AP
®
English Literature
and Composition
Close Reading of Contemporary
Literature
Curriculum Module
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
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Pages 5–6: Robert Penn Warren, “Evening Hawk,” and excerpts from “Kentucky Mountain
Farm” and “e Leaf ” from e Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren, edited by John
Burt. Copyright © 1985 by Robert Penn Warren. Reprinted with the permission of
William Morris Agency, Inc., on behalf of the estate of Robert Penn Warren.
Page 33: John Updike, “e Great Scarf of Birds” from Collected Poems 1953–1993.
Copyright © 1993 by John Updike. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of
Random House, Inc.
Pages 35–37: Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” from
e Wheel of Love and Other Stories (New York: Vanguard, 1970). Copyright © 1970 by
Joyce Carol Oates. Reprinted by permission of John Hawkins & Associates, Inc.
© 2011 e College Board. College Board, Advanced Placement Program, AP, SAT and the acorn logo are registered trademarks of
the College Board. All other products and services may be trademarks of their respective owners. Visit the College Board on the Web:
www.collegeboard.org.
Contents
Introduction
Deborah Shepard..................................................................................1
Lesson 1: Teaching the Poem “Evening Hawk”
Sally P. Pfeifer
...................................................................................... 3
Lesson 2: Teaching Edwidge Danticat’s
“The Funeral Singer” — A Study in Voices
Renee H. Shea
....................................................................................11
Lesson 3: Bridging the Gap Between Literature and Life
Melissa Scholes Young
.......................................................................21
Appendixes ....................................................................................... 27
About the Contributors ................................................................... 39
1
Introduction
Deborah Shepard
College Board’s Florida Partnership
Tallahassee, Florida
e data from the 2007 administration of the AP® English Literature and Composition
Exam revealed something quite unexpected: students performed better on pre-
nineteenth-century literature questions than they did with questions about more
contemporary selections. Students oen think the older works are “archaic,” “written
in old English,” and very dicult to understand. However, their impressions are
not borne out on the AP Exam; students apparently are more skilled at reading and
understanding earlier works than they realize. Based on this data, I decided that this
Curriculum Module should focus on teaching twentieth-century literature. Each lesson
in the module provides a great background for teaching its respective text along with
dierentiated strategies and activities that I know you will nd interesting and useful.
I have also oered some suggested works to add to the lessons if you are interested in
taking these authors’ ideas further.
Lesson 1, contributed by Sally Pfeifer, builds upon her presentation at the 2007 AP Annual
Conference in Las Vegas. ose who attended gave it rave reviews, so we thought sharing
it here would benet even more teachers. Her topic explores Robert Penn Warren’s poem,
“Evening Hawk,” from the 2006 AP English Literature and Composition Exam. (Pfeifer’s
husband took the two photos of hawks that she uses in her piece.) I recommend that
you check out the following Warren poems: “Birth of Love,” “True Love,” and “Little Girl
Wakes Early.” Appendix B of this Curriculum Module includes a formative assessment,
which is intended for use in conjunction with Pfeifer’s suggested instructional activities for
“Evening Hawk.”
Renee Shea, who knows author Edwidge Danticat, presents a great approach to teaching
Danticat’s short story, “e Funeral Singer,” in Lesson 2. She describes this work as “a story
of contrasts: the past in Haiti and the present in the U.S., the cloistered classroom and the
brutal world of experience, the hopeful faith in education and the stark danger of political
oppression, and the pain of exile and the dream of freedom.” ese oppositions present a
text full of wonderful teaching opportunities. I suggest pairing the story with Junot Diaz’s
novel, e Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
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A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
Melissa Young teaches Joyce Carol Oates’s story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have
You Been?” in her classes, as described here in Lesson 3. Oates’s story is about a young
man who seduced and murdered three women in Arizona in the 1960s. Young’s lesson
looks at the story “in terms of illusion versus reality.” She uses close reading strategies to
guide students along their journey into a seemingly innocent story that turns disturbingly.
Students will certainly have lots to say aer reading this story. e Lovely Bones by Alice
Sebold makes a nice companion piece to this story, too.
3
Lesson 1: Teaching the Poem
“Evening Hawk”
Sally P. Pfeifer
Spokane Public Schools
Spokane, Washington
Plan the Lesson
“Evening Hawk” appears as the free-response essay question on poetry on the 2006 AP English
Literature and Composition Exam. As an assessment tool aer teaching this poem to your
students, you might want to look at the prompt, scoring guide, and samples from the 2006 AP
Exam: http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/exam/exam_questions/2002.html.
Evening Hawk
From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through
Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds,
Out of the peak’s black angularity of shadow, riding
e last tumultuous avalanche of
Light above pines and the guttural gorge,
e hawk comes.
His wing
Scythes down another day, his motion
Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear
e crashless fall of stalks of Time.
e head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error.
Look! Look! he is climbing the last light
Who knows neither Time nor error, and under
Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings
Into shadow.
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A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
Long now,
e last thrush is still, the last bat
Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics. His wisdom
Is ancient, too, and immense. e star
Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain.
If there were no wind we might, we think, hear
e earth grind on its axis, or history
Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.
—Robert Penn Warren
Background Information
When I rst started looking at this poem and the poetry of Robert Penn Warren, I must
admit that I was not as familiar with Warren’s poetry as I was with his novel, All the
King’s Men. I did discover, however, that Warren considered himself and was considered
by others as a poet rst and a novelist second. Warren was the rst to be called “Poet
Laureate”—originally the title was “Consultant in Poetry,” but the title was changed in
1986 to become “Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.” I realized that I needed to delve
further. I found some interesting moments in his poetry and his life.
Born in Guthrie, Kentucky, in 1901, Warren would write about the South in many of his works.
In a century that oered young men unparalleled opportunities for action, he was destined to
play the role of observer and commentator. So many great artists have tried to participate in
life, only to realize the role of the artist is to observe and re-create life as they see it.
I learned that hawks have played a major part in Warren’s poetry. Lines from earlier
poems include:
e sunset hawk now rides
e tall light up the climbing deep of air
—“Kentucky Mountain Farm”
e hawk tower, his wings the light take,…
—“To a Friend Parting”
e hawk shudders in the high sky, he shudders
To hold position in the blazing wind, in relation to
e rmament, he shudders and the world is a metaphor, his eye
Sees, white, the icker of hare-scut, the movement of vole.
—“e Leaf ”
ese hawks have much in common with Warren’s “Evening Hawk.”
Harold Bloom says Warren has “converted…the light into the appalling speed that sounds
the wind of time, for time is Warren’s trope, the center of his poetics. e hawk shudders
5
Close Reading of Contemporary Literature
to hold position in the blazing wind of time, and so transforms the world into a temporal
metaphor.” Bloom says, as well, that the poem “is surely one of his dozen or so lyric
masterpieces, a culmination of 40 years of his art.” (Bloom, “Sunset Hawk.”)
