When I googled the poem ” A Prayer for my Daughter” by Yeats, I came across “A Prayer for my Daughter” written by Tina Fey. After reading Yeats’ poem I read Tina Fey’s poem and I noticed similarities. I want you to compare the two, not only in the way they are written, but what is being said, how it is being said, and the differences in the time period.

Here is a link to Tina Fey’s “A Prayer for my Daughter”:

http://chrisblattman.com/2011/05/26/tina-fey-a-prayer-for-my-daughter/

In both poems they talk about Beauty. In Yeats’ poem he talks about how that can corrupt a young girl and make her silly and useless. He also acknowledges how much harder her life would be without it. We have this same stigma today, though I personally don’t think it is as relevant to a woman’s success as it once was. Fey encourages beauty but asks that she not be “damaged”. This could mean a variety of things but I find the fact that she put them together relevant. I think she means the kind of damage that comes from being pretty. Whether it be emotional trauma or a stunting of empathy, there are many personality flaws that are associated with being pretty.

I would say a lot of Fey’s was written satirically whereas Yeats’ had a yearning and sincerity to it. Yeats would contradict himself from stanza to stanza but his language itself wasn’t quite as paradoxical as Fey’s.

I would have my students read Chapter one of A Room Of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf as a precursor to this journal entry. What I would ask them is this:

Consider what Woolf thinks a writer needs to write, for instance “money” or “one’s own room”. Then think about what you think a writer needs. This does not need to be quite as literal as Mrs. Woolf’s. You could consider creativity, tough work ethic, interesting life, etc. Pick those that you believe are the most important and explain why.

I liked having everyone in the circle. It was nice to be able to hear (or possibly hear, because not everyone talked) from everyone in the class.  However, I realize that in high school we will probably have bigger classes. This will mean that having everyone in the circle will probably be more chaotic and harder to steer so I will most likely use the double circle method until they are more comfortable with it.

Also, I would like to have questions prepared ahead of time. I will probably have four questions that I will send them home with. They can choose two of the four to write a short essay on but must acquaint themselves with all four as we will be discussing them all. Once in class however I will have sub questions beneath the four main ones to provoke thought and guide the discussion by. This way those students who are shy in class can still receive a good grade based on their writing. If I have a class that is particularly disruptive I would probably resort to a throwing a ball and whoever holds the ball is the only one who can talk.

As the semester wore on and my students became more comfortable with the format of a seminar, I would want them to come up with the questions and lead the discussion. This would take a fair amount of oversight to run smoothly but I feel it would be really beneficial to them.

Basically all of Saturday Night Live is a satire. They make fun of anything from political figures to social groups to the weekly news. Their criticism is always of the latest political scandal or the most up to date social sweep. I absolutely love this show. I started watching it when I got to college and haven’t stopped since. My favorite segment is called Weekend Update where the host, now Seth Myers takes real headlines from the news and makes jokes out of them. I love it because I can’t watch the real news. It is too sad and only leaves me depressed and cynical. SNL points it out for what the majority of it is: People being stupid. Also, sarcasm is the main dish served at Weekend Update and I cannot go long without my weekly fill!

Teaching Sidebar:

I loved this assignment because satire can be kind of tricky for student to recreate on their own if they have just been introduced to the genre. It takes a bit of forethought to accurately criticize AND THEN make it funny. But in reality we are surrounded by it. Memes clutter the internet that satirize the government, celebrities, gossip and so on and so forth. This also brings the genre to something the student knows and can relate to because they found it themselves.

The song I chose was “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon for the entire play, not just a specific scene. I would say vain is a pretty apt way to describe Doctor Faustus. He speaks about himself in the third person, he switches languages randomly, it is all him all the time. In fact, he probably thinks this play is about him. Yes, I went there. Despite the title, it is not. It is more so about our choices, and the pursuit of knowledge and many other wonderful themes like that, not a book worm with a God complex.

Also in the song she says, “I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee”. By this I think she means that they were fleeting and got away from her. Throughout the play Faustus’s dreams of ultimate knowledge and power trickle down to side show tricks. In scene three he wants to know everything. He asks tons of questions, starts reading the book Mephistopheles gives him, and overall gives off the impression of an over eager beaver. Then in scene nine he has already tired of traveling the world, not to mention so forgotten his book that it is picked up by morons and he doesn’t even notice. He returns home where he started. There, for the remaining scenes until his death, he does parlor tricks for rich folks. He brings back dead people and conjures horns, hardly the work of a great scholar.

The song also speaks of regret which I think is a resounding theme through the play. From the time he signs his soul away to twenty four years later when they take him he flip flops between satisfaction and regret.

