1. Talking Texts: Pairings that Promote Close Reading
Renee H. Shea
NMSI, 20 – 21 October 2014
Please add NMSI, October (after my name)

2. Agenda Talk-Backs Defined Discussion of Paired Texts
Small Group Discussions
Extensions and Reflection

3. What are Talk-Backs? More than comparison/contrast
Reversal of subject-object positions
Minority opinion: response to canonical text
Emphasis of continuing problem or issue
Appreciation of well-known text
Parody of well-known text
Time travelers (usually)

4. Why do talk-backs? To prepare for the AP Exam
To practice close reading
To encourage rereading
To develop a dialogue between past and present
To have fun

5. Musée des Beaux Arts by W.H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong, The old Masters: how well they understood Its human position: how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
Common Core
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c. 1558, oil on canvas, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique

6. AP Exam 2000: Homer and Atwood
ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION SECTION II
Total time—2 hours
Question 1
(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)
The story of Odysseus’ encounter with the Sirens and their enchanting but deadly song appears in Greek epic poetry in Homer’s Odyssey. An English translation of the episode is reprinted in the left column below. Margaret Atwood’s poem in the right column is a modern commentary on the classical story. Read both texts carefully. Then write an essay in which you compare the portrayals of the Sirens. Your analysis should include discussion of tone, point of view, and whatever poetic devices (diction, imagery, etc.) seem most important.
SIREN SONG
By: Margaret Atwood
This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skull
the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I don’t enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.
I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song
a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique
at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.
I need the full-text of “Siren Song” by Margaret Atwood from the AP Exam. If you cannot take it from the exam itself, then just put the poem there: If you can possibly get the whole question from AP Central, that would be even better:
Here’s the link (it’s question 1):

7. “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace StevensVI X
Among twenty snowy mountains,   
Icicles filled the long window   
At the sight of blackbirds   
The only moving thing   
With barbaric glass.   
Flying in a green light,   
Was the eye of the blackbird.   
The shadow of the blackbird   
Even the bawds of euphony   
Crossed it, to and fro.   
Would cry out sharply.    II
The mood   
I was of three minds,   
Traced in the shadow   
Like a tree   
An indecipherable cause.    XI
In which there are three blackbirds.   
He rode over Connecticut   
VII
In a glass coach.   
III
O thin men of Haddam,   
Once, a fear pierced him,   
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.   
Why do you imagine golden birds?   
In that he mistook   
It was a small part of the pantomime.   
Do you not see how the blackbird   
The shadow of his equipage   
Walks around the feet   
For blackbirds.    IV
Of the women about you?   
A man and a woman   
XII
Are one.   
VIII
The river is moving.   
A man and a woman and a blackbird   
I know noble accents   
The blackbird must be flying.   
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;   
But I know, too,   
XIII V
That the blackbird is involved   
It was evening all afternoon.   
I do not know which to prefer,   
In what I know.   
It was snowing   
The beauty of inflections   
And it was going to snow.   
Or the beauty of innuendoes,    IX
The blackbird sat   
The blackbird whistling   
When the blackbird flew out of sight,   
In the cedar-limbs.
Or just after.   
It marked the edge   
Of one of many circles.   
(1917)

8. A talk with Aaron Abeyta
I’m not getting the link to audio to work. Pls recheck.

9. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Tortilla by Aaron Abeyta
i. among twenty different tortillas the only thing moving was the mouth of the niño ii. i was of three cultures like a tortilla for which there are three bolios iii. the tortilla grew on the wooden table it was a small part of the earth iv. a house and a tortilla are one a man a woman and a tortilla are one v. i do not know which to prefer the beauty of the red wall or the beauty of the green wall the tortilla fresh or just after vi. tortillas filled the small kitchen with ancient shadows the shadow of Maclovia cooking long ago the tortilla rolled from the shadow the innate roundness vii. o thin viejos of chimayo why do you imagine biscuits do you not see how the tortilla lives with the hands of the women about you viii. i know soft corn and beautiful inescapable sopapillas but i know too that the tortilla has taught me what i know ix. when the tortilla is gone it marks the end of one of many tortillas x. at the sight of tortillas browning on a black comal even the pachucos of española would cry out sharply xi. he rode over new mexico in a pearl low rider once he got a flat in that he mistook the shadow of his spare for a tortilla xii. the abuelitas are moving the tortilla must be baking xiii. it was cinco de mayo all year it was warm and it was going to get warmer the tortilla sat on the frijolito plate (2001)