Teach the Lesson
e 2006 AP English Literature and Composition free-response question on poetry asked
students to analyze how the poet uses language to describe the scene and to convey mood
and meaning. is is how I guide my students to begin to look at the cra of poetry—FIC:
Facts, Interpretation, and Central Idea or Question (this could be eme—but I seldom
use the word “theme” in my classroom because then the acronym would be FIT).
Picture or Paraphrase the Poem
Aer my students and I read the poem, possibly several times, we would rst decide on
the scene that is taking place or do a quick paraphrase.
© 2006 Patrick Pfeifer
Above is a picture of a red-tailed hawk soaring above my house at sunset. A hawk can be
a terrifying bird—its wingspan and size can literally create a large shadow on the land. If
you teach in an area where there might not be hawks, I would suggest using a picture.
Possible paraphrase of the poem:
“e orchid colors of sunset build shadows on the landscape. High above, riding on an
avalanche of wind and light, comes a hawk. As the speaker observes the hawk’s ight, he
enthusiastically calls to us or another observer, ‘Look, Look’—he (the hawk) is climbing
the last light as the world swings into shadow. e speaker remains for some time. e
songbirds—with the onset of the dark—stop singing. A last bat, hoping for a few insects in
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A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
the light of the stars, cruises overhead at sharp angles. Over the mountaintop, the speaker
sees the North Star and speculates what he might perceive about the world and our Time
on it, and about human history.”
Interpret the Poem
Aer the scene or the paraphrase is established, I would ask my students to share some
ideas or items that have struck them. en we can begin to ask the tough questions and
do some interpretation. By structuring our classes in an inquiry format, we tend to push
students to ask the questions themselves. Some simple prompts may help: What do you
think? What did you notice? What are the facts? Do you trust this speaker? Why or why
not? Once students click into this mode of thinking, it seems to become second nature.
We would then look at the language that the poet uses to bring this scene and his mood
and meaning to us. I would ask my students to look for and underline or highlight words,
phrases, and images to complete their analyses; we would particularly attend to the
following types of language:
• Diction, describing the “visual imagery,” can be seen in the repeated words of light-
dark, shadow, black, darkness, and starlight. In addition, the geometries formed
by the sunset on the landscape and the ight of the hawk and the bat create
geometries, mountains, gorges, peaks, hieroglyphics, and an axis.
• epoemisfullof“kinestheticwordsandimages”—themovement dips, builds,
rides, tumults, avalanches, motions, scythes, climbs, heaves, falls, cruises, steadies,
grinds, rotates, leaks, and drips.
• And,nally,the“auditoryandvisualimagery”comestoourearsandoureyesas
the avalanche of light and wind, the guttural call of the gorge, the scythe of wings
cutting through the grain of the day, the “apostrophe” call to us, the sound of the
earth grinding on its axis, and history dripping in the cellar.
All of these create a feast for the senses: the sights, the movements, and the sounds—or the
sounds of silence.
As my students and I move through the questions and ideas, I use the following
techniques and questions to help guide the discussion. e metaphor of the hawk to
Father Time is fairly clear.
e hawk comes.
His wing
Scythes down another day, his motion
Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear
e crashless fall of stalks of Time.
6
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Close Reading of Contemporary Literature
© 2006 Patrick Pfeifer
e end of the day immortalized by the predatory soaring through the sunset cutting down
the man-made stalks of time makes sense, yet there are some lines that give us pause.
“e head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error.”
• Whatsortoferror???
• Auniversal error?
• Onethatissharedbyallhumankind?
• egrain,orthecorn,isgrownbyman.Isthatwhyitisthegrainofourerror?
• Whyisitgiventhevalueofgold?Or,isgoldthemomentwhenourerrorsarethe
ripest? e heaviest?
• Whatconnectionscanwemakeatthistime?
Some ideas for students to consider might include the following:
• Whenthepoetspeaksoftheearthitseemstobeinanglesofshadowsand
darkness. We are bound to the earth—unlike the hawk. Perhaps the error is all our
missteps—big and small—as we move through life. Yet the hawk and the light are
unforgiving of our errors as we swing into shadows.
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A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
• Arethebat and the hawk equal in wisdom? Or because the bat only operates in the
darkness, does it contain a greater and more immense wisdom?
With the mention of the bat (which brings up a whole other issue—bats—batman—etc.),
the North Star, and Plato, we can begin to ask the philosophic questions:
• Philosophy—aeldofstudyinwhichpeopleaskquestionsastowhetherGod
exists, what is the nature of reality, whether knowledge is possible, and what makes
actions right or wrong.
• Ifthehawk“knowsneitherTimenorerror”andis“unforgiving”—theworldthen
must accept and question existence and time.
Note: Appendix A to this Curriculum Module presents the
poem with a number of possible annotations that incorporate
most of the above ideas. I use the technique of annotations
prior to having students write a paper on the poem. The
annotation included is already complete—I would suggest
giving students a blank poem—or a poem with blank boxes
and having them take notes on the poem as you discuss it,
and/or complete their own annotations after the discussion.
My students create annotated poems on the computer using
the draw program in Microsoft Word as my class is online.
Appendix B to this Curriculum Module presents an example
of a formative assessment of John Updike’s poem “The Great
Scarf of Birds.” The formative assessment can be used either
to introduce or reinforce the concepts emphasized in this
instructional activity.
Now it is time to point out the nal speculation of the speaker who imagines the
impossible or paradoxical and then suddenly shis in idea and verb tense—from present
to the speculative subjunctive…
If there were no wind we might, we think, hear
e earth grind on its axis, or history
Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.
…if there were no wind—perhaps we could hear the earth grind on its axis, or history drip
in the darkness in the cellar. e images of light and darkness coupled with Plato provide
“a teachable moment”—an allusion to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” or the “Metaphor of
the Sun.”
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Close Reading of Contemporary Literature
We are chained in a cave facing the wall. We see images as shadows that parade in front of
a re behind us. But what would occur if one of us were suddenly released and let out into
the world and the light of the sun? Would we wish to return to the cave and our familiar
dark existence, or would we, by the light of the sun, see the world as it truly is? Most likely
if we returned to the cave to tell the others, the reality of the light would not be believed.
I would present this famous allegory to the students, and we would discuss the
signicance and connection to this poem.
• So,isourhistoryinthecellarorthecave?
• Doweturnfromthelight?
• Isourhistorythecompositeofourerror?
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A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
Certainly, a very philosophic mood and, from this, our students will make meaning.
Instead of the word or term “theme,” I would now ask, “So what?” A good question to
explain or get at the “theme idea.”
e poet has put together these images and used these slick devices—so what? What’s he
getting at?
Aer all, there is wind and the North Star is “an ever-xed mark that looks on tempests
and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth’s unknown
although his height be taken.” (Shakespeare, Sonnet 116)
So, even though the grain is heavy with our error, and we seem to live in shadow and our
history guiltily drips in the basement, there is hope for those of us who turn to the ight
of the hawk and the truth of the light.
Bibliography
Bloom, Harold, ed., “Sunset Hawk: Warren’s Poetry and Tradition.” In Robert Penn Warren
(Bloom’s Modern Critical Views). New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986.
