History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Leo Gursky vs. Alma Singer

Compare Leo Gursky and his style with that of Alma Singer:
When they write my obiturary. Tomorrow. Or the next day. It will say, LEO GURSKY IS SURVIVED BY AN APARTMENT FULL OF [CRAP]. I'm surprised I haven't been buried alive. The place isn't big. (Krauss 3)

1. MY NAME IS ALMA SINGER  When I was born my mother named me after every girl in a book my father gave her called The History of Love. (Krauss 35)

Leo is near the end of his life, obsessed with not being discovered dead for days, apparently unsuccessful as a writer, lonely, still longing for the first love of his life, saddened by the son he can never contract, and quite eccentric.

Alma is young, obsessed with finding a man to replace her mother's husband, an adventurous survivalist, concerned about her brother, Bird, and experiencing her first boyfriend.

Question: How do these twin protagonists' voices and stories contrast with one another? How do their interwoven narratives create the yin and yang of the novel?

First Class Meeting

Welcome to English!

Our first class:
1. Read and Annotate Pride and Prejudice: the opening sentence, the style, reading speed and comprehension, understanding Austen, getting the sarcasm and satire
2. Anonymous survey on summer reading
3. Signature page for syllabus
4. Jago Textbook (preview it)
5. College Reader (preview it)
6. Look at the class blog
7. Goals for the year: Read-Write-Think
  -College reading load, primary texts, not textbooks (Darwin, Freud, Austen)
  - 5 page essays with a lot of thinking
  -reading to write
  -writing to think
8. Introducing ourselves
9. History of Love (characters, plot,
10. In-class Journal for daily Writing
11. Homework: read to page 22, set up your blog,

Welcome to Senior English!

Welcome to Senior English!  This is our main blog page where you can check for assignments and information. I'm looking forward to starting the new year and hope you will enjoy the class!

Ideas for Teaching from Writing at the Threshold

From Writing at the Threshold Larry Weinstein (NCTE, 2001)

·         Before passing out the syllabus, have them write their hunches, showing the inquiring mind.

·         Explain the difference between a reflective journal and a diary. Keep it in three ring notebook in an out of class.

·         In-Class Think Tanks: Supervised Practice in College-Level Inquiry

o   Students experience moving into the thick of it and discovering difficulties. The aim is not to come up with a neat explanation but to gain a respect for its complexity, to develop a taste for fact and information and a tolerance for answers that apply in some contexts but not in others or that point up the need for new questions. (Mina Shaughnessy 1977

·         Think tank on short poems, eg. ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’ and other short difficult passages (e.g. Freud, Darwin, excerpts from novels, Collins’ proposal), or data from Pew and Gallup polls

o   Have students ‘think on paper’ or transcribe their thinking’

o   After five minutes, have a ‘cross infusion’ aloud

o   Give students good, intensive practice in inquiry and thinking

·         Field Trip to the library with a question or two and then browse, then read then blog

·         Interviewing skills

more ideas for blogs

rank the following and give your reasoning:
wealth, college education, love, self-esteem, honesty (for Elizabeth Bennet, integrity) self-reliance, etc.

more ideas for next year

Daily in class short writings at beginning or at end of class.
Students willl then have a choice of posting these to their blogs or addressing another blog question (when given)
Once a week (or two) students will expand and revise one blog (and mark it REVISED) for check, check plus mark.
September will consist of LOTS of reading P&P and History of Love, and lots of short writing, revised and revised, and revised

Lots of reading in class, SSR and aloud
Essay topics: Which character are you most like? How will you be at your mom's age? Your grandparent's age?
also: college admissions essays first person stories with significance

ideas for next year

more ideas for next year:
put on a face to meet the faces that you meet
persona, alternate identity depending on who you're with vs. genuine identity
Liz has multiple identities (like a fake id)
Grade a blog a week.
Put statistics in your essays: visual data, survey, interviews,
Increase blog readership