Way Overdue - My Apologies to Rachel

Let's dispense with the excuses...

Well, it's nearly December (how did that happen) and we are moving into another complex, yet otherworldly text - Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude. I love this book. I love carrying it around in my hand. I love opening my bag and finding it there among the 100s of other things that I have to read. I love the photo of the craggy Marquez on the back cover. And I love the old school edition of the text that I still have on my shelf - the one that I saw on a student's desk yesterday (I notice these things).

I don't remember enough high school Spanish to know, first hand, whether the translations we are reading is a good translation or not, but I have read enough (and have heard Rachel say as much) that the translation we are reading is not a good one. On Monday, Christy (per 8), who is read the novel in Spanish said that we are missing a number of word plays that just cannot be translated. But we're working with a budget here and we've got what we've got and we need to move on from here.

One of the most obvious ways to approach this text is to treat it as a myth, which is to say to approach it through the lens of Mythological Criticism. But before we go there we need to consider the question, "What is a myth?"

Yesterday, I asked period 7 the same question. For the most part, they responded in ways that I thought that they would - that myths "simplif[y] complex ideas,"[are] passed on [among] people," but I was intrigued by responses like, that myths have "cultural significance - they explain certain truths," and that they "represent cultural ideals." finally, Connie (per 7) noted that myths are "stories about power".

Yes, true, but also I think that Myths aren't just a "false story" (as some people said) they are important stories that develop a culture - they help define that culture - they help that culture define itself and its relationship to the world... this is both a good and a bad thing. Myths are collective and communal - and they bind us together.

myth transcends time

mythology is expressed in folklore and legend

Here We go...

I guess that I should start by saying something about why we are doing this - which I already have, but nevertheless. Every summer I spend some time thinking and rethinking how to best organize AP English. By doing so, every year ends up being different than the last. Usually, I try an organize the course around "essential questions" which serve as ways into thinking critically about the content. So, our work is arranged around ideas rather than just books.

What does this have to do with The Sound and the Fury? Well, last June, right after arena, and right after Richy and I had finished distributing S and F to y'all I began to think about the novel, about the Compsons, and about how to teach this text, and then it occurred to me - family. So, sure I could have developed three or four, or seven essential questions about family and we would have been done, but then we would have been focusing on what is of interest to me, and this is not necessarily what is of interest to you. Make sense?

So, lets take a look at some statements/questions about family that AP has asked over the years:

• Works of literature often depict acts of betrayal. Friends and even family may betray a protagonist; main characters may likewise be guilty of treachery or may betray their own values.
• How does the character's relationship to the past (family) contributes to the meaning of the novel?
• One of the strongest human drives seems to be a desire for power. How do characters in a novel or a drama struggle to free himself or herself from the power of others or seeks to gain power over others?
• Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed.
• Novels or plays often depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure) and a son or daughter.
• The conflict created when the will of an individual opposes the will of the majority is the recurring theme of many novels, plays, and essays.

You get the idea