August 26th, 2013

8/26/13

In Class:
Journal--  "It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end." - Ursula K. LeGuin
Reflect on a journey or a trip you've taken.

Using student-generated discussion questions, the class discussed “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty. We explicated the ‘quest’ model implemented in "A Worn Path" and described in "Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It's Not)" from How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. Finally, we reviewed and discussed Welty’s essay “Is Phoenix Jackson’s Grandson Really Dead?”

A Very Brief Introduction to African American Folk Tradition (Things to Expect in Their Eyes Were Watching God)
oral tradition: the system of reproducing culture without documentation, through storytelling, song, etc.
     - allows for improvisation, adaptation, and exaggeration
     - common historically in every surviving culture, though particularly significant in African American history folk: a term describing the oral, musical, and artistic culture of ‘the common people’
     - frequently applied to African American cultural and literary traditions emanating from the era of American slavery
     - regards issues of class and poverty, as well as cultural heritage. dialect: the phonemic construction of a regional manner of speech.
     - helps create an appearance and feeling of folk culture, particularly one with strong oral tradition.

 - Zora Neale Hurston was one of the first African Americans to be educated as an anthropologist. Consequently, she engaged in regular critical study of black culture, folklore, and language, especially in the American South. Her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is considered one of the strongest pieces portraying the life of black Americans in the post-Civil War American South. It provides us unique insight to the lives of women, the structure of class, and the dynamics of race in this period.

As a group, we read and reviewed the first five pages of TEWWG, specifically noting the concept of a "framed story."

Exit ticket: Name one medium that could be used for folk expression.

Homework:
Read through p. 26 of TEWWG.
Read "How Did He Do That?" from How to Read Literature Like a Professor.
Write three discussion questions on the first reading of TEWWG.