So far we have already been here for a week and a half or so and the experience has been amazing. ¡Yo le quiero Mexico! The people have al been so friendly and open since we got here that it was hard for me to believe everything Alejandro said in class today. It makes sense that people who have known nothing but what it is like to be cheated would forever be trying to cheat others in order to survive, but I guess I am just more hopeful and optimistic that people wouldn´t always be trying to cheat other people. I think that the people would be more supicious of others and very paranoid here in Mexico if everyone really was always trying to cheat each other and were proud of themselves when they do so successfully. But, maybe I am just being nieve.

Coverage

"Semilogy and Rhetoric"
Miko's "Tempest"
"Reader, Text, and Ambiguous Referentiality in 'The Yellow Wallpaper'"
Chapter 7 Introduction
"Culture"
"Bodily Harm: Keats's Figures in the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'"
"'But One Expects That': Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' and the Shifting Light of Scholarship"
"Nymphs and Reapers Heavily Vanish"

Depth

"Culture"

Interaction

Karissa's Blog on de Mann
"Culture"
Jay's Blog - "The Education Perspective"

Discussions

"Nymphs and Reapers Heavily Vanish"
Attempt to begin a conversation on Vanessa's Blog,
but for some reason it wouldn't let me post any comments.

Timeliness

"'But One Expects That': Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' and the Shifting Light of Scholarship"
"Nymphs and Reapers Heavily Vanish"

Xenoblogging

"Semilogy and Rhetoric"
a href="http://blogs.setonhill.edu/LorinSchumacher/2007/04/greenblatts_cul.html">"Culture"

Blog Carnival
Our Hostess: Tiffany Brattina
My Personal Contribution: "Lit Crit's Usefulness in Pedagogy"

Course Reflections

Term Project
Peer Term Projects
Term Paper Peer Review Activity
My Term Paper

Coverage

King Lear Acts 1-2
King Lear Acts 3-5
"Shakespeare and the End of Feudalism"
"Shakespeare's King Lear"
Ender's Game, Ch 1-6
Ender's Game, Finish
Wit

Depth

"Shakespeare and the End of Feudalism"
TV Turn Off Week
Comment on Hallie's Blog on "Shakespeare's King Lear and the End of Feudalism"

Discussions

Ender's Game, Finish
"Shakespeare's King Lear"

Interaction

Corinne's Blog on King Lear, Acts 1-2
Bethany Merryman's Blog on King Lear, Acts 3-5
Comment on Jenna's Blog about Ender's Game, Finish
Comment on Jennifer's Blog about Ender's Game, Finish

Timeliness

King Lear Acts 3-5
"Shakespeare and the End of Feudalism"
"Shakespeare's King Lear"
Ender's Game, Finish
Wit

Xenoblogging

"Shakespeare and the End of Feudalism"
"Shakespeare's King Lear"
First Comment on Shayla's Blog about "Shakespeare's King Lear"
Thank You on Hallie's Blog

Wildcard Entry

A Star With Your Name on It

Student 2: I think he's hiding. I think he's really confused, I don't know, maybe he's scared, so he hides behind all this complicated stuff, hides behind this wit.

This student, although the brilliance is brief and revealed in reference to Donne, has really just uncovered Vivian's secret. I think that is what she was doing throughout a good portion of her life. Yes, she achieved great things, yes she was a brilliant professor, yes she was strong and has a lot of personality. But, she is hiding a lot of that personality underneath her wit and intelligence. I wonder what it is that she might be afraid of, or what she might be confused about. But, it almost reminds me of Everyman, she cannot take her wit and brilliance with her to death, and she has guarded herself against love and affection for so long, she is left lonely during these 8 months of intense struggle. It is really moving, and being a witness to that struggle as a reader, makes me wish I could be there to be that person to care about her, as much as she might deny her need for it. It just makes me want to shout out "I'm here!...I care about you!" as I read it. Edson did a great job of making me care about the character.

