Mid-novel pause for perspective...

No reading tonight or quiz tomorrow...just do the two writing pieces and creative activity discussed below. I will give you a revised Scarlet Letter schedule tomorrow. Tonight's work may help you find an essay topic for our culminating paper.

What issues in The Scarlet Letter - be they psychological, political, religious/spiritual, societal, moral, etc, - strike you as especially meaningful today, either to you personally or to the larger society? 

Express two of these issues in the form of written questions (written at the top of separate pages in your regular notebook). Strive to write questions that are genuine - that is, they are rooted in your own experiences and real questions about religion, ethics, psychology, societal pressures, politics, etc.   

Beneath each question, write a no-less-than page-long initial response to each. Don't overthink it or try to make it perfect, but dance between the text and the real world as you reflect on your question. Make connections between the two as they relate to each question.  The response should be organic, free of concerns about grammar, organization, thesis statements or worries about proving anything.  You may incorporate quotes from the text, but it's not required.


One student's 2012 Cat's Eye inspired evaluative questions:  Why do I - and people I have had friendships or romantic relationships with - so often get caught in power struggles like Elaine and Cordelia? What does that say about human nature? Are we always in competition, do we have a tendency towards being vampires? How do people escape this cycle to love unconditionally?  Is that even possible?

I started thinking about this because of a childhood friendship that turned toxic in eighth grade.  Much like Cordelia, my friend...( I have witheld the rest of the response for sake of space and brevity)

Another student's 2012 Ceremony inspired question:

Like many people, I have struggled to make sense of religion, discovering, what I believe and what has just been handed down to me.  Tayo's spiritual journey seems tied closely to his emotional struggles and his search for personal identity between the white world and the Laguna world. I believe there is some form of higher power, but I have some of the following questions about ....(questions and response withheld, again, for sake of brevity and space) 



Complementary exercise: Find a creative way to approach one of the questions; connection to music lyrics, your own drawing, your own song, your own found poem. 


Found poem: use language you find around you.  For example, pick a page or passage in The Scarlet Letter which is related to the question you are thinking about.  Circle the 25 or so most vivid words you find. Then, using only those words and two of your own, write a poem.  Don't worry about rhyming or making logical sense.  Let the word choices and your creative arrangment of them suggest a meaning or topic.
Let's do something with a song and poem right now.

Products due tomorrow: Two questions w one plus page reflections (you will share/verbally summarize one of these with your group and one can remain confidential) and one creative response to one of the questions.  


I'm pretty sure that The National didn't have The Scarlet Letter in mind when they wrote this, but as readers and listeners, we might make connections, appropriating lines from Graceles - and any number of songs - to get us to think about ideas, metaphors, and motifs in The Scarlet Letter.  What Scarlet Letter connections can you riff off words and lines and moods found in this song? Extra credit...create a Scarlet Letter Haiku or other short poem using only 10-15 words from this song.

"Graceless"

Graceless
Is there a powder to erase this?
Is it dissolvable and tasteless?
You can't imagine how I hate this
Graceless

I'm trying, but I'm graceless
Don't have the sunny side to face this
I am invisible and weightless
You can't imagine how I hate this
Graceless

I'm trying, but I'm gone
Through the glass again
Just come and find me
God loves everybody, don't remind me
I took the medicine and I went missing
Just let me hear your voice, just let me listen

Graceless
I figured out how to be faithless
But it would be a shame to waste this
You can't imagine how I hate this
Graceless

I'm trying, but I'm gone
Through the glass again
Just come and find me
God loves everybody, don't remind me
I took the medicine and I went missing
Just let me hear your voice, just let me listen

All of my thoughts of you
Bullets through rotten fruit
Come apart at the seams
Now I know what dying means

I am not my rosy self
Left my roses on my shelf
Take the white ones, they're my favorites
It's the side effects that save us

Grace
Put the flowers you find in a vase
If you're dead in the mind it'll brighten the place
Don't let them die on the vine, it's a waste
Grace

There's a science to walking through windows
There's a science to walking through windows
There's a science to walking through windows
There's a science to walking through windows without you

All of my thoughts of you
Bullets through rotten fruit
Come apart at the seams
Now I know what dying means

I am not my rosy self
Left my roses on my shelf
Take the white ones, they're my favorites
It's the side effects that save us

Grace
Put the flowers you find in a vase
If you're dead in the mind it will brighten the place
Don't let them die on the vine, it's a waste
Grace

Grace
Put the flowers you find in a vase
If you're dead in the mind it will brighten the place
Don't let them die on the vine, it's a waste
Grace