Meditative Journal: "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth

Directions: For your daily meditation, please read and respond to this class poem in this blog space.

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Due Tuesday, November 5th - Review of Poetry Essays: "A Barred Owl" and "The History Teacher"

Overview and Directions:  For many of you, this may have been your first foray into poetry explication.  First, re-read the two poems, below.  Next, reread your essay on Turnitin.com and look at my comments.  Then, copy and paste bold title, below, into a Google search.  Scroll through and begin reading the student examples, and think about how you would grade these pieces.  Always be thinking abut how your work measures up in terms of content and style. We will work on this as a class. In this blog space, comment on which essay you find to be the most effective and why.  Also, what do all the essays have in common?  How did your essay match-up?

"A Barred Owl" and "The History Teacher" - Prompt, Rubric and Student Examples can be found 
in a google search for Collins-Wilbur Poetry Response.pdf

"A Barred Owl"

by Richard Wilbur

The warping night air having brought the boom
Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,
We tell the wakened child that all she heard
Was an odd question from a forest bird,
Asking of us, if rightly listened to,
“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight
Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw
Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

"The History Teacher" 

by Billy Collins

Trying to protect his students’ innocence
he told them the Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.

And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age, 5
named after the long driveways of the time.

The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more
than an outbreak of questions such as
“How far is it from here to Madrid?”
“What do you call the matador’s hat?” 10

The War of Roses took place in a garden,
and the Enola Gay dropped on tiny atom
on Japan.

The children would leave his classroom
for the playground to torment the weak 15
and the smart,
messing up their hair and breaking their glasses,

while he gathered up his notes and walked home
past flower beds and white picket fences,
wondering if they would believe that soldiers 20
in the Boer War told long, rambling stories
designed to make the enemy nod off.

Due Thursday, November 7th - "Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf, Pages 102-End

Directions: 1) Read Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, pages 102-end. 2) Compose a blog response, using the comprehensive questions below as a guide in your exploration. I look forward to your responses.

"...the unmistakable tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and instantly grew stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now knew death. As I looked at the dead moth, this minute wayside triumph of so great a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange. The moth having righted himself now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed. O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am."  

from "Death of a Moth" by Virginia Woolf

Study Questions

1. Threats of disorder and death recur throughout the novel, culminating in Septimus's suicide and repeating later in Sir William Bradshaw's report of that suicide at Clarissa's party. When do thoughts or images of disorder and death appear in the novel, and in connection with which characters? What are those characters' attitudes concerning death?

2. Why does Woolf end the novel with Clarissa as seen through Peter's eyes? Why does he experience feelings of "terror," "ecstasy," and "extraordinary excitement" in her presence? What is the significance of those feelings, and do we as readers share them?

3. Clarissa reads lines from Shakespeare's Cymbeline (IV, ii) from an open book in a shop window: "Fear no more the heat o' the sun / Nor the furious winter's rages. / Thou thy worldly task hast done, / Home art gone and ta'en thy wages: / Golden lads and girls all must, / As chimney-sweepers, come to dust." These lines are alluded to many times. What importance do they have for Clarissa, Septimus, and the novel's principal themes? What fears do Clarissa and other characters experience?

4. Now that we have completed our first reading of the novel, what connections are seeing between The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway? How do big themes from the present shine through? How does the analysis of Virginia Woolf bring out ideas from her novel?

"And that is why I believe those hollow crisps on the bathroom floor are moths. I think I know moths, and fragments of moths, and chips and tatters of utterly empty moths, in any state. How many of you, I asked the people in my class, which of you want to give your lives and be writers? I was trembling from coffee, or cigarettes, or the closeness of faces all around me. (Is this what we live for? I thought; is this the only final beauty: the color of skin in any light, and living, human eyes?) All hands rose to the question. (You, Nick? Will you? Margaret? Randy? Why do I want them to mean it?) And then I tried to tell them what the choice must mean: you can’t be anything else. You must go at your life with a broadax . . . They had no idea what I was saying. (I have two hands, don’t I? And all this energy, for as long as I can remember. I’ll do it in the evenings, after skiing, or on the way home from the bank, or after the children are asleep . . .) They thought I was raving again. It’s just as well."

from "Death of a Moth" by Annie Dillard"

Spoken Word Poetry

Overview:  Here are links to the spoken word poems we viewed in class, in case you want to share or see them again.  Enjoy.

Due Tuesday, October 29th - "Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf, Pages 56-102

Directions:  1) Read Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, pages 56-102.  2) Compose a blog response, using the comprehensive questions below as a guide in your exploration.  I look forward to your responses.