This play was wonderfully simple, and yet so complex - the perfect composition for portraying the ideas that this student speaks about in the scene from which the above quotation came from.

I also think the fact that there is no intermission is significant. It doesn't really need one, being such a short and simple play. But, more than that, life has no intermission (please forgive the cliché). You can't just say, stop, this is too much, let's take a break for a bit. The world never stops, it keeps on turning and we are left to do with each minute what we will, cope any way we can without being at the same time destructive.

As Maggie said on her blog, a very good read, thanks Dr. Jerz, for saving the best for last.

In light of Dr. Jerz’s inspirational speech earlier today in class, I decided that I post a little reflection in response for my wildcard entry because I want those of you out there who are inherently like the wonderful people that he spoke about to benefit from a little wisdom that I have gained as a result of my experiences this semester. (I love you Karissa and Amanda – you are both truly very inspiring and I only wish I had been able to know you longer before it was your time to leave the Hill…you will both be missed sorely.)

I have always been a believer in going after what you want and in the idea that if you want it bad enough and you work hard enough, you can achieve anything. I still believe in that philosophy as much as I always have and I love that Dr. Jerz shares this philosophy with me. I am so grateful that he has always made sure his students know that he believes in us just as much as he expects us to believe in ourselves. So, believe in yourself and go after your goals. No one can achieve them but you. Get involved, find something that will help you achieve your goals that you will love and dive right in. Extend yourself beyond your comfort zone because that is the only way you will grow. But, please remember this: make sure your goals are really what you want before you pour your heart and soul into achieving them. Nothing hurts more than reaching and reaching, stretching yourself way beyond your limits, only to come close and find that the star you were reaching for doesn’t have your name on it. It was really meant for someone else; someone you thought you were, someone you naively expected yourself to be. But, what you expected of yourself didn’t really make any sense, and you were too stubborn to admit it; so eager to prove to the world you could do what so many others couldn’t, even if it meant you had to become something you hate.

I took 19 credits this semester: Our beloved EL 150 Intro to Lit (it conflicted with my STW class last year) and three other 300 level lit classes, one education course, the one credit practicum at Greensburg Central Catholic High School that goes with it, and Oral Communications. I fought tooth and nail at the end of last semester and the beginning of this semester to get my education course, ED 222 (English in Secondary Education) as an independent study because it was offered at the exact same time as EL 312 Literary Criticism, 6-8:30 Thursday nights. Both are only offered during spring odd semesters and I was determined to finish both my degree and my teaching certificate requirements in time to student teach by spring 2009.

It was a goal that I told myself I had to achieve, no matter what. I just didn’t want to take that extra semester to student teach like most students in the program do. Why was it so important to me? I really have no idea anymore. It doesn’t make any sense to me now. But for nearly two years I was convinced that I had to do it. Maybe just because so many people told me it couldn’t be done, maybe because I thought everyone would think I was something great if I did it in four years. But, really, the only one telling me that I had to do it was…me. There is no prize for being done early, no one is going to be more likely to hire me over someone who took that extra semester, my degree and certificate would be worth the same regardless of when I got it, there isn’t even a lame special gold sticker that I get to wear. In fact, there really aren’t even any drawbacks to taking an extra semester to student teach aside from perhaps financially, but even that really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. (Trust me, there are ways of making it work – I have gotten so many rewards for my hard work through scholarships – almost more than I can count. Don’t ever let something like money stand in the way of your dreams…there is money out there and so many students don’t take advantage of it. You have to look around for it sometimes, but it really is out there.) Finishing in four years was a goal that I thought I wanted, but when it really came down to it, it isn’t what I wanted at all.

