The Things They Carried –Tim O’Brien Reading Calendar

Mon. Tues. Weds. Thurs. Fri. Sat./Sun. 10.16 10.17 10.18-19 Booktalk:

Formalist and Reader Response Criticism Book Check-out

BNW Essay DUE IC: The Things They Carried HW: Love; Vocabulary

HW: Love; Vocabulary

10.20 10.21 10.22 Late Start 10.23 Late Start 10.24 10.25-26 RACES #2 HW: Love, Spin; Vocabulary

Quiz: Love, Spin, and Vocab 1-20 Formalist Style HW: Formalist Analysis

Period 5: IC: On the Rainy River HW: Personal Connection

Period 6: IC: On the Rainy River HW: Personal Connection

Quiz: Formalism; Reader-Response; Vocab 20-30; Personal Connections HW: Enemies; Friends

HW: Enemies; Friends

10.27 Substitute 10.28 Substitute 10.29 10.30 10.31 11.01-02 Quiz: On the Rainy River, Enemies, Friends IC: How to Tell a True War Story HW: The Dentist

Quiz: The Dentist IC: The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong HW: Finish The Sweetheart...

Debrief of recent vignettes; Discussion HW: Stockings

Quiz: Vocab 30-40; Formalist Analysis; Reader-Response Analysis HW: Analytical Writing

Debrief HW Writing; Introduce Narrative HW: Church, The Man I Killed, Ambush

HW: Church, The Man I Killed, Ambush

11.03 11.04 11.05 11.06 11.07 11.08-09 RACES #3 HW: Church, The Man I Killed, Ambush

Quiz: Church, The Man I Killed, Ambush HW: Analysis Paragraph

Analysis Paragraph Debrief HW: Style

IC: Speaking of Courage HW: Reader Response

Narrative Work Day HW: Notes in the Field, Good Form

HW: Notes in the Field, Good Form

11.10 11.11 No School 11.12 11.13 11.14 11.15-16 Quiz: Notes in the Field, Good Form IC: Field Trip HW: The Ghost Soldiers

Veterans’ Day HW: The Ghost Soldiers

Quiz: The Ghost Soldiers Analysis Paragraph HW: Night Life

Debrief Analysis Paragraph HW: Narrative

Narrative Work Day HW: Finish Narrative by deadline below

HW: Finish Narrative by deadline below

11.17 11.18 11.19 Late Start 11.20 Late Start 11.21 11.22-23 RACES #4 HW: Finish Narrative by 11.19/20 @TSOC

IC: The Lives of the Dead HW: Finish Narrative by 11.19/20 @TSOC

Period 5: Narrative DUE (Printed out); Formalist Eval. of own Narrative HW: Self-Analysis

Period 6: Narrative DUE (Printed out); Formalist Eval. of own Narrative HW: Self-Analysis

Review for Lit Lenses Test

No HW

11.24 11.25 11.26 No School 11.27 No School 11.28 No School 11.29-30 Lit Lenses Test:

Passage 2 Lit Lenses Test:

Passage 3 Thanksgiving No HW

Thanksgiving No HW

Thanksgiving No HW

No HW

VOCABULARY:

1. Go to tiny.cc/TTTCvocab to record the meanings. 2. The meanings for the appropriate numbers must be completed before the day of the quiz. 3. You will be allowed to use your vocab chart on the quiz, IF and ONLY IF you draw a picture or

symbol in the chart on the back to help you remember the MEANING of the word.

Psychoanalytical Critical Perspective Marxist Critical Perspective Psychoanalytical criticism is usually used to analyze characters within a work by considering a character’s actions and motivations, often by applying Freud’s concepts of the id (biological impulses and desires), superego (social constrains and norms), and ego (the part of the self which attempts to reconcile and alleviate the tension between the id and superego). Psychological criticism seeks to examine characters by probing within their minds and exploring hidden conflicts, motivations, tensions, or underlying influences on their behavior. A close examination of a character’s actions, words, emotions, thoughts, appearance, and relationships are a starting point; from then, the reader must draw inferences based on an understanding of human behavior, impulses and identity. Psychological analysis is not just about how a character is represented in a text, but is also about what underlying psychology within that character manifests through the character.

Based on Marxist theories about power in society, as well as disconnect or dissonance between what “is” and how people perceive it to be. This latter perception, according to Marxism, is rooted in the dominant ideology imposed upon a society. This ideology is accepted by a society as normal, natural, inevitable and just, but Marx contents that the maintenance of the ideology serves only to reinforce and legitimize structures of social, political and economic power. Ideology maintains social strata and position, facilitating the exploitation of the lower classes by the higher classes. Thus, ideology serves to preserve the status quo and suppress change, revolution, or progress. Marxist literary criticism seeks to examine how ideology influences, manifests, and informs literature as well as how the norms and ideologies constructed within a text serve the same sort of social control. Marxist criticism also requires readers to consider the dissonance between what “is” and what “is perceived to be.”

Formalist Critical Perspective (New Criticism)

Reader Response Critical Perspective

New Criticism and Formalism focus on the structure of the text and what literary devices it employs to accomplish a purpose. This tends to ignore historical or biographical contexts of the author, instead emphasizing the work the writing does via overarching structure, work choice, language, relationships within the text, images, and symbols. What the author “meant” is irrelevant; New Criticism focuses on what the text does and how it does it. Thorough criticism therefore requires multiple readings of a text. New Criticism also tends to focus on attention to detail, while often also connecting those details to a universal theme or human experience. New Criticism could be characterized as looking at how the pieces of the text, like a puzzle, when examined together can produce a broader picture. New Criticism involves examining minute details in order to consider how those details accumulate to communicate a broader concept. This is the kind of literary criticism most common to high school literature classes that demand the citation of text evidence to support a broader theme or assertion. New Criticism is not concerned with what the author intended to accomplish, nor is it specifically about a reader’s response. This approach implies that the form of a text has the ability to communicate a rather unambiguous truth or theme through the close examination of details.

Reader-Response is based on the idea that there is an interaction between a reader and a text. RR criticism involves the reader uncovering their individual response to a text, identifying what in the text elicited that response, how that structure produces the resulting feeling, and even (to an extent) what within the reader’s identity or experience facilitated that interaction with the text. RR is wholly subjective; though the reader cannot arbitrarily say a texts means whatever they want it to mean—a reader must be able to support their interpretations through an examination of what the text does and how it does it. RR is based on the cause-effect cycle between a reader and a text. The text produces a response within the reader, which then influences the reader’s subsequent interpretation of the text. RR is not a judgment of the quality or appeal of a text, but rather is an examination of what structures elicit a response from a reader and why.

Adapted from Peter Schakel and Jack Ridl, Approaching Literature in the 21st Century, Bedford/St. Martins, Boston, 2005.