11
Lesson 2: Teaching Edwidge
Danticat’s “The Funeral Singer”—
A Study in Voices
Renee H. Shea
Bowie State University
Bowie, Maryland
Plan the Lesson
“Show-oy rather than interesting, guarded and self-conscious rather than gloriously open,
and worst of all, written for editors and teachers rather than for readers”—so claims Stephen
King in his description of today’s short story in an article entitled “What Ails the Short
Story” (New York Times Book Review, September 30, 2007). As editor of the Best American
Short Stories of 2007 and an author himself, King lamented the state of short ction being
published in e New Yorker, Kenyon Review, Granta, and other contemporary publications.
Although I’m not prepared to argue here with the larger picture he paints, I am glad to point
out that none of his criticism applies to Edwidge Danticat, the Haitian-born author of Breath,
Eyes, Memory; Krik? Krak!; e Farming of Bones; e Dew Breaker; and most recently,
Brother, I’m Dying, nominated for the 2007 National Book Award in Nonction. Danticat’s
works, including her short stories, are, in King’s terms, interesting, gloriously open and,
perhaps best of all, appealing to both teachers and readers.
e Dew Breaker (2004), a collection of nine interrelated stories, several published
independently, centers on a Haitian immigrant currently living in New York City but who
has a past as a torturer, one of the Ton Ton Macoutes during the 1960s Duvalier regime.
Although I highly recommend the complete book, I’ve recently found “e Funeral
Singer” especially successful in the classroom in large measure because of a recording of
Danticat reading the entire story, part of the Lannan Foundation Reading Series (2000).
e audio includes an introduction by Junot Diaz, who speculates that, like him, most of
the audience have come “to hear Edwidge.” e audio, which includes a downloadable
podcast, is available at http://www.lannan.org/lf/rc/event/edwidge-danticat/.
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A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
Background Information
Told as a rst-person narrative by Freda, one of three Haitian exiles studying for their GED,
“e Funeral Singer” is divided into 14 sections. Freda, Mariselle, and Rezia meet during
the class and connect through their shared past, though they are from dierent social
classes (in their past as well as the present). During the reading, Danticat explains that she
experimented with form in this story and considered a structure that reected a song, but
she settled on the short divisions (the story is only about 15 pages long) because they reect
a 14-week session of preparing for the GED, one route to a high-school equivalency degree.
is story works well in the classroom for many reasons but, rst and foremost, it is
eloquently written, oers insights into an ongoing chapter of history with which many of
our students are unfamiliar, and leaves readers with questions about whether it is always
true, as Mariselle claims, that “You have so much time ahead to redo these things, retake
these tests, reshape your whole life” (174). Furthermore, the story has resonance for
English language learners who are themselves new to the United States or whose parents
might have been in situations similar to those of the characters Freda, Mariselle, or Rezia.
e beauty is that out of these ordinary lives, Danticat creates art that speaks to all of us.
“e Funeral Singer” is a story of contrasts: the past in Haiti and the present in the U.S., the
cloistered classroom and the brutal world of experience, the hopeful faith in education and
the stark danger of political oppression, and the pain of exile and the dream of freedom.
ese collisions of cultural perspectives and circumstances create ironies throughout the story,
some of them even humorous in their odd juxtaposition. For instance, aer a conversation
about Jackie Kennedy’s visit to Haiti, Rezia observes, “Isn’t it amazing?… Jackie Kennedy
can go to Haiti anytime she wants, but we can’t” (179). Another is a math problem the GED
instructor poses, one that involves computing the height of two trees based on their shadows.
“It sounds like a riddle,” Freda suggests, “that could take a lifetime to solve. We have too much
on our minds to unravel these types of mysteries. M’bwe pwa” (171). at last phrase is one
of the examples of Danticat including Haitian Creole in the narrative, not enough to pose any
diculty of comprehension but a subtle reminder that these women are studying for their
GED in English, not French or Creole, languages with which they are likely more familiar.
Teach the Lesson
My objective in teaching this story is for students to experience the unsettling, oen
confusing, usually ambiguous, and generally uncertain world that the characters inhabit.
To achieve that, I take several approaches to the story, increasing, I hope, the depth of the
students’ appreciation and understanding:
• WritearesponsetoaGEDessaypromptasapreread.
• Readandlistentothetextofthestory.
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Close Reading of Contemporary Literature
• Analyzethestoryusingagraphicorganizer.
• Useroleplayingasastimulusforclassdiscussion.
• RewritetheresponsetotheGEDpromptinthevoiceofoneofthecharacters.
• Writearesponsetothe2007APEnglishLiteratureandCompositionopenessay
question.
Prereading: What’s the GED?
e GED includes a required writing sample, a brief essay. Simulated GED essay prompts
are available online and in test-preparation booklets. Here are three that I created to
resemble actual topics:
• Eachofushasresponsibilityforhisorherownlifeandcannotexpectotherstoact
on our behalf. Write an essay explaining whether you agree or disagree with this
statement.
• Whatdoessuccessmeantoyou?Writeanessay,usingspecicdetailstoexplain
your views.
• Place may refer to a geographical location such as a city or to a particular space
such as a room in your home or a public park. Write an essay explaining why a
specic place has meaning for you.
Although it might be easy to make sport of such general topics, reminding students of
the large and diverse population who take the GED explains the need for such broad-
based prompts. en, taking even 10 minutes to write gives the students a sense of what
the characters they will meet in this story are facing—a performance that will inuence
whether they do or do not earn their high school equivalency degree.
Listen and Read
I begin by asking students to listen to the rst section of “e Funeral Singer” without ever
having read the text. Pure listening—no note-taking, no expectations of quiz, nothing: just
listen to the story. Aer they listen, we talk about what they have learned about the person
“speaking.” Most students laugh at Rezia’s recitation: “Four scones and seven tears ago, our
fathers blew up this condiment” (165). It’s funny, at least at the beginning before there is
any context for knowing whether these are unintentional malapropisms or intentional
parody. Freda introduces us to the characters in this rst section and provides “clues” of a
sort to each of them, herself included.
At this point, students also comment on Danticat’s voice, an authentic voice that could
be that of one of the women in the story. Most nd it so and, as one student suggested,
“kind of innocent.” Others hear an edge of amusement as she reads the description of the
GED instructor. Most note how Danticat’s voice emphasizes the glibness inherent in the
teacher’s assurance to the students that passing the test will be “a piece of cake” (167). We
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A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
talk about whether Freda’s statement “I do nothing” is read with deance, resignation,
or neutrality. Nearly all notice Danticat’s voice pause, then drop, as she reads the nal
sentence of this section aer Freda announces that she is a professional funeral singer:
“At least I was” (167). e past comes into high relief, soly, clearly, and somewhat
menacingly. Foreshadowing indeed, but signaled with the voice as much as the short,
simple sentence ending with a past tense verb.
