Rudy, Dominique, and Maria, with extras: Bianca and Deon, performed their skit/scene today. It went very well. They will present a final performance tomorrow. Rudy will present his essay on Thursday, followed by independent work on the portfolio essays.
I don't know if students have read Elements of Style. I suggest you do so this weekend and incorporate the text into your essay on revision. You are responsible for the essay on Malcolm's daughter. It was yesterday's homework. Some students are not producing passing essays without revision. I might have students write a short 2-page essay using The Color Purple as your source, Thursday, May 22. So be prepared. The topic will be from The Color Purple. I need to see that you can write a passing essay without revision in 50 minutes. Students will include three citations: one block quote, one paraphrase, and one shorter direct quote, plus a bibliography.
Students can prepare a thesis and an outline in advance. Choose one question:
1. Discuss Alice Walker's exploration of the theme forgiveness in The Color Purple.
2. Talk about Celie's development as a character, from a docile child and cowered woman, into the outspoken and eventually fully realized woman we see at the end of the novel journey. How is she assisted along the path to wholeness?
3. Shug is an independent woman who has a relationship with a man, who doesn't marry her. She bears his children and leaves them with her mother to raise, has a career as a singer, who is both admired and feared by her more conservative family and friends back home. Yet, Shug is just what Celie needs to stir her from a life she has settled into because "heaven is there when she dies." Walker's Shug makes her heaven on earth. Her view of God is as earthly as she is. She says:
"God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It" (195).
"God love everything you love--and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, God love admiration."
"You saying God is vain? [Celie] ast."
"Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it" (196).
4. Compare Shug in the text to Shug on screen. The two character differ drastically from one another. Discuss how Steven Spielberg alters Walker's character and whether or not this adaptation to the screen does Shug justice.
5. Talk about the theme sisterhood as ememplified in Sofia's relationship with hers and Celie's relationship with Nettie. You can also look at the idea of sisterhood: Celie, Squeak, Sophia, Nettie, Shug...and how it is this support for Celie--the cypher, that eventually allows each sister to come into her own.
6. What does love have to do with it, is a question one can ask in reference to the relationships between Mister and Shug, Celie and Mister, and Celie and Nettie. One can also see how fear which dismantles and unravels love's power to transform in these characters and in other character's lives:Sophia and Harpo, Mister and his father, is ultimately subdued. Love is stronger than fear. Love is stronger than hate. Love is strong medicine as native people say. Talk about this powerful tool, love, and what love inspires each character to do, how it transforms their lives.
7. Talk about the moment when Celie realizes that her sister is alive and does love her. What shifts in the story and in Celie's life? What does this incident do for the story and how does this shift in Celie's perception affect the others, women and men, in the story?
8. Beauty is a theme in the novel. Why does everyone call Celie "black and ugly?" Why does she believe them? How does Walker show that beauty is not one's appearance but one's actions?
9. Talk about race and class in The Color Purple.
10. Talk about Celie's relationship to God and why she stops writing to God and writes directly to Nettie.
I don't know if students have read Elements of Style. I suggest you do so this weekend and incorporate the text into your essay on revision. You are responsible for the essay on Malcolm's daughter. It was yesterday's homework. Some students are not producing passing essays without revision. I might have students write a short 2-page essay using The Color Purple as your source, Thursday, May 22. So be prepared. The topic will be from The Color Purple. I need to see that you can write a passing essay without revision in 50 minutes. Students will include three citations: one block quote, one paraphrase, and one shorter direct quote, plus a bibliography.
Students can prepare a thesis and an outline in advance. Choose one question:
1. Discuss Alice Walker's exploration of the theme forgiveness in The Color Purple.
2. Talk about Celie's development as a character, from a docile child and cowered woman, into the outspoken and eventually fully realized woman we see at the end of the novel journey. How is she assisted along the path to wholeness?
3. Shug is an independent woman who has a relationship with a man, who doesn't marry her. She bears his children and leaves them with her mother to raise, has a career as a singer, who is both admired and feared by her more conservative family and friends back home. Yet, Shug is just what Celie needs to stir her from a life she has settled into because "heaven is there when she dies." Walker's Shug makes her heaven on earth. Her view of God is as earthly as she is. She says:
"God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It" (195).
"God love everything you love--and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, God love admiration."
"You saying God is vain? [Celie] ast."
"Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it" (196).
4. Compare Shug in the text to Shug on screen. The two character differ drastically from one another. Discuss how Steven Spielberg alters Walker's character and whether or not this adaptation to the screen does Shug justice.
5. Talk about the theme sisterhood as ememplified in Sofia's relationship with hers and Celie's relationship with Nettie. You can also look at the idea of sisterhood: Celie, Squeak, Sophia, Nettie, Shug...and how it is this support for Celie--the cypher, that eventually allows each sister to come into her own.
6. What does love have to do with it, is a question one can ask in reference to the relationships between Mister and Shug, Celie and Mister, and Celie and Nettie. One can also see how fear which dismantles and unravels love's power to transform in these characters and in other character's lives:Sophia and Harpo, Mister and his father, is ultimately subdued. Love is stronger than fear. Love is stronger than hate. Love is strong medicine as native people say. Talk about this powerful tool, love, and what love inspires each character to do, how it transforms their lives.
7. Talk about the moment when Celie realizes that her sister is alive and does love her. What shifts in the story and in Celie's life? What does this incident do for the story and how does this shift in Celie's perception affect the others, women and men, in the story?
8. Beauty is a theme in the novel. Why does everyone call Celie "black and ugly?" Why does she believe them? How does Walker show that beauty is not one's appearance but one's actions?
9. Talk about race and class in The Color Purple.
10. Talk about Celie's relationship to God and why she stops writing to God and writes directly to Nettie.
posted by Professor Wanda's Posse at 11:24 AM
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