Song+of+Solomon

Questions about the novel? Reactions? Is this book strange, beautiful, shocking, disturbing, fascinating, challenging? Post in discussions.

Reading Schedule Homework: For Monday 2/8: Chapters 1-2, Finish questions For Tuesday 2/9 Chapter 3 For Wednesday 2/10 Chapter 4, Finish questions For Thursday 2/11 Start Chapter 5, vocab exercises For Friday 2/12 Finish Chapter 5, vocab quiz For Tuesday 2/16 Chapters 6-7-8

For Wednesday 2/17 Read Chapter 9; Vocab 9 quiz For Thursday 2/18 Read Chapter 10 (it is long so I recommend starting early) For Friday 2/19 Read Chapter 11 For Monday 2/22 Chapters 12 and 13 (short) For Tuesday 2/23 Chapters 14-15 End of the Book

In the event of a snowday/multiple snow days...KEEP READING.

Should be finished up to CHAPTER 8 by Monday.

Links: [] [|New York Times Toni Morrison Page] [|Nobel Prize for Literature Biography] The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow (PBS)

Toni Morrison's famous New Yorker essay in which she called Bill Clinton our first Black President: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1998/10/05/1998_10_05_031_TNY_LIBRY_000016504

Bob Dylan and Black History How a Skinny Jewish Man from Minnesota earned the Right to Headline the President's Civil Rights Concert. http://www.theroot.com/views/bob-dylans-black-history

Listen to Dylan: “The Death of Emmett Till” The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” “Only A Pawn In Their Game” “Times they Are A-Changing” "Hurricane"

Feb 22

I have had a few students question the inclusion of the Emmett Till story and the motives of the Seven Days, and Guitar in particular. Morrison's appropriation of history in not just a writerly trick and Guitar's extremism isn't just meant to serve as a foil to Milkman's selfishness, though it does that too. It is a reminder that life in the Jim Crow era was fraught with real, physical dangers and not just demeaning insults and color based segregation. Guitar's laments about injustice and anger about losing generations is based on fact. "During the early 1920s, the Klan helped elect 16 U.S. Senators and many Representatives and local officials. By 1924, when the Klan had reached its peak in numbers and influence, it claimed to control 24 of the nation's 48 state legislatures."

There is an incredible website that documents the thousands of people lynched and how entire towns would come out to celebrate, pose for pictures, and even make souvenirs out of the experience. I must warn you the content is graphic; indeed, I couldn't even show it at school even if I wanted to because it is websensed. [|www.**withoutsanctuary**.org/] //Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America// by James Allen, Hilton Als, //et al.// (Twin Palms Publishers, 2000).

Toni Morrison Speech http://www.hulu.com/watch/101376/the-nobel-prize-author-toni-morrison-wins-nobel -prize-in-literature