Tag: American literature

Lesson Plans: The Crucible, A Scavenger Hunt through Salem

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I’ve been reading Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible with high school English students since I first began my teaching career in 2006. I’ve been teaching Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter for almost as long. A few years into my career, I went on a campaign to convince my family that we should spend part of our summer touring around Salem, Massachusetts. I wanted to experience first-hand the place I had been reading about since I myself sat in a high school English classroom studying these works, and I knew I could gather material that would enhance my teaching of the play, the two fascinating and terrifying time periods it explores (the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Era),  and the novel. For reasons I don’t remember, the trip didn’t happen, and years went by–but this past summer, my aunt and uncle moved to Cape Cod, and when I visited them in June, they were kind enough to help make my years-long dream of visiting Salem a reality (though it meant about as much time in the car as it did on the streets of Salem!).

Witch House Purple Flowers
The Witch House is one of the many sites my students “visit” on their scavenger hunt of Salem through the halls of our high school.

After visiting, reading about, and photographing The Nathaniel Hawthorne Birthplace, The House of the Seven Gables, The Custom House, The Salem Witch Trials Memorial, The Old Burial Ground, The Witch House, and several other points of interest, I felt exhausted, educated, intrigued–and a little like there was still so much to see, and so little time! Still, I had gathered tons of interesting information to share with my students and satisfy (or pique!) my own curiosity, and I had taken dozens upon dozens of photographs to share with my classes come September.

But what to do with this information and these photographs? Sure, I could throw the photographs up on the screen and give my students the “My Day in Salem” lecture. I could put the photographs and information into a Power Point, Prezi, or Google Slides presentation. I could print them off and pass them around the room.

But none of this was good enough. None of it even approximated the real thing.

Victims' Memorial
The Witch Trials Memorial in Salem, Massachusetts

 

About a month went by, the photos still on my phone, the information still in my head, before I realized that what I really wanted to do was, well, take my students to Salem…

This, of course, was not as realistic as a “My Day in Salem” Power Point. But it would be  so much more effective!

So what if I mimicked the experience to the best of my ability…by turning the halls of our high school into the sidewalks and streets of Salem, Massachusetts? I typed an e-mail to my principal, and with her approval and support, set about creating my Salem Scavenger Hunt. With the help of my colleagues, the plan went smoothly this fall. So smoothly, in fact, that two of my colleagues created their own subject-specific scavenger hunts for their classes. This spring, with the help of Erin Ford, our school’s resident technology genius, I’m confident it will go even better. Erin has helped me incorporate technology like augmented reality to enhance the experience and further engage my students. Using the app HP Reality, formerly Aurasma, our scavenger hunt is going to come to life–to approximate an actual visit to Salem as closely as possible.

 

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Throughout our reading of the play and the novel, my students were still referring back to things they had learned in the scavenger hunt. It was far more effective than a lecture, worksheet, or presentation would have been. As much as possible, it brought the places, the people, and the time period alive for my students. The plans are below. I hope you and your students will get as much out of this as my students and I do!

Below is the original, more “analog” version of the scavenger hunt, which uses photos I printed and laminated from my trip.

A Visit to Salem Scavenger Hunt.docx

Thanks to Erin, you can find the technology-enhanced version below. It will require you to download the HP Reality app and set up your own augmented reality. You will still use the photos available in the analog version above, but when students use the app and hold their phone over specific photographs at each site, they will see videos, articles, etc. relevant to that site (once you have created your specific Aurasma).

Scavenger Hunt Rules

Following the technology-enhanced scavenger hunt, students are then asked to create a presentation using what they learned. They could also do this in the less technologically involved version, as well. Find a template here:

Travel Log

Regardless of whether you opt for the more analog version or the more technological version, you will need:

  • enough copies of the rules/worksheet packet for each student
  • colleagues willing to chaperone your students in the hallways
  • photographs of the sites, placed ahead of time at various locations around the school
  • enough copies of a map of your school, marked with the locations of the sites, for each student or each group of students.

My execution of this technology-enhanced version is slated for February, and I can hardly wait to see how it goes!

Witch House IV
The kitchen of the Witch House, where the trials initiated.

