Tuesday

Students shared writings from "Marrakech" and did some classwork on "Shooting an Elephant." They  should read "A Hanging" by next class period and mark paragraphs as "narrative" or as "commentary." Highlight what you think of as the "thesis" of the piece. Is it a persuasive piece? 

Here is the classwork for today:

Keep this work very neat and orderly, and have it with you for Wednesday's class (January 21):
1. Look up symbol in your Literary Handbook. Write the definition on your paper. Then determine what the elephant might symbolize. Be sure it is consistent with the essay's action. 
2. Look up and define situational and verbal irony. Find and list four examples from "Shooting an Elephant" with at least one representative example for each type of irony.
3. Do the same for tone (tone can reveal irony), and extract three passages that prove what you say. See board for adjectives describing tone. (They are all words describing ATTITUDE -- and keep in mind, whose attitude toward what? bitter, callous, condescending, contemplative, contemptuous, critical, cynical, defensive, defiant, desperate, detached, determined, didactic, diplomatic, disdainful, dramatic, formal, friendly, enthusiastic, humorous, indignant, informal, intimate, ironic, judgmental, lighthearted, malicious, mocking, nostalgic, objective, persuasive, reflective, reverent, sarcastic, sardonic, satirical, sincere, sympathetic, tragic, urgent, or vindictive.)
4. Look at the essay's point of view. In simple terms, in what point of view is it presented? Now, think more closely, and describe what creates the ironic gap between the narrator and the subject of his narration.
5. Who does Orwell address -- that is, who is his audience? What would he like for them to think or do?
6. Read "A Hanging" for Wednesday, January 21. Prep for exam commentary, which will be Thursday (reread The Piano Lesson and review all Donne poems).

For those who missed the Orwell passage from "Marrakech," here it is.