Next, I ask students to read Week 2, the second section, to themselves; aerward, but
prior to any further discussion, we listen to the recording. We take stock of the additional
information we’re learning, but we also discuss the dierent impact that hearing and
reading have on our understanding. is short section, for instance, is reminiscence,
beginning, “When I was a girl in Leogone…” and telling a story about Freda’s mother and
father. It includes gurative language and interplays of color that students quickly note are
both idyllic and unsettling, e.g., “My father used to look at the way the sunset outshone
the clouds to decide what the sea would be like the next day. A ruby twilight would
mean a calm sea, but a blood-red dawn might spoil everything” (168). Listening rather
than reading makes the students more authentically Freda’s audience and encourages
visualization of the scenes she recounts.
Next, I play the rest of the recording and let the students follow along in the
text or close their eyes and listen, whichever they prefer. Various sequences and
combinations of listening or reading straight through, selecting passages, etc. are
useful, depending upon the students’ attention span and inclinations, but in any case,
the bonus is “rereading” the text whether visually or aurally. As a personal aside, I
have to say that I thoroughly enjoy the unadorned listening. As I was preparing to
write this lesson, I sat down on a busy day when I had been commenting on student
papers and reading in preparation for another class; I clicked on the computer—and
what a pleasure! As I sat and simply listened (even though it was about the fifth
time) without following along a written text, I relaxed and let the story take over. I’m
primarily a visual learner who can’t seem to hold onto anything she doesn’t see in
print, yet I found myself gathering all manner of information by slowing down and
hearing the language. I can imagine how this experience affects students who are
more attuned than I to the spoken word.
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Close Reading of Contemporary Literature
Close Reading Exercise
• Compare and contrast the style Danticat uses to
describe Week 2 and Week 6. Pay attention to
sentence structure, use of dialogue, and connotative
language.
• One of the hallmarks of this story is wordplay.
Analyze the effect of wordplay that results from
both miscues and double entendres. In Week 3, for
instance, “Marigolds, the flower of a thousand lives”
is put into play with “Yellow like my boyfriend…the
man of a thousand lies”; and the “dead spots” of a
painting is followed by the narrator’s thought, “Life
is full of dead spots.”
Analysis
To interpret and analyze larger thematic issues, the next step for me is to ask students to
capture and organize some of what they are gleaning from the text. Early in the process,
I put them on the alert for information about Haitian politics and history that form the
immediate context for the story: What references do they know? Which are unfamiliar?
e following table helps them to capture both this information and the dualities that are
central to the story. It also situates them right in the text.
Character Life in Haiti Life in the U.S. Your Comments
Freda
Mariselle
Rezia
As a basic way to organize information, this template helps students collect details
about the women’s lives as they are revealed in the story, where the linear plot (i.e.,
the march of the GED classes) is continually interrupted with remembrances and
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A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
events from the characters’ pasts. Like many of my colleagues, I find such organizers
prescriptive, yet they are usually helpful to students as a means of analytic note-taking
that leads to interpretation.
Role Playing
I oen use role playing in my classes, so “e Funeral Singer” with its 14 sections and
rst-person narrative, along with the availability of the recording of Danticat, makes this
approach a natural. If it’s the rst time we’ve done this, I explain during one class that at
the next meeting a few students will assume the roles of characters in the story and the
author; the other students will ask them questions. ey won’t know until they come to
class who will play which role. ose who are role playing must respond in the voice of
the character and may—in fact, I encourage it—respond by reading something in the
actual text of the story. Although I oen start out with a few questions to get things going,
developing those questions is a homework assignment, and students learn to prepare
them as a way to “rehearse” a role as respondent as well as questioner, as performer as well
as audience.
is story has three women and a woman author. While I have no trouble with gender
switches where a male student plays a female character or vice versa, in this case I
add one male character. Freda’s father, though not an actual character, is central as a
remembered one. Whether I ask for volunteers or do the “volunteering” arbitrarily, those
playing characters and author sit in a semicircle before the class as questions are posed.
I encourage the “characters” to engage one another in conversation, following up with
questions or challenging the response. Prior to role playing, we talk about developing
questions that encourage discursive responses rather than yes/no answers. Here are a few
that have resulted in pretty lively discussions:
• (Toanyofthethreewomen)Whydidyousignupforthisclass?
• Freda,doyouwishyouhadsunginHaiti?enyouwouldn’thavehadtoleave,
would you?
• Freda,whywereyouwillingtobecomeoneofthepeoplewhotheothersread
about in the newspaper?
• (ToFreda’sfather)Wouldyouwantyourdaughtertoreturntoghtforher
people’s freedom, or do you think she should stay here and make a new life?
• MariselleorFreda,whydidyoustaywiththeclassonceyourealizedyou’d
probably never pass the GED test?
• Rezia,doyoubelieveinthe“AmericanDream”?
• Ms.Danticat,areyousuggestinginthisstorythateducationdoesnotmatter,
that a GED, or any degree, is meaningless given the violent experiences these
characters have had?
17
Close Reading of Contemporary Literature
• Mariselle,whywouldyoueverwanttoreturntoHaitiaerwhathappenedtoyou
there? (One caveat about teaching this story is that Mariselle is raped as a girl, though
the scene is not described in any detail. Danticat’s “o stage” description is sensitively
rendered, and it’s clear that this sexual violence is part of the political violence.)
• Freda,attheendareyousingingyourownfuneralsong?
• (Toanyofthethreewomen)Youoendrinkaeryouleavetheclass.Whydoyou
drink so much?
• Ms.Danticat,whydidyouendthestorythisway?It’ssoopen.Whynotgivea
resolution?
As students respond in the voice of the characters, they are getting inside those
characters—and to respond in a creative or even intelligible way, they must know the
specics of the story, both the literal goings-on and the thematic implications. is
exercise more oen than not results in a good time in class. Inevitably, some students ask
deliberately obtuse or unrelated questions (e.g., “Freda, do you think Hillary Clinton will
be elected president?” “Rezia, what do you serve in your restaurant?”), but then in their
own way, these questions can gauge understanding of a character, even if the text analysis
may be harder to rein in. Usually, though, students enjoy becoming the characters and
authors and may even add accents or physical mannerisms they think appropriate.
Close Reading Exercise
• Drawing on the discussions and role plays, choose one of the
characters and analyze how she has changed from the time of
her life in Haiti (as we know it from this story) to her life in New
York. Use examples from the text to explain how Danticat conveys
these changes.
• Howwouldyoudescribetheoveralltoneofthisstory?Discusshow
Danticat uses juxtaposition (of cultural beliefs and practices; of life
in Haiti with life in the U.S.; of life inside and outside the GED class;
of languages) to develop tone.
Summative Evaluation
Students can demonstrate their understanding of the story’s themes in two signicantly
dierent ways. One is to continue the role playing by rewriting the GED essay that was
their prewriting exercise, but this time in the voice of one of the three women taking the
exam. Reading or performing it in front of the class (or less publicly to a smaller group
or the teacher) oers the opportunity to interpret a character indirectly. How would
Mariselle (or Rezia or Freda) dene “success”? Would she believe that we live isolated
lives and cannot expect others to act on our behalf? is assignment also gives students
18
A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
the freedom to use less formal language and a structure that may be more narrative than
expository. e performance aspect oers even more opportunity to students for whom
writing is not the best display of their strengths.