I have spent this last semester trying to do all of the things that would help me reach my goal, including spending those Friday nights in my room doing homework until 3AM. But, it didn’t stop there. I would also spend all Saturday night in my room doing homework, and all Sunday. I have slept very little, talked to friends very little, and been happy very little. I have a constant feeling of dread to the point where I feel sick to my stomach no matter how hard I worked, how much time spent devoted to studies, I always felt like I was drowning in my workload. I was kicking with all my might for just one breath of air so I could make it through another day. I also had commitments related to many outside activities: the layout for the Setonian, fundraising for the education club, my job as an RA – all things I could normally handle without a problem. But, not with the workload I was carrying. In fact, even if all of those things had been eliminated I still know that I wouldn’t have had much free time.

I made time for those things because they are important to me, just as much as my studies are, in fact. I know they help me grow and better myself in ways that my schoolwork can’t and I just need that kind of – almost spiritual I would call it – stimulation. It gets me through. It might seem to some people that it just adds stress, but really that stuff is my therapy. Honestly. What I feel when I know I am doing something important, whether it is producing another amazing issue of the Setonian, or learning how to use a power saw while helping others who are much less fortunate than myself, is incredible. That feeling is why I am alive. But, this semester I feel like the intensity of that feeling gets masked by this constant nauseating feeling telling me that if I am not in class, I should be working on homework. Any time I did anything fun, spent any time with friends, planned a floor program, my brain was gnawing on itself and my stomach was turning in knots as I thought of all the work that awaited me. That constant guilt ruined a lot of things that should have been fun or enjoyable.

I also had an intense surge of hatred, and that is a strong word for me to use seriously, for anyone who said they were going to the mall, to a movie, to Wal-mart, to see a friend’s recital. I felt this serious, though fleeting, hatred every time my roommates would sit around and talk, or sing, or be goofy while I was busy reading and blogging and writing papers. And it was constant. There was never a single night this semester in which I could come back to my room, often as late as 11PM, after being at a meeting or in the library or even class and just get ready for bed and go to sleep. I always had work to do until the wee hours of the morning. There is not even a difference between day and night to me except the amount of natural light that shines in my room. I would come back and my roommates would be hanging out, having a good time, and I wanted to join in so badly. But, I rarely did. Otherwise there was the guilt. But, when I didn’t there was the hatred. How dare they not have any homework to do? How dare they be allowed to have a good time when I am stuck here doing assignment after assignment, the load never ceasing, no time to breathe? How dare they be so happy and carefree when I am miserable? But, who gave me all that work? I can’t blame my professors. I can’t blame my major. I can’t blame my friends or family. It was all me. I expected too much. I forgot that I am still only human, and there are only so many hours in a day. I am not superwoman. I can do anything I set my mind to, I still know that. But, I need to be careful what I set my mind to, because something the effort is not worth the results.

Everyone I know tells me how much they believe in me and I want to thank each an every one of you for doing so, it means so much to me. I’m not sure why they think I am something special. I have always been good at fooling people into thinking I am smart, but I’m nothing exceptional. I am not in any way brilliant. But, I work hard. That is truly how I got here, sheer hard work and the support of great people who love and care about me. I don’t regret for a minute being a hard-worker, and I wouldn’t want to be someone who just does what they have to in order to get by. But, I am tired of hating the people who do things that way and do it well.

A part of me feels like I am letting down everyone who believes in me, they all keep saying “Lorin, you can do it” thinking that will make me feel better. Really, that is what hurts most of all, because I think that if I don’t everyone will be disappointed. I feel like everyone is so used to me succeeding that I am not allowed to fail. But, maybe I need to fail, just this once, so I can remember that I am just a person like everyone else. So that I can remember that being alive isn’t worth it if you aren’t living. And living isn’t spending every moment thinking about how much work you should be doing, just waiting for things to get better. Besides, don't they say "failure isn't failure, if a lesson from it's learned"? (Kent Blazy, Garth Brooks, "How You Ever Gonna Know").

