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REPORTRESUMES TE 000 068 013 826 24 ED GRADE 11. A CURRICULUM FONENGLISH, STUDENT PACKET, DEV. CTR. NEBRASKA UNIV.,LINCOLN, CURRICULUM PUB DATE 65 CONTRACT EC'-.2-.10--119 FROM EDRS. 322F. EDRS PRICE Mr -..t1.25 HC NOT AVAILABLE CURRICULUM, *ENGLISH DESCRIPTORS- -;CUB arcuLumGUIDES, *ENGLISH AMERICAN INSTRUCTION, *GRADE 11,*INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS, NOVELS, PARAGRAPH LITERATURE, COMPOSITION(LITERARY), ESSAYS, LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, COMPOSITION, POETRY,SHORT STORIES, CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT LITERARY ANALYSIS,SATIRE, NEBRASKA CENTER AMERVAN LITERATURE THE 11TH -GRADECOURSE CC STUDY IN PACKET FOR THENEBRASKA ENGLISH PRESENTED IN THE STUDENT AND CURRICULUM BEGINSWITH A UNITENTITLED "INDIVIDUALISM SPIRITUAL AUTCOIOGRAPH/ES IDEALISM" IN WHICHSTUDENTS ANALYZE NEXT, THE THEME THOREAU, WHITMAN,AND DICKINSON. DY EMERSON, IS EXPLORED LONELINESS AS ITLIMITS INDIVIDUALISM CF SIN AND ADVENTURES OF LETTER," "BILLYBUDD," "THE IN "THE SCARLET "OACCITTI" "THE HUCKLEBERRY FINN," AND"THE UNVANOUISHED." PROVIDE THE BASISFOR A GREAT GATSCY," AND"THE WASTELAND" MATERIALISM AND CONSIDERATION CC SATIREWHICH EXPOSES ANTONIA," CONFORMITY. CATHER ANDFROST ARESTUDIED IN "MY AS WRITERS S," AND "NOTHINGGOLD CAN STAY" "THE WITCH CF CC LITERATURE WHO SEARCH FORA FORM INTRINSICIN THEIR SUOJECTS. EVALUATION a= THEWRITERS' CONCEPTSAND UNITS STRESS AND CF STRUCTURALTECHNIOUES EMPLOYED, PURPOSES, ANALYSIS EMPHASIZE EXPLICATION OF THELITERARY WORKS.LANGUAGE UNITS AND THE MASTERYOF DICTION IN THE RHETORIC OFTHE PARAGRAPH OVERVIEWS,INTRODUCTORY ESSAY - WRITING.STUDY..-HELFS INCLUDE AND DISCUSSIONQUESTIONS, ESSAYS, WRITINGEXERCISES, READING SELECTIONS NOT READILYAVAILACLE INTEXTBOOKS. AND LITERARY UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA THIS MANUAL ISAVAILABLE FROM THE LINCOLN, NEBRASKA60508. CURRICULUM CENTER, 231ANDREWS HALL, FOR GRADE 11 ISTE 000 067. (RD) THE RELATEDTEACHER PACKET £0013826 l.1 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATIONS WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT.POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. A minimum FOR ENGLISH Student Packet grade 11 I AN ANDNATURE: INDIVIDUALIST,' fa) IDEALISM SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY Experimental Materials Copyrizht, The University. of Nebraska, 1965 EclxaskaCurriculum Develorment Centor "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY _fib TOERICAND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATING UNKRAGREEMENTS WITH THE U.S. OFFICE OF EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRODUCTION OUTSIDE THEERICSYSTEM REOUIRES PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNER." 1 OVERVIEW: This unit initiates a series of units devoted tothe study of American literature, and particularly to four themes that arecharacteristic of the major periods in American Lit:rature. This unit begins by focusing on some major works written during what Lewis Munford callsthe "golden day" of Amer- ican civilization, a time before the Civil Warwhen the American political ex- periment had apparently succeeded, when the problemscreated by industrialism and technology were, if they existed,still in their incipient stages,when Amer- ica was still looked upon as a PromisedLand in which man could realizehis full Whitman potentiality. Thus, the literary works of Emerson,Thoi,qu and the early have a dif- are replete with an optimismwith which, after two World 1. we may A belief in the ficult time sympathizing. This optimism dekived from anrofc divinity of man, in man's capability tobecome God, to particii, "e inthe Over- intetlity of the irr soul. And because of a profound belief inthe goodness and dividual man, the European habitof thinking in terms ofsociety (cf. Beowulf terms of the The Song of Roland, The i'fournaNovel) is rejected for thinking in individual; for these writers, one doesnot find Its fulfillmentin submitting obeying the dic- to an: obeying the conventions andtraditions of society, but in comtemplating the di- tates of his conscience and theintuitive hints gained from vine in nature and in himself. Thus, the title of theunit--Spl:titual Autobio- graphy. implicit in the After the Civil. War and after aprobing of the assumptions Whitman, this optimism thought and attitudes of Emerson,Thoreau, and the early begins to waver. In his later poems, Whitman espouses amuted optimism and Dickinson in some of her poemsinvestigates the implicationsof relying on one's intuition. This unit assumes another kind ofimportance in the contextof the series considered in this devoted to American literature.Writers who succeed those unit devote a good part of theirenergies to attacking, refining,and defending the ideas discussed here. Most important, perhaps, isthe reevaluation of the individual's role in society andof the optimistic frame ofmind which permeates industry and the works of Emerson andThoreau. Development of technology and business-oriented