Possible Sources for Sources

NY Times Room For Debate

Chicago Tribune

Frontline

Campaign speeches

Opinion (Op Ed) pieces from a variety of sources, including newspapers, etc

Reputable newspapers, magazines, television news sources, NPR, CNN, FOX, ABC, etc

Zines

The Lion

Wesley 3 AP American Research and AP Synthesis Project:

Creating an AP Synthesis Prompt and Source Packet

Point Value: 100 points

Context:   As we continue to read American literature and anticipate the AP Language and Composition exam, this project merges three topics of pertinent study: American issues, research, and synthesis.  The book is a springboard for talking about and researching American issues. But we also need to start preparing for the AP Language and Composition exam’s synthesis essay.  This project will help us hone our research skills, become more aware of a current American issues, and prepare for and practice writing an AP synthesis essay.

Assignment

Congratulations! The national AP test writers have nominated this class to write their next synthesis prompts. Lucky.

BIG TIP! While writing, use the AP packets (both the source packet and the student essay packets) to help guide you. These are your models!

In doing this project, you may work with a partner (of course you don’t have to…I work better alone). Together, select a current American issue. It might deal with domestic or foreign policy. If you are having some trouble getting started in identifying a topic, consider the list below as a starting point. Once you have a topic, narrow the topic and consider logical angles that create interesting positions to argue.  Then, brainstorm possible questions that address a SPECIFIC angle on the topic: please note the example research steps below.

Step one: you choose the topic (example-- free school lunches).

Step two: this topic is too generic, but it is a great starting point.  Once you have the topic, begin to create a specific angle that leads to a clear question (this may take some research and searching)-examples: Free school lunches in high schools; free school lunches at LT; free school lunches and federal education department.

Step three: formulate your question—make sure that it is clear and specific—should the federal education department mandate that all schools provide free lunches? Your question must provoke the STUDENT to take a stance (the essayist chooses either pro/con)—you DO NOT take a side in formulating this prompt.

Step four: research this specific angle and find six sources that directly support or negate this topic. They must logically connect to your question!   Three sources should more clearly support one side of the argument (pro) while three other sources should more clearly support the other side of the argument (con); however, you may also include one source (in place of one of the other six) which is neutral/objective and might potentially be used to support either position. Also, remember that one of your six sources must be a visual source.  What is important is that overall your mix of sources provide balanced support for BOTH sides of the issue, not weak sources for one side and strong for the other. 

Source write-ups: Once you have selected your six sources, you must do a clear and concise paragraph write up on each source.  Explain which position (pro, con, objective) you believe the source best supports and why. These write-ups should be clear and concise: a well-developed paragraph which immediately states whether the source is best described as pro, con, or neutral, and then uses embedded quotes, paraphrase, and sound reasoning to explain why your team believes it best fits the pro, con, or neutral category.

IMPORTANT POINT: Most of the sources should be non-fiction, with the exception of the visual, which might be fictional. You may also replace one (but no more than one) of your written non-fiction pieces with an excerpt from a piece of fiction (e.g., The Great Gatsby) we have read this year.

Also, please be sure to label each source as source A-F.  This label should be at the top of the page.

Finally, create an AP style rubric (1-9 scoring) tailored specifically to your prompt.

Objectives

-Students can research a topic of interest and select six credible sources

-Students can define a credible source that is both visual and textual

-Students can formulate a synthesis question appropriate for their topic that is based on their AP models.  Privilege

Possible broad synthesis topics (only one per partners!): We will not do gun control or abortion as topics, not because they aren’t legitimate issues, but for the simple reason that they have been done more than any other topics.

• Health care
• Religious discrimination/profiling
• minimum wage
• foreign policy
• prison sentencing and race
• drug laws
• racial/ethnic profiling
• Snowden—Patriot or Leaker?
• Personal privacy vs. surveillance and security
• Standardized testing
• College admissions
• College tuition
• Policing issues
• Affirmative Action
• Gay Rights/equality/social justice
• Tax policy
• Education funding
• Gender issues
• Housing issues
• Nutrition
• Poverty
• Shrinking middle class
• Economic growth
• Mental health/illness issues
• Minimum Wage
• Disabilities
• Environmental issues
• Any thing else that is relevant

Final product:

You will have a cover page that contextualizes the topic and contains the synthesizing prompt.