10. Questions
Besides subject, what is the biggest difference between the 2 poems?
What is Abeyta’s purpose: homage or satire? Combination of the 2?
What effect do the two locations (Connecticut & Chimayo) have on the poems?
Write your own version that looks at a familiar object 13 different ways.
Book has lots of other questions—each poem needs to be treated on its own merit—then make the connection; students return to first after reading the second

11. Winslow Homer, The Veteran in a New Field, 1865, oil on canvas, 24 1/8”x38 1/8”, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

12. Again, the Fields After Winslow Homer by Natasha Trethewey
the dead they lay long the lines like sheaves of Wheat I could have walked on the boddes all most from one end too the other
No more muskets, the bone-drag weariness of marching, the trampled grass, soaked earth red as the wine of sacrament. Now, the veteran turns toward a new field, bright as domes of the republic. Here, he has shrugged off the past—his jacket and canteen flung down in the corner. At the center of the painting, he anchors the trinity, joining earth and sky. The wheat falls beneath his scythe-- a language of bounty—the swaths like scripture on the field’s open page. Boundless, the wheat stretches beyond the frame, as if toward a distant field-- the white canvas where sky and cotton meet, where another veteran toils, his hands the color of dark soil. (2006)

13. Questions
The speaker in the poem both describes and interprets Homer’s painting? Which are the literal descriptions; which are interpretive?
How would you describe Trethewey’s attitude toward Homer’s painting? Is she critical? Appreciative? Admiring? Ironic? Nostalgic? Ambivalent?
In what ways does “Again, the fields” stretch beyond the frame of Homer’s canvas? Is it fair to hypothesize or point out what is not included or addressed in a work from an earlier time period?
Compare and contrast Homer’s painting and Trethewey’s poem as elegies (tributes to, lamentation for, or serious reflection on the dead)
How might Winslow Homer have responded to Trethewey’s poem? Research Homer’s participation in the Civil War and then, in his voice, write a letter to Trethewey.

14. The Tempest by Shakespeare & A Tempest by Aime Cesaire

15. Shakespeare and Cesaire
What is the power dynamic between Prospero and Caliban in this scene from The Tempest?
How does that dynamic change in A Tempest?
What is Cesaire’s purpose in his “retelling” or “redefining” of that relationship?

16. Your Turn . . . “To His Coy Mistress” and “Coy Mistress”
“The White Man’s Burden” and “The Black Man’s Burden”
Excerpts from The Jungle and Fast Food Nation
Excerpts from Women and Economics and The House of Mirth
“Elegy of Fortinbras” by Zbigniew Herbert and the ending scene of Hamlet
I screwed up the formatting … sorry

17. Reflections and Extensions
Larger works (e.g., The Great Gatsby and Bodega Dreams)

18. Jane eyre by charlotte brontË & wide sargasso sea by jean rhys
Can you put this together with Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. Then add pic of covers/authors.

19. Harry S. Truman, “Statement by the President of the United States”
Talking Texts: Pairings that Promote Close Reading
Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Time: 4 pm (Eastern Standard Time)
Link to Register:
During the follow-up workshop-style webinar on October 29th, teachers will participate in an interactive experience by sharing the results of their implementation of this approach and discussing their best practices. This will also allow teachers a chance to exchange ideas on other possible text pairings beyond the few that were discussed in the first webinar.
Join Webinar
This is lovely!
Harry S. Truman, “Statement by the President of the United States”
Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth

20. Thank You!
Please end slide show with a “thank you” slide …