Teaching sidebar:

I would probably make this a collaborative thing and break the class up into 13 groups for the 13 scenes. I would have each group come up with one or two songs that fit the scene and then make a soundtrack for the whole play. Perhaps as a class we could come up with the introductory and ending songs so they can see what I am requiring of them and it will give them practice.

Just throwing kids at Chaucer doesn’t work.I should know. I was one of the thrown. My strategy? Scaffolding.To help the students get into the actual text I would first want to introduce them to the comedic or satiric short story. I would give them other short stories to read, also centering on love like The Wife of Bath’s Tale. Once they have the scaffolding for the basic structure of that genre. I would ask them to single out one of the offered short stories and have them, while reading Wife of Bath, compare the two stories. I would have them compare the characters, the aspects of love present, etc. Perhaps with a direct purpose in mind the language will seem less daunting.

As a post-reading activity, I would have my kids think about love stereotypes or cliché love situations. For example, the clingy girlfriend, the emotionally deficient boyfriend etc. Because the Wife of Bath is a bit of a switch on her gender, loving sex, controlling the money in the relationship, I would want them to consider gender roles in those relationships. I would like to have them think of a story that reverses the gender of those stereotypes to turn them on their ear. I would like them to develop a short story to share with the class, two to three pages long. This would also let me bring in workshops on dialogue and developing a comedy or developing irony.

It was at Camelot where I caught sight of the cad

When we were gathered for the winter feast.

He gusted into the grand hall,

A stranger and steed of super size.

Sir Arthur arose altruistic and affective as ever,

Welcoming the warm colored stranger.

Down he descended from the dais where he perched

And inquired to the anything but innocuous stranger.

King Arthur wondered the man’s motives,

And asked if an altercation was assumed.

The green knight graciously declined

But grandly gave a game instead.

The rules were reckoned rather ridiculous,

Though no one jumped at the jaunty knight’s offer.

When beheading is the binding business at hand

Not a plenty is the number of participants.

While it is true Arthur was the first to traverse to the test,

It was Gawain who gained the court’s green light.

I will never forget the game’s gushing end,

With headless horseman hollering helpful instruction.

Teacher sidebar:

I really liked this assignment because it got my creative juices flowing and really got me thinking about the structure used in this poem. I think it would get your students thinking about the uses for alliteration and rhyme and why a writer might employ them. Something I might do differently would be to perhaps work it in as an option for a project because I found it to be quite time consuming. Also I think that this specific type of creativity might not be for everyone so making it an option might help. Also, if the students made some sort of display with it, I think itd be really cool, then I could publish it in the class room.

Chris Hemsworth as Thor, or in this case Beowulf

If I could compare Beowulf to a modernday human it would be Chris Hemsworth while he was playing in the movie Thor. More than once Beowulf is judge merely on his appearance and is called “formidable” (line 370). When he and the Geats arrive at the Danish shores the sentry on duty upon seeing Beowulf says “Nor have I seen a mightier man-at-arms on this earth than the one standing here” (lines 247-249). So his physical presence alone must be enough to leave an impression of capability and judging by the muscles in the picture I wanted to post above but couldn’t figure out how to, Chris Hemsworth fits that bill quite well.

Also, as a comment on physical appearance, Beowulf is the classic Anglo-Saxon hero and Anglo-Saxons look a certain way. They are known for their pale skin, blonde hair, blue eyes, etcetera, and Chris Hemsworth meets all of those requirements. His physical appearance is one of the main reasons he was chosen to play Thor.

For the film Thor, Chris Hemsworth had to learn a fighting style that had brawling techniques similar to those of the Germanic tribes. He learned to wield a sword, a hammer, and various hand to hand techniques that would, if only in style and not super human strength, resemble Beowulf’s actual combat moves. I would say that Beowulf’s fighting ability makes up a huge chunk of who he is. Everywhere he goes he is known as a great warrior. So Chris Hemsworth’s ability to mimic that, I think, is a great strike in favor of their resemblance.

I liked this task for two reasons. First it had us as students take Beowulf from the remote 800s and put him into modernized terms. I feel like this always makes the character/text more approachable to the students. The second reason I liked it was that it made us really consider Beowulf’s qualities. To find a modern day match I personally looked at physical features, presence, and skill set, all things I might not have considered in too much depth otherwise. Plus it was kind of fun to consider the possibilities.

One thing I might add or tweak would be to maybe instead of having them write it out like we did, I would have them determine qualities of Beowulf and use cut outs from modern magazines to describe him. From there they could shortly present orally what they picked and why.