You will have six sources—one source per page.

You will create an AP-style rubric (scored on 1-9 scale) for your prompt.

Attached as an appendix, you will submit a pro, con, objective write-ups for each source.

This synthesis packet will be used by your peers to produce an in class synthesis essay that addresses your prompt. 

Deadlines: See calendar below.

2/29 Introduce AP Research/Synthesis Essay project Read in Cliff’s AP: Types of Essays Topics, Synthesis  (Page 29) The Synthesis Essay (background and example): 39-52	3/1 Read and review one more AP synthesis essay (2014 and 2011) Meet with team to discuss your project plan; Work on creating prompt Discuss places where you might find good sources HW: Begin looking for sources	3/2 See/Review student responses to synthesis essay (2014) Work on creating prompt Review AP rubric HW: Look for sources and consider how you would excerpt those sources (and create draft source write-ups)	3/3 Research Day – Continue finding sources and doing source write-ups DC – prd 2 & 3 L ib E – prd 4	3/4 Research Day Library B: Prd 2-4 Due today (visual check) 1st draft of  chosen and excerpted sources, bibliographic entries for sources, source write-ups
3/7 CASIMIR PULASKI DAY *or weather make-up day	3/8 Research Day Prd 2, 3, 4 – in Lib E 1st draft of Completed Rubric	3/9 Late Start Day 2nd draft due: Nearly Final Peer Group Read-through for edits Research Day (Prds 2-3 in Lib B) Prd 4 in Lib E	3/10 TBA	3/11 QUARTER 3 END Final Project Due Synthesis Projects Due as Word Document and Hard Copy

Grading: 100 points                                        Student Names:  _________________________________

AP Synthesis Project Rubric:

A (8-9)  The prompt is mature, meaningful, and well-written, providing a compelling and debatable American issue. The prompt is supported by a balanced (pro, con, neutral) mix of polished, very well-chosen/written, and properly cited (MLA) source documents. Conventions and formatting of the entire packet is all-but-perfect and it is combined into one Word document. The rubric is tailored to the prompt, well-worded and free of errors. The sources chosen are balanced and supported by thoughtful, thorough, fair, and well-written write-ups appended to the end of the assignment. The entire package is essentially ready for printing and use as an AP exam quality prompt. 

B (6-7)  Though perhaps not quite as mature, meaningful, and/or well-written as the best prompts and sources, the document provides a legitimate and debatable American issue. The prompt is supported by a balanced (pro-con) mix of fairly well-chosen/well-written sources, though they might not be as apt in selection or well-written as those found in the best document packets. The source documents are properly cited (MLA). Conventions and formatting is all-but-perfect, and the packet is combined into one Word document. The rubric is tailored to the prompt, fairly well-worded and free of errors. Though they do not necessarily reveal the quality of analysis or polished writing found in the best write-ups, these write-up are good, reasonable, and balanced and they clearly convey why the source falls into the category it fits into. While not yet an AP quality prompt, with some improvements to question, content and formatting, it could be.

C (5) They demonstrate an attempt to create a AP exam style synthesis prompt and packet, but it may have a vague or less compelling prompt and/or have mediocre or unbalanced source content. Source write-ups are adequate but the explanations are not especially precise, insightful, well-written. Alternatively, they may be relatively strong in terms of prompt and source content but are poorly formatted, contain typos, or have other distracting errors. The rubric is generic (not tailored specifically to that prompt) or in some other way is adequate at best.

D (3-4) They are deficient in prompt, source content, formatting, rubric or source write-ups.

F (1-2)  They are realllllyyyy deficicient!

Gatsby papers due by tomorrow: hard copy to me; digital to turnitin.com

Fitzgerald...The Great American Dreamer

Notetaking...What overlaps do you see between Fitzgerald's life and The Great Gatsby?

Wesley Gatsby Paper Reviews

Groups of Three...

Read aloud...

After initial reading, everyone will pause and use specific language from the rubric to write down comments about each of the eight traits from the rubric.

This writing down of comments should take 5-6 minutes.

