American Literature Assignment #9

November 5, 2007

1.  Reading:  This week we embark on a journey with Melville—read chapters 1-19.  Summarize each chapter in two or three sentences.  Write on paragraph introducing any one of the characters you encounter in the story (due Tuesday, November 13).

       

2.  IMPORTANT!!!  Memorize your selection for the open house.  Be prepared to recite it again by memory on Tuesday, November 13 for a grade.

 

2. Vocabulary:

1.  Precipitous:  Resembling a precipice; very steep: extremely rapid or abrupt.

2.  Quasar:  An extremely distant celestial object whose power output is several thousand times that of the entire Milky Way Galaxy.

3.  Quotidian:  Commonplace or ordinary, as from everyday experience.

4.  Recapitulate:  To repeat in concise form; to make a summary.

5.  Reciprocal:  Existing, done, or experienced on both sides; done, given, felt, or owed in return.

6.  Reparation:  The act or process of making amends for a wrong.

7.  Respiration:  The act or process of inhaling and exhaling; breathing.

8.  Sanguine:  Cheerfully confident; optimistic.

9.  Soliloquy:  A dramatic or literary form of discourse in which a character talks to himself or reveals his thoughts when alone or unaware of the presence of other characters.

10.  Subjugate:  To bring under control; conquer.

 

3.  Writing:   Read the passages from the book and locate them in context.  For each one, write a one-page commentary that begins with an assertive thesis and goes on to analyze and discuss the thesis.  You are not merely “translating” the meaning of the words, but interpreting an aspect of the book.

        For example, in responding to quotation #1, you might begin by asserting that the narrator is re-telling the story in order to justify not only his ancestors, the Puritans, but himself, and that to do this, he identifies the non-religious character strengths that motivated them.

        Due November 15.

 

4.  Poetry:  Select a poem from our anthology (in sections one and two)—copy it, illuminate it, memorize it to recite to the class, and write a one page response to the poet (due Thursday, November 29).