Syllabus: September 2009

http://blog.lrei.org/jbelton

Tuesday 9/22

CLASS: Response # 2 due. Discuss and write about poems in Here, Bullet.

HOMEWORK:  Begin Response # 3: Choose any two poems that struck you most in what we have read of Brian Turner’s collection and that seem to speak to each other on some level (perhaps they deal with similar themes, problems, images, or questions).  Begin a draft of a 2 page response in which you explore answers to the following questions: What connections do you find between the two poems? For example, what particular images, questions, or themes emerge in both works? How do the poems build on one another? Ultimately, what do you think these two poems communicate or problematize about the experience of being at war or coming home from war (this war, or war in general)? Weave short pieces of evidence from the poems into your response. Make sure to analyze the evidence thoughtfully and to use correct parenthetical citations. When discussing two different works by the same author, as we are doing in this response, you must include the title of the poem and the line number in your parenthetical citations. For instance (“Sadiq” 2).  Remember to use slashes (/) to indicate line breaks if you are quoting more than one line of a poem. Bring in a first draft of your writing tomorrow.

Wednesday 9/23

CLASS: Share drafts in small groups. Respond to each other’s drafts in small groups/pairs with questions for further consideration, ways to push analysis further. What writing advice can you offer your partner? What can you learn from your partner’s writing/analyses?

HOMEWORK: Complete Response # 3.

Thursday 9/24

CLASS: Response # 3 due. Introduction to The Odyssey; terms, characters, background on Homer. Begin reading The Odyssey, Book 1 together.

HOMEWORK:  Read and annotate The Odyssey, Book 1

Friday 9/25 – Unit 2: Home and the Homefront

CLASS: Discuss Book 1: Status of the homefront; who is left behind. Telemachus; beginning and purpose of his journey, call to action. Fathers and sons.

HOMEWORK: Read and annotate The Odyssey: Book II, lines 1-163 & 300-477; and excerpts from Since You Went Away: WWII Letters from American Women on the Homefront. Wives, girlfriends, children, and mothers.

Monday 9/28 – No School

Tuesday 9/29

CLASS: Discuss The Odyssey, Book II. Life on the homefront. Odysseus’s “true son”; Penelope and the suitors. The image of home soldiers hold; the image of the soldier those at home hold.

HOMEWORK:  Read and annotate excerpts from The Warrior, A Mother’s Story of a Son at War. Complete Response # 4: Write your own “letter poem” from the perspective of either Penelope or Telemachus, addressing Odysseus. Take the time to imagine and embody the character, perspective, and voice from which you are writing. Use the examples of poetry we have read thus far as inspiration. (1-2 pages, typed).

Syllabus: September 2009

Http://blog.lrei.org/jbelton

Thursday 9/10 – Unit 1; Introduction: Images of the War and the Return

CLASS:    Introduction to course, goals, expectations, procedures. Introduce essential questions of the course.   Images/stories of war, the soldier, and homecomings. What image/stories are told, immortalized, kept veiled, or forgotten.

HOMEWORK:     Read and annotate “A Quick Look at Who is Fighting this War” pp 23-25 in Operation Homecoming and Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Camouflaging the Chimera,” ‘Losses,” “Tunnels” & “You and I are Disappearing.”

Friday 9/11 (25 minute class)

CLASS: Check materials. Discuss poems: The experience of war; what soldier’s carry; relationship between self and the war/land. Close readings.

HOMEWORK: Complete a 2-3 page typed response (Response # 1, due Tuesday 9/15) to the following questions: Part I: what are your personal experiences of home, leaving home, and homecomings. What departures and homecomings have been a part of your life? (1.5 pages) Part II: What images/ stories of war or the soldier’s return from war do you carry with you into this course? These might be family experiences, experiences you’ve witnessed, or images, books, films, news items, etc that have affected you in some way and helped to inform your understanding of war (1.5 pages). Please bring to class on Tuesday an artifact/image that represents some aspect of this image/story that you carry into the course.  Be prepared to explain your artifact briefly to the class.

Monday 9/14: No Class

Tuesday 9/15

CLASS:   Response # 1 due (with artifact). Share images. Create a class collage of images surrounding war and the soldier’s return from war.  Hand out Here, Bullet by Brian Turner.

HOMEWORK:  Read and annotate Here Bullet, pp 1, 6-13, 18, 20. As you read, make note of recurring ideas, metaphors, images, and questions raised. What issues do the poems explore about the experience of war and of returning from war?

Wednesday 9/16

CLASS:  View film clip from New York Times. Complete Response # 2 in class (see handout).

Homework:    Finish Response 2 to turn in on Tuesday 9/22. Read and annotate Here Bullet (pp 33-35, 39-40, 46-47, 55-56, 64-66) for Tuesday 9/22. As you read, make note of recurring ideas, metaphors, images, and questions raised. What issues do the poems explore about the experience of war and of returning from war?

Thursday 9/17 – Friday 9/18 – No Class

Monday 9/21 — NO CLASS

Tuesday 9/22

CLASS: Discuss Here Bullet.

HOMEWORK:  Work on Response # 3: TBA

Novels/Poetry Collections/Memoirs

Army Life in a Black Regiment, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko

Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier

Dien Cai Dau, by Yusef Komuunyakaa (poetry)

Dispatches, by Michael Herr

A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, by Robert Olen Butler (short stories)

Going After Cacciato, by Tim O’Brien

Home to Harlem, by Claude McCay

In Country, by Bobbie Ann Mason

Journalists at Risk: Reporting America’s Wars, by George Sullivan

Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

Films:

Apocalypse Now, dir. Francis Ford Coppola

The Best Years of Our Lives, dir. William Wyler

Body of War (documentary)

Born on the Fourth of July, dir. Oliver Stone

Cold Mountain, dir. Anthony Minghella

The Deer Hunter

Grace is Gone, dir. James C. Strouse

Hail the Conquering Hero, dir. Preston Sturges

The Hurt Locker, dir. Kathryn Bigelow

In the Valley of Elah, dir. Paul Haggis