re·demp·tion

rəˈdem(p)SH(ə)n/

noun

1. 1.

   the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.

(15 minutes - 1 page) Through the characters, events, and commentary in Chapter 23, what does Hawthorne seem to be suggesting about how humans can achieve redemption, healing or salvation from sin and suffering?  Express this idea in one sentence written at the beginning of your paragraph. Then, for the remainder of the paragraph, explain how he uses two particular passages in the chapter to develop and reveal this message. 

Share your drawing with your groupmates and then read your paragraph to them, making sure to discuss how you see the scene relating to a theme

What Christian motifs (repeated symbols or patterns) does Hawthorne allude to through potentially symbolic actions and images in chapter 23?

No Homework

Hand back quiz slips  - My cirlces around certain answers reflect questions answered incorrectly which I gave you credit for because less than 60% of the class got them correct. I then crossed out your original score and penciled in the adjusted score.

3^rd and 4^th period will also get back their rhetorical analysis practice (10 points) from two weeks ago.  I essentially gave 10 points to everyone who made the effort to write one or more pages.  I was not grading for quality of analysis.

Romanticism in The Scarlet Letter – discuss with a partner and then large group.

10/20: Rest of class and tonight…Finish reading and annotating The Scarlet Letter. Harkening back to How to Read Literature Like a Professor, look for Christian imagery and symbolism and Hawthorne’s interpretation of it.

Tonight, as best as you can according to your talents and care, draw a scene from chapters 16-24 which caught your attention and seemed important to the delivering of a lesson/theme in the book.  With your drawing, include a caption containing a direct quote from the novel (somehow related to your picture). 

On the back of that paper, write a paragraph which explains the connection between your scene, the quote, and a theme or lesson that you think Hawthorne is trying to convey through the novel. 

Be precise in expressing specifically what you see Hawthorne saying about that idea.  For example, don’t just limit your commentary to something like “This scene depicts Dimmesdale’s redemption.”  Instead, take it a step or two or three further and explain what Hawthorne seems to be saying through this book how redemption is achieved and experienced, what paradoxes might exist, etc. 

No matter what generic theme you explore (love, shame, guilt, temptation, judgement, redemption, groupthink/conformity, organized religion vs. Romantic spirituality, forgiveness, etc.), make sure you push yourself to express what specifically you see Hawthorne saying about the subject.

Wed: 10/21: We will share our drawings with one another tomorrow and discuss the last several chapters.

10/22: Thursday: We will explore pre-20^th century syntax, Hawthorne’s specifically, and do some rhetorical analysis of a Hawthorne passage. 

10/23: Scarlet Letter chapters 14-24 assessment (like the previous assessment a couple of weeks ago). For Monday, write a pre-essay reflection of which prompt you are responding to and why you are attracted to it. Include a tentative thesis.

10/26: Review elements of a good essay.  Work on your first draft, which will be due 10/27.

10/27: first draft due

10/29: 2^nd draft due

10/30: next-to-final draft due

11/2 to 11/4: Final draft due

What types of changes do you see in Dimmesdale? What accounts for his change?

Do you see any elements of the Romantic worldview in the last six or seven chapters? Cite one or two examples from the book.

Romanticism is the name given to those schools of thought that value feeling and intuition over reason.

—Romantics believed that the imagination was able to discover truths that the rational mind could not reach.

—Usually accompanied by powerful emotion and associated with natural, unspoiled beauty.

—Imagination, individual feelings, and wild nature were of greater value than reason, logic, and cultivation.

—Romantic writers placed a new emphasis on intuitive, “felt” experience and often contrasted poetry with science, which they saw as destroying the very truth it claimed to seek.

—The romantics wanted to rise above “dull realities” to a realm of higher truth and searched for exotic settings in the more “natural” past or in a world far removed from the grimy and noisy industrial age.

—Romantic writers tried to reflect on the natural world until dull reality fell away to reveal underlying beauty and truth. 

Summary of Romanticism Powerpoint—

Values feeling and intuition over reason.

—Place faith in inner experience and the power of imagination.

—Shuns the artificiality of civilization and seeks unspoiled nature.

—Prefers youthful innocence to educated sophistication.

—Champions individual freedom and the worth of the individual.

—Reflects on nature’s beauty as a path to spiritual and moral development.

—Looks backward to the wisdom of the past and distrusts progress.

—Finds beauty and truth in exotic locales, the supernatural realm and the inner world of the imagination.

—Sees poetry as the highest expression of imagination.

—Finds inspiration in myth, legend, and folklore.

HW: Read chapter 22 for homework.  You do not need to post a question.

On Wednesday or Thursday, we will have a quiz similar to our last quiz.  It will cover chapters 14-24 (50 points - a mix of close reading, rhet analysis, and vocab (vocab will be limited to the chapter 15-19 list).

Your first draft of your essay is due

"All hidden things 

are revealed to the outsider."

What do you think this means? Explain.

Provide a real world, cinematic or literary (not from The Scarlet Letter) example to help illustrate your interpretation.

Find a passage in The Scarlet Letter where Hawthorne appears to directly or indirectly address this idea through his characters or his narrator's commentary on the characters.  Write out the passage (or a key portion of it) and then explain how it relates to the idea at hand, feeling free to also expand into other portions of the text beyond the limits of the passage itself.