I did not enjoy doing my work this semester because there was always so much of it and I was always worrying about the next assignment that I somehow had to find to time to do. I usually enjoy my work immensely. In fact, I am in love with my major. But, I will admit that I didn’t love it this semester like I normally do. My work has suffered as a result. And I know that in the end, that is what hurt my true goal, that star out there that does have my name on it. That star is shining a little less brightly now as it is so much farther away, and it will take some time before it can shine as it did before. By striving for the wrong star, the one that meant finishing everything in four years, I made it more difficult to reach the star that really has my name on it.

So do work hard. Chase your dreams with all the passion and vigor you have to achieve them. You might as well be running on a treadmill, going nowhere, unless you get up and run cross-country after those dreams. And, yes, working hard does mean doing things that are not fun, that you don’t want to do, things that you may not enjoy. But, it shouldn’t mean working so hard that you can’t enjoy the things that you are working for. So if you are at all like me and you constantly push yourself, trying for perfection, attempting to do things that in the end are not worth the effort you insist on putting in, remember this: take the time to get out a telescope (the strongest one you can find) and look really closely. Make sure that the star you are reaching for has your name on it, because knowing what you really want can be just as hard as the work you have to do to get it.

As a good portion of us plan on practicing some form of pedagogy of various levels from elementary to university, Tiff and I thought it would be especially helpful to see what everyone thought of the role literary criticism plays in our jobs as future educators.

We may not have known it when we were in school, I know I never noticed it, but the literary lens through which our teachers in school approached literature affected us more than you might think.

The two classes of high school juniors that I am working with this semester, as I mentioned during class last week, are currently reading Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The teacher devoted several days to dispensing all sorts of different pre-reading information to give the students background on the text, the author, the time-period, themes of the novel. He went into lessons about satire, the noble savage, and the use of the vernacular in the novel. While I think this is all very useful information I worry about the effects of giving them all that information before even letting them lay hands on the text itself. The teacher has a tendency to tell them exactly how they should view the literature before they have even read it. Then, they complete study guides for each chapter and talk about the answers in class. Those study guides, which are largely plot-based, are also the basis of the students' tests.

I think he feels a need to do this with them because the other teachers at the school seem to expect so little from the students. When you want them to think for themselves they give you a very formidable deer-in-the-headlights look that makes you panic when you are standing there in front of a class that expects you to tell them exactly what they need to know. And he is very good at drawing out of them good answers to questions when he feels strongly about something, but overall I think the expectations are lower than what the students are capable of meeting - and I will tell you right now that I not how I would run my own class.

One thing that I feel very strongly about since I began my post-secondary literary studies, is that high school teachers tend to teach the students all sorts of things that need to be un-taught when they get to college. It drives me crazy! Shouldn't we be teaching students skills they can build on when they get to college, not skills and habits they have to break in order to be successful in post-secondary education!?! So, one of my goals when I teach is not to teach my students things that they need to be un-taught later. That might mean expecting more out of my students than the average high school English teacher, but I think in the end it will benefit them greatly.

Sorry about that little detour, but the point of all that is to start by saying I would take an approach similar to the one Karissa mentioned in her contribution to the carnival, and that is to give the students the works going into it cold. Of course, I will choose novels and stories much more appropriate for their reading level (I think the English Patient would certainly be expecting too much ;0) but I want to see their reactions to a piece of literature without them being tainted by my influences and knowledge. Even if the first reaction is as simple as "I did/did not like the work" I can easily move to asking them why and then I can develop some specific questions to get them to focus on key parts of the work. I want to see what the students can do on their own and use that to build from there. I also want to try to ignite and foster a love of literature and writing as much as I can (obviously this will not be possible with every student, but it is a good goal to reach a few). I think the best way to do that is to make the students feel like what they know and think is valuable. So I guess that means I will initially take a reader-response sort of approach to introducing literature. But, like Karissa, I could never limit myself to one approach.

After getting their first reactions then I would want to get into things like author biography and cultural history to help shape the understanding of the work in a useful way. I would also probably want to ask the students in which ways parts of the work remind them of their own life or perhaps how they think it reflects the lives of people from the time period it was written in order to take a mimetic approach. Depending on my students I could even see myself dipping very slightly into an intertextual lens.

