Sumários
'A Christmas memory' by Truman Capote
24 Setembro 2018, 14:00 • EDUARDA MELO CABRITA
A close reading of 'A Christmas memory' by Truman Capote.
Reading the short story and discussing writing techniques.
Narrator vs author.
Advanced grammar exercises and close reading
24 Setembro 2018, 10:00 • Cecília Maria Beecher Martins
Did advanced grammar exercises with inversion (manual pp 22-25) and "used to" verb vs adjective (manual p29).
To do for next class: preposition and linking word exercises (pp 27-28)
Discussed students' close reading comments on the extract from
The Handmaid's Tale.
Showed example of close reading text based on this text to use as example to follow for their own close reading exercise
tobe submitted on 26th November
Example below
English C1.2 TP 2 1st semester 2018-2019
Student Name _____________________________
Student Number _________________________
Sample of Preparation for Individual Close Reading exercises that students must present for their selected passages on 26th November – the text must be typed, submitted in hard copy & identified with faculty heading, class, student name & number
Introduction for reading circle members so that they understand the context of the passage they will read. The passage I propose to analyse is from p136 of The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood (1996) UK: Vintage Books). It occurs towards the end of the first half of the book. The characters involved are Offred (we never know her real name) and her mother. Offred’s mother is not a central character in the book, and is probably more relevant for her absence than her presence. (66 words – introductory text should be 50-70 words).
Your close reading preparation to submit on 26th November
First impressions: when I read this text the first paragraph appeared like a rant. However, the tone changes from the first to the second paragraph as the narrator shifts and this made me wonder about the differences in the personalities of the characters.
Voice, Diction & Tone: The mother is the first person narrator in the 1st paragraph – we do not know her name, we are just introduced to her in the first word of the first paragraph as “I”. It is curious that the second paragraph also has a first person narrator, but this time it is Offred. This transition is achieved smoothly with the short line “When she said that she’d jut out her chin.” And the next line I remember her … prepares the reader for a quieter and more observant narrator.
Usage of the term “Aged Primipara” stands out and while the use of a medical term is acceptable in the context, the reader may not be familiar with it – also the correct medical term would have been “Elderly Primipara”!!! thus perhaps drawing attention to “effort-less fertility in old age in another time, but the rest of the text contains references to the dangers involved in this.
Rhetorical Devices: It’s quite a direct text, but the word “Garbage” in the first paragraph stood out to me – it seemed like the wrong tone for Offred’s mother – too polite, why? Foreshadowing?
Sound and Rhythm: The first paragraph is busy/noisy and has a hectic/frantic rhythm, slowing down in the second paragraph, but as the narrative impetus moves back to Offred’s mother (through Offred’s direct quotation of her mother’s voice) the pace of the text picks up again.
Syntax & Structure: The repetition of “I” which appears 14 times in the first paragraphs gives this a clipped/ staccato tone. Also the verbs used are active either about doing or receiving actions (did I get shit) establishing the power and revolutionary nature of the narrator, even among her own group of revolutionaries. When others outside her group do something those actions are narrated only in the manner in which they impact on the narrator (At the hospital they wrote down “Aged Primipara” on the chart, I caught them in the act.) so the mother/ the narrator in the central character of the 1st paragraph appears to think of herself as the controlling character. To illustrate this, the paragraph ends with references to her physical prowess in childbirth despite her age.
With the passage to Offred’s mother’s voice the ending of the second paragraph builds up to strong references to the prowess of the female sex in the process of reproduction. But the central time point of the two passages is an event referred to towards the beginning of the second paragraph “the way she was in the movie” – seeing her mother in the movie is the event that stimulates this whole passage.
The sentence structure is different in the 2 paragraphs as well. In the first, sentences are short and the vocabulary is harsh. Important or contradictory information is placed at the end of sentences “my mother said”/ “the bitch”, so maybe the narrator is making up her strong ideas as she goes along. In the second paragraph there is no such confusion. Sentences are longer, flow more naturally and are softer with more adjectives and using comparisons (supermarket cues). In fact, it is only in this paragraph that we can build a physical picture of Offred’s mother because of its many descriptive passages – but we know nothing of Offred (the narrator) herself except that she shares her life with Luke and for some reason her mother does not appear to approve. However, while her mother is very vocal in presenting her opinions elsewhere in this case she is more cautious (come over … tell us what was wrong in her life … always turned into what was wrong in our life) – is there is shift in power? Is the quiet/more observant Offred the figure of power? The object of her mother’s admiration because she too chose her own life style even if that was different from her mother’s?
Imagery: Because of the reflective tone of the second paragraph and the constant use of past tenses we have the idea of Offred’s reflection on her mother’s life – stimulated by seeing her in the movie
Silences: There are no marked pauses and silences as such in this passage, but the level of bustle and noise in the mother’s passages and the movement from one narrator to the other just by changing the person of the narrator for one short sentence indicates that much may be unsaid in this passage as a whole – the reader questions what time period and cataclysmic events underlie those nine short words at the beginning of paragraph 2.
(This text is just under 800 words – yours can be 400-500 words)
'A Christmas memory' by Truman Capote
24 Setembro 2018, 08:00 • EDUARDA MELO CABRITA
A close reading of 'A Christmas memory' by Truman Capote.
Reading the short story and discussing writing techniques.
Narrator vs author.
Experience of traveling
20 Setembro 2018, 16:00 • Zuzanna Zarebska
Students speak about their own experience with the theme of traveling: books, podcasts, programs, courses.Outline of Ali Smith's short story "Last" and her traveling etymologies? Students watch a key note (Edinburgh EWWC, 2012) by Ali Smith on writing and translating fiction about form and content.
http://www.edinburghworldwritersconference.org/style-vs-content/ali-smith/
Atwood
19 Setembro 2018, 16:00 • Bernardo Manzoni Palmeirim
Utopia GW presentations Pt.1
Discussion of Margaret Atwood's article p.3-8
Groups watch dystopian movie and follow instructions p.9-10