HW: Read chapters 20 and 21 for homework. Write an inferential question for discussion, posting it on turnitin.com in the Scarlet Letter chapter 20-21 discussion bin and respond to one other student question, using brief, embedded textual evidence to support your answer (2 points for writing a question and 2 points for responding to a question).

Check your LT email.  For those who struggled on the last quiz, I will be inviting some of you to join me on Monday at 7am in 210 to review portions of the quiz and/or work on close reading skills of pre-20th century prose. If you can not meet before school, please meet me at 3:10 on Monday afternoon.

On Tuesday, we will have a quiz similar to our last quiz.  It will cover chapters 14-21 (50 points - a mix of close reading, rhet analysis, and vocab (vocab will be limited to the chapter 15-19 list).

Learning Target:  I can use a digital platform to communicate with others through questions and comments.  Through the digital platform, I can carefully articulate my responses to other students' questions and support my responses with direct quotes from the text.

1. Log in to turnitin.com
2. Go to discussions
3. Post your inferential questions to 15-18 and 19, respectively; so, two questions total.
4. Peruse the questions submitted by your classmates.  Then respond to two of them with thoughtful, textually-supported responses (three to five sentences, depending on the length of your sentences and the nature of the prompt). As support, embed one or two short quotes into the flow of your sentences, making sure to include the page #'s in parentheses. 
5. You may, in your response, also allude to the reply of someone else to the same question, but make sure you are focused on the original question.
6. If for some reason you did not finish within the class period, make sure to complete these tonight.
7. Choose questions to respond to primarily based on your authentic interest in a question posed; however, also consider whether certain questions are still awaiting response
8. We will do this more frequently in the future, so this is a good in-class practice run.

Homework:  Even if you are planning on responding to the original theme-articulation combined with rhetorical analysis essay prompt, type or neatly handwrite a page reflection on one of the four new options that you find most intriguing.  Although you don't need direct textual support, at least reference and paraphrase particular passages/events/etc., from particular chapters in the book which may speak to the particular prompt.  Primarily, however, let it be a free-flowing exploration of your thoughts in relation to the prompt. 

Activity 1: Chapter 9-14 quiz

Activity 2: Silent Reading


For Wednesday, October 14, read chapter 15-18 (120-141); during class on Wednesday, I will give students time to write one inferential question and complete their theme reflection for chapters 15-18.  If you are not in class Wednesday, please do that on your own time prior to Thursday.

For Thursday, October 15, read chapter 19 (141-146) write one inferential question for that chapter.

Tomorrow we will not be in the room. We will be in the following places:

2nd period - Library Floor (downstairs)
3rd period - DC East
4th period - DC East 

Possibly a shorter version of vocab, close reading, rhetoric assessment similar to the one on Friday, October 16 (chapters 15-19)

The Scarlet Letter

More Essay Options

If the theme/rhetorical analysis essay did not appeal to you, you may choose one of the following prompts and reply to it with a 3-4 pages, researched, formal essay.

1. Is Hester a strong female character or is she a more traditional female who is deferential to males in society? Write an argument on whether or not you consider Hester to be a strong female character. On a related note, consider touching on whether you would consider The Scarlet Letter a feminist novel given the time it was written (during the 19^th century Romantic Movement).

2. What do you make of Pearl? Although she at first appears to be a secondary character in the novel, Pearl figures significantly into many of the novel’s key narrative events. Argue what you believe to be  Hawthorne’s most important uses of Pearl as a character in the novel.

3.  Based on your readings and note-taking on Romanticism, write an argument supporting, refuting, or qualifying the claim that The Scarlet Letter is a quintessentially Romantic novel.  Cite outside sources as needed (e.g., Romanticism PowerPoint or the American Puritanism/American Romanticism handout, etc).  

4. Dimmesdale may be seen as a figure of hypocrisy who preaches virtue from the pulpit and refuses to take his daughter’s hand in public, but pays a terrible personal price for his actions. Argue the extent to which Dimmesdale is responsible for his own actions versus how much the Puritan religious teachings and culture as whole are responsible for forcing him into his position. You may cite outside sources as necessary to present Puritan beliefs.  If you do use outside sources, please use MLA citation formats for internal and external citations. The Purdue Owl and the University of North Carolina are among many websites which can show you how to properly cite sources in the MLA style. 

Learning Target: I can analyze how an author uses literary/rhetorical elements and devices to create certain effects and achieve particular purposes.

How many people are taking the PSAT on Wednesday, October 14?

Revised Essay Dates:

Due Friday, October 16 23:  2 copies of a typed 3-page essay 

Due Tuesday, October 20  27: 2^nd draft:  2 copies of a typed 3-page essay 

Thursday or Friday, October 22-23 29-30:  3-4 page typed final draft of essay 

Go over The Governor's Hall rhetorical/literary analysis questions

Discussion of chapters 12-14

Tonight: Prepare for tomorrow's mid-book assessment on chapters 8-14 (25-30 questions for 50-60 points)

(one possible exception to chapter range: you will be given a passage with rhetorical analysis questions and that could possibly come from an earlier part of the book) 

It will include vocab questions (matching with proper definition or fill-in-the blank with the worrd that best completes the sentence) on 5 -10 vocab words from your chapter 9-13 list.

It will have 10-15 careful-reading assessment questions on specific passages from the chapters 9-14 (who is speaking?; to whom are they speaking?; who is being described?; or, choose the missing word that best completes the passage)

You will be given a passage followed by rhetorical analysis questions (6 to 12 questions).