Now, as far formalism and postmodern/deconstruction-type criticisms, that would be going too far I think for high school students. It just wouldn't be useful to try to bring that into my teaching. And maybe an AP class would benefit from psycho-analytic ideas, (and they also might be able to handle the formalist ideas too) but I don't think I would want to get into that stuff with a regular class. I think they do need some guidance and information in order to be able to learn what to focus on when studying literature. And I will always emphasize the need to find textual evidence for all claims made about a work so that the students won't think the outside information is necessary to understand a work (they must just realize the potential for its usefulness, of course).

Overall, I want to emphasize the flexibility of the study of literature and show my students how endless the possibilities are for the written word so that they realize two very important things: A) that there is more to literature than the plot and B) they will never find any "right" answers in the back of a literature book, only endless possibilities. And these possibilities require exploration in order to determine which ones are probable.

“Culture” By Stephen Greenblat

Greenblat begins his essay by quoting Edward B. Tylor, who defines culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (437).

Greenblat wants to know why this is useful to literature students. His answer: Maybe it’s not. Why not? Well, take the word culture. Greenblatt points out that it is “impossibly vague and encompassing” (437). That means that just about anything can be attributed to it, anything can be related to it, it can be used to connect just about anything. The word “ideology” presents a very similar problem. These terms, because of their ambiguity, are rather meaningless. (This is particularly interesting to me after Karissa’s presentation on de Mann’s “Semilogy and Rhetoric” and the idea that there can be no universal signifier, yet the word culture seems to have limitless meanings, which therefore make it meaningless.)

In order to deal with the vagueness of the word “culture” we constantly have to use other words to make it more specific. Greenblatt gives examples such as “aristocratic culture” and “youth culture” but, as I thought about the validity of his statements, I realized that to truly narrow down out reference point when talking about culture, we really could go on forever trying to further qualify the term. For example, start with youth culture. Well, what kind of youth culture are we talking about? Let’s make it more specific:

American youth culture

Ok, but still, American is pretty big. We can be more specific than that:

American youth culture in the South

And yet even more specific:

Urban American youth culture in the South

And so on, and so on. All by its lonesome, the word “culture: means very little. Now, there is nothing wrong with this, even according to Greenblatt. But, he also points out that it is problematic when trying to provide “the backbone of an innovative critical practice” (437).

This leads Greenblatt to ask, not “why is culture useful to literature students?” but instead, “How can we get the concept of culture to do more work for us?”(437).

Greenblatt then introduces the ideas of constraint and mobility.

Constraint: This concept has to do, of course, with the limits on social behavior. Our societies have beliefs, practices, laws etc. that serve as a tool for conformity and they make up the cultural constraints Greenblatt is writing about.
We consider our limits in the United States to be, well, quite unlimited in comparison to many other countries. But, while we have many freedoms, they are never infinite! (Hmmmm, I think it might be safe for me to say “never” right there.)

So, if we have these constraints, these limits, then we must have consequences for going beyond these limits. Interestingly, the Greenblatt points out that the consequences we derive to punish the severe limit breakers – prison, execution, exile – are rarely as effective as the things we all encounter at one point or another for breaking cultural/social norms. He gives examples like condescending gestures, pity, contempt, sarcasm, silence.

There are also positive consequences for following within the boundaries of culture that make people stay within the constraints of a culture. Things like formal awards and prizes, to small, simple words of gratitude. It is very much about acceptance (just to throw in a bit of a psychological lens through which we can view things).

So how does all this work for us students of literature? Well, to begin, Greenblatt states that: “Western literature…has been one of the great institutions for the enforcement of cultural boundaries through praise and blame” (437). The obvious examples of this? Satire and panegyric.

