Another concept that Ms. Holmes stresses a lot in this class is how each text relates to each other in some way, and connecting to the world around each work. For example, The American Dream, Death of a Salesman, and Ceremony all relate to the United States concept of aspirations, dream, and identities. We were able to debate and reference all of these when discussing each work individually. We learned a lot about Native American culture when reading "Ceremony" and about different times in history. We learned a lot about 1800's England in "Pride and Prejudice". Considering a lot of that novel was focusing on certain mannerisms of the time we got a grasp on the language, nuances, and norms of the time. In "Ceremony" we received an education on present day Native (mainly Laguna) ways. The information we gained from the reading and studying is very relevant today.
How to view Native Americans was somewhat clarified in "Ceremony". My favorite thing I learned on this was about the sense of humor. It's really cooler then ours (I think). WIth everything in the world having some degree of humor in it I think we'd never take ourselves too seriously.
I liked the humor in Ceremony as well! On our first read, I felt kind of depressed, but upon learning that there was actually some humor in it made me feel a lot better.
ReplyDeleteLike I said in the last response, I think adding a brief summary of the main themes of Pride and Prejudice and Ceremony would help you a lot when you go back to study in May. What exactly did we learn about 1800's England? What sort of statements society is Silko making by using humor in her novel?
I always enjoyed the similarities in the texts! Before we started this course, I never would have thought to compare two texts that weren't notable related. I like that you focus on Ceremony quite a bit, but it'd help if more examples were given about the other texts. Most of this focuses on one or two texts on a more surface level.
ReplyDeleteI find your organization interesting. I personally organized it on a more technical aspect, but yours was done on a more literary/technique based aspect, and it works well!
Great job!
This might have been a good place to talk about some tools for analysis--DIDLS, terms, critical lenses, etc.
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