A more directly academic approach is for students to use this short story to write a response
to the 2007 AP English Literature and Composition open question. e question reads:
In many works of literature, past events can aect, positively or negatively,
the present actions, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a novel
or play in which a character must contend with some aspect of the past,
either personal or societal. en write an essay in which you show how the
character’s relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work
as a whole.
In fact, any number of the previous AP English Literature and Composition open questions
might work, but this most recent one seems tailor-made. Some of my colleagues question
the wisdom of having students practice with a short story, fearing that they might use
one on the actual exam. e concern is legitimate, but my feeling is that most AP English
students are pretty savvy and respond to occasion and audience. Plus, students get more
practice (since, presumably, they read more short ction than novels) in managing the twin
demands of a specic technique (in this case the character’s relationship to the past) and
the question of the larger thematic meaning the AP prompts require.
Larger Issues
e approaches I’m describing, though varied in some ways, are all essentially formalist
and reader-response. By its very nature, however, Danticat’s work invites a cultural studies
perspective. Although one story may be an insucient basis for a study of Haitian culture
and politics, it certainly opens up some history and geography, not to mention current
events. Danticat has become an activist on immigration policy, even testifying before
Congress; she and her young daughter Mira appear as sponsors of educational centers in
Haiti where students are reading and writing in their native Creole language. Regardless
of whether we take steps beyond “e Funeral Singer” to explore such issues as these,
starting with the author’s own voice provides a framework for encouraging students to
develop their own.
19
Close Reading of Contemporary Literature
Resources
Interviews with Danticat discussing Brother, I’m Dying—
National Public Radio:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14721447
e Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2007/10/12/VI2007101201132.html
Lecture by Danticat at the University of California at Santa Barbara:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ritiJ-gmpqg
Reading and discussion at the Library of Congress, National Book Festival 2003:
http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=3533
Notes
Quotations are from e Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat (Vintage Books, 2004).
An interview that Renee Shea did with Danticat on e Dew Breaker is in e Caribbean
Writer, Vol. 18 (2004). It includes a special section of articles on Danticat. Copies are
available through www.caribbeanwriter.com.
To learn more about the Matenwa Community Learning Center, see www.matenwa.org.
21
Lesson 3: Bridging the Gap
Between Literature and Life
Melissa Scholes Young
Lincoln High School
Tallahassee, Florida
Plan the Lesson
Students struggling with twentieth-century literature oen feel that the themes and topics
are archaic in relation to their own life experiences. One of our goals as AP English Literature
and Composition teachers should be to bridge this gap between literature and life. With the
opening lines, “Her name was Connie. She was een and she had a quick, nervous giggling
habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure
her own was all right,” Joyce Carol Oates’s short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You
Been?” hooks readers. ey respond to Connie’s 15-year-old precociousness; they understand
the pressure to conform, to please, and to sort out one’s identity. Readers may pity Connie or
they may dislike her self-absorption, but teenagers can always relate to her. If we can show our
students that literature is indeed alive and applicable to their own lives, we can encourage them
to see connections between universal themes in literature and their own personal experiences.
Background Information
Oates was inspired to write “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” aer reading
about a young man, featured in Life magazine, who seduced and murdered three young
women in Tucson, Arizona, in the 1960s. is story is considered one of Oates’s greatest
literary accomplishments because close reading reveals a wide range of possible analyses.
Oates uses realistic settings and characters, yet subjects them to terror and psychological
tragedy. e story’s patterns of images, symbols, and allusions are available for analysis
on the literary level, but the story can also be discussed in terms of illusion versus reality.
Scholar G. F. Waller wrote that it is “one of the masterpieces of the genre.”
e story begins with an introduction to the main character, Connie, who is a typical suburban
teenager preoccupied with her looks and popular music. e rst few pages of the story are
an exposition into the normalcy of Connie’s life: She argues with her mother, dislikes her older
22
A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
sister, and hangs out with friends. One day Connie chooses to skip a family gathering and stay
home to wash her hair. A car with two unknown men appears unexpectedly in the driveway.
Connie chats with the driver, Arnold Friend, through the screen door until the irtation takes
a dangerous turn. Arnold, who seems to know many things about Connie and her family,
insists that she leave with them. She tries to call for help but is unable. e story’s ending is
ambiguous, but Connie does leave with Arnold and knows she will never return.
Lesson Overview
Students begin with a 10-minute writing prompt that they’ve chosen from ve broad
questions. ey are grouped according to their chosen topics so they can share their
responses with each other. Next, they annotate the story as they engage in close reading.
Finally, they write a simulated AP essay prompt as a summative assessment. e lesson
assessment could be expanded even further with a timed writing based on student-
generated prompts.
Instructional Goals
1. Students engage in a meaningful way with twentieth-century text.
2. Students make connections between the themes of twentieth-century text and
their own lives.
3. Students extrapolate themes and literary techniques through the writing of
simulated AP prompts.
Teach the Lesson
To begin the lesson, students are assigned 10-minute journal topics. ey choose from the
following prompts:
1. What kind of music do you nd most appealing? How does this music represent
you and your peers?
2. Is there a dierence between how you identify yourself and how others see you?
Which is the truth?
3. Write about a time when you found yourself in a situation that you thought you
could manage only to learn later that you couldn’t. In retrospect, how would you
handle yourself dierently?
4. In your opinion, how important is outward appearance? Have you ever been
judged based solely on your looks or how you dress?
5. Write about a time when regret/guilt was your best teacher.
23
Close Reading of Contemporary Literature
Following the 10-minute free write, I signal the conclusion of the journal by playing the Bob
Dylan song “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” which Oates claims she listened to before she
wrote the story. I ask whether anyone knows the song or its singer. Students usually enjoy
the music but are either unfamiliar with the artist or identify the song with their parents’
generation. Joyce Carol Oates dedicated the story to Bob Dylan, and this short immersion
activity sets the tone for the critical reading. I lead a brief discussion about the culture of the
1960s when Oates rst published this story and how Dylan’s music is applicable.
I ask students to meet in small groups based on the journal prompt about which they chose
to write. e ve groups are given copies of the story and asked to complete an annotated
close read. (See the example of close reading with sample annotations in Appendix A of this
Curriculum Module.) Following the close read, I ask them to choose a part of their own
journal to read aloud to their peers and have them explain how their topic relates to Oates’s
story. For example, the group that wrote about the importance of music notes the allusions
to popular music throughout the story and may discuss the role of music in young people’s
lives or in American culture as a whole. e group that wrote about identity may talk about
Connie’s vulnerability due to her fragile ego that leads to her being exploited by Arnold Friend.
Finally, each group writes a simulated AP essay prompt as a summative assessment.
Literature Discussion
Aer the close read and group activities, I lead a whole class discussion using the following
broad questions. is allows each group to share their topic expertise with the whole class.
1. What is the role of identity within the story? How should identity be formed in
adolescence?
2. How does Connie’s home life and lack of male role model contribute to her
alienation? Why does she seek approval from Arnold Friend?