urban society; the consequent developmentof an industrial, these the advent of science andskepticism; and the end ofthe frontier--all Df of Emerson and his raise problems which force are-evaluation of the doctrines contemporaries. I. Emerson: In this section we are goingto look at four essays byEmerson, the first and attitudes in a exponent of the transcen(1-..ntalistschool to express its ideas forceful way and perhaps themost original of the firstgeneration transcenden- about the tra- talists.Your teacher will probablyprovide you with information imperative, haw#r ditions out of which Americantranscendentalism evolves; it is concerned with the construc- ever, to view Emersonnot as a philosopher, or one concerned tion of a philsosphic system,but as a moralist, a preacher, or as one in that he with changing the attitudesof Americans.While he is a philosopher to the world, doals with questions of man'sultimate end, of man's relationship Because Emerson, etc., in his essays heis primarily a preacher and amoralist. intellectual assent to a in his writings, does notseek to persuade men to give 2 philosophical system, but seeks to root out of Americans those rlAitudes which he regards as detrimental and inhibiting, and to replace those attitudes with what he takes to be better ones, his essayc take on a rather peculiar form, or, as some of his critics would charge, form at all. Our task in this section of the unit will be to try to account for the peculiar nature of Emerson's essays as well as to get at what Fmcr3on is saying. A. The Oversoul: We will first look at the essay, "The Oversoul," which is one of the central works in the Emersonian canon. Because this is our initial encounter with Emer- son, we will proceed rather slowly and carefully.Here in summary form is what Emerson says in this essay: the major point made in "The Oversoul" is that man has a divine, intuitive self, and it is this self that is the essence of man. Conventions and traditions have repressed this self; have held man a slave and kept him from becoming what he could and should become. This becoming is achieved, according to Emerson, by recognizing that man's body and his creations are mani- festations of his soul, and thai.-, through nature, the garment of God, man can com- municate in mystical fashion with the source of his being, the Oversoul. This recognition of the divine in man and communication with his source takes man be- yond surface conventions and postures to the full recognition of "selfhood." This is pretty high-powered stuff and the question we want to ask ourselves is how Emerson found all this out, or who told him all this. Lid then we want to look at the way Emerson expresses these ideas. A rather rapid reading of this essay will be a helpful preparation for the questions below. Study Questions: (1) In the first few sentences F'rerson argues that among the myriad of events in his life, some events posses:: a quality that others do not, and that these events, because of that quality, lead us to raseribe more:reality:to-Ahem than to all other experiences."Now, there is a rather obvious question to ask here: Who is the "us"?By "us," Emerson may be referring to those who share the same position that he does, or to all his readers. There are at least these two alternatives. If he uses it in the first sense, then he must be addressing himself to his intellectual cronies; the essay will then be a kind of pep talk; it will become an atte-f,b to inspire his fellow-believers to keep the faith.But if we assume that Emerson is referring to his readers, to us, than his essay takes on a different dimension; and, in addition, raises a rhetorical problem. How can Emerson be sure that one will identify with his "us"?His procedure seems to be something like this: he begins with what he takes to be a commonplace and, after he thinks he has us accepting the commonplace, which he purposely states generally and vaguely, h,3 eLtablieh::12 an opp"sition, the objector or "he." This technique assures Emerson that his re.:Jc,r will identify himself with the "us." (2) Look at the sentence beginning "For this reason. ." Here Emerson argues that the "appeal to experience" is "forever invalid and vain."What is "this reason"? (3) In the subsequent part of this paragraph, Emerson uses the interrogative form rather than the declarative.Why? (4) Emerson suggests that the philosophy of six thousand years has not done 3 all it should. He says it has not searched the "chambers and magazines of the soul." To what is he comparing the soul when he ascribes to it "chambers and magazines "? (5) What allows Emerson to compare man to a stream witha hidden source? (6) How did Emerson find out that we don't know thesource of our being? Haven't other writers and thinkers told us? (7) Why is Emerson "constrained" to acknowledge a higherpower than his own will?Is their any significance in the change from the plural to the singu- lar in the first person pronoun?If so, what? (NOTE: Throughout this section of the unit, our analysis will proceed by paragraphs.