Literature & Composition Reading • Writing • Thinking Carol Jago Santa Monica High School, California Renée H Shea Bowie State University, Maryland Lawrence Scanlon Brewster High School, New York Robin Dissin Aufses Lycộe Franỗais de New York Bedford/St Martins JAG_88063_00_FM_pp_i-xxxviii.indi i Boston • New York 4/29/10 12:06:12 PM For Bedford/St Martin’s Developmental Editor: Nathan Odell Senior Production Editor: Bill Imbornoni Production Supervisor: Jennifer Peterson Marketing Manager: Daniel McDonough Art Director: Lucy Krikorian Text Design: Linda M Robertson Copy Editor: Jamie Thaman Indexer: Kirsten Kite Photo Research: Helane Prottas Cover Design: Donna Dennison Cover Art: The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C Composition: Glyph International Printing and Binding: Worldcolor/Taunton President: Joan E Feinberg Editorial Director: Denise B Wydra Editor in Chief: Karen S Henry Director of Development: Erica T Appel Director of Marketing: Karen R Soeltz Director of Editing, Design, and Production: Susan W Brown Assistant Director of Editing, Design, and Production: Elise S Kaiser Managing Editor: Shuli Traub Library of Congress Control Number: 2010925397 Copyright © 2011 by Bedford/St Martin’s All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the Publisher Manufactured in the United States of America 15 14 13 12 11 10 For information, write: Bedford/St Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000) ISBN-10: 0-312-38806-3 ISBN-13: 978-0-312-38806-5 Acknowledgments Acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book on pages 1510–1517, which constitute an extension of the copyright page It is a violation of the law to reproduce these selections by any means whatsoever without the written permission of the copyright holder JAG_88063_00_FM_pp_i-xxxviii.indii ii 11/23/10 8:29:03 PM To Michael and James Jago Bertha Vogelsang Bahn Kate and Michael Aufses Alison, Lindsay, Maura, & Kaitlin, and to Mary-Grace JAG_88063_00_FM_pp_i-xxxviii.indiii iii 4/29/10 12:06:13 PM This page left intentionally left blank JAG_88063_00_FM_pp_i-xxxviii.indiv iv 4/29/10 12:06:13 PM About the Authors Carol Jago taught AP Literature and was department chair at Santa Monica High School for thirty-two years She has served on the AP Literature Development Committee and as a content advisor on AP Central She is the author of many books, including With Rigor for All: Teaching the Classics to Contemporary Students; Beyond Standards: Excellence in the High School English Classroom; and four titles in the NCTE High School Literature series In 2010, Carol is the president of NCTE and an advisor for the Common Core State Standards Initiative Renée H Shea is professor of English and Modern Languages at Bowie State University and former Director of Composition She is coauthor of The Language of Composition: Reading • Writing • Rhetoric and two titles in the NCTE High School Literature series on Amy Tan and Zora Neale Hurston She has been a reader and question leader for both AP Literature and Language readings Lawrence Scanlon taught at Brewster High School for more than thirty years Over the last fifteen years he has been a reader and question leader for the AP Language exam As a College Board consultant in the U.S and abroad, he has conducted AP workshops in both Language and Literature, as well as serving on the AP Language Development Committee Larry is coauthor of The Language of Composition: Reading • Writing • Rhetoric and has published articles for the College Board and elsewhere on composition and curriculum Robin Dissin Aufses is director of English Studies at Lycée Franỗais de New York She is coauthor of The Language of Composition: Reading • Writing • Rhetoric Robin also has published articles for the College Board on the novelist Chang Rae Lee and the novel All the King’s Men v JAG_88063_00_FM_pp_i-xxxviii.indv v 4/29/10 12:06:13 PM This page left intentionally left blank JAG_88063_00_FM_pp_i-xxxviii.indiv iv 4/29/10 12:06:13 PM Preface W hy read literature? To many of us, that question seems as strange as asking “why breathe?” Literature has been part of our life, family, school, and community for as long as we can remember Of course, there are those who argue that what today’s students need is preparation for the “real world,” but in the push for practical university and workplace preparedness we sometimes overlook the importance of educating students’ imaginations Literature offers windows to worlds outside students’ experience as well as mirrors onto the world they already know Literature also prepares students for the personal challenges and moral dilemmas they are likely to face How better to reflect on the demands of contemporary life than to study William Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much with Us” alongside Nathalie Handal’s “Caribe in Nueva York”? And does not the proffered wisdom of William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Seamus Heaney, and Rita Dove provide important preparation for surviving and thriving in this complex world? Literary analysis is an intellectual discipline that hones students’ thinking by requiring them to probe a text deeply and analyze the means that writers employ to achieve their effects Along with preparing students for the rigors of an Advanced Placement* exam, learning how to analyze text and articulate a perspective prepares students for life, both in academia and in the workplace This preparation and exploration are what we hope to achieve in Literature & Composition by specifically targeting the skills and habits of mind that are the keys to success in an Advanced Placement Literature course Features of the Book The opening chapters introduce strategies and scaffolding that guide students toward deep reading of difficult texts while fostering an understanding of key literary terms and analytical techniques We understand that high school teachers are in the classroom every single day, and with that in mind we designed these opening chapters to be highly instructional and activity-oriented *AP and Advanced Placement Program are registered trademarks of the College Entrance Examination Board, which was not involved in the publication of and does not endorse this product