Studying the intricate rules of conventional modern English can be extremely painstaking. If you need extra practice, please use No Red Ink.
This is a completely optional site that is just for extra practice.
How do you access No Red Ink? Click on the link below, create an account, and join your class based on the class codes below. (No, I cannot change the class codes; they are pre-set.)
Note: If this is your first No Red Ink account, you will be asked to complete your profile by clicking on teams, shows, and movies that interest you. It is beneficial to complete this survey because your review questions will include your interests.
Write a reflection explaining what sort of spiritual quest you would take. How would you define the word spiritual? What would be the purpose of your quest? What would you search for? What ideas might govern your quest? How might you achieve the object of your quest? What would be the outcome of your quest—not merely in terms of what you would have achieved at the end but also in terms of what you might gain in the process?
Racism Transcends the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement
Quick FYI:
Harlem Renaissance= 1920s- 1930s
declined with the stock market crash of 1929.
African American Civil Rights Movement= 1954- 1968
1954- Brown v. Board decision declares segregation in public schools illegal.
1968- Congress authorizes the 1968 Civil Rights Act, providing federal enforcement provisions for discrimination in housing. The 1968 expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, sex, (and as amended) handicap and family status. This law enabled housing opportunities for blacks beyond the “ghetto.”
As we watch the film Mississippi Burning in class, take notes on:
the reasoning behind racial prejudice (a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience) and discrimination (the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex).
How do the townspeople of Neshoba County, Mississippi justify their actions?
Why does racism persist even after such a literary period of seeming enlightenment?
Alternate points about A with comparable points about B
Works Cited:
Walk, Kerry. “How to Write a Comparative Analysis.” The Writing Center at Harvard University. 1998. http://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/how-write-comparative-analysis
1865: 13th Amendment of the Constitution ratified (“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”)
1868: 14th Amendment of the Constitution ratified (citizenship of former slaves)
1865- 1877: Reconstruction
1870: 15th Amendment of the Constitution ratified (African American men can vote)
1870s- 1960s: Jim Crow Laws
1876: Mark Twain begins writing Huck Finn
1878- 1889: Gilded Age
1885: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn published
1914- 1919: WWI (The Great War)
1890- 1920: Progressive Era
1939- 1945: WWII
1964: Civil Rights Act of 1964 / End of Jim Crow Laws
1965: the Voting Rights Act of 1965
1968: Fair Housing Act of 1968
Huckleberry Finn and the N-Word
Should the N-word be replaced with the term “slave?”
The N-word should be removed from Huckleberry Finn to make it more acceptable for a modern audience.
Huckleberry Finn as the narrator knows more than a fourteen-year-old could possibly know.
The use of dialect in Huckleberry Finn makes the book more of an artistic achievement.
The character of Huck changes during the course of the novel.
The ending of Huckleberry Finn prevents the book from being a “great” classic novel.
The characterization of Jim is racist.
Huckleberry Finn is “the great American novel”. Hemingway’s comment is true: “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn…the best book we’ve ever had. There was nothing before. There’s been nothing as good since.”
The novel of Huckleberry Finn itself contradicts his introductory note about “attempting to find a motive…a moral… [or] a plot”. (In other words, there is a motive, a moral and a plot to it)
Huckleberry Finn Is an important record of American culture and history.
The character of Huck has a good sense of humor.
Mark Twain’s criticisms of society are still true today.
Huckleberry Finn devalues the role of women.
Huckleberry Finn should be eliminated from our school’s curriculum.
The character of Huck is a worthy hero for a novel.
The river is an important symbol in the novel and for all American literature.
Huckleberry Finn is a book for children.
Huck’s lies are moral.
Potential Mock Trial Topic
Mr. Twain has been charged with the crime of Racism. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is has been deemed a book that is racist and inappropriate for society.
A couple short stories from I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops
“The Marriage Fair”
“An Unreal Life”
Al- Shaykh on what prompts her to write:
…Personally, I feel at home most when I sit and write. And at the beginning, you know, you usually concentrate on certain feelings you feel about things and then slowly, slowly, you start importing or inhabiting the soul of the characters. You can write about any character. It doesn’t have to be something you experienced or something you felt a great deal about. Like my latest novel, Only in London, one of my heroines, the character [Amira] is a prostitute, and the other one is a Lebanese man [Samir], homesexual. So in a way, I inhabited their soul and it becomes like a craft. Of course, the feelings should be always there. I wanted to use them as a vehicle, to say whatever I wanted to say about the Arab society in England.
Interview by Christiane Schlote for The Literary London Journal
Novelist Salman Rushdie interviews Hanan al- Shaykh regarding her passion for writing.
Works Cited:
BBC World News. “The Real Beirut, Part 1.” BBC Travel.YouTube. 28 Jan. 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-lKj7OMtO4
Beydoun, Lina. “Hanan Al Shaykh.” LEBWA. 17 May 2009, http://www.lebwa.org/node/7
(Yes, I am collecting it.)
