Monday or Tuesday (A/B)
- Reading Check Quiz: “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- Review: What is the basic plot of “The Yellow Wallpaper”? In what form is it written? What happens to the woman at the end of the narrative?
- Close-Reading and demonstration: We will discuss a few key passages from the text and demonstrate the “shadows” in the narrative.
- Read: Why I wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” and discuss “social activism”
- Discuss: Dr. S. Weir Mitchell and the “Rest Cure”
- Discuss: Who is Nellie Bly? What did she do?
- Read and Discuss: Excerpt from “Ten Days in a Mad-House”
- Homework: Read Ernest Hemingway’s “In Another Country” and be prepared for a reading check quiz next class!
Wednesday or Thursday (A/B)
- Reading Check Quiz: “In Another Country” by Ernest Hemingway
- Review: Students will volunteer the basic plot and important details of “In Another Country.”
- Note-taking: Students will take some basic notes on significant events in history, art, science, and technology that run concurrently with literary modernism in America. (old textbook, p. 564-67)
- Read: Students will receive a copy of “Literary Modernism” (copied from old textbook, p. 572-73) and we will read and discuss it together as a class.
- Note-taking: Students will then take notes on elements of literary modernism, significant trends, and common themes.
- Full-Class Close Reading: We will discuss ways that Hemingway’s “In Another Country” represents literary modernism.
- Visual Arts Connection: We will discuss the modernism movement in art and compare this to the movement in literature. We will look at some examples on a PowerPoint presentation and perform a visual analysis together as a class (shape, composition, color, line quality, size, medium, symbols, etc.).
- Groups: Students will form groups of no more than four. They will each be assigned one painting or sculpture from the modern period. They will be asked to describe what they see in their notebooks (shape, color, form, composition, line quality) and then predict how the painting or sculpture reflects the modern age.
o Artists may include Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Edouard Manet, etc.
- Closing Activity: Each group will share their findings on their paintings / sculptures to the class.
- Homework: Read John Steinbeck’s “Flight” (handout) and be prepared for a reading check quiz next class!
Friday (A)
- Reading Check Quiz: “Flight” by John Steinbeck
- Review and Close Reading: We will review “Flight” as a class and discuss some key passages. Students will answer the question: How does this story represent American Modernism?
- National Poetry Month – Found Poems Activity: Students will get into groups of no more than four. They will each select a different short story that we have read thus far in the Realism, Naturalism, or Modernism units. They will have the remainder of the block to compose and present a “found poem” using their selected story. They will be required to write and illustrate their poem on a sheet of poster board.
- Discuss: Student presentations of found poems
- Homework: Read William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and be prepared for a reading check quiz next class!