3. Connie believes that life and love will be “the way it was in movies and promised
in songs.” What impact does Connie’s version of reality have on her actions?
4. What kind of mood is created by the lack of resolution in the story? How might
readers react to the ambivalent ending?
5. Does beauty buy power? Should it?
Assessment
Following the class discussion, I collect the guided worksheets and assess the simulated
writing prompts. For the next class period, I type the prompts onto an overhead, and the
class collectively creates a rubric for each prompt. is leads to a discussion of what a
good response for each prompt would include and what would be necessary within the
writing to show mastery of the story. I have the class dene standards for scoring a 5–9 on
each prompt.
24
A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
e 2003 AP English Literature and Composition Exam included a question regarding
Oates’s characterization of Judd Mulvaney in We Were the Mulvaneys (1966), and the
scoring rubric for that question can be adapted for this lesson or used as a model for
students developing their own rubrics. is activity helps students internalize the rubric
and develop a skill that will help them with future timed writings. As students practice
writing their own rubrics, they begin to understand elements in their own writing that
will improve their AP essay scores.
Finally, students return to their original journal. I ask them to again write for 10 minutes
on the following culminating prompt:
How does literature reect life? What can we learn about our world and our
lives within it through ction? Cite examples from the story “Where Are You
Going, Where Have You Been?” to support your claims.
Going Beyond the Lesson
e lesson assessment could be expanded even further with a timed writing based on
student-generated prompts. Students use the class-generated prompts and rubrics to score
each other’s papers. I require them to give written feedback justifying their scores. Individual
or group writing workshops would provide further discussion of eective writing techniques.
Another way to expand the lesson is to read the 1966 Life magazine article, “e Pied
Piper of Tucson,” which inspired Oates’s story. Students might compare the ctional
and factual interpretations of the event. ey could also assess the writing styles and the
characterization of Arnold Friend.
ese short story strategies are also applicable to other short stories that include thematic
elements of identity and isolation, such as “Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman, “A
Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, or “A&P” by John Updike.
Finally, students might be asked to do an additional close read using either a Marxist/
sociological critical approach or a feminist critical approach. Students will need
background information and questions to guide each methodology.
Readers who utilize a Marxist/sociological approach assume all art has political roots
that can be decoded.
1. What is the literature’s cultural, economic, or political context? Cite an example
from the text.
2. Identify the societal values that are promoted by the story.
3. Are the social messages within the story implicit or explicit? How does the role of
the audience shape this view?
25
Close Reading of Contemporary Literature
Readers who utilize a feminist critical approach assume literature reveals gender-based
power relations in our society.
1. Who has the power in this story? How is the power dened and/or gained?
2. How is a woman’s cultural, social, or literary identity formed through the
characters or plot of the story? Give an example from the text.
3. Does the message of the story help to challenge or perpetuate stereotypes of
women?
Reflecting on the Lesson
In the past 10 years of teaching this story in varying contexts, I’ve found that its
accessibility and suspense keep young readers interested. On the surface of a rst read,
students oen just enjoy the unexpected outcome of the conclusion, but a closer read
always reveals deeper themes with which they can relate. At a time of their own self-
discovery, AP English students seem to relish in the characterization of Connie and, in
turn, themselves.
27
Appendix A
Sample Close Read with Annotations
Evening Hawk
A
From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through
Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds,
Out of the peak’s black angularity of shadow, riding
e last tumultuous avalanche of
Light above pines and the guttural gorge,
e hawk comes.
B
His wing
Scythes down another day
C
, his motion
Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear
e crashless fall of stalks of Time
D
.
e head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error
E
.
Look! Look! he is climbing the last light
Who knows
F
neither Time nor error, and under
Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings
Into shadow.
G
Long now,
e last thrush is still, the last bat
H
Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics. His wisdom
Is ancient, too, and immense. e star
I
Is steady, like Plato
J
, over the mountain.
If there were no wind we might, we think, hear
e earth grind
K
on its axis, or history
Drip in darkness
L
like a leaking pipe in the cellar.
K. Auditory imagery: avalanche,
guttural, scythes, crashless,
apostrophe, hear, wind, drip, grind.
A. Sunset—end of day:
A predatory bird that oen comes
out at twilight.
B. 1st stanza—sets the scene—
periodic sentence ending with the
hawk coming into it.
C. e hawk is consistent—he comes
at the end of the day. Related to
Father Time. Time itself is likened to
stalks of grain.
L. Images of light, dark, shadow,
black, darkness, starlight.
F. Philosophy is a eld of study in
which people ask questions such
as whether God exists, what is the
nature of reality, whether knowledge
is possible, and what makes actions
right or wrong.
G. Syntax: e light or the hawk
knows neither time nor error? Why
is the world unforgiven? What needs
to be forgiven?
H. Syntax: Does a bat replace the
hawk?
I. North Star—is an ever-xed mark.
J. Plato? Allegory of the Cave?
Metaphor of the Sun?
D. Stalks are golden grain,
man-made—represent our error,
humankind’s.
E. e gold of our error?
29
Appendix B
Close Reading of Poetry—A Formative
Assessment
Each year at the AP English Literature and Composition Exam Reading, the Question
Leaders present a “state of the reading” address to the entire group of essay Readers. eir
comments summarize the strengths and weaknesses evidenced in the students’ essays,
with the intent that AP teachers will take the suggestions for improvements back to their
classrooms and adjust their teaching of literature accordingly.
Warren Carson, the 2006 Poetry Question Leader for the AP English Literature and
Composition Exam, observed that many students knew the terminology of literary
devices but were unable to analyze how a poet uses particular literary devices to establish
mood and explain meaning in a poem. is formative assessment can be used to
conrm the ability of students to identify and apply literary devices as a strategy for the
close reading of poetry. It also allows you to assess student progress toward the goal of
developing the capacity to read closely to construct meaning.
Oen poets signal something important in the titles of poems and suggest meaning in the
last stanza or last few lines of their poems. is assessment includes John Updike’s poem,
“e Great Scarf of Birds.”
1
You should rst give students just the title of the poem and ask
them to respond to what they think the poem will be about. e responses will be quick
and short and will probably include remarks such as the following:
“ere are lots of birds on a scarf.”
“e scarf might be important because it is called ‘great.’”
“e scarf must be large because it is described as ‘great.’”
“What could be so great about a scarf with birds on it that someone has written a
poem about it?”
Although these responses may seem overly simplistic, students are actually beginning
to formulate an interpretation of the poem before they read it. Next, display the
first stanza of the poem (“Playing golf on Cape Ann in October/I saw something
to remember”) and ask students, “What comes to mind when you read these lines?”
Responses may include the following:
“Where is Cape Ann?”
1. Updike, John. “e Great Scarf of Birds.” Originally published in e New Yorker (October 27, 1962): 52.
30
A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
“What does playing golf have to do with a scarf of birds?”
“e setting of the poem is outdoors, and it’s in the fall.”
“I wonder what happened on the golf course that was so important.”
