Week 6, Semester 2

More Gatsby

This week we'll continue to read The Great Gatsby, chapters 4-6.  Since it's Valentine's Week, remember to think of our reading as a rich expensive chocolate truffle. It's been hand-crafted and labored over.  It's full of depth and dimension.  Respect Fitzgerald's work and appreciate it with small thoughtful bites. 

 

Review your vocabulary before the chapters and look for how those words are used in the passage.

As one of our goals for this unit is to deepen and expand your reading habits and skillset, I've decided to make a more official "reading" assignment with specific ideas.  

HERE it is--print it out, keep it with your book, and complete some of the suggested activities. Next week I'll check, to see what you tried.  At the end, you will receive a global grade based on effort, thought, and quality, so invest.

Suggestions: Consider revisiting Chapters 1-3 before you move on. I often do this before beginning a new section. What might you have whizzed past in your initial reading?  What did you miss? Gatsby is like a "look and find," the more you look, the more you'll find. 

Start figuring out the specific time and chronology of events.

More than anything else, I want to see you thinking, noticing, connecting more of the dots between language, narrative, history, and culture.

Along those lines, here are the slides from class to review as well:  Semester 2 Week 5 Slides  

Review the concepts of Modernism and look for them in the text.  Think about how we just entered the 2020's and the 1920's was a 100 years ago.  What has changed? What remains the same? How are our challenges different?  

We touched upon how women's magazines have changed. Here's the February 2021 Cosmopolitan cover spread--it's better than I would have guessed. It looks like they are embracing the "body positivity" movement.  How else do the covers reveal different values?

The February cover reminded me of a clip I found in an 1896 Asheville Citizen Times the other week when looking for something else. Believe it or not, women were discussing the health and shape of their bodies back then too in different ways.  I suppose this was the late 19th century concept of "body positivity" at least for young women. 🙃

20th Century Modern Era Timeline Work

Here's the events to add to your timeline this week. I'll most likely use this same document and add as we move along.

To help you avoid procrastinating (like some of you did last semester) we'll add some every week, and I'll have you check them in your groups to keep everyone accountable.  So work on your timeline and bring it to "class."  

Remember to use your space--some of you have lots of white space and the text all crunched up in a corner.  Add visual elements--they can be simple. If drawing is not your thing, you can incorporate other elements--scrapbooky type stuff or images from online if they are incorporated nicely and thoughtfully.

Have your timeline, book and your "activities" from above ready to share with your breakout groups.