Social Media and the Write Life

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“Comparison is the death of joy,” according to Mark Twain, and there’s something to that. You might be familiar with a more contemporary term for the truth Twain describes: FOMO. The acronym stands for “Fear Of Missing Out,” and refers to the phenomenon caused in part by social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, which occurs when a social media user is exposed to, for example, the seemingly stellar Saturday night plans of his Fill-in-the-Social-Media-Platform friends, and compares those to his own evening plans–which inevitably seem lackluster by–you guessed it–comparison.

Today, more and more people experience FOMO–our own summer vacation at the beach paling in comparison to our colleague’s two-week trip to the Galapagos Islands, the long-stem rose our husband gave us for our birthday seeming somehow inadequate beside the two-dozen roses our neighbor’s husband gave her “just because,” our own career achievements seeming suddenly insignificant compared to our former college roommate’s successful medical practice or quick promotion.

“Comparison is the death of joy.”

–Mark Twain

I agree that comparing our own lives to the lives we see posted on social media–which are only the slices of life people want to display, usually the highlights–is both socially and societally problematic. I also agree that a pervasive use of social media is causing social degradation, as it decreases face-to-face communication and replaces precise, specific language capable of communicating complex emotions with (albeit cute and clever) emojis.

Recently, however, despite my tendency to see the downside of social media, I have come to believe that, if used deliberately, social media can produce positive effects, too, and in fact has yielded immediate positive impacts on my actual life–and this has been particularly true of my writing life.

Social media, used deliberately, has yielded positive impacts on my writing life.

This summer, I was invited to join the Virginia Outdoor Writers Association, and, shortly after I accepted, was asked to chair the VOWA Collegiate Undergraduate Writing and Photography Competition. One of my responsibilities within this role is to secure a new sponsor for the photography portion of the contest, a task on which I have been working since July or August. Recently, it occurred to me to put a call for a sponsor out on Instagram and Facebook–and within an hour, a fledgling photography company responded, interested in pursuing the sponsorship. Whether this pans out remains to be seen, but things are looking up.

 

In addition, several of the authors whose interviews have appeared on this blog, such as Luke P. Narlee, Brandi Kennedy, and Jill Breugem, I met via Instagram. I know that at least in the case of Narlee, the use of social media benefitted him, as well: One reader of this blog purchased and read his book as a direct result of having read our interview.

Some of my writing has even been published as a direct result of social media. My articles in writeHackr Magazine (unfortunately now defunct) were a direct result of social media. I found the magazine and its call for pitches and submissions on Instagram.

The good folks at My Trending Stories also found and contacted me through Instagram, having noticed my account. The same holds true for American Wordsmiths (though in that case, I found them).

My essays on sweatpantsandcoffee.com are also an excellent example. One of my colleagues follows the sweatpantsandcoffee Instagram account, and noticed a post advertising a call for submissions. She immediately shared the post with my account, and I pounced on the opportunity.

 

And, as strongly as I feel social media does anything but foster actual social interaction, my experience with Sweatpants and Coffee led to a real-life meeting with the website’s Operations Director, who happens to live less than hour away from me. We met up at a Starbucks (naturally–Sweatpants and Coffee) in downtown Richmond and spent a lovely couple of hours in the shade on the patio–having a real, face-to-face chat.

I had a similar experience with social media leading to actual socializing last fall at the James River Writers Annual Conference. A few fellow writers I had never met in person recognized me simply because we follow each other on Instagram. I got a little thrill of meeting the people behind the profiles, and our social media accounts gave us a sort of jumping off point as we got acquainted. In one case, I already knew she liked plants and painting; she already knew I was obsessed with my dogs.

It was thrilling to meet the people behind the profiles.

Finally, this blog, in its own right a form of social media, has provided a platform for people who read my work elsewhere, and want to reach out. On several occasions, people who have read my work in the Richmond Times-Dispatch have commented on this blog in response to what they’ve read–and each time, their personal, thoughtful comments have warmed my heart, and encouraged me to keep on keepin’ on. If I did not maintain this blog, these kind readers would have had no means of contacting me.

So, as I celebrate the fact that this weekend, my Instagram account reached over 500 followers (which, compared to the 5k followers some others might have could seem–oh, never mind…), and this post marks the 101st post on this blog, I acknowledge that social media, while it does pose its problems, can also prove a powerful and effective tool.

 

 

Word of the Week: Oneiric

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I am (still) reading Roberto Bolano’s 2666, and during my sofa session Friday afternoon, came across this sentence on page 323:

“The oneiric wind whipped grains of sand that stuck to their faces.”

