Unit 1: The Scarlet Letter
Introduction to Puritanism
Assignment: Find one interesting fact of life about daily living in a Puritan colony and share that fact in a polished paragraph. Due Sept. 10
You might come up with information on topics such as: - daily routine - dress - diet - important historical events - background on the Puritan belief system - social order - political order - position of women - attitudes and superstitions - important Puritan personages
Assignment Read the following article and be prepared to discuss in class: Due Sept. 10
"Do present-day Americans still exhibit, in their attitudes and behavior, traces of those austere English Protestants who started arriving in the country in the early 17th century?" A report on research that suggests we do.
Still Puritan After All These Years
Vocabulary
Assignment: Study and memorize the following vocabulary words. Test next week. Due Sept. 10
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The Novel Begins
Understanding point of view of a narrator and an author
Learning Objectives
To recognize the difference between a narrator and an author
In fiction, the first-person narrator is usually distinct from the author. Understanding the differences, subtle or pronounced, between an author and the narrator he or she creates is essential to understanding a work of fiction.
Assignment: Due Sept. 10 Choose One of the following topics:
- Write a short description of the narrator of The Scarlet Letter, drawing evidence from the introductory chapter and elsewhere in the book.
- Another way to understand narrative perspective is to think about how "The Scarlet Letter" would be different if one of the other characters, such as Hester, Dimmsdale, or Pearl, were the narrator. Write a passage from the story from the perspective of one of these other characters.
- http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/hawthorne-author-and-narrator
Upon Completion of the Book
Symbolism
Learning Objectives
To recognize and understand symbolism in a text
Definition of Symbolism
Symbolism is the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense.
Symbolism can take different forms. Generally, it is an object representing another to give it an entirely different meaning much deeper and more significant.
Symbols do shift their meanings depending on the context they are used in. “A chain”, for example, may stand for “union” as well as “imprisonment”. Thus, symbolic meanings of an object or an action are understood by when, where and how they are used.
Common Examples of Symbolism in Everyday Life
In our daily life, we can easily identify objects, which are treated as symbols. Let us have a look at some common examples:
- Dove is a symbol of peace.
- Red rose or red color stands for love or romance.
- Black color is a symbol that represents evil or death.
- A ladder may stand as a symbol for a connection between the heaven and the earth.
- A broken mirror may symbolize separation
Assignment: Due Sept. 17
Bio Poem Assignment
The novel The Scarlet Letter is filled with symbolism: the letter, a rose, weeds, and a pearl just to name a few. Write a bio-poem about one of the main characters: Hester, Pearl, Dimmesdale, or Chillingworth, and attach it to a symbol that is appropriate to his/her character.
In at least one of the lines refer to some symbol in the book that helps describe the personality, emotions, or actions of the character featured in your poem.
Include 11 lines and follow this pattern:
Line 1: Your character’s first name
Line 2: Four words that describe your character
Line 3: Brother or sister of...
Line 4: Lover of...(three ideas or people)
Line 5: Who feels...(three ideas)
Line 6: Who needs...(three ideas)
Line 7: Who gives...(three ideas)
Line 8: Who fears...(three ideas)
Line 9: Who would like to see...
Line 10: Resident of
Line 11: His or her last name
http://www.studyguide.org/bio_poem.htm
Assignment: Due Sept. 17
Symbolism Collage
Symbolism Collage
On an 8 1⁄2 by 11 inch piece of white paper, create a collage that visually demonstrates a symbol (e.g. the Scarlet A, the rose, the weeds, etc.) from the novel.
- Write your symbol at the top of the paper.
- Fill the paper with images that you feel capture your symbol.
- The page should be completely filled with images. The paper should not show through at all except for where you wrote your symbol.
- BE CREATIVE!!
- On the back of your collage, please include a 50-75 word explanation for your collage. This explanation should defend/ explain the images you chose. These explanations should be thorough and polished.
Important QUOTES from THe Scarlet Letter | |
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Chapter 1 Quotes
On one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.
Chapter 2 Quotes
On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold-thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it ... was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.
Chapter 3 Quotes
When he found the eyes of Hester Prynne fastened on his own, and saw that she appeared to recognize him, he slowly and calmly raised his finger, made a gesture with it in the air, and laid it on his lips.
Chapter 8 Quotes
After putting her finger in her mouth, with many ungracious refusals to answer good Mr. Wilson's questions, the child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison-door.
Chapter 16 Quotes
“'Mother,' said litter Pearl, 'the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom.... I am but a child. It will not flee from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!' 'Nor ever will, my child, I hope,' said Hester. 'And why not, mother?' asked Pearl, stopping short, just at the beginning of her race. 'Will not it come of its own accord, when I am a woman grown?'
Chapter 18 Quotes
But Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed, from society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was altogether foreign to the clergyman. She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness.... The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers,—stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Chapter 22 Quotes
“Mother," said [Pearl], “was that the same minister that kissed me by the brook?" “Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!" whispered her mother. “We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.
Chapter 24 Quotes
But there was a more real life for Hester Prynne here, in New England, than in that unknown region where Pearl had found a home. Here had been her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence. She had returned, therefore, and resumed,—of her own free will, for not the sternest magistrate of that iron period would have imposed it,—resumed the symbol of which we have related so dark a tale. Never afterwards did it quit her bosom. But ... the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world's scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, and yet with reverence, too. | |
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