Lesson Plan for Week 6: General Thoughts and Notes

Major topics:

1. Thought for the day:

   I want you to tell me just one thing more. Why do you hate the South?

   I don't hate it, Quentin said quickly, at once, immediately; I don't hate it, he said. I don't hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I don't. I don't! I don't hate it! I don't hate it!

   — Last sentences of William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! (1936)

2. Administrative Issues:
   1. I have not yet finished grading the midterms, but so far, people are doing well.
   2. Your first paper is due on Monday, 19 May.
   3. Assignment for next week in section: Bring at least a paragraph describing your paper topic and the argument you anticipate making. Bring a printed copy. If you do not bring a printed copy of this assignment with you to section next week, you will not be prepared, and will not count as present for attendance and participation purposes.
   4. This week on the section Twitter stream: Albion Tourgée's novel A Fool's Errand, by One of the Fools; Robert Johnson's Hellhound on my Heels; an extra-credit question that hasn't been claimed yet; and midterm-related reminders.
   5. Distribution of grading rubric. Questions?
3. Questions for discussion:
   1. Reading of Evening Song (28), Conversion (37).
   2. What are the overall formal structures of Cane? What can you say about the structures of the individual pieces that compose it? How are they related to each other?
      • What role does the insertion of poetry into the prose pieces play? (e.g., Her skin is like dusk in Karintha, 3–5; Wind is in the cane in Carma, 14–16; Red n—— moon in Blood-Burning Moon, 39–49.).
      • What are recurring elements in the text?
      • What are recurring thematic concerns in the text?
   3. Is Cane a novel? What elements tie its different parts together? What kind of writing is this?
   4. Reading of Cotton Song (13), Nullo (27).