Now, just to take a slight detour here, when I first read this part I had to think of Mark Twain and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because right now that is the novel I am helping to teach in the junior American literature classes at Greensburg Central Catholic. There has always been a lot of controversy around the novel with people claiming that it is racist, but the teacher and I have been stressing to the students about the satire and how the novel actually makes a comment against slavery and so it was challenging, and sometimes still does because of the touchy issue of race, those boundaries that Greenblatt is talking about.

Greenblatt goes on to say that the effectiveness of these works fades because the cultural boundaries change over time (although with the example of Huck Finn either it is not true, or perhaps more time needs to go by in order for it to be true). So, Greenblatt concludes that the “awareness of culture as a complex whole can help us recover” a “sense of the stakes that once gave readers pleasure and pain” by “leading us to reconstruct the boundaries upon whose existence the works were predicated” (437). To do this Greenblatt suggests we ask certain questions such as:

1. What kinds of behavior, what models of practice, does this work seem to enforce?
2. Why might readers at a particular time and place find this work compelling?
3. Are there differences between my values and the values implicit in the work I am reading?
4.Upon what social understanding does the work depend?
5. Whose freedom of thought or movement might be constrained implicitly or explicitly by this work?

6. What are the larger social structures with which these particular acts of praise or blame might be connected.

Greenblatt says that these questions are meant to “heighten our attention to features of the literary work that we might not have noticed” as well as to “connections among elements within the work” (438). He is sure to emphasize that although a cultural examination does require the use of resources outside the text that these resources do not replace the need for a close examination of the text itself.

One of the main things to note, as Tiffany and Vanessa and Dena did on their blogs. is that Greenblatt asserts that learning about the culture from which they came is a way to learn about the works as much as those works are a reference to help us learn about that cultural world from which they came, as an absorption of the boundaries and limits that once existed. So if the exploration of a culture leads to greater understanding of the work, than the exploration of the literature leads to a greater understanding of the culture. That is what a liberal education does for us (hence why American Literature is offered as a U.S. Cultures class to non-majors here at SHU).

As an example, Greenblatt references Shakespeare's As You Like It and talks about its commentary on manners and the ideas of proper "cultivation," both making fun of the customs of the day, as well as participating in it because " for even as his plays represent characters engaged in negotiating the boundaries of their culture, the plays also help to establish and maintain those boundaries" (439).

Jay uses a quotation from Greenblatt on his blog that emphasizes the usefulness of literature to affect culture:
"In any culture there is a general symbolic economy made up of the myriad signs that excite human desire, fear, and aggression. Through their ability to construct resonant stories, their command of effective imagery, and all above their sensitivity to the greatest collective creation of culture-- language-- literary artists are skilled at manipulating this economy" (Greenblatt 440).

One thing I noticed about Greenblatt's essay, is his ability to incorporate ideas that belong to other forms of literary criticism (which is significant since we talked about culture being all-encompassing, so it makes sense that the cultural criticism would be as well). So, on that note I would once again like to emphasize that Greenblatt seems to see literature as a signifier for culture (again getting back to that de Mann stuff!) and he sees it as intertextual as well when he states that "A culture is a particular network of negotiations for the exchange of material goods, ideas, and ...people" (439).

To close, I could like to point out this idea of mobility of culture and the role literature plays in it. The constraints mentioned earlier mean nothing without the implication of movement because of everything was still, we would not need boundaries. But, authors "take symbolic materials from one zone of the culture and move them to another, augmenting their emotional force, altering their significance, linking them with other materials taken from a different zone, changing their place in a larger social design" (440).

"Essential to the historico-political critique which we are proposing here are analytic strategies made possible by the concept of discourse. Intertextual has usefully directed attention to the relationship between texts: discourse moves us towards a clarification of just what kinds of relationship are involved" (445).

