1st Period--Don't be later than . . .

the assistant principal, who will be here at the start of class.  An administrator will be in all classes today, in fact, to discuss graduation logistics;  it is several of you in first period, however, who will be making quite the grand entrance if you're late. 

TODAY IN CLASS

Continued reading time for Song of Solomon people. 

More time than needed, really, for the play people to finish planning the timeline for Fences.

FOR TUESDAY

Song of Solomon: The novel really needs to be finished; I don't want to hit you up with plot-spoilers until you've experienced how Morrison reveals the final pieces of the puzzle. Moreover, you can't really do the complete timeline until you know the full range of what Milkman learns on his journey. And you need time to accomplish the other group piece. 

Fences timeline folks--a few reminders:

1) Get events of PAST and key events from the present in correct order; include exact years/dates where possible, and "guestimate" year ranges for others

2) Make it horizontal, like a number line.

3) Make sure that the work's actual "starting point" (opening scene) is clearly marked in the timeline.

4) Do not overstress presentation format, but it should be legible, readable from a couple feet away (will be taped to the boards), and reasonably attractive. 

There will be NO additional class time on this; turn them in either no later than Wednesday.

FOR EVERYONE TO THINK ABOUT

Some essential questions for both plays and Song of Solomon

• What do parents want/expect/hope from or for their children?
• How important is the family in shaping not only the present lives but the future lives of children?
• What holds people back?  (especially from achieving their dreams?)
• “Crippled”  à who?  How?  Really???
• Ways in which people “fly the coop”?
• MUSIC à all three works (define, characterize, connect)

 Backdrop:  In some ways, the overall purpose here is to explore human existence; we are all creatures bound by our families and circumstances—except when we are not.  These works, in one way or another, all address the notion of “family” in ways that show the intersection between the present circumstances and the past (as it happened, as it is told, as it is remembered, as it is imagined . . .). 

• Parents and children, particularly, are caught in age-old tensions that are both universal in one sense and excruciatingly personal and private in others. 
• The works also reveal, for both protagonists and other key characters, ways of perceiving themselves that may or may not be in synch with what others see.  
• And in one of these works, a character questions out loud if “the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children”; this becomes an implicit concern in the other works as well.  
• Furthermore, they show how people cope—or choose NOT to cope—with the “ties that bind”; sometimes this results in the decision to “fly the coop” in a variety of literal or metaphorical ways. Finally, each of these works is set in a particular place and time whose context helps to circumscribe the scope, the playing field, in which these people live through their particular family drama.