The person who just read the paper first assesses their own paper, and then the other members of the group provide their feedback.

For each member of the group, it will take about 15 minutes read their paper, give everyone time to write down their assessment comments, and then share the self and peer assessments aloud.


So, for the purpose of writing and providing feedback, everyone should have one sheet of paper per person in their group.

We are done with peer reviews.You can hand in your paper tomorrow or Wednesday. Hard copy to me, and electronic copy to turnitin.com.

When you hand in your final, also hand in today's draft and any self-assessment and peer assessment sheets from today.

Self-edit tonight...improve your paper;

1st peer review is moved to tomorrow

It will involve reading your paper aloud to a couple of other people, so at least have a complete and strong effort.

Today's agenda

I realized where people are getting what I have been disparaging as a rather "generic" theme list - from the assignment! My bad!

This assignment was created by a team of teachers, and I forgot we kept that list of broad topics. Instead of giving students a starting point, I'm afraid it has given people tunnel vision.  In other words, rather than making natural and individual connections with the text, they picked one of these "broad topics" examples and started writing what essentially sounds like a literary analysis paper on a theme and then later they plan to look for some connections in their own life, which they can work into the paper.  

The potential problem with that approach is a somewhat voiceless paper. Given the complexity of this book, everyone who did more than a half-hearted reading should have felt moments where it raised questions about their own life, their own values, their own relationships, their own politics. Like Meghan O'Rourke manages to do with Hamlet, I am asking you to use The Great Gatsby to help you explore something that truly matters to you.

Good readers empathize. They see connections between their life and people and societies that on the surface are nothing like them. Even if you hate a book, get in touch with why you hate it, or why you hate a character in a book, and go from there. You can write in opposition to a book, an author, or a character, as long as you do it intelligently, not just as the result of superficial or lazy reading.

So my advice now, is don't get stuck on the "broad topics" list.  They are just suggestions for getting your mind started, not end-points.  In fact, if you look at the paragraph that follows those broad topics, it suggests how you should then break those open to find more specific connections with your life.  Again, they were only meant to serve as suggestions to perhaps get you started on a line of questioning, but people are treating them as prescriptive, and are not drilling down to more specific personal questions and connections raised by the novel.

Look at the example. How does Meghan O'Rourke get real about grieving in Hamlet and in their life.  How does she actually use her own experience to get past the cliche'd interpretations of Hamlet's personality.

If your paper doesn't convey the sense of investment - either emotionally or intellectually - that O'Rourke's paper has, than ask, what can I do to connect in more powerful way?  Where is my opening in this book? Where does it cross into my intellectual or emotional life?

Work on rubric

Breakdown O'Rourke's example

Read one or two student examples

If time permits, Fitzgerald Essay

Peer feedback in groups of three

Gatsby Personal Insight Paper: Creating a holistic rubric

What do you feel would be the characteristics of a good personal insight paper? From ideas to style and everything in between, write in the characteristics that you would expect to see in a good personal insight paper.  Then write in the characteristics of a paper that is exceptional. How will you know the difference? How will you articulate that difference? Finally, what are the characteristics of a proficient paper? What makes it proficient, but not good?

Begin with one partner, then I will match you with another group, for thee purpose of discussion

Ideas/insights; meaningful connections; style; voice; organization; conventions/mechanics

Exceptional

Good

Proficient

Developing

Student Example

Wesley

22 February 2015

Evaporating

One of my most distinct childhood memories is the scent of arugula. My backyard in

Denver was this vast expanse of territory, full of different terrains and trenches and rock

formations. There was the pine forest to the right of the house, the desert behind it with a birch

oasis in the center, and the rugged gravel pits just beyond. No matter where I stood in this small

world, I could always smell the arugula from our garden. I undoubtedly had some of the best

and most carefree days of my life in that backyard. Simply being a kid is the most envious state,

and a setting such as this only furthered my delight. But why are these memories so fleeting and

distant? Why does my backyard seem so much smaller in pictures than it ever did in person, and

why do I feel overwhelmingly sad whenever I smell arugula?

