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Performing a close reading, part 2

Performing a close reading, part 2. Survey Graphic 9.4.2013 Kingsley ENGL 123 . Response observations. Strong emotional response to Locke Stories that captured your attention: “Fern,” “Fog,” “ Sahdji ,” and “City of Refuge”

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Performing a close reading, part 2

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  1. Performing a close reading, part 2 Survey Graphic 9.4.2013 Kingsley ENGL 123

  2. Response observations Strong emotional response to Locke Stories that captured your attention: “Fern,” “Fog,” “Sahdji,” and “City of Refuge” Poems that caught your attention, “I, too,” “To a Brown Girl,” “To a Brown Girl Dead,” “White Houses”

  3. Thoughts on the writing • Get to specifics… • What are you noticing in the language? • What is the image? How is it described? What is happening? What is taking place that draws you in or frustrates you or lures you…etc.? • What exactly is happening in the quote? What can we do with the language? What does it mean? What is it saying? What does it have to do with the rest of the story? What is its significance?

  4. Example • (Vague/Abstract/Too broad) • Locke’s foreword to his anthology truly shows his passion for the people of Harlem. He shows how people are striving to express their role in society. • What is vague about this statement?

  5. Revision Locke’s foreword to his anthology truly shows his passion for the people of Harlem. He shows how people are striving to express their role in society . REVISED: Locke’s foreword to his anthology promotes his desire to illustrate the achievements of the “New Negro” of the early 20th century. He describes how he constructs this text to focus on the accomplishments of black culture both outside (in social and national life) as well as inside (in “self expression”) (xxv). The text is meant to provide a voice for the emerging culture and highlight the creative and spiritual achievements of the time.

  6. Harlem Renaissance What do you see happening in these texts so far? What kinds of conversations? What kinds of topics do the writers present?

  7. Harlem Renaissance (in brief) • Harlem Renaissance also known as “New Negro Movement” • 1920s-1930s (framed by WWI and Great Depression) • Raises major issues and ideas related to African American/African Diaspora life in US (as well as abroad) • Intersection of art, writing, social consciousness, music, and civil rights Aaron Douglas “Aspects of Negro Life”

  8. Harlem http://www.jcu.edu/harlem/harlem_map.htm

  9. Significant Cultural Shifts Migration (people moving out of South) Economic opportunities in North Labor discussions Class & race tensions Environment of collaboration and organization Major leaders Institutions of learning Emergence of African American art, music, and literature “Outburst of creative expression”(Locke xxvii, foreword to “New Negro”)

  10. In Groups What kind of language is used to describe Harlem/Harlem Renaissance in the set of Survey Graphic essays?

  11. Reviewing the process of close reading • Notice/Observe/Mark • Annotate (putting your own language to the text) • Asking questions—Who? What? When? Where? Why? …etc. • What is going on here? What is happening in the text? What’s this text telling us? Showing us? Presenting to us? • You can think of this process as problem solving…

  12. Close Reading Practice: Fiction • “City of Refuge” by Rudolph Fisher • Read the first paragraph • Observe (notice & mark) • Annotate (write into and around the text with your own language)

  13. Example

  14. Shifting your observations into Questions • Creating a set of questions from an observation: • Description of the city • “jaws of a steam-shovel” • How does Fisher describe the city Gillis first steps into? What kind of language does he use? What does an image like the “jaws of a steam shovel” symbolize in terms of Gillis’ experience?

  15. Shifting your questions into writing How does Fisher describe the city Gillis first steps into? What kind of language does he use? What does an image like the “jaws of a steam shovel” symbolize in terms of Gillis’ experience? Fisher describes New York City as an industrialized, terrifying machine. We see images of the station as stark, “white-walled,” and “impassable”. The subway corridors push the newly arrived passengers as a “steam-shovel” pushes dirt along its path. The steam shovel is a significant image in the description of the city because it reflects the industrialized landscape in which the “new negro,” in this case, Gillis, emerges. It is a hard, terrifying, and yet exciting environment.

  16. Your turn Turn to the paragraph at the bottom of page 57…”Gillis set down his tan-cardboard…” Observe Annotate Create a set of questions from one of your observations (A set should have 2-4 questions).

  17. “White Houses” Take the first four lines… (134 Locke) “Your door is shut against my tightened face, And I am sharp as steel with discontent; But I possess the courage and the grace To bear my anger proudly and unbent…” Observe Annotate Create a set of questions from one of your observations (A set should have 2-4 questions).

  18. My observations • Severity of language—”shut,” “tightened,” “sharp,” “discontent” • Next to a word like “grace”

  19. Forming Questions/Writing Answers What imagery is most powerful in the first quatrain? What tone does the imagery evoke? What portrait of the speaker in the poem is presented here? The imagery in the first quatrain of the poem presents a figure who is struggling against closed doors—whether this door prevents him from desire, movement, education, and so forth, we are not sure. What we do know is that the speaker’s “discontent” is “sharp as steel”. This language reflects an image of a knife or blade ready to attack and strike back. The tone therefore is assertive and clear. It is punctuated by the severity of the “t” sound. However, this severity is given release by a word like “grace,” illustrating (perhaps) the poet’s skill of writing and artistic expression as a means to display and voice this anger.

  20. “Enter the New Negro” Alain Locke Close reading Review the first paragraph of the essay Observe/Notice/Mark Annotate Ask Questions

  21. Homework—Music of Harlem • “Music” Section in Locke’s New Negro. • “The Negro Spirituals” • “Negro Dancer” • “Jazz at Home” (also look at Survey Graphic printing of this essay) • “Song” • “Jazzonia” • “Nude Young Dancer” • From Survey Graphic • “The Rhythm of Harlem” (Bercovici) • Write up—What kind of portrait of music do we see emerging in these essays? (give example) What specific observations are you making as you read about the music scene? What kinds of questions arise? What else can you find online about jazz and the Harlem Renaissance? Use 2 essays to root your discussion. Upload to your blog under unit 1, send me the link.

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