tatertot's documents

K, included find several poems that I taught and thought were successful. I would suggest limited the schema that the students focus on to five main aspects. I used speaker, setting, imagery, mood/tone, theme. You may even want to cut out theme. The students can examine these five dimensions at the beginning of every poem analysis. then go into the poem in more detail. rather than grouping poem...

"Still I Rise" You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to se...

The Poet’s Song “At a Solemn Music” 1 Blest pair of sirens, pledges of heaven’s joy, 2 Sphere-borne harmonious sisters, Voice, and Verse, 3 Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ 4 Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce, 5 And to our high-raised phantasy present, 6 That undisturbed song of pure concent, 7 Ay sung before the sapphire-coloured throne 8 To him that sits thereon 9...

travis' loneliness is figured through glass - everyone he meets is first seen as an image through a window, rear-view mirror, tv screen. he's a voyeur, a watcher, not a man of action that interacts w/others. his loneliness and frustration leads him to become a man of action in the most extreme form by the end of the movie, when he saves the prostitute and kills her oppressors. his loneliness an...

i'm reading about "cuteness" in japan. it was originally a phenomenon started by youth but soon appropriated by industry. soon the selling of cute little trinkets, some of them near-useless or entirely useless, was huge. the cute lent personality to objects such that consumers could have relationships w/their commodities that they might lack with other people in a society pervaded by alienation...

Due to Ireland’s small size and its history of colonization, it must constantly consider its relationship with larger outside powers. With Britain in the east and America in the west, the Irish are divided upon how to deal with these foreign forces. Presently, Ireland imports American culture and modernity while exporting a traditional, picturesque image of itself. Thus, Ireland is “torn betwee...

The teacher of my 6th grade music class insisted upon the following point: “Rap is not music.” She outlined the necessary components of music and pointed out that rap was missing harmony, melody, and euphony. Artistically speaking, rap was just “noise.” She then launched into social commentary, illuminating for us the damaging aspects of rap that come about due to its association with violence,...

Dialogism in Daisy Miller Bakhtin’s explanation of dialogism can help us understand the dynamics and narrative direction of Henry James’ Daisy Miller. Winterborne is the Bakhtinian “arena” in which the opposing discourses of Daisy Miller engage in a struggle with each other. Daisy Miller represents the American discourse of innocence and naïve purity. Mrs. Costello and Mrs. Walker, on the other...

The first striking quality of Giacometti’s “Femme Debout” is that, though the sculpture generally resembles the shape of a woman’s body, it is not strictly mimetic. Like his past constructions, it is “not ‘natural’ to a model posed in a studio.” In fact, “its sources was in another work of art,” which, in Giacometti’s case, means a “primitive” source. The face of the woman resembles the formali...

Lost in the Rubble The vibrant German film industry, which boasted a cinematic tradition and star system relatively independent from Hollywood, found itself in shambles in the aftermath of World War II. During the Third Reich, cinema served as Goebbel’s most powerful propaganda instrument. Nationalistic films celebrated nationalism and militarism and entertainment movies projected images of imm...

Looking Inside George Grosz painted Inside and Outside in 1926, a time in his career when he was still actively engaged in leftist political agitation in Germany. The message of this painting, like most of his political art, is simple and direct. The “outside” represents the desolate world of the oppressed lower class, whereas the “inside” displays the luxury enjoyed by the upper class. The pur...

• first, the most obvious space- the room. (clausterphobic, sterile, empty, barren, bare) • room is the literal representation of the other spaces in the play numerous other spaces: space of the ashcans in which Nell and Nagg are too far apart, space outside the room (as seen thru the window), windows can only be reached by ladder, hell, chessboard space (checkmate when Clov leaves) characteris...

Ordering Space The characters of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey have psychological desires for order that are manifested and illustrated by the physical spaces around them. They try to assert control over their space through the use of technology. Their neurotic attempts to measure and order space are a reaction to the frightening reality that the universe ...

According to Marxist theory, the superstructure, structure, and base of society form a system that desires to perpetuate itself. Though the society is brimming with inequality, the system manages to contain and siphon off discontent and revolution by presenting itself as “natural,” as the way things should and have to be. Gramsci says that this unstable equilibrium is infrequently punctured wit...

Chinese Imagism When developing his ideas for Imagism, Ezra Pound found such inspiration in Chinese poetry that he declared, “It is possible that this century may find a new Greece in China.”1 In 1915, Pound published Cathay, a translation of fifteen Chinese poems. Possessing no knowledge of Chinese himself, he based his translations entirely upon the glosses and notes of Ernest Fenollosa, an A...

wan-yue ci (song lyric poetry or lyric poetry) and their practicioners, Ch'en Tzu-lung and Wen Tingyun

Dismantling the Reparations Upon the conclusion of WWII, the Allies were faced with forming a reparations policy that would compensate victims of German aggression and eliminate German war potential, while balancing these concerns against the need to economically reconstruct the rest of Europe. Since Germany’s currency and financial system was all but defunct in the immediate post-war period, a...

Defining Africa After a recent history of colonialism and continuing cultural and political marginalization, African filmmakers face the difficult task of reconstructing their people’s identity in a time when identity is becoming increasingly fluid. An influx of foreign images and capital are redefining Africa, as Africa’s culture is still struggling to assert that, far from being primitive and...

average American spends half of their 5 hrs. of leisure per day on television - American Time-Use Survey, by US Dept of Labor, Sept 2004 within approximately 30 seconds her brain waves shifted from primarily beta waves (conscious, alert attention) to primarily alpha waves (a receptive, light trance state) shift from unfocused left brain logical analytical processing to right brain emotive uncri...

Yellow Raft general notes  TV as fantasy box. yellow raft is also fantasy space. isolated.  multiple narratives so the reader must triangulate to find the “truth”. elusiveness of reality  quest for identity thru remembering past  isolation & self-sufficiency vs. inseparability of the 3 women. males are alienated  extravagant fancy mixed with the mundane (real life vs. fantasy TV life)  wh...