The word “oneiric” (oh-ny-rick) was a new one for me. The “Look Up” feature on my nook told me it is an adjective that means “of or relating to dreams; dreamy.” Merriam-Webster confirmed the definition, and informed me that the word rests in the bottom 50% of word popularity (what a shame). What a whimsical word to add to my vocabulary.

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The oneiric landscape and atmosphere of this beach along the shores of the Potomac River, near its blending with the Chesapeake Bay, makes it one of my favorite places. I snapped this photograph on my smart phone Saturday, December 17, 2016, after spending an hour at the water’s edge with my husband and dogs, hunting for sea glass and watching the sun set.

In addition to its inherent whimsy, the word applies to my own writing experience: The oneiric state I find myself in just before sleeping or just before waking seems to generate my best writing ideas. The only problem? Whereas I often remember my dreams, I only rarely remember the words I wrote during the course of them.

Other contexts in which I can imagine this word:

She waited impatiently for the oneiric effects of the medication to wear off.

He thought about the oneiric nature of his earliest memories, which might be memories, but might just as likely be imaginings based on stories he’d heard from his parents and grandparents and siblings hundreds of times, his imagination indistinguishable from reality.

The sight of the couple walking arm-in-arm down the cobblestone street summoned an oneiric sense of a life he felt he had never lived, though the photographs he had not yet removed from his walls told him otherwise.

She stepped off the plane and into the oneiric landscape of paradise.

“Oneiric” is also the perfect word to describe Lana Del Ray’s “Young and Beautiful,” as featured on the soundtrack for The Great Gatsby film released in 2013, as well as for the music that corresponds to the green light.

Lastly, I am quite sure that the male protagonist of my current writing project, a novel in its seventh draft titled Goodbye For Now, feels an oneiric sensation at waking up in a stranger’s body, and viewing his life as an outsider.

Poe’s “The Raven” and the Importance of Poetic Devices

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raven-2
While I don’t  have a “pallid bust of Pallas” just above my classroom door on which a raven could perch, I do have a ceiling-mounted projector, and my own raven quite effectively presides over the classroom from there. Side note: my students are always delighted to learn the Baltimore Ravens are named after Poe’s poem.

With Halloween less than a week away, my students and I are delving into Gothic literature with the likes of Poe, Faulkner, and Gilman. One of the Gothic pieces we read is Poe’s familiar poem, “The Raven.” Typically, my students are enthusiastic about the Gothic unit in general, and, as poetry goes, they like “The Raven.” Because they are already predisposed to enjoy this poem, I use it to illustrate the importance and purpose of poetic devices–especially since one question I field almost every year goes something like this: “Why is poetry so complicated? Why can’t he just say it?” Of course, I could answer that “just saying it” takes away from the art of the poem, takes the beauty out of it–but they don’t always particularly care about that. I have found it much more effective to show them why the poet can’t “just say it” by teaching what many of the various poetic devices are, and then stripping the poem bare of them.

One question I field almost every year goes something like this: “Why is poetry so complicated? Why can’t he just say it?” Of course I can answer that “just saying it” takes away from the art of the poem, takes the beauty out of it–but teenaged students don’t always particularly care about that. I have found it much more effective to show them why the poet can’t “just say it,” by stripping the poem bare of all its poetry.

The literary devices we cover include alliteration, allusion, assonance, consonance,

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In the courtyard at the Poe Museum in downtown Richmond, Virginia, one can see this bust of dark romantic, Edgar Allan Poe.

metaphor, symbolism, juxtaposition, internal rhyme, rhyme scheme, imagery, and personification, just to name a few. After I provide definitions and examples of each of these, we listen to a reading of “The Raven” by Christopher Walken, and I instruct students to follow along on their own copy, in the margin labeling any poetic devices they notice.

 

Once Mr. Walken has finished his  reading of the poem, the students and I go through each stanza, labeling the rhyme scheme, drawing boxes around all internal rhymes, and pointing out all the poetic devices we labeled as we listened.

Paraphrasing essentially strips the poem to its simplest and least artistic form. The plot–the bones–remains, but the beauty is gone, leaving the poem a sort of skeleton, all of the flesh having fallen away. A paraphrase does perhaps make the basic information more digestible, but the language is stilted and artless without the poetic devices.

