Audio - all audio content related to American literature

 A very short discussion because we had shortened classes - but still a great discussion with some big, big moments about the book coming to the surface.  Today was homecoming day - and the metaphorical significance on this story was not completely lost.

We begin by doing a close reading of the first paragraph of the story - the students look for everything they can that tells them something interesting about what's going on - of course, now they have read the story, and the first paragraph seems completely different.  Then we go through the plot and the idea of who is the evil one in the story - the devil or someone else.  We end by playing The Rolling Stone's "Sympathy for the Devil."  This story ended up being the final project for the 2011-2012 World Literature Class.

Randall Jarrell's poem is about a little boy livng during the blitz - what happens around him - but most of all how people lie to him (hence the title).  You can find the poem (and my notes on it here).  For the first ten minutes of class, students work with partners and go through the poem themselves - trying to make sense of it.

As with some other class discussions we divided these chapters into rows - each row having a different set of chapters.  Then we started at the first student and went down the row - until every student had a chance to bring up one question, observation, or quote and we had discussed chapters 24-34.

 We discuss the book, The History of Love - from page 45 onwards, as far as we can get until the bell rings.  As always with this book, a very lively discussion.

 My favorite essay by one of my favorite writers - E.B. White.  This is also the story that I pass out more to friends, students, and family than any other.  We read it in class before we read White's Stuart Little.  It's the story of a man seeing a therapist - and he ends up discovering that the thing that he really wants - more than anything else - is neither attainable nor material - but it is that desire that makes his life fulfilling and worthwhile.  We read the story in class and discuss it.