Time, I have concluded, tends to distort perception. I found this thought to be true while

reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald as well. While the aroma of a common garden

vegetable does not come close to his trials, I’d like to think Fitzgerald experienced similar

feelings of nostalgia during his life—from his failed marriage to the one that got away—that

prompted a novel deeply rooted and intent on recreating the past, in attempts to vocalize his own

shortcomings and his inherent want to somehow fix them.

Jay Gatsby mirrors this want as the poster­child for nostalgia. He attempts continuously

throughout his last five years to “recover something, some idea of himself perhaps… if he could

once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing

was” (110). Gatsby’s feelings toward his time with Daisy drive him to “recover” this former

version of himself. He has the pleasant memories but the emotions associated with them are the

exact opposite. He feels taunted by the past rather than content with what has happened, just as I

get a hollow ache when thinking about my time in Colorado. And I loved it, just as Gatsby loved

Daisy. But time warps these feelings into regret and wistfulness, challenging former emotions

and entangling them beyond recognition.

Similarly, I often find myself thinking about former friendships. I’ve definitely had my

fair share of these relationships end. Sometimes there’s a specific reason, but more often, and in

turn more painfully, they just fade without reason. I’ll pass someone in the hall and suddenly

find myself pouring over details from years ago and wondering why it’s impossible to even make

eye contact.

My best friend from third to eighth grade, Marie, is the worst instance of this. Gatsby’s

array of newspaper clippings and photographs of Daisy (93) could never compare to the

multitude of pictures of Marie and me. From all the photographic evidence, it would appear that

we were physically attached to one another throughout the course of our friendship. In all my

yearbook photos, she sits in a desk beside me. In all my birthday pictures, she is sitting next to

me as I open presents, identical radiant smiles plastered across our faces.

In moments like these I can understand why Gatsby kept clippings in Daisy’s absence.

Even though it’s arguably more painful to look at them than to forget, there is always an internal

hope that time will correct itself, that it will make up for itself, or reverse completely. Nick

Carraway puts it best after Gatsby’s initial encounter with Daisy: “I think we all believed for a

moment that [the old clock] had smashed in pieces on the floor” (87). Everyone, to some extent,

falls victim to the passage of time. In my case it is Marie who brings this out, causing me to

falter over memories.

However, where I’d like to think I diverge from Gatsby is the way I externally deal with

these lapses in logical judgement. I’m simply content to wallow in regret and self­pity whereas

Gatsby attempts to construct a meticulous empire to recreate his past. When Gatsby started

going off the deep end, no dark humor intended, is when I began to feel a disconnect with his

character. Although this disconnect is frustrating at times, it forces me to objectively consider

Gatsby. It’s one thing to wistfully remember a better time in life but to fully submerge into the

past is another. It’s obsessive, it’s unhealthy, and most of all impossible because time doesn’t

forcefully rewind. It doesn’t simply stop, backtrack and repeat itself. It’s the most final of all

restrictions, greater than anything else explored in Gatsby.

To illustrate this point, even if the extent is limited, people have control over their wealth

and social status. Gatsby proved both of these with his self­built fortune and elaborate lifestyle.

In this, Fitzgerald cleverly portrays that time is the one factor that we have absolutely no control

over. I recognize Fitzgerald’s own pain in this realization.

Of course, this seems like such an obvious statement. Why wouldn’t time be final? How

could it possibly be perceived otherwise? We all have broken­clock moments, unfortunately.

Time has a way of disfiguring things while remaining shockingly consistent with itself. With

repeated recitation I’ve begun to stomach this reality. I’ve considered its profound impact on the

way I perceive my life: as I change, so do my reactions to recollections. And as a logical person

who thrives on reasoning and patterns, the thought of giving up control to some intangible force

scares me more than anything else.

I sense that it is the same innate fear that drives Gatsby to near insanity. It causes him to

perpetually extend himself towards that green light, to act as though “the past [was] lurking here

in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand” (110) as he tries to convince himself of

Daisy’s solidarity. And until the end, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that

year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to­morrow we will run

faster, stretch out our arms farther” (180). Fitzgerald leaves me with this surprisingly personal

and harsh statement regarding time. He tells me that we won’t stop, “boats against the current,”

and will continue to yearn for something, anything, because the present will never suffice.