vii JAG_88063_00_FM_pp_i-xxxviii.indvii vii 4/29/10 12:06:13 PM viii PREFACE • Chapter 1, “Thinking about Literature,” introduces the study of literature and the approaches and habits of mind that lead to both insightful analysis and enjoyment • Chapter 2, “Close Reading: Analyzing Poetry and Passages of Fiction,” introduces students to close reading strategies that reveal how the elements of style create meaning in fiction and poetry Students are also introduced to the process of writing a close analysis, and a comparison and contrast of two poems • Chapter 3, “The Big Picture: Analyzing Fiction and Drama,” teaches students to analyze the major elements of fiction and drama and then discuss them thoughtfully in an interpretive essay • Chapter 4, “Entering the Conversation,” guides students through the process of using multiple texts to write about literary, cultural, and historical issues These approaches to reading and writing are revisited repeatedly in the subsequent thematic chapters through the discussion and close reading questions that follow each piece of literature, as well as in the Conversation, Student Writing, and Writer’s Craft sections at the end of each thematic chapter The literature in this book is organized thematically to foster classroom conversation and promote connections between and among texts The themes in this book — Home and Family, Identity and Culture, Love and Relationships, Conformity and Rebellion, Art and the Artist, Tradition and Progress, and War and Peace — are those our students have found engaging, and they can easily be adapted for use with longer works of literature We know from our own experience, as well as from research such as the National Endowment for the Humanities “Reading at Risk” report, that many students today are not reading poetry, fiction, and drama with the same enthusiasm as previous generations; however, students remain interested in big questions — social, political, economic, aesthetic, and literary The thematic arrangement of this book offers them the opportunity to consider such questions through the eyes of William Shakespeare and Naomi Shihab Nye, Homer and Walt Whitman, Franz Kafka and Gwendolyn Brooks, whose literary texts offer compelling perspectives on complex human issues As students grapple with these issues, they read the literature closely and even reread one text in light of another Each thematic chapter includes a wide variety of classic and contemporary fiction, poetry, drama, nonfiction, and visual texts that are rich, rigorous, and appealing to sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds A Classic Text and a Modern Text of significant literary merit begin and anchor each thematic chapter These works invite students to delve deeply into the theme, JAG_88063_00_FM_pp_i-xxxviii.indviii viii 4/29/10 12:06:14 PM PREFACE ix forming a foundation for interpreting the stories and poems in the rest of the chapter The Classic Texts challenge students to read literature from an earlier time, written for a very different audience, with syntax and vocabulary that may be unfamiliar These Classic Texts, which include such works as Heart of Darkness, Hamlet, and The Importance of Being Earnest, enlarge students’ background knowledge by offering windows into other times and other worlds The Modern Texts range from selections written by late twentieth-century writers, such as James Baldwin and Flannery O’Connor, to pieces written by celebrated contemporary authors such as Edwidge Danticat and Jhumpa Lahiri The Classic and Modern Texts are followed by a collection of short stories and poems that span the ages, drawing from diverse authors who offer varying interpretations of the chapter’s theme Bridging the old and new emphasizes that many questions and issues — about the nature of war, or the role of the artist, for example — have captivated and puzzled humanity through the ages and across cultures Contemporary literary voices such as Billy Collins, Sandra Cisneros, and Sherman Alexie are living proof that these issues continue to be vital Probing questions after each selection guide students’ reading and scaffold their emerging interpretation of the works The Classic and Modern Texts are followed by these types of questions: • Questions for Discussion invite students to investigate the text, probing the work for meaning, and direct students’ attention to important ideas in the story, poem, or play • Questions on Style and Structure get students to focus on the technical and artistic aspects of the work Responding to these questions will help students begin to analyze the tools writers employ to achieve an effect and prepare them for the kinds of essay and multiple-choice questions they will face on exams • Suggestions for Writing offer students multiple opportunities to use writing to explore their developing understanding of a text In every set of writing suggestions, students are offered one or more questions resembling those on the AP exam, and in some cases students are asked to try their hand at the techniques the author has used Other selections in the book are accompanied by Exploring the Text questions that call for close careful reading and ask students to discuss and interpret the work These questions allow students to practice what they have learned in the opening chapters and to broaden their experience of literature Suggestions for Writing at the end of each chapter are prompts for longer writing projects Most require the use of multiple literary sources — an important skill in college classes JAG_88063_00_FM_pp_i-xxxviii.indix ix 4/29/10 12:06:14 PM ... Teacher’s Manual is an in-depth and indispensable guide for teaching a successful AP Literature course ISBN-10: 0-3 1 2-6 172 6-7 ; ISBN-13: 97 8-0 -3 1 2-6 172 6-4 Student Center for Literature & Composition This... The Potato-Eaters (painting) 332 Ralph Ellison, I Yam What I Am (fiction) 333 Naomi Shihab Nye, My Father and the Figtree (poetry) 337 Laura Esquivel, January: Christmas Rolls (fiction) 339 Lisa... Bedford/St Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (6 1 7-3 9 9-4 00 0) ISBN-10: 0-3 1 2-3 880 6-3 ISBN-13: 97 8-0 -3 1 2-3 880 6-5 Acknowledgments Acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book