"I wanted to be a writer, that's all. I wanted to write about it all. Everything that happens in a moment. The way the flowers looked when you carried them in your arms. This towel, how it smells, how it feels, this thread. All our feelings, yours and mine. The history of it, who we once were. Everything in the world. Everything all mixed up, like it's all mixed up now. And I failed. I failed. No matter what you start with it ends up being so much less. Sheer pride and stupidity."

Study Questions

1. Woolf saw Septimus Warren Smith as an essential counterpoint to Clarissa Dalloway. What specific comparisons and contrasts are drawn between the two? What primary images are associated, respectively, with Clarissa and with Septimus? What is the significance of Septimus making his first appearance as Clarissa, from her florist's window, watches the mysterious motor car in Bond Street?  How does the comparison continue in this section?  What connections can we make to The Hours?

2. Speaking of The Hours, as we explore the text through the lens of the film, what connections are seeing between The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway.  How do big themes from the present shine through?  How does the analysis of Virginia Woolf bring out ideas from her novel?

3. What was Clarissa's relationship with Sally Seton? What is the significance of Sally's reentry into Clarissa's life after so much time? What role does Sally play in Clarissa's past and in her present?

4. What is Woolf s purpose in creating a range of female characters of various ages and social classes-from Clarissa herself and Lady Millicent Burton to Sally Seton, Doris Kilman, Lucrezia Smith, and Maisie Johnson? Does she present a comparable range of male characters?

5. Clarissa's movements through London, along with the comings and goings of other characters, are given in some geographic detail. Do the patterns of movement and the characters' intersecting routes establish a pattern? If so, how do those physical patterns reflect important internal patterns of thought, memory, feelings, and attitudes? What is the view of London that we come away with?

Mrs. Dalloway Mapping Project Website

6. Woolf shifts scenes between past and present, primarily through Clarissa's, Septimus's, and others' memories. Does this device successfully establish the importance of the past as a shaping influence on and an informing component of the present? Which characters promote this idea? Does Woolf seem to believe this holds true for individuals as it does for society as a whole?

7. Clarissa and others have a heightened sense of the "splendid achievement" and continuity of English history, culture, and tradition. How do Clarissa and others respond to that history and culture? What specific elements of English history and culture are viewed as primary?
How does Clarissa's attitude, specifically, compare with Septimus's attitude on these points?

"Her cake is a failure, but she is loved anyway. She is loved, she thinks, in more or less the way the gifts will be appreciated: because they've been given with good intentions, because they exist, because they are part of a world in which one wants what one gets...She will not lose hope. She will not mourn her lost possibilities, her unexplored talents (what if she has no talents, after all?). She will remain devoted to her son..."

Due Monday, October 21st - "Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf, pages 3-56

Directions:  1) Read Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, pages 3-56.
2) Compose a blog response, using the comprehensive questions below as a guide in your exploration.  I look forward to your responses.

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."

Study Questions

1. In Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf combines interior with omniscient descriptions of character and scene. How does the author handle the transition between the interior and the exterior? Which characters' points of view are primary to the novel; which minor characters are given their own points of view? Why, and how does Woolf handle the transitions from one point of view to another? How do the shifting points of view, together with that of the author, combine to create a portrait of Clarissa and her milieu? Does this kind of novelistic portraiture resonate with other artistic movement's of Woolf s time?

2. Clarissa's movements through London, along with the comings and goings of other characters, are given in some geographic detail. Do the patterns of movement and the characters' intersecting routes establish a pattern? If so, how do those physical patterns reflect important internal patterns of thought, memory, feelings, and attitudes? What is the view of London that we come away with?

3. As the day and the novel proceed, the hours and half hours are sounded by a variety of clocks (for instance, Big Ben strikes noon at the novel's exact midpoint). What is the effect of the time being constantly announced on the novel's structure and on our sense of the pace of the characters' lives? What hours in association with which events are explicitly sounded? Why? Is there significance in Big Ben being the chief announcer of time?

4. Clarissa reads lines from Shakespeare's Cymbeline (IV, ii) from an open book in a shop window: "Fear no more the heat o' the sun / Nor the furious winter's rages. / Thou thy worldly task hast done, / Home art gone and ta'en thy wages: / Golden lads and girls all must, / As chimney-sweepers, come to dust." These lines are alluded to many times. What importance do they have for Clarissa, Septimus, and the novel's principal themes? What fears do Clarissa and other characters experience?

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."

Due Tuesday, October 15th - "Death of a Moth"

Overview and Directions:  In preparation for our unit on Virginia Woolf, please read the following essays titled, "Death of a Moth," one by Virginia Woolf, the other by Annie Dillard.  Please comment on these works in a comprehensive blog response.  I warn you.  These pieces require work from its audience. Be brave in your analysis.  Take risks. I look forward to your responses.

"Death of a Moth" by Virginia Woolf"

"Death of a Moth" by Annie Dillard