The next step in this lesson is to assign students to small groups, and assign each group three to five stanzas of the poem to paraphrase. This paraphrasing essentially strips the poem to its simplest and least artistic form. The plot–the bones–remains, but the beauty is gone, leaving the poem a sort of skeleton, all of the flesh having fallen away.

raven-courtyard
Some couples exchange their vows in the courtyard at the Poe Museum in downtown Richmond. Here, it is set up for an April wedding.

Take the stanza below, for example. It includes internal rhyme (denser and censer; lent thee, sent thee, and nepenthe), alliteration (Swung and Seraphim; foot-falls and floor; tufted and tinkled), consonance (foot-fall, tinkled, tufted, and floor), and imagery (we can imagine the scent of perfumed air and the jingling sound of little angel feet scampering across the floor).

 

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

`Wretch,’ I cried, `thy God hath lent thee – by these angels he has sent thee

Respite – respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!’

Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.’

A paraphrase of this stanza does perhaps make the basic information more digestible, but observe how much more stilted and artless the stanza becomes:

Then I felt like the atmosphere changed; it was scented

as if angels walked across the room with perfume or incense.

‘Wretch,’ I yelled, ‘some master or demon sent you

Rest – rest and relief from my memories of Lenore!

Drink this merciful relief, and forget dead Lenore!’

The raven said, ‘Nevermore.’

After all groups have finished paraphrasing their assigned stanzas, we read the paraphrased versions aloud, in the order in which they appear in the poem, to get a complete sense of just exactly what poetic devices do for a poem.

From there, we go on to discuss the symbolism of the raven, as well as to examine the Gothic elements used in the poem, such as suspense, the dark side of humanity, etc.

In addition, I always offer extra credit in conjunction with this unit. The assignment requires students who opt to participate to visit the Poe Museum in Richmond and write a one-page, double-spaced paper about the experience.

 

Word of the Week: Sessile

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A couple weeks ago when I was looking up a recent word of the week, fustilarian, Dictionary.com suggested I might actually have meant “sertularian.” I didn’t, but I went ahead and looked up “sertularian,” anyway (because, why not?), and in so doing, exposed myself to another new word: “sessile.” Not to be drawn too far off course from my investigation of “fustilarian,” I resisted the temptation to further research “sertularian” and “sessile,” saving them for a future Word of the Week post. Well, the future is now, and I have found particular poetic potential in “sessile.”

Dictionary.com defines “sessile” within two contexts, the first being botany and the second being zoology. In the context of the former, the word means “attached by the base, or without any distinct projecting support, as a leaf issuing directly from the stem.”In the context of the latter, it means “permanently attached; not freely moving.“

Merriam-Webster’s definitions are similar: “attached directly by the base; not raised upon a stalk or peduncle” and “permanently attached or established; not free to move about.”

Though Merriam-Webster rates “sessile” as landing in the bottom 40% of word popularity (so I need not feel so silly for never having heard the word before, or at least not remembering if I have), I think its potential for figurative use is pretty immense. For instance, a character in a story or speaker of a poem could be described as sessile–tethered, for example, to a lover or to the past, or held back by a physical deformity or someone for whom he or she feels responsible. George Milton of John Steinbeck‘s Of Mice and Men comes to mind as a character who might well be–albeit somewhat ironically–described as sessile. Though he and Lennie are migrant workers–seemingly the exact opposite of people whose situations might be described as sessile, or “permanently established,” and they are more than “free to move about”–George is still not “freely moving.” Both he and Lennie are held back by Lennie’s always being misunderstood and doing “bad things” that keep the two constantly on the run. **SPOILER ALERT** Until George must shoot Lennie near the end of the novella, prompting him to realize how much he actually needs and cares about Lennie, he definitely feels sessile–“permanently attached” to Lennie, “not freely moving,” “not free to move about” (forced to move about, perhaps, but not free to establish the dream ranch he and Lennie imagine and settle down).

Now, go forth! You have been linguistically empowered!

