Monday MAy 6th
You have been reading the short story "A Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias." Finish the story, and complete the 2 following T-charts, with 3 points under each heading, with notes from the text in proper quotation format to support your points.
1) Irony (gentle humour) vs. Satire (degrading humour)
2) Pros to Small town living vs. Cons of small town living (you may reference your own experiences as well as Leacock's observations)
You may spend the last 40 minutes of class finishing your maps of Mariposa.
1) Irony (gentle humour) vs. Satire (degrading humour)
2) Pros to Small town living vs. Cons of small town living (you may reference your own experiences as well as Leacock's observations)
You may spend the last 40 minutes of class finishing your maps of Mariposa.
Compare and Contrast: Johnson and Wilson
With a partner, read over the file below. You may complete the Venn diagram and outlines with your partner as well. The final paragraph may be done with a partner or alone. Check the due dates! Planning done by tomorrow; paragraph due Thursday. Use your class time wisely.
ets_4u_compare_and_contrast_paragraph.docx | |
File Size: | 19 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Short stories: the canadian genre
How to Read a short story
1. Read Aloud
2. Re-read and make marginal notes re: characterization, plot, literary devices, unfamiliar terms/names/places, and connections to our Big 3 (identity; landscape; social diversity and change)
3. Read related contemporary texts & take notes (helps us understand context)
4. Read related literary criticism & take notes
5. LET IT MARINATE!
6. Write your own analysis, that is both identifying important aspects and explaining how the parts work together as a whole. It is all about CONNECTIONS (text - self; text - world; text - text, but also among aspects within the text)
2. Re-read and make marginal notes re: characterization, plot, literary devices, unfamiliar terms/names/places, and connections to our Big 3 (identity; landscape; social diversity and change)
3. Read related contemporary texts & take notes (helps us understand context)
4. Read related literary criticism & take notes
5. LET IT MARINATE!
6. Write your own analysis, that is both identifying important aspects and explaining how the parts work together as a whole. It is all about CONNECTIONS (text - self; text - world; text - text, but also among aspects within the text)
Pauline Johnson: "A Red Girl's Reasoning"
This short story by Pauline Johnson follows a young girl named Christie, daughter of a country marriage during the fur trading days in Canada. Her young husband is Charlie, an avid lover of "Indianology," who is ashamed when he finds out that Christie, by European standards, is "illegitimate." Christie poses some crucial political questions about colonialization and assimilation that Charlie cannot answer. She leaves him to his dog.
In the early 1900s, the New Woman, industrialization, urbanization, and the Riel Rebellions were transforming Canadian thinking and society. Johnson's character Christie is an important voice for that era. Check out the reading below by literary critic Veronica Strong-Boag to see how she views Johnson's construction of "Canada."
Check out the trailer below for a 2012 Vancouver Film Fest Aboriginal Short film titled after Johnson's short story. The synopsis: After the justice system fails the survivor of a brutal, racially-driven sexual assault, she becomes a motorcycle-riding, butt-kicking vigilante who takes on the attackers of other women who've suffered the same fate. Starring Jessica Matten, Christian Sloan, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers.
Why would the writers of this short film choose the title of Johnson's story? What parallels can you see?
Why would the writers of this short film choose the title of Johnson's story? What parallels can you see?
ETHEL WILSON: "We have to sit Opposite"
STEPHEN LEACOCK: Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town
Note
Leacock was born 1869 in England and emigrated to Canada at age 7. He became a professor of economics
He is best known for humourous short stories. SSLT was first published in 1912 through the US and England. A Canadian edition didn't appear until 1948.
*Recall our short story cycle note – a series of short stories that are connected by place
Northrop Frye once said that for Canadian literature, the question is not Who am I? The question asked is Where is here? This concept is very different from the American emphasis on the individual - Canadians use their writing to try to make sense of the Where, the place, our environment - both the natural one and the political, cultural, ideological one. In SSLT, the place that connects the short stories is a small Ontario town called Mariposa
Humour and Satire: it is often the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. Humour helps us drop our guard and laugh - while at the same time, letting us face personal or community realities that are discomfiting or not funny at all (think about the Tech Talk sketch from SNL).