So are Barker and Hume saying that intertextuality is not enough, that even through using it we can't just focus on the links between texts, but that we must categorize the links and use them to make arguments about those links? To an extent I see this as a combination, once again of type of literary criticism. I think of intertextuality as a type of historical criticism anyway, because to me any text that has literary value also has some sort of historical value and vice versa. This idea of discourse seems really important also in that it has a sort of inconclusiveness about it, like we are never able to close the discussion of any topic on literature, which of course, makes sense, because if there is nothing for us to talk about anymore then we are "intellectually dead" as Dr. Jerz put it.

"Since her story seems designed to criticize common medical practices towards women and the mentally ill, Gilman may have anticipated an angry response from offended doctors and husbands and seen only what she expected to see when she read the letter" (479).

I was so outraged as I read this article. How could people be so careless in the way they reprint versions of the story? I had no idea how different the versions were. It really makes a huge difference. And when critics and biographers be so inaccurate in their information? Doesn't anyone have any pride in the work they do? Why can people be more honest? GRRRR! And since people often look at "The Yellow Wallpaper" as somewhat autobiographical for Gilman, why on earth would critics trust what she wrote and said in her own biography and what she said about her work's publication? Obviously she was losing it somewhat and she even seemed to know it.

Anyway, the above quotation reminded me of good old news writing, EL227 freshman year. What was that book we read? About statistics being misconstrued in the media, like when they talk about the number of rapes going up, but really there are just more rapes being reported, so it is actually a good thing. Gilman could have easily had an idea already preconceived in her mind, so she wrote to portray that idea regardless of how accurate it really was. People do this all the time, and I know I am just as guilty even though I can't see it...because I can't see it. I think everyone does, but they don't mean to, as Gilman didn't necessarily do it on purpose. But, we still must realize that we can't just take her word for everything. We have to investigate, as Dave points out using the quotation on his blog. "'The Yellow Wallpaper' indicates what happens when critics stop looking for evidence after they find 'facts' that validate their interpretations" (478). We can never stop asking questions in order to be accurate.

"The boys were outraged, complaining loudly in the slang that they usually avoided around the commander. What they doing to us? They be crazy, neh?" (192).

I noticed early on that the boys very rarely spoke proper English, especially when just causally speaking to each other, but I am wondering why Card made that choice. To me, their language is more than just slang, it is sometimes so awkward that it seems like it would take more effort for them to speak that way than to speak properly. And, these boys (and girls) are apparently some of the most brilliant young people from Earth, so why do they insist on speaking that way? Is is because they do have minimal training in language since their schooling consists of more math, science, and military strategy classes? Obviously, not all of them are American so they might be speaking English as a second language, which could be a factor. But, in general, it seems like they know how to speak with correct grammar, but choose not to. Why? Does anyone have any ideas? Is it some sort of rebellion, or does it make them seem tougher and more dangerous? Why would Card choose to have the boys speak in very obvious non-standard English? I know that is how most of us talk when in casual conversation, but I still don't think many of us say "They be crazy" even though we'd be likely to slur words together like "I'm gonna..." or "gimme." What do you think?

"Thank you for this Peter. For dry eyes and silent weeping. You taught me how to hide anything I felt. More than ever, I need that now" (33).

This novel is already so engaging and we have only read about the first 50 pages. It interests me how Ender, a boy of only six, not only has the brains of a genius, the ability to be smarter than people ten times his age, but also to be wiser than a lot of those same people. That is what makes him different than a lot of the other boys I think. This statement above shows his wisdom because he sees how something has helped him, even though that something wasn't very pleasent. And yet, it worries me, because he is being so easily dehumanized in order to prepare him for war. And while I see the advantages of that...I think that the human factor is what you really need to win a war. Of course, maybe that isn't the case in a war against aliens?

"In short, what social forces influence reading practices and what are the social consequences of these practices?" (413).

I am currently doing my secondary teaching practicum at Greenburg Central Catholic this semester and currently the juniors in American lit are reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin and like "Benito Cereno" people always have issues with the portrayal of racism and raise the questions like "Should we read the novel because it is racist?" Of course, this is something I and the teacher I am working with are discussing this in depth with the students. Huck Finn is still banned in a lot of schools and other places, but we stress to the students how Twain satirizes the institution of slavery and that he was a realist and a regionalist and so he is authentically portraying the culture and society he was writing about.