Recent Words of the Week

fustilarian

lachrymose

kalopsia

 

 

 

 

 

Daisy Buchannan and the Summer Solstice

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Lest you miss it like Fitzgerald’s Daisy Buchannan in his novel The Great Gatsby admits to doing each year, I feel compelled to make you aware that today is the first day of summer, also known as the Summer Solstice. It’s the longest day of the year, in terms of daylight hours. In the opening chapters of The Great Gatsby, when Nick is first reunited with Daisy and Tom, Daisy asks, “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.” When her friend, Jordan Baker, responds with, “We ought to plan something,” Daisy asks, “What’ll we plan? What do people plan?” When I first read The Great Gatsby in my junior English class when I was 16 or 17 years old, I was fascinated by the character of Daisy Buchannan. She was beautiful and desirable and the seemingly random things she said, like the above, captivated me as they did Gatsby and Nick and apparently many other men who met her. But mostly, I think I found her so admirable because I wanted someone to love me the way Gatsby loved her. It must be so delicious to be so admired. My 32-year-old self has a somewhat different opinion on Ms. Daisy Buchannan, but that is neither here nor there.  What matters here is the fact that despite my changed view of her character, Daisy’s words have stuck with me these fifteen or sixteen years since my first reading of them, and I have felt an obligation–however unmet (up until now)–to recognize and celebrate the longest day of the year ever since, or at the very least, not to miss it.

This year, I finally succeeded. And I took it to a-whole-nother level. I didn’t make epic plans for just the longest day of the year; I made epic plans for the entire weekend leading up to it, as well.

So, Ms. Daisy Buchannan, since before Nick could answer you, you became suddenly distracted by your bruised pinky finger, here is what people plan–and thank you for the inspiration.

Saturday’s Summer Solstice Agenda

1. South of the James Farmers Market

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We kicked off our weekend before the longest day of the year strolling through the South of the James Farmers Market and eating lunch out of food trucks there (Goatacado and Intergalactic Taco). We were able to purchase all sorts of locally sourced products, from a hand-carved wooden door stop to handcrafted soap; from a chocolate mini bell pepper plant for our vegetable garden to homemade, human-grade dog treats for the pups; from bumper stickers to T-shirts, just to name a few. Picture above, I enjoy lunch at a picnic table at the edge of the farmers market with my husband (behind me) and my best friend (far left), who made the trip down from Pennsylvania specifically for the summer solstice celebration we had planned.
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While the South of the James Farmers Market is very pet-friendly (we saw dogs, cats, and goats there!), our own pups stayed home (bringing them along would have meant making them wait in the car during our next adventure, which would have been unwise at best and murderous at worst). We didn’t forget them, though! When we got home, I treated them to homemade, human-grade dog treats we purchased from one of the vendors at the market.

2. Segway Tour of Downtown Richmond

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From the farmers market, we drove straight to Segway of Richmond for an hour-long tour of the city. We visited the Canal Walk, Brown’s Island, and the Governor’s Mansion, just to name a few of the stops. Above, we engage in some silliness on the Segways at the bottom of the steps of the Virginia State Capitol.

3. Summer Solstice Potluck Celebration

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Over thirty friends and family members turned out with dishes to share to celebrate the Summer Solstice with us on Saturday night. Above, amid lanterns and moonlight, some of them gather around the bonfire.
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A good friend and I pose under the twinkly lights and beside one of the glowing lanterns in celebration of the approaching longest day of the year. Our Summer Solstice Potluck Celebration has likely become an annual tradition, which will ensure I never “watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it” (though I will be watching for it!).

Sunday Summer Solstice Agenda

1. A trip to Belle Isle on the James River

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My husband and I spent about an hour sitting on the rocks of Belle Isle with my best friend, who took this photograph, watching the whitewater rafting tours go by, admiring the many herons fishing for brunch, and wading in the warm, rushing waters of the James.

2. Father’s Day Food Truck Lunch

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This particular Sunday was not only the Sunday before the Summer Solstice, but also Father’s Day, so after our time at the river, we headed to Stone Brewery to meet my parents for lunch from Monique’s Crepes. Later that night, we celebrated my dad again when we brought Chinese food over to my parents’ house for dinner.

Monday Summer Solstice Agenda

1. Soak up the Sun at Pony Pasture

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After a walk with my dogs, a run through my neighborhood, and a few household chores, I set aside a few of the daylight hours on this the longest day of the year to write, read, sleep, and just generally relax at Pony Pasture on the James River.

So, I say to Daisy and the rest of you: 1) Perhaps you can now understand why, despite the ever-lengthening days, I haven’t had time to squeeze in a blog post over the last week, and 2) We have almost two hours of daylight left (at least in my neck of the woods) in the longest day of the year. Carpe Diem!