“Mad Men,” The Waste Land, “The Seafarer,” and “The Red Wheelbarrow” (POEMS)

must have read or watched:
(12 tasks!) but short

John F. Kennedy social society speech
The American Experience: Season 11, Episode 8: Riding the Rails.
Hamlet
Agamemnon
“Mad Men,” The Waste Land, “The Seafarer,” and “The Red Wheelbarrow” (POEMS)
plastic bag journey (VIDEO)
MADMEN (SHOW)
A complicated kindness
Kite runner

Responses
1. Write a personal response to the three main characters (Clymnestra, Cassandra, Agamemnon), with a focus on the speeches you have listened to, but also consider your understanding of the characters in the play as a whole.
Write a paragraph for each character. Summarize your impressions of the character and the effect on the play of his/herstory or version of things. Be sure to identify which character’s story was most powerful to you and why.
reflect on how the strategies of reading a summary and listening with a purpose in mind helped you understand the play. Jot some ideas down and place them in your folder too. Call the file Lesson 1 Reflection.

2.   PICK ONE! Explain which soliloquy had the most impact on you by helping you to feel either more connected to Hamlet, or at least more able to empathize with him. Identify the soliloquy, what is happening in the play at that point, and why you feel more for Hamlet because of it.
OR
Summarize how listening to actors perform the soliloquies allowed you to better understand Hamlet’s changing mindset throughout the play. Refer to specific soliloquies to support your answer. How did hearing the soliloquy lift the words off the page and move you more as the audience?
PICK ONE!
3.   In the “voice” of John F. Kennedy, write a two- to five-paragraph section to be inserted into JFK’s speech about secret societies. In these paragraphs, reference the tragedies of Agamemnon and Hamlet. Explain how leadership by necessity for you (JFK), Agamemnon, and Hamlet involves secrets to further illustrate his points about both the perils and the necessity of secrets.
OR
Write a brief monologue (two minutes) in the “voice” of one of these four characters or people (Agamemnon, Hamlet, Prufrock, or John Kennedy). In the monologue, identify what you hope people learn from hearing “your” story. Include reference to your struggles and what can be learned from them. Remember that a monologue is written as if you are the person speaking, using the first person pronoun “I.” In your monologue you must make a connection to at least two of the other characters. How were they like you or different in their discoveries of what you hope people learn?
The American Experience: Season 11, Episode 8: Riding the Rails.
1.   Write a letter home from the perspective of a teenage rail rider. To create authenticity, use vocabulary and language appropriate for the time period, situation, and age and education of the writer. Discuss what you have heard and seen in your travels and include reasons why you have chosen to ride the rails.
2.   As you write your letter, mention at least two Literary Terms and Devices from the list in Lesson 8, which is downloadable for your convenience.
3.   Your letter should be 250–500 words in length. Save it in your Writing Portfolio folder. Call the file Lesson 9 Riding the Rails Letter.
4.   Research posters from the 1930s that promote the Civilian Conservation Corps, The Works Progress Administration, or President Roosevelt’s “New Deal.” Choose three posters to examine and analyze. Copy the posters of your choice and/or their URLs into a Word document. The New Deal is a good place to start.
5.   Answer the following questions. What do these posters tell you about the beliefs and values held by the government at the time? How are they examples of bias? How does our present-day perspective affect our viewing and reading of the poster? What do you believe was the intent of the artist? How successful is the poster in achieving the intended purpose?
6.   Save your links to the posters and your set of answers for each poster to a file called Lesson 9 Examples of Media Bias. Save the file in your Writing Portfolio folder.
7.   Research the following terms and people.

John-Paul Sartre
Friedrich Nietzsche
Albert Camus
Simone de Beauvoir
Samuel Beckett
Bad faith
Absurdism
Anguish
Nihilism
Authenticity
Individuality
Alienation
Death

8.   Based on your research, write a brief paragraph (a maximum of 250 words), explaining how the person or term fits in with the philosophy of existentialism. Keep this existentialism crib sheet handy throughout this lesson and the unit.
9.   Add your own definition of existentialism at the end.
10.   Save the paragraph in your Writing Portfolio, naming your file Lesson 11 Existentialism Writers and Terms.
11.   While you watch the film, use the Plastic Bag Journey T-chart to take notes about the journey the plastic bag takes, and how its journey corresponds to the human journey. Try to be as specific as possible when coming up with corresponding examples in the human life cycle. For example:

