Thursday, January 29, 2015

Friday, January 30 Intro to naturalism collecting The novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton


First things first: please turn in your "The Raven" assignment from the last page of the poem. This was assigned last Friday to be turned in today. This is a graded assignment. I only need the last page, not the whole poem.
Thank you.
Anyone who was absent last Friday, please arrange to make up the vocabulary quiz. 



School / Classroom reminders
On time.
No food.
No phones
Disruptive behavior that interferes with learning means your immediate removal.
The blog, which is posted everyday, is part of the course.(www.english3-14-15.blogspot.com) If you are absent, you are required to complete all classwork. If you are not too ill, it is best to complete your work on time from the comfort of your home and send it along.

 If you have a legal absence, that is it is recorded by a phone call or note, you have 10 days to make up the material for credit. Here's the problem: work builds upon work. Getting behind makes your life difficult. 

Hey, I don't have a computer at home. 
Well, check any internet connection, including a friend's / parent's phone. Because, it is your responsibility to check. Consider before school or study hall. Stay informed.

Kudos to those students who check the blog when absent, e-mail when they have a question and come for support when they need it. 

Finally, I am available most everyday periods 1,2, 6 and 7. As well, often I can help while the journalism students are working on a particular project. AND any missing quizzes can be made up any period, with the exception of your own class. And there is always after school.

TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR EDUCATION!
                 MOVING ON......
1. In class: new vocabulary for  Ethan Frome.
class handout / copy below
The quiz is on Friday, February 6
There are 16 words- longer, but easier- than previously. The 16 will be matching, with 4 sentences; so the quiz will not be longer.
Start learning the words.  You will have a power point review next Thursday. copy of words below.
2. Collecting the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton from the library.
3. Background information on Naturalism
       class handout / copy below 
        We will review the material in class. You will complete a graphic organizer on this work for homework. These will be collected at the beginning of class on Monday. Any not turned in at that time are late. 
  
Learning Targets: 

Students will interpret words and phrases as they are used in the text, including technical, connotative and figurative meanings, and analyze how the specific word choices shape the meaning.
RI.11-12.2  Students will determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.
RI.11-12.3 Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text. 
RI.11-12.6 Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness, or beauty of the text. 

Background information on Naturalism

Naturalism
Naturalism (1890 - 1915): 
1. The term Naturalism describes a type of literature that attempts to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to its study of human beings. 

2.  Naturalistic writers, since human beings are, in Emile Zola's phrase, "human beasts," characters can be studied through their relationships to their surroundings. 

3. The Naturalist believed in studying human beings as though they were "products" that are to be studied impartially, without moralizing about their natures.

4. Naturalistic writers believed that the laws of behind the forces that govern human lives might be studied and understood through the objective study of human beings. 

5. Naturalistic writers used a version of the scientific method to write their novels; they studied human beings governed by their instincts and passions as well as the ways in which the characters' lives were governed by forces of heredity and environment.

6. Naturalism is considered as a movement to be beyond Realism. Naturalism is based more on scientific studies. 

7. Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a basis for the Naturalist writer. Natural selection and survival of the fittest help to depict the struggle against nature as a hopeless fight.


Characteristics of naturalism
  • Objective
  • Darwinistic--survival of the fittest
  • Detached method of narration
  • Language--formal; piling on of images ("wretched excess")
  • Human beings unable to stand up against enormous weight of circumstances.
  • Deterministic--natural and socioeconomic forces stronger than man.
  • Heredity determines character
  • Violence--force against force 
  •            man against man
  •            man against nature
  •            man against himself
  • Taboo topics
  • Animal imagery
  • Attention to setting to the point of saturation
  • Characters--lower socioeconomic class
  • Static characters
  • Naturalists observe, then write. Often about the black, darker side of life.
  • "Pessimistic materialistic determinism" (Pizer)
  • Characters conditioned or controlled by environment, heredity, instinct or chance but they have a compensating humanistic value that affirms the significance of the individual (Pizer).
  • Characters do not have free will (determinism)
Themes:
"The conflict in naturalistic novels is often 'man against nature' or 'man against himself' as characters struggle to retain a 'veneer of civilization' despite external pressures that threaten to release the 'brute within' " (Campbell).
Nature is indifferent to man
The universe is deterministic


Name_________________________________
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton  background information on the literary movement of Naturalism. Column 1 lists qualities associated with Naturalism. Please respond to the query (new word) in column 2 that asks you to extend the idea presented in column 1. Please use complete sentences.  
Column 1                                                                            Column 2
1. The term Naturalism describes a type of literature that attempts to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to its study of human beings.
What does it mean “to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to human beings?”








2.  Naturalistic writers, since human beings are, in Emile Zola's phrase, "human beasts," characters can be studied through their relationships to their surroundings.

In what ways could human beings be described as “beasts?”






3. The Naturalist believed in studying human beings as though they were "products" that are to be studied impartially, without moralizing about their natures.
a. What does it mean to “moralize” a human being?






b. What advantage might a writer have in removing the idea of moralizing from a narrative?







4. Naturalistic writers believed that the laws of behind the forces that govern human lives might be studied and understood through the objective study of human beings.

If moralizing is removed from human nature, what might remain?
5. Naturalistic writers used a version of the scientific method to write their novels; they studied human beings governed by their instincts and passions as well as the ways in which the characters' lives were governed by forces of heredity and environment.
In Romanticism we looked at how instincts and passions impact a tale. Now heredity and environment are added into the mix.  Which set of forces do you think will dominate and why?










6. Naturalism is considered as a movement to be beyond Realism. Naturalism is based more on scientific studies.
Realism is writing about what is: warts and all. Social Science connection. What social movement (s) was taking place in the latter half of the 19th century whose reality when exposed would lead to social change?






7. Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a basis for the Naturalist writer. Natural selection and survival of the fittest help to depict the struggle against nature as a hopeless fight.

 So who invariably wins this battle? Why?












Ethan Frome Vocabulary Words

1.  sardonic     (adj)           Scornfully or cynically mocking; sarcastic.
2.  colloquial    (adj)           Informal; relating to conversation; conversational.
3.  innocuous   (adj)           Having no adverse effect; harmless, insipid
4.  reticent  (adj)                Inclined to keep one's thoughts, feelings to oneself; restrained, reluctant
5. poignant (adj)               Keenly distressing to the mind or feelings
6. wraith   (noun)              An apparition of a living person that appears as a portent just before that
                                              person's death.
7. wistful  (adj)                  Full of wishful yearning. 2. Pensively sad; melancholy.

8. undulation  (noun)          A regular rising and falling or movement like waves
9. tenuous (adj)                 Long and thin; slender: tenuous strands. 2. Having a thin consistency or
                                           substance; flimsy: a tenuous argument.
10. throng (throng)             A large group of people; a multitude.
               
11. vex   (verb)                  To annoy, as with petty importunities; bother.
12. laden (adj)                   Weighed down with a load; heavy   (laden with grief)            
13. preclude (verb)            To exclude or prevent (someone) from a given condition or activity
14. succumb (verb)           To submit to an overpowering force or yield to an overwhelming desire
15. foist (verb)                   To pass off as genuine, valuable, or worthy
16. schadenfreude            To feel pleasure or satisfaction from someone’s misfortune





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