and his feelings generally stay the same throughout.

But the raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only that one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered;Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before;On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

I pulled out this part of The Raven because it shows the anti-transdentalistic characteristic of this poem. Poe is feeling dread and an misery. Nothing is making him feel any better at all, while the raven is actually making him feel worse. He is basically being tormented by the voice in his head, or if the bird was actually real, then nature itself. The bird is telling him that he wont go away. The voice of dread and misery wont leave him.

The Symbol

Poe's symbol for this poem is when the raven lands on the bust of Pallas. Pallas, representing wisdom and knowledge, is being shrouded by the ravens gloomy dreadful presence. It's an understanding of how he feels at this point in time because the knowledge and wisdom are supposed to represent Poe as a whole.

Realism

"The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin

This was an interesting story that took me a while to understand the whole meaning. Mrs. Mallard was sad that her husband died, but not long after she was happy about being free from the idea of being bound to a marriage. The part that stuck out to me was when her husband was supposedly dead, only then was she truly happy.

"There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul."

I pulled this out of the writing because it represents realism, you don't really need to imagine this at all because its so brilliantly laid out there for you to understand how lethargic the room is. I think that Kate wants to show that when people lose a loved one it can be catastrophic towards your emotions, like the fact that she was getting married, when she found out her husband was dead she didn't know what to think.

'The Battle With Mr. Covey" Fredrick Douglass

In the battle with Mr. Covey, a couple of slaves were fanning wheat. while doing so a young slave (Fredrick Douglass) didn't feel very well. He got dizzy and fatigued to the point where he needed a minute to recover. The minute he stopped work Mr. Covey (the guy in charge) heard the fan stop and immediately showed up. The other workers vouched for Fredrick and told Mr. Covey that he had gone to lay down. Fredrick explained everything to Mr. Covey but he wasn't about to let that go down. Mr. Covey gave Fredrick a savage beat down.

"I was exceedingly feeble; made so as much by the kicks and blows which I received, as by the severe fit of sickness to which i had been subjected."

This quote paints a mental picture of how miserable he was, how he was fighting off a sickness but he also had to deal with a racist guy beating him. This is evidence of realism because you don't really have to imaging what it would be like, he tells you exactly how miserable he was.

Realism

My example of realism would be in the book, The Grapes Of Wrath. The social issue for this example is where the Joad family packed up their truck and went to find work because the big corporations basically took everything from the people in Oklahoma. The idea of realism in this book is where food is purposefully destroyed to keep the price higher.

"...In front of her tent, the woman still looked at her shattered hand. Little droplets of blood began to ooze from the wound. And a chuckling hysteria began in her throat, a whining laugh that grew louder and higher with each breath."

This gives you an idea of realism because you don't have to be there to get an idea how it went down. Ive never been in this situation, and the way its been described I don't feel that I have to have been there to know what this certain situation is like.

12. Explain (with DIRECT EVIDENCE FROM YOUR OWN WORK) how you have met (or exceeded) at least two of the standards listed below.

ELAALRL1 The student demonstrates comprehension by identifying evidence (i.e., examples of diction, imagery, point of view, figurative language, symbolism, plot events and main ideas) in a variety of texts representative of different genres (i.e., poetry, prose [short story, novel, essay, editorial, biography], and drama) and using this evidence as the basis for interpretation.

Ive met this standard when I was working on "The Raven", in the poem there was a symbol of a raven landing on a bust of Pallas. I used evidence and interpreted the meaning.

ELAALRL3 The student deepens understanding of literary works by relating them to their contemporary context or historical background, as well as to works from other time periods.

I have met this standard because i made a reference to The Grapes Of Wrath when I was working on the Realism section of this unit. This book being in a relatively older time period, i used it to support the idea of Realism.

Unit Dos

NATURE by Ralph Waldo Emerson





This piece of writing caught my attention in a couple different ways. It was a bit hard to understand in a couple places but overall I think it was pretty interesting. It was very descriptive about the woods and the feeling that the author got from being outdoors. There are several places where you would be able to pick out some transcendentalistic traits from the excerpt. The number one connection i could make was on page 221 of the literature book, it states "In the woods, we return reason and faith. There i feel that nothing can befall me in life-


no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. I think it related to transcendentalism because it was talking about how being in the woods made him feel as if nothing in life could befall him, it returned him to not only reason but faith.





This is a good example of Transcendentalism because they believed that god spoke through the beauty and feel of nature as well as through the hard work of people. I feel that he was trying to connect with the "oversoul." This was a lot about nature and I think the particular point he was trying to make was that god speaks through nature.



SELF-RELIANCE by Ralph Waldo Emerson



This writing was very unclear to me at first, but with some explanation I started to gradually understand the main point that Emerson was striving to get across. In a nutshell, he says to rely on your own judgement and feelings rather than to conform like the rest of society. He is saying that instead of being part of the corrupt body as a whole, be your own person, rely on the voice in your own mind. This stuck out to me because this is how I feel in some ways. This reminds me of peer pressure in a way, people could be doing something that you don't particularly think is a good idea, you can either conform, or do what you think is right.



"These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in a conspiracy against manhood of every one of its members".

I pulled out this piece of the writing because it has a lot to do with one of the key factors of transcendentalism. It touches on how people in society don't listen to this "inside" voice, this voice of god. It is stating that people would rather be like everyone else than to make their own individual seemingly correct choices.

ELAALRL2-The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of theme in a work of American literature and provides evidence from the work to support understanding.

• The person identifies, thinks about, and uses what is learned from the works of american literature and gives proof directly from the source to back up understanding.

RIP VAN WINKLE

This was a very interesting story. I believe that the romantic parts in this story were when he fell "asleep" for like 20 years after helping a Dutch man carry his liquor and watching a game of 9 pins, and the part where he reaized things were different when he got back to town. Obviously a person cant sleep for that long without dying so that was kind of longshot, then he accepted the fact he had aged 20 years. After he got that all figured out he just went back to live with his daughter and her husband, i feel that that part was a bit romantic also.

Vocab-

Deism-
faith based on the idea of science or mathematics.

Comparison of Belief

In the Native American poem post you see that their beliefs are fairly simple and grounded around nature and things that have to do with the Earth. The Puritans believe that not everyone has the choice to go to heaven. They believe that god is going o save a select few people. There are big differences between these cultures solely because they were situated in different areas. The Native Americans don't believe that their has to be so much structure behind a creation theory. Nobody really knows how the world was created so I can imagine living as a Native American with no kind of history of things like the bible or a priest to give insightful information of the past. The Puritans on the other hand, sound like they have their religion down pact. For example, in Jonathan Edward's sermons he states that god is angry and there is no way to earn his grace. The way that he says that makes you aware that he feels strongly and believes in his heart that this is what happened. It sounds like they believe in it strongly and wont be changing their mind any time soon. I'm sure if you got the Chief and a Saint in the same room then they would clash, I'm not sure that they could have anything in common though.

Native American Literature

An ancient Chippewa tradition The dream net has been made For many generations Where spirit dreams have played.
Hung above the cradle board,Or in the lodge up high,The dream net catches bad dreams,While good dreams slip on by.
Bad dreams become entangled Among the sinew thread.Good dreams slip through the center hole,While you dream upon your bed.
This is an ancient legend,Since dreams will never cease,Hang this dream net above your bed,Dream on, and be at peace.

Response-

I believe that this poem is self explanatory and it is simple to understand. The Native Americans created a dream catcher that you hang over the designated sleeping place. Depending on what type of dream you have apparently triggers the net on the dream catcher to capture bad dreams and let good dreams pass through the net unscathed. It is originally designed with the intention of producing peaceful sleep.