Brooks, "The Bean Eaters"
"A Song in the Front Yard"
Roethke, "In a Dark Time"
"The Geranium"
Lowell, "Sailing Home From Rapallo"
"Epilogue"
Ginsberg, "Howl"
Plath, "Lady Lazarus"
Baraka, "A New Reality is Better than a New Movie!"
Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues"
From The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction:
--Silko, "Tony's Story," 579
--Lahiri, "A Temporary Matter," 321
--Bass, "The Hermit's Story," 22
--Bloom, "Silver Water," 72
--Cisneros, "Never Marry a Mexican," 109
--Desaulniers, "After Rosa Parks," 129
--Doerr, "The Caretaker," 152
--Yarbrough, "The Rest of her Life," 628
Directions: After reading the lecture, answer one of the questions below. This answer is due no later than Thursday, May 4.
A well thought out answer will probably be two or three substantial paragraphs (250-350 words on average).
Your responses to other students' answers are due by midnight on Sunday, May 7. Remember: in order to get the full 20 points, you MUST respond thoughtfully to at least 2 other people's postings.
This set of discussion questions is worth a possible 20 points. Late answers receive 0 points, so post early :)
More details, with sample questions and answers, can be found on the Discussion Board itself, under the heading "Info on Discussion Questions." Please read this carefully so you know how to get the most points for the discussions.
We will be using the Canvas Discussion Board for this class. Click on the link below to get to the LACCD portal, sign in, and then click on the link for Canvas in the right column. This will take you to the Canvas dashboard. From there, click on the square with the name of our class. Once you've entered the class, you will find the "Discussions" link on the left side of the screen:
Just answer one of the following questions.
1. Choose ONE of the poems from the list above and discuss the techniques the poet uses (word choice, rhyme, meter, imagery, tone, etc.) to express his or her ideas.
2. Choose ONE of the poems from the list above; what influences of Modernist or earlier poetry do you see in it? Explain.
3. Read the description of Postmodernism in Lecture 11. Then choose ONE of the short stories from the list above. Is the story "postmodern" or not? Why? Explain, using specific examples and direct quotes from the story for support.
4. Choose ONE of the short stories from the list above. What are the conflicts in the story? How are the conflicts resolved (or are they resolved)? Explain, using specific examples and direct quotes from the story for support.
5. At the end of "Silver Water," Violet's mother says, "Warrior queens. I've raised warrior queens." What does she mean? Explain, using specific examples and direct quotes from the story to support your ideas.
6. In "Never Marry a Mexican," the narrator says she will never marry, that she doesn't want to marry. Is she telling the truth? Explain, using specific examples and direct quotes from the story to support your ideas.
7. In "After Rosa Parks," how is the idea of freedom both exhilarating and terrifying to the characters? Explain, using specific examples and direct quotes from the story to support your ideas.
8. In "The Caretaker," in what ways is Joseph a caretaker? Explain, using specific examples and direct quotes from the story to support your ideas.
9. In "The Rest of Her Life," why does Dee Ann decide to lie to save her father? Explain, using specific examples and direct quotes from the story to support your ideas.
For further information on these works, see the Links page.