12.   After you have watched the film, respond to the following question:
How do you think this film fits in with the theory of existentialism? Use your examples from your T-chart to explain your response.
13.   Save a copy of your filled-in T-chart, along with your response to the above question, in your Writing Portfolio. Name the fileLesson 11 Plastic Bag Journey.
14.   Watch two or more episodes of “Mad Men” or do a little online research, whichever you prefer.
15.   Use what you discover to complete this Comparing Attitudes chart, comparing attitudes of the 1960s with today. Use specific examples from the episodes you watch or the online research you conduct. The first row of the chart is an example done for you.
16.   Once you have completed the chart, save it as Lesson 12 Comparing Attitudesin your Writing Portfolio for submitting in Lesson 20.
17.   Create a chart like this of your own and complete it using the poems studied in this lesson.
Postmodernism includes many more characteristics than those illustrated in this lesson.
1.   Take some time now to research the term. Based on your research, make a list of postmodern qualities and common themes found in postmodern literature and film. Keep this list safe – you will be adding it to your portfolio. (I’m looking directly at you…keep this list for future reference in this lesson and this unit!)
2.   Find and watch the trailer for two films, Stranger than Fiction (2006) by Marc Forster and Fight Club (1999) by David Fincher.
3.   Afterward, read a synopsis of the two films online.
4.   Then, try placing each postmodern element listed here with the correct movie in the table below. The order is not important, as long as each element is in the proper column. Scenes that would be valuable to see for this task: Fight Club’s cigarette burn scene, where Edward Norton’s character discusses how films are made and the Stranger than Fiction scene where Dustin Hoffman explains to Will Ferrell that he must die.
Try matching each postmodern element listed here to its corresponding movie in the table below. The order is not important as long as each element is in the proper column.
•   Unreliable narrator
•   Human experience is ambiguous
•   Black comedy
•   Dark humour
•   Intertextuality
•   Sense of paranoia
•   Questioning of reality
•   Audience involvement in how the story is created
•   Fragmentation
•   Breaks the fourth wall

Stranger than Fiction Fight Club

Show Suggested AnswerSave

5.   Now find an example of a postmodern song that you have listened to. Copy down the lyrics.
6.   Deconstruct the poem by making annotations in the margins showing exactly where, in your opinion, the song is being postmodernist.
7.   For this section you have the choice of two short films, either Worker Drone by writer and director Sharat Raju or Playby writers David Kaplan and Eric Zimmerman. Both films can be found online. Choose one (at least) and watch it. Pay attention to any non-verbal cues, including facial expressions, gestures, and eye contact.
8.   Using a mind-mapping program like the one found at bubbl.us, or SmartArt (found in Microsoft Word), create a mind map that shows how the film you have chosen could be described as being postmodern. This assignment assumes that you understand postmodernism and that you have watched the film in its entirety.

1. Listen to (and read) the lyrics of the following song. Find the song on your favourite source for streaming or purchasing online music.

“Canadian Idiot” by Weird Al Yankovic
Don’t wanna be a Canadian idiot
Don’twanna be some beer swillin’ hockey nut
And do I look like some frostbitten hose-head?
I never learned my alphabet from A to Zed

They all live on donuts and moose meat
And they leave the house without packin’ heat
Never even bring their guns to the mall
And you know what else is too funny?
Their stupid Monopoly money
Can’t take ’em seriously at all

Well maple syrup and snow’s what they export
They treat curling just like it’s a real sport
They think their silly accent is so cute
Can’t understand a thing they’re talkin’ aboot

Sure they got their national health care
Cheaper meds, low crime rates and clean air
Then again well they got Celine Dion
Eat their weight in Kraft macaroni
And dream of drivin’ a Zamboni
All over Saskatchewan

Don’t wanna be a Canadian idiot
Won’t figure out their temperature in Celsius
See the map, they’re hoverin’ right over us
Tell you the truth, it makes me kinda nervous

Always hear the same kind of story
Break their nose and they’ll just say “sorry”
Tell me what kind of freaks are that polite?
It’s gotta mean they’re all up to somethin
‘ So quick, before they see it comin’
Time for a pre-emptive strike!
2. Decide which of the three stylistic movements the song fits with the best and use specific examples to explain your choice. How alike or different is this song to other songs and poems written in the same style? Why does it seem alike or different? Give evidence from the song to support your answer.
3. Find two other songs that could also fit in with this same stylistic movement. Provide the lyrics, as well as links to the two songs. Explain why you think they belong to this stylistic movement.
4. Save your responses in your Writing Portfolio. Call the file Lesson 14 Analysis of Literature Styles
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1. Read the short story “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield.
2. Now, take a moment to decide which of the three stylistic movements best describes “The Garden Party.” Use specific examples to explain your choice.
3. Save your response in your Writing Portfolio as Lesson 14 Analysis of Literature Styles.

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