Nostalgia is ever­present, a constant and singular reminder of the encompassing control of time.

I find this a difficult concept to agree with, though.

So now I turn to music for reassurance and a second opinion, as usual, in these lyrics

(translated from Portuguese) from Evaporar by Little Joy:

We've got as much time as we give it

Whatever happens

Whatever it takes

We give as much time as we have

It takes the things that happen

Whatever the things that happen cost

Only now I realize that what I got from the time I lost

Was learning how to give

And I still chase that time

I was able not to run from it

[I was able to] Find myself

Ah, it didn't move

Hummingbird in the air

The river stays there

The water that ran [into the sea] gets to the tides

[The river] becomes sea

It's as if dying was like debouching

Like spilling over the sky

Like a self­purification

Like leaving behind salts and minerals

Like evaporating.

It is in these broken­clock moments, I have ultimately concluded, that time distorts

perception. It is in these moments when time simply hangs there like a “hummingbird in the

air.” For Gatsby it’s when he thinks about Daisy. For me it’s when my mind races back to

Denver with the tangy aroma of arugula and the pine and birch trees suddenly extend their limbs

towards me. It’s when I can’t quite mimic the smiles on my face in pictures with Marie because

the emotions are forever locked in the frame. Evaporar gives me closure that Gatsby failed to

provide. It reveals that time does indeed control us, but it’s only when we concede to this fact

that memories can fade. This voluntary surrender is what Gatsby failed in and why I felt so

disconnected from him. I now know that eventually, unlike Gatsby, I will allow these memories

to gradually dissipate and be replaced. I’ll leave them behind like salts and minerals;

evaporating.

WESLEY

February 17, 2016

PRD 2 – DC

PRD 3 – LIB B

PRD 4 – DC

Bring in a completed 1st draft tomorrow

Wesley

English 3AP

Gatsby Personal Insight Paper schedule

2/15 PRESIDENTS’ DAY	2/16  Gatsby Brainstorming/Outling/ Drafting Gatsby 1st draft	2/17 Work on Gatsby 1st draft 2nd – DC 3rd – Library B 3rd - DC	2/18 1st draft of Gatsby Essay due beginning of class Peer Review of Gatsby 1st draft Fitzgerald Documentary	2/19 2nd draft Gatsby essay due Peer Review #2 Fitzgerald Documentary/Great Gatsby film? Final Gatsby Essay due Monday or Tuesday
2/22 Final Gatsby Essay due Great Gatsby film	2/23 Final Gatsby Essay due Great Gatsby film	2/24 Late Start Day	2/25	2/26 District Institute Day

       When they met again, two days later, it was Gatsby who was breathless, who was, somehow, betrayed. Her porch was bright with the bought luxury of star-shine; the wicker of the settee squeaked fashionably as she turned toward him and he kissed her curious and lovely mouth. She had caught a cold, and it made her voice huskier and more charming than ever, and Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor.  (chapter 9)

English III AP

Great Gatsby

Points: 125

Due Date: February 19-22, 2016

Pages: 3-4 pages, double-spaced, 12 Times New Roman font

Personal Insight Paper

This paper is a creative insight paper, a first person paper in which you examine an issue from The Great Gatsby which is meaningful for you and is written from your personal perspective.  Explain how the issue is important, thought provoking, or in some way meaningful for you while also providing evidence and knowledge of how this topic is treated in the novel.

Your essay, while containing personal insights and connections, should also reveal a thoughtful understanding and analysis of Fitzgerald’s treatment of that topic in The Great Gatsby - complete with textual quotes that are explained and honored and integrated nicely into your own well crafted sentences.

Your job is to be contemplative in nature, to discuss how Fitzgerald presents this issue in all its complexity. To show the complexity of the issue, you are to focus on one issue and track it, trace it, build it, apply it to yourself, to the world you live in. The issue should be complex enough to allow for a thorough discussion.

Some broad topics you might consider:

Desire

The American Dream then and now

Love relationships

Crushes

Infidelity

Fixation

Gatsby as epic journey/tragedy and how it speaks to today

Integrity/dishonesty

Carelessness

Class divisions and differences

Hope

Money

Success

Meaning/meaninglessness in life

Etc.

