Instruction
INTRODUCTION TO PERSUASION THROUGH LITERARY ANALYSIS
introduction to the basic elements of literature and how the rhetoric of persuasion can be and often is a critical component of writing academic essays about literature.
CEREMONY links: Review these links, below.
1. Review this handout on "literary elements." We'll be focusing on important elements such as character, plot, symbolism, setting and theme in this unit, so you should become aware of these terms,what they mean, and how to use the language of literary elements in your discussion of Ceremony.
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/575/01/
2. Watch the youtube video interview of author Leslie Marmon Silko, below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV1S7pWKr74
Now, read another interview with Silko, below.
http://www.altx.com/interviews/silko.html
3. Begin to review all of the links on the Sparknotes website for Ceremony, which provides an excellent breakdown of the unique, non-linear plot structure, characters, settings, and other important literary elements that comprise this amazing and classic novel, including the use of the Pueblo Indian Creation story rendered as a long poem woven into different parts of the novel.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/ceremony/
4. Read a bit about Pueblo Indian People, whose ancestral homelands, and now, federal reservations, are in the Four Corners area in the U.S., in northern and northwestern New Mexico. Silko is Acoma Pueblo, as is Tayo and other Indian characters in Ceremony.
http://www.indianpueblo.org/19-pueblos/
5. Start to find patterns and connections between the characters and events in this novel to people, places, events in today's world, and even in your own personal life, including one important theme: the search for healing from past trauma and for a healthy, integrated identiy and finding a place in the world as a young adult. This is one of the driving impulses of this novel, through the suffering, misplacement, PTSD and healing efforts of Tayo, the novel's mixed-blood protaganist/main character/WW2 veteran.
User_9588 added on 10/28/16 at 06:30 AM (PST):
Please provide a few sentences or short paragraph on the main takeaway from each of the links you've reviewed, above, including the videos.
#2 Discuss your own experiences, within yourself and friends/family members, with the following: PTSD/young veterans returning from war and trying to deal with life back home; being of mixed-race and/or cultural minority heritage and the search for identify in a larger cultural context; the search, as a young adult, for identity and place in the adult world. You don't have to be deeply personal with your answers can be general and conversation-evoking among others in the class.
#3 Feedback on your reading experiences with the first half of Ceremony. You can also include questions about the novel.