“Who is the speaker?”
ese questions set the stage for students to look more closely at elements of the poem such
as setting, speaker, imagery, and meaning. Now display the last stanza of the poem (“Long
had it been since my heart/had been lied as it was by the liing of that great/scarf ”); student
responses to the stanza may include the following:
“Why is the word ‘scarf’ on a line by itself?”
“I wonder what was weighing on the speaker’s heart since he says it was lied by
the scarf?”
“How can a scarf li your heart?”
“e scarf must have been very beautiful if liing it raised the speaker’s heart.”
“I don’t think the scarf was a real scarf since the poem is set on a golf course and
people don’t wear scarves there.”
“What does a scarf and golf have to do with liing the speaker’s heart?”
Next, divide the class into small groups and distribute copies of the In-class Formative
Assessment (also included in this assessment), as well as the full text of the poem. Note
that in steps 1–7 of the handout, no discussion of the poem is requested. Students may
start to do this, but they have been working through a close reading of the poem by
focusing on a few basic skills, which will lead them to a better understanding of the poem
as a whole and eventually closer to a deeper understanding of meaning in the poem. Aer
about 20 minutes, ask each group to take one example from what they marked in steps
2–6 and discuss how those elements of the poem are important to understanding the
meaning of the poem. ey then share this part of their discussion with the whole class.
e second segment of the group work is where the challenges of the assessment are found,
so this is where you should attend carefully to the students’ progress. Assuming that students
can identify literary devices and other elements, and that they are able to engage in the
process of close reading, you should pose questions that let students articulate any problems
they are having in reaching the objectives. ese questions allow you to conrm the validity
of that assumption. If students are having diculty with this rst part of the assessment, the
whole group discussion at the midpoint of the assessment will be helpful to them.
As the students share their responses, the teacher records them on the board or on an overhead
so that students can see them as well as hear them. Responses will probably vary as there
are almost always multiple meanings in a literary work, so this is a good opportunity for the
31
Close Reading of Contemporary Literature
teacher to encourage students to go back to the poem and identify where they have found that
meaning through lines where the diction, imagery, mood, and tone are established.
Interpretive Framework
Cues to Depth of Analysis
Responses to the question, “How important is it that you know the meaning or use of
that word?” might be a cue that close reading is not happening. is might be followed
by an eort within the group to clarify the meaning of the word with the teacher absent.
e teacher could then return and get the group to conrm the importance of each word:
“How does knowing the meaning of that word help you to understand what the speaker is
saying in that part of the poem?”
Likewise, if students are not analyzing the parts of the poem that they identied as
puzzling, then this may also be a cue that close reading is not happening. e teacher may
ask, “What was confusing to you about the section of the poem you placed a question
mark next to?” When they have pursued (perhaps within the group) a resolution of this
part of the work, the teacher could then return to the group and let the students conrm
the value of close reading by asking, “How does nding an answer to your question aect
your understanding of the poem?”
Examples of other questions that the teacher may pose in conjunction with the students’
group work are as follows:
“What do you think the poet is trying to accomplish by using that literary device?”
“What feeling/mood is created by that image you selected?”
“How important to the poem as a whole is that particular image?”
“What is the connotation of the word you put the box around?
“How might the tone of the poem change if you changed that word?”
“How eective do you think the example of that device is to the purpose of using
that device?”
Aer the students have spent time on the close reading skills, the teacher again directs
their attention to the beginning and ending stanzas of the poem. Now they are instructed
to reread the two stanzas and to think about the meaning Updike was trying to convey in
the poem. Allow ve minutes for students to write a sentence or two on what they think
that meaning is and then have them share those responses with the class.
32
A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
Bibliography
Updike, John. “e Great Scarf of Birds.” e New Yorker (October 27, 1962): 52.
In-class Formative Assessment
In your groups, consider Updike’s poem and do the following:
1. Read the entire poem silently to yourself.
2. Circle words that you do not know the meaning of or are confused by how they
are being used in the context of the poem. [VOCABULARY]
3. Underline examples of poetic devices found in the poem. [LITERARY DEVICES]
4. Put brackets around images that stand out. [IMAGERY]
5. Put boxes around words that are used for a specic eect. [DICTION]
6. Place question marks next to lines that you do not understand. [ANNOTATION]
7. Read the poem aloud in a “round robin,” where each group member reads until she
or he comes to a period, semicolon, colon, question mark, or exclamation point.
2
8. As you read, share with the group what was marked in the poem.
In 10 minutes the entire class will discuss the analysis. A spokesperson for each group will
present the identication by the group of particular elements of the poem.
Close reading requires that the role of these elements, which have been identied in
establishing the meaning of the poem, can be expressed by the reader. Working with your
group again, discuss how these elements are used by the author. One member of the group
should record key ideas on how these elements are used to convey meaning.
When your group has developed a shared sense of how meaning is conveyed by these
elements, develop a summary that expresses the group’s understanding. If there are
unresolved dierences within the group, include these in your summary.
Near the end of the period each group will be asked to present their work.
2. Sometimes it is easier for students to understand meaning in a poem when they read for end marks. Later,
instruction can be provided regarding the structure of the poem (i.e., the way the poem appears on the
page), how structure contributes to meaning, and why the poet might have chosen to use a certain structure.
33
Close Reading of Contemporary Literature
“The Great Scarf of Birds”
by John Updike
Playing golf on Cape Ann in October
I saw something to remember.
Ripe apples were caught like red sh in the nets
of their branches. e maples
were colored like apples, (5)
part orange and red, part green.
e elms, already transparent trees,
seemed swaying vases full of sky. e sky
was dramatic with great straggling V’s
of geese streaming south, mare’s-tails above them. (10)
eir trumpeting made us look up and around.
e course sloped into salt marshes,
and this seemed to cause the abundance of birds.
As if out of the Bible
or science ction, (15)
a cloud appeared, a cloud of dots
like iron lings which a magnet
underneath the paper undulates.
It dartingly darkened in spots,
paled, pulsed compressed, distended, yet (20)
held an identity rm: a ock
of starlings, as much one thing as a rock
One will moved above the trees
the liquid and hesitant dri.
Come nearer, it became less marvelous, (25)
more legible, and merely huge.
“I never saw so many birds!” my friend exclaimed.
We returned our eyes to the game.
Later, as Lot’s wife must have done,
in a pause of walking, not thinking (30)
of calling down a consequence,
I lazily looked around.
e rise of the fairway above us was tinted,
so evenly tinted I might not have noticed
but that at the rim of the delicate shadow (35)
the starlings were thicker and outlined the ock
as an inkstain in drying pronounces its edges.
e gradual rise of green was vastly covered;
I had thought nothing in nature could be so broad
but grass. (40)
And as
I watched, one bird,
prompted by accident or will to lead,
ceased resting; and, liing in a casual billow,
the ock ascended as a lady’s scarf, (45)
transparent, of gray, might be twitched
by one corner, drawn upward and then,
decided against, negligently tossed toward a chair:
the southward cloud withdrew into the air.
Long had it been since my heart (50)
had been lied as it was by the liing of that great
scarf.