For example, the issue of betrayal is a significant issue in the text and exists from the beginning of the play to the end of the play. There are so many moments where characters feel they have been betrayed, where they feel their trust has been abused, where they feel used and hurt by those who professed to love and honor them. Your job would be to think about betrayal then. Define it. Try to break open this topic and see how many directions you might take it. Gather up as many citations as you can on the subject. Think about what the subject means to you. Think about how the issue of betrayal exists in your life, in your family, in your friend’s lives, in your community, in your school, in our country, in our world? Contemplate. Write about it. Any songs on the subject? Any poems on the subject? Have you seen any films on the subject? Historical events? Bring some of these references in. Make some allusions. Is one kind of betrayal worse than another kind? What does Fitzgerald present about the issue? What do you think about the issue through his language? How can you think more deeply about the subject by considering some of his lines/passages and some of the events from the novel? How do things work out? Any lessons learned? Any wisdom gained?

Create paragraphs as you would for any paper….around key angles/sub-points of your issue. Include several citations from the play in each paragraph.

Demonstrate your own style as a writer: Use several literary/rhetorical Devices: highlight these devices and label in parenthesis.

Metaphors

Allusions

Repetition

Rhetorical Questions

Simile

Anecdote

Personification

Alliteration

Knowledge of the play: Citations should not be just dropped into your paper but should be explained and discussed, shared and integrated into your sentences. You need to demonstrate your knowledge of the play….you should reference what happens and you should make reference to characters and their feelings/beliefs/behaviors. You should have at least 8 citations in your paper.  Be sure that their relevance to your point is clear.

Example Essay

Here is an example of a personal response to Hamlet written by Meghan O'Rourke for Slate Magazine. The link is provided here: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/grieving/features/2011/the_long_goodbye/hamlets_not_depressed_hes_grieving.html

The Long Goodbye: Hamlet’s Not Depressed, He’s Grieving

By Maghan O’Rourke

I had a hard time sleeping right after my mother died. The nights were long and had their share of what C.S. Lewis, in his memoir A Grief Observed, calls "mad, midnight … entreaties spoken into the empty air." One of the things I did was read. I read lots of books about death and loss. But one said more to me about grieving than any other: Hamlet. I'm not alone in this. A colleague recently told me that after his mother died he listened over and over to a tape recording he'd made of the Kenneth Branagh film version.

I had always thought of Hamlet's melancholy as existential. I saw his sense that "the world is out of joint" as vague and philosophical. He's a depressive, self-obsessed young man who can't stop chewing at big metaphysical questions. But reading the play after my mother's death, I felt differently. Hamlet's moodiness and irascibility suddenly seemed deeply connected to the fact that his father has just died, and he doesn't know how to handle it. He is radically dislocated, stumbling through the world, trying to figure out where the walls are while the rest of the world acts as if nothing important has changed. I can relate. When Hamlet comes onstage he is greeted by his uncle with the worst question you can ask a grieving person: "How is it that the clouds still hang on you?" It reminded me of the friend who said, 14 days after my mother died, "Hope you're doing well." No wonder Hamlet is angry and cagey.

Hamlet is the best description of grief I've read because it dramatizes grief rather than merely describing it. Grief, Shakespeare understands, is a social experience. It's not just that Hamlet is sad; it's that everyone around him is unnerved by his grief. And Shakespeare doesn't flinch from that truth. He captures the way that people act as if sadness is bizarre when it is all too explainable. Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, tries to get him to see that his loss is "common." His uncle Claudius chides him to put aside his "unmanly grief." It's not just guilty people who act this way. Some are eager to get past the obvious rawness in your eyes or voice; why should they step into the flat shadows of your "sterile promontory"? Even if they wanted to, how could they? And this tension between your private sadness and the busy old world is a huge part of what I feel as I grieve—and felt most intensely in the first weeks of loss. Even if, as a friend helpfully pointed out, my mother wasn't murdered.

I am also moved by how much in Hamlet is about slippage—the difference between being and seeming, the uncertainty about how the inner translates into the outer. To mourn is to wonder at the strangeness that grief is not written all over your face in bruised hieroglyphics. And it's also to feel, quite powerfully, that you're not allowed to descend into the deepest fathom of your grief—that to do so would be taboo somehow. Hamlet is a play about a man whose grief is deemed unseemly.

