Class,
We covered so much today in class my head is spinning! We moved around between Marxism, the Industrial Revolution, Southern Gothic literature, and Modernism. Whew! Here's a recap:
The Hannahs are researching the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan dynasties, helping us to see where their influence lies today. What does the Rockefeller Foundation support? What roles do their descendants play? How are they still influential in American society a hundred years later?
Daniel is researching Margaret Sanger. Who was she? What is she most well-known for? Why do some consider her a hero? Why do some consider her a problematic figure in history?
The rest of y'all are going to research Karl Marx and a basic search over WWI. We discussed Marx a little bit in class, and I hope I emphasized that his ideology is something that transcends multiple areas of scholarship. A Marxist reading is a popular way of conducting literary analysis. How does the story examine class? Key to a Marxist reading is the examination of social classes, power, and oppression. Which systems (economic or otherwise) can be seen as oppressive? In other words, who are the "Haves" and the "Have-nots?" In Marxist terminology, he'd say the bourgeoisie (those who control the worlds natural, economic, and human resources) and the proletariat (the majority of the global population who live in substandard conditions and who have always performed the manual labor for the bourgeoisie). Can you see some of this ideology with Fitzgerald's novel? Does it seem that he is advocating for Marxism or opposing it in the story? My Critical Theory books claims, "Marxism works to make us constantly aware of all the ways in which we are products of material/historical circumstances and of the repressive ideologies that serve to blind us to this fact in order to keep us subservient to the ruling power system" (57). Marxism is more than just a political position. It is an ideology. And this ideology will permeate the next 60 years of history we will examine. And as I mentioned, this ideology is not dead. My 2017 edition of Social Media argues for a Marxist application and production of the Internet in order to have "a true democracy."
So research Karl Marx. What else can you learn from him? How did his ideology spread in America and the rest of the world? Why would people be attracted to it? What about in practice? Has there ever been a successful Marxist regime? If you are researching current events, what articles on Marxism are turning up? Are they positive or negative?
As far as WWI research, this is really simple. Who fought? Which sides were formed? Who were some of the leaders? We will get further into why and how and more later. Let's just lay a very basic foundation.
Your literary homework is to watch the documentary posted on Fitzgerald, read the first three chapters of The Great Gatsby, and look over the paper prompt. It might be helpful to figure out something that interests you so that you can begin marking up your passages for your paper. You will need to write a three-page paper, due February 13th. You have no writings due next week, but make sure that you are at least working towards this paper.
You will also write a paper for history, due the week after the literary paper. This paper needs to cover some topic related to WWI and should be 2-3 pages in length. I'm going to give you full freedom to pick a topic that interests you. You could examine women in the war, the types of weapons used, a specific battle that interests you, leaders, generals, war rations, propaganda. Anything that interests you on this topic is welcome.
I think these two papers are plenty of writing for the next month so I won't assign any other academic paragraphs in the meantime, although we still will conduct weekly quizzes, and have other short assignments, like the biography quiz I handed out at the end of class on Fitzgerald. Your research for this week can be bulleted notes. Just have something written down to show me you did your research and I will check it off. :) Otherwise, enjoy the story.
I will post my analysis of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" on another post for those of you interested in looking at a larger analysis, embedded quotations, or the integration of scholars into an analysis. If you are heading off to college, or already there, this will give you an idea of higher level analysis. This is an undergraduate paper, so it's your next step up. :)
There will also be another separate post on Modernism. That, you can be sure, will be covered on the quiz.
We covered so much today in class my head is spinning! We moved around between Marxism, the Industrial Revolution, Southern Gothic literature, and Modernism. Whew! Here's a recap:
The Hannahs are researching the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan dynasties, helping us to see where their influence lies today. What does the Rockefeller Foundation support? What roles do their descendants play? How are they still influential in American society a hundred years later?
Daniel is researching Margaret Sanger. Who was she? What is she most well-known for? Why do some consider her a hero? Why do some consider her a problematic figure in history?
The rest of y'all are going to research Karl Marx and a basic search over WWI. We discussed Marx a little bit in class, and I hope I emphasized that his ideology is something that transcends multiple areas of scholarship. A Marxist reading is a popular way of conducting literary analysis. How does the story examine class? Key to a Marxist reading is the examination of social classes, power, and oppression. Which systems (economic or otherwise) can be seen as oppressive? In other words, who are the "Haves" and the "Have-nots?" In Marxist terminology, he'd say the bourgeoisie (those who control the worlds natural, economic, and human resources) and the proletariat (the majority of the global population who live in substandard conditions and who have always performed the manual labor for the bourgeoisie). Can you see some of this ideology with Fitzgerald's novel? Does it seem that he is advocating for Marxism or opposing it in the story? My Critical Theory books claims, "Marxism works to make us constantly aware of all the ways in which we are products of material/historical circumstances and of the repressive ideologies that serve to blind us to this fact in order to keep us subservient to the ruling power system" (57). Marxism is more than just a political position. It is an ideology. And this ideology will permeate the next 60 years of history we will examine. And as I mentioned, this ideology is not dead. My 2017 edition of Social Media argues for a Marxist application and production of the Internet in order to have "a true democracy."
So research Karl Marx. What else can you learn from him? How did his ideology spread in America and the rest of the world? Why would people be attracted to it? What about in practice? Has there ever been a successful Marxist regime? If you are researching current events, what articles on Marxism are turning up? Are they positive or negative?
As far as WWI research, this is really simple. Who fought? Which sides were formed? Who were some of the leaders? We will get further into why and how and more later. Let's just lay a very basic foundation.
Your literary homework is to watch the documentary posted on Fitzgerald, read the first three chapters of The Great Gatsby, and look over the paper prompt. It might be helpful to figure out something that interests you so that you can begin marking up your passages for your paper. You will need to write a three-page paper, due February 13th. You have no writings due next week, but make sure that you are at least working towards this paper.
You will also write a paper for history, due the week after the literary paper. This paper needs to cover some topic related to WWI and should be 2-3 pages in length. I'm going to give you full freedom to pick a topic that interests you. You could examine women in the war, the types of weapons used, a specific battle that interests you, leaders, generals, war rations, propaganda. Anything that interests you on this topic is welcome.
I think these two papers are plenty of writing for the next month so I won't assign any other academic paragraphs in the meantime, although we still will conduct weekly quizzes, and have other short assignments, like the biography quiz I handed out at the end of class on Fitzgerald. Your research for this week can be bulleted notes. Just have something written down to show me you did your research and I will check it off. :) Otherwise, enjoy the story.
I will post my analysis of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" on another post for those of you interested in looking at a larger analysis, embedded quotations, or the integration of scholars into an analysis. If you are heading off to college, or already there, this will give you an idea of higher level analysis. This is an undergraduate paper, so it's your next step up. :)
There will also be another separate post on Modernism. That, you can be sure, will be covered on the quiz.
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