35
Appendix C
Close Read and Annotations—Teacher Version
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
by Joyce Carol Oates
First published in
Epoch
, Fall 1966. Included in
PrizeStories:O.HenryAwardWinners
(1968) and T
he Best
American Short Stories
(1967).©JoyceCarolOates.
Her name was Connie. She was een and she had a quick, nervous giggling
habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s
faces to make sure her own was all right. Her mother, who noticed everything
and knew everything and who hadn’t much reason any longer to look at her
own face, always scolded Connie about it. “Stop gawking at yourself. Who
are you? You think you’re so pretty?” she would say. Connie would raise her
eyebrows at these familiar old complaints and look right through her mother,
into a shadowy vision of herself as she was right at that moment: she knew
she was pretty and that was everything. Her mother had been pretty once
too, if you could believe those old snapshots in the album, but now her looks
were gone and that was why she was always aer Connie.
(Paragraph One)
What role does identity play throughout the story? How does Connie
dene her identity? e role of identity is prominent throughout this
story as Connie, like most teenagers, tries to dene herself by testing
parental and societal boundaries.
Identify the point of view in the story. How does Oates eectively use
point of view to communicate the character of Connie to the reader?
e third person narrator reveals Connie’s point of view. rough the
narrator we learn Connie’s thoughts and feelings without additional
commentary or judgment. is allows the reader to feel Connie’s fear and
eventual victimization.
…Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for
anywhere that was not home: her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing,
or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearing music in her head;
her mouth, which was pale and smirking most of the time, but bright and
pink on these evenings out; her laugh, which was cynical and drawling at
36
A Curriculum Module for AP English Literature and Composition
home—“Ha, ha, very funny,”—but high-pitched and nervous anywhere else,
like the jingling of the charms on her bracelet.
(Paragraph 4)
How is Connie’s behavior typical of most teens? How does it dier?
Like many teens, Connie establishes a dierent identity at home than she does
with her peers. She identies her worth with her physical attractiveness.
Why do you think Oates wrote this story? What message might she
want to relay to the audience? Connie fullls the role of a typical, pretty
teenage girl. Oates created this fragile persona to show how unstable
one is when one relies on looks alone. Teenage girls may be especially
susceptible and easier to exploit. Oates originally titled the story “Death
and the Maiden,” which she said was meant to show the “fatal attractions
of death” for a girl “seduced by her own vanity.”
…Connie sat with her eyes closed in the sun, dreaming and dazed with the
warmth about her as if this were a kind of love, the caresses of love, and her
mind slipped over onto thoughts of the boy she had been with the night before
and how nice he had been, how sweet it always was, not the way someone like
June would suppose but sweet, gentle, the way it was in movies and promised
in songs; and when she opened her eyes she hardly knew where she was, the
back yard ran o into weeds and a fence-like line of trees and behind it the sky
was perfectly blue and still. e asbestos ranch house that was now three years
old startled her—it looked small. She shook her head as if to get awake.
(Paragraph 12)
Why is the setting of the story signicant? How does Oates create
tension throughout the story? e setting of the story is purposely vague
and uneventful. e unexpected violence is juxtaposed with the boring,
generic suburban life. is creates an additional tension.
How does Connie view the idea of love? Is it a realistic portrayal? Why or
why not? Connie’s view of love reveals her naivety. She considers herself a
talented irt and enjoys the power that comes from gaining boys’ attention.
ere were two boys in the car and now she recognized the driver: he had
shaggy, shabby black hair that looked crazy as a wig and he was grinning at her.
“I ain’t late, am I?” he said.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Connie said.
37
Close Reading of Contemporary Literature
“Toldja I’d be out, didn’t I?”
“I don’t even know who you are.”
She spoke sullenly, careful to show no interest or pleasure, and he spoke in a fast,
bright monotone. Connie looked past him to the other boy, taking her time.
He had fair brown hair, with a lock that fell onto his forehead. His sideburns
gave him a erce, embarrassed look, but so far he hadn’t even bothered to
glance at her. Both boys wore sunglasses. e driver’s glasses were metallic
and mirrored everything in miniature.
“You wanta come for a ride?” he said.
Connie smirked and let her hair fall loose over one shoulder.
(Paragraph 17)
Identify Oates’s use of symbolism throughout the story. What might
Arnold Friend represent? Many literary critics have read Arnold Friend
as a “devil” gure representing evil. He misrepresents himself and deceives
Connie, which leads to her eventual downfall.
How is Arnold Friend characterized? Describe the relationship
between Arnold and Connie. Oates’s descriptions show us that Arnold
is not as he seems. He is clearly much older than Connie. She irts and
banters with him as if he were a peer. Arnold’s character is not genuine,
but he is skillful at manipulating Connie. She is not experienced enough
to realize what she is dealing with.
Guiding Questions
1. What was the topic of your journal? How does this topic relate to Joyce Carol
Oates’s story? Explain with two text references.
2. What message do you think Oates sought to convey to the audience through this
story? What questions does she pose to the audience? List at least three questions.
3. Compare Oates’s style of writing with other authors you’ve read. Discuss patterns
of symbols, images, and allusions in your analysis.
39
About the Contributors
Deborah Shepard is an educational manager with the College Board’s Florida Partnership
in Tallahassee. Previously, she taught AP® English Literature and Composition at Lincoln
High School in Tallahassee and served as a member of the AP English Literature and
Composition Development Committee.
Sally P. Pfeifer is currently an online AP English Literature and Composition teacher
and a Career in Teaching consulting teacher for Spokane Public Schools in Spokane,
Washington. In her 37 years of teaching, Pfeifer has taught English in grades 7–12, and
Advanced Placement® English at Lewis and Clark High School from 1982 to 2001. Pfeifer
has been a College Board faculty consultant and has served as an AP English Literature
and Composition Exam Reader, Table Leader, and Assistant Question Leader. She was a
member of the AP English Literature Test Development Committee from 2004 to 2008.
Renee H. Shea, professor of English and modern languages at Bowie State University in Bowie,
Maryland, has served on the AP English Language and Composition Development Committee
as the College Board adviser for that committee. An active faculty consultant to the College
Board, she has served as a Reader, Table Leader, and Question Leader for both the AP English
Literature and Composition and AP English Language and Composition Exam Readings.
Shea has written several articles of instructional strategies that are on AP Central® on both the
Language and the Literature sites and frequently leads workshops for AP teachers. She isthe
co-author of e Language of Composition: Reading, Writing, Rhetoric and Teaching Nonction
in AP English. She also co-authored Amy Tan in the Classroom (part of the NCTE High School
Literature Series) and isworking onZora Neale Hurston in the Classroom.
Melissa Scholes Young teaches AP English at Lincoln High School in Tallahassee,
Florida.She has been a teacher since 1997 and has taught at all levels from middle school
to high school, from community college touniversity, and also at an international school
in Brazil.Her works have been published in Family Forum Magazine, A Cup of Comfort
for Teachers, Literary Mama, Front Porch Magazine, Motherhood Magazine, and e
Tallahassee Democrat.