Strangely, Hamlet somehow made me feel it was OK that I, too, had "lost all my mirth." My colleague put it better: "Hamlet is the grief-slacker's Bible, a knowing book that understands what you're going through and doesn't ask for much in return," he wrote to me. Maybe that's because the entire play is as drenched in grief as it is in blood. There is Ophelia's grief at Hamlet's angry withdrawal from her. There is Laertes' grief that …(Mr. Wesley deleted the spoiler part of the sentence). There is Gertrude and Claudius' grief, which is as fake as the flowers in a funeral home. Everyone is sad and messed up. If only the court had just let Hamlet feel bad about his dad, you start to feel, things in Denmark might not have disintegrated so quickly!

Hamlet also captures one of the aspects of grief I find it most difficult to speak about—the profound sense of ennui, the moments of angrily feeling it is not worth continuing to live. After my mother died, I felt that abruptly, amid the chaos that is daily life, I had arrived at a terrible, insistent truth about the impermanence of the everyday. Everything seemed exhausting. Nothing seemed important. C.S. Lewis has a great passage about the laziness of grief, how it made him not want to shave or answer letters. At one point during that first month, I did not wash my hair for 10 days. Hamlet's soliloquy captures that numb exhaustion, and now I read it as a true expression of grief:

O that this too too sullied flesh would melt,

Thaw and resolve itself into a dew,

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter. O God! God!

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Those adjectives felt apt. And so, even, does the pained wish—in my case, thankfully fleeting—that one might melt away. Researchers have found that the bereaved are at a higher risk for suicideality (or suicidal thinking and behaviors) than the depressed. For many, that risk is quite acute. For others of us, this passage captures how passive a form those thoughts can take. Hamlet is less searching for death actively than he is wishing powerfully for the pain just to go away. And it is, to be honest, strangely comforting to see my own worst thoughts mirrored back at me—perhaps because I do not feel likely to go as far into them as Hamlet does.

The way Hamlet speaks conveys his grief as much as what he says. He talks in run-on sentences to Ophelia. He slips between like things without distinguishing fully between them—"to die, to sleep" and "to sleep, perchance to dream." He resorts to puns because puns free him from the terrible logic of normalcy, which has nothing to do with grief and cannot fully admit its darkness.

And Hamlet's madness, too, makes new sense. He goes mad because madness is the only method that makes sense in a world tyrannized by false logic. If no one can tell whether he is mad, it is because he cannot tell either. Grief is a bad moon, a sleeper wave. It's like having an inner combatant, a saboteur who, at the slightest change in the sunlight, or at the first notes of a jingle for a dog food commercial, will flick the memory switch, bringing tears to your eyes. No wonder Hamlet said, "… for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Grief can also make you feel, like Hamlet, strangely flat. Nor is it ennobling, as Hamlet drives home. It makes you at once vulnerable and self-absorbed, needy and standoffish, knotted up inside, even punitive.

Like Hamlet, I, too, find it difficult to remember that my own "change in disposition" is connected to a distinct event. Most of the time, I just feel that I see the world more accurately than I used to. ("There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/ Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.") Pessimists, after all, are said to have a more realistic view of themselves in the world than optimists.

The other piece of writing I have been drawn to is a poem by George Herbert called "The Flower." It opens:

How Fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean

Are thy returns! ev'n as the flowers in spring;

       To which, besides their own demean,

The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.

                   Grief melts away

                   Like snow in May,

       As if there were no such cold thing.

       Who would have thought my shrivel'd heart

Could have recover'd greennesse? It was gone

       Quite under ground; as flowers depart

To see their mother-root, when they have blown;

                   Where they together

                   All the hard weather,

       Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

Quite underground, I keep house unknown: It does seem the right image of wintry grief. I look forward to the moment when I can say the first sentence of the second stanza and feel its wonder as my own.

Meghan O'Rourke is Slate's culture critic and an advisory editor. She was previously an editor at The New Yorker. The Long Goodbye, a memoir about her mother's death, is now out in paperback.