Tag Archives: fiction/literature

Ursula Le Guin Prescribes a Lifestyle

Posted on March 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

“When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.”

Ursula Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness ch. 3 (1969)

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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The Weekly Text, March 29, 2019, Women’s History Month 2019 Week V: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on J.K. Rowling

Posted on March 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

Today marks the end, on Mark’s Text Terminal, of Women’s History Month 2019. When I return on Monday, it will be April Fool’s Day. Here is a reading on J.K. Rowling and its attendant vocabulary building and comprehension worksheet.

I would think this is high interest material, as Ms. Rowling and her books remain interesting to kids.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Posted on March 28, 2019 | Leave a comment

“(1927-2013) British novelist and short-story writer. Born in Germany of Polish and German-Jewish parents, Jhabvala lived in England for twelve years before marrying an Indian architect and moving to New Delhi, where she remained until she moved to New York in 1976. Her subject is India, which she views as both an insider and an outsider, and with increasing distress at the poverty and misery surrounding her own comfortable life. She is concerned with social mores and psychological power struggles and psychological power struggles, and employs wit, nuance, and evocative descriptive detail. Her first novels, To Whom She Will (1955; U.S. Amrita, 1956), The Nature of Passion (1956), and Esmond in India (1957), deal with Indian arranged marriages and an East-West alliance. She has written a number of screenplays. Her later novels, such as Heat and Dust (1975), later made into a successful movie, show the influence of cinematic techniques. She has also published several volumes of short stories. In Search of Love and Beauty (1983) is a novel about German emigres in 1930s New York. Poet and Dancer (1993) is a novel.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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The Trenchant Louisa May Alcott

Posted on March 25, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isn’t worth ruling.”

Louisa May Alcott

An Old-Fashioned Girl ch. 13 (1870)

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Harper Lee on Power and the Law

Posted on March 22, 2019 | Leave a comment

“But there in one way in this country in which all men are created equal–there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentleman, is a court”

Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird ch. 20 (1960)

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Cassandra

Posted on March 21, 2019 | Leave a comment

“In Greek mythology, the daughter of King Priam of Troy. Apollo promised her the gift of prophecy if she would grand his desires; she accepted the gift but rebuffed the god, who took his revenge by ordaining that all her prophecies would never be believed. She predicted the fall of Troy and the death of Agamemnon, but her warnings went unheeded. Given as part of the war spoils to Agamemnon, she was murdered with him.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Margaret (Eleanor) Atwood

Posted on March 19, 2019 | Leave a comment

“(b. 1939) Canadian poet, novelist, and critic. Born in Ottawa, she attended the Univ. of Toronto and Harvard Univ. In the poetry collection The Circle Game (1964; Governor General’s Award), she celebrates the material world and condemns materialism. Her novels, several of which have become bestsellers, include Surfacing (1972), Lady Oracle (1976), Life Before Man (1979), Bodily Harm (1981), The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) Governor General’s Award), Cat’s Eye (1988), The Robber Bride (1993), and Alias Grace (1996). She is noted for her Canadian nationalism and her feminism.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Rotten Reviews: The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Conner

Posted on March 14, 2019 | Leave a comment

“As a specialist in Southern horror stories, Miss O’Conner’s attitude has been wry, her preferences perverse, her audience special.”

Kirkus Reviews

Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.

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Beloved by Toni Morrison

Posted on March 13, 2019 | Leave a comment

“(1987) A novel by Toni Morrison, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. It is the story of a runaway slave whose desperation forces her to slash her infant daughter’s throat with a handsaw rather than see the child in chains. But eighteen years after the child’s death, a young woman appears and the characters believe she is the slain infant returned to earth. Set in the pre- and post-Civil War era outside Cincinnati, Beloved is developed through a series of flashbacks to the Sweet Home Plantation. The main characters are Sethe, the heroine who is literally haunted by the baby daughter she killed; Beloved, the ghost of Sethe’s child; Paul D., a former slave who knew Sethe when they were together at Sweet Home; and Denver, one of Sethe’s other three children.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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The Weekly Text, March 8, 2019, Women’s History Month 2019 Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Alice Walker’s Novel “The Color Purple”

Posted on March 7, 2019 | Leave a comment

I don’t want to let Women’s History Month 2019 pass without posting something related to Alice Walker. To that end, here is a reading Ms. Walker’s novel The Color Purple and a vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet to accompany it. These, I was pleased to see, were of no small interest to the young women in the classes I currently teach.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review

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