This was important for us to address with the students because of this issue Keesey addresses that is so close to the hearts of many "cultural critics" and I believe that as a teacher this is something I will need to consider and it is something that the school board that I work for will consider when it decides what should be part of the curriculum. So, in this way, I think as a teacher I will be asking the same questions that literary critics are asking and using it to apply to my teaching. Literary criticism really reaches further into our lives than I think we initially realized when we began this class. It will influence what and how I teach my students. And for anyone going into publishing, lit crit ideas will also influence the decisions made in that field as well.

"Critics generally agree that the narrator's condition deteriorates after she stops writing in her journal and becomes obsessed with the wall-paper. After the narrator substitues a fixation with the wall-paper for her previous interests, she becomes protective toward the paper and the fantasized double(s) who inhabit it, eventually going so far as to threaten that 'no person touches this paper but me, - not alive'" (403).

First of all, I thought one of the debates of literary critics was whether or not she did actually cease writing, or if she was ever writing at all and even if the narrator is in fact the protagonist in the story or perhaps instead Gilman herself? But, assuming that the woman is writing, and that she does in fact stop and perhaps the text transforms from her writing to just us being privy to her thoughts through whatever means, I think this is a very valid assertion and something that I didn't ever think to focus on before. She really does seem to become strangely possessive of the wallpaper, as if she is attempting to control it because she feel so out of control in every other way and she is stuck on bed rest all the time. I would probably do some really odd things too, (to me idleness really is the world's greatest evil...don't tell Hamlet!) and regardless of whether or not you think the woman is losing it because of the patriarchy that she is a victim of either directly or indirectly (and she is really losing it directly as a result of her "cure") I think this observation is an important one to make because it really shows how the wall-paper becomes a sign signifying her mental deterioration, or something like that. I don't know, but it sounds good.

"The basic point, as I take it anyhow, is that good and evil are built into most of us (perhaps all - I'm still holding out on Miranda), and most of us are capable of being better - especially being taught to be better" (381).

Throughout a good portion of this essay I was wondering, how is this applying the literary theory to the text? Miko seems to make a lot of assertions like the one above that to me seemed like he was making general statements about the nature of humanity that you really don't need The Tempest to make.

Of course, the ideas about the ambiguity of the ending and all the loose ends did make sense to me though. Although, I don't really see why everyone is so fascinated with the claim that it is meant to end ambiguously. In the EL 150 Intro class that I am in we have talked about a lot of what we have read this semester as being open-ended or ambiguous. And basically, what has been concluded (which I realize is very un-poststructural of us, I'm sorry) is that if everything was tied up nicely in a neat little package without any ambiguities then there really wouldn't be much for us to talk about. (Which I think we've talked about in lit crit, but I am not sure because I tend to get the two confused sometimes and often we talk about the same things in both). Now, I have read A LOT of different things this semester, and one thing I am finding at the end of a lot of what I read (more so in my young adult lit class that anywhere else) is that they just seem to end as if the author ran out of ideas or time and things are left very open-ended. Sometimes I feel like this is done well and even though there are questions I still feel satisfied when I am done. But, other times I feel unsatisfied like there should be more to the story and I think this is partially what makes the difference between a good and a bad piece of literature. When I used to play in band for about 10 years, my conductor always emphasized to us that we absolute had to nail the ending of each piece because that is what the audience would remember above all else. I feel the same way about literature. Ok that was a bit of a tangent but sometimes I just need to ramble to clear my head of all the clutter that builds up as a result of thinking about things a little too much sometimes.

Coverage

King Lear Acts 1-2
King Lear Acts 3-5
"Shakespeare and the End of Feudalism"
"Shakespeare's King Lear"