Leacock felt the key to humour was kindliness: “Humour bites like a lamb, not like a lion.”
Leacock saw Canada as a middleground between US and England
politically: individualism vs. Hierarchy based on monarchy
religiously: diversity-Christian vs. Anglican-one viewpoint
The book SSLT functions in sort of the same way, being somewhere in between two opposing poles
stylistically: anecdote vs. Novel - it is somewhere in between: linked short stories
genre: silliness vs. sarcasm
Often in the stories we see people seeking or finding a middleground - a place of commonalities or at least a starting point for conversations.
"The Hostelry of Mr. Smith"
1. Complete the chart: physical setting, temporal setting, social setting for both the book and your independent reading novel.
2. Define microcosm. How is Mariposa a microcosm?
3. List and explain how Leacock introduces us to Mariposa in the first few pages.
4. How does he make the reader part of the story?
5. Leacock says that the town appears one way, but once you know it, it is another way (sleepy - full of life). Pick a character and show how this is true of him/her too.
6. What does the hotel represent?
7. What does the girls' room represent?
8. Find what you think is the most significant phrase about setting - can be a representation of the 3 dimensions of setting, or setting in a more symbolic way. Write it down and cite it. Don't share with anyone else please!
"The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias"
1. Create a T-Chart and provide 3 examples of Irony (gentle humour) and Satire (biting humour).
2. Create a T-Chart and compare the Pros and Cons of small-town Canada living.
Leacock was born 1869 in England and emigrated to Canada at age 7. He became a professor of economics
He is best known for humourous short stories. SSLT was first published in 1912 through the US and England. A Canadian edition didn't appear until 1948.
*Recall our short story cycle note – a series of short stories that are connected by place
Northrop Frye once said that for Canadian literature, the question is not Who am I? The question asked is Where is here? This concept is very different from the American emphasis on the individual - Canadians use their writing to try to make sense of the Where, the place, our environment - both the natural one and the political, cultural, ideological one. In SSLT, the place that connects the short stories is a small Ontario town called Mariposa
Humour and Satire: it is often the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. Humour helps us drop our guard and laugh - while at the same time, letting us face personal or community realities that are discomfiting or not funny at all (think about the Tech Talk sketch from SNL).
Leacock felt the key to humour was kindliness: “Humour bites like a lamb, not like a lion.”
Leacock saw Canada as a middleground between US and England
politically: individualism vs. Hierarchy based on monarchy
religiously: diversity-Christian vs. Anglican-one viewpoint
The book SSLT functions in sort of the same way, being somewhere in between two opposing poles
stylistically: anecdote vs. Novel - it is somewhere in between: linked short stories
genre: silliness vs. sarcasm
Often in the stories we see people seeking or finding a middleground - a place of commonalities or at least a starting point for conversations.
"The Hostelry of Mr. Smith"
1. Complete the chart: physical setting, temporal setting, social setting for both the book and your independent reading novel.
2. Define microcosm. How is Mariposa a microcosm?
3. List and explain how Leacock introduces us to Mariposa in the first few pages.
4. How does he make the reader part of the story?
5. Leacock says that the town appears one way, but once you know it, it is another way (sleepy - full of life). Pick a character and show how this is true of him/her too.
6. What does the hotel represent?
7. What does the girls' room represent?
8. Find what you think is the most significant phrase about setting - can be a representation of the 3 dimensions of setting, or setting in a more symbolic way. Write it down and cite it. Don't share with anyone else please!
"The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias"
1. Create a T-Chart and provide 3 examples of Irony (gentle humour) and Satire (biting humour).
2. Create a T-Chart and compare the Pros and Cons of small-town Canada living.
Alice Munro: Who do you think you are?
To be continued...