CLOSED FOR HOLIDAYS

SULA - End of the Discussion

I've found an interesting site with many things to reflect upon. Here are some:

Suggested Essay Questions

1.                How is motherhood portrayed in the novel?

The relationship between mother and daughter is often tense in this novel. Rochelle and Helene, Sula and Hannah, and Nel and Helene all experience their own tense moments. Sula is pained when she hears that her mother does not like her, though she claims to love her. Sula is confined by the strict rule of her mother and Helene is shamed of her mother’s employment as a prostitute. What is common about these mother-daughter relationships? How does motherhood change across generations?

2.                Look at the fathers in the novel. What do they have in common? What separates them?

Many of the men in the novel who father children abandon their families. Even those who stick around like Wiley Wright are not wholly present because they are frequently traveling and away from home. The fathers in Sula appear to be unified in this absence.

3.                Discuss Sula’s birthmark as a symbol in the novel.

Sula’s birthmark is said by all to resemble something found in nature. Be it ashes, a snake, or a rose and stem, this characteristic mark on Sula is the subject of frequent remarks. As she grows older, the mark grows darker, and when Sula becomes scorned by society, people begin to see it as a mark of death.

4.                Sula and Nel dig a hole and fill it with stems while playing together. How do you interpret this scene?

The scene is read by some as an example of the two girls coming into sexual maturity. The hole in the earth representing the opening of a woman’s sex and the clutter the girls throw into it a representation of all the pre-existing complications that impede a woman’s sexuality. The scene is also said to foreshadow the sexual transgression that corrupts Sula and Nel’s friendship.

5.                Explain the theme of death and dying in the novel.

Death strikes frequently and suddenly in the novel. It is feared by some characters like Shadrack and sought by others like Tar Baby and Plum. Eva considers it an act of mercy when she gives death to her son Plum.

6.                Why does Morrison begin by describing the destruction of the Bottom?

Morrison sets up expectations in the preface of the novel. By beginning with the destruction of the Bottom, she tells the reader that everything she will describe will soon fall away. The preface explaining the destruction of the Bottom also buffers the harsh introduction to Shadrack’s plight.

7.                Why do you think Morrison names the novel after the character Sula?

Sula is the social pariah of the novel. She does not follow societal conventions or traditional roles for women. As the only truly unique character of the novel, she receives the honor of the book’s title.

8.                Explain the symbolism of National Suicide Day.

National Suicide Day is founded by Shadrack to confront what he considers the most fearful part of death, its unexpectedness. Suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Shadrack boldly marches down the main road in the Bottom encouraging people to kill themselves or one another. The end of National Suicide Day is symbolic when Shadrack begins to realize the true effects of death and the loneliness it brings.

9.                How does Race affect the characters in the novel?

The Bottom is a town that is segregated from the mostly white town in the Valley. The effects of discrimination and segregation are felt throughout the novel when blacks living in the Bottom are unable to find employment. Explicit violence is enacted against Tar Baby because he is perceived to be a white man living amongst blacks. Both communities disparage racial mixing between white and blacks, and the people of the Bottom consider it a nasty insult when they accuse Sula of sleeping with white men.

10.            Discuss the role that nature plays in the novel.

The people of the Bottom are used to experiencing excesses of nature. They have a plague of robins of pigeons, extreme heat and cold as well as drought and floods. After Jude leaves her, Nel has a feeling of “leaves and mud.” Dramatic events in the novel, like Hannah’s death, coincide with extreme changes in nature. A windstorm occurs the night before Hannah burns, and an extreme frost covers the Bottom just after Sula’s death.

SLANG / COLLOQUIAL ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Visit URBAN DICTIONARY

A veritable cornucopia of streetwise lingo, posted and defined by its readers.

ACCIDENTAL VOCABULARY (7)

Celo (female) heat, (male) rut,  (tech/fmal) estrus, oestrus. 
Compound Form: 
estar en celo: (to be) on heat

source: www.wordreference.com

PHONETICS GUIDE

Dear bloggers,

Arturo has been working on phonetics and would like to share an interesting link 

He has also prepared an excellent guide, which I would like to post soon but I still can't find the way. In the mean time, I'll forward it by email.

Thank you, Arturo!!!

SIAMESE TWINS

Siamese twins (also irreversible binomials, binomials, binomial pairs, freezes) in the context of the English Language refers to a pair or grouping of words that is used together as an idiomatic expression or collocation, usually conjoined by the words and or or. The order of elements cannot be reversed. The expressions hammer and sickle (two nouns), short and sweet (two adjectives), and sink or swim (two verbs) are various examples of Siamese twins. Some English words (e.g. vim in vim and vigor) are found solely in such phrases.

Explore the site

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_twins_(linguistics)

IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS: FOOT

Have a look at all the idiomatic expressions with the word foot

CHARACTERS IN SULA

Characters

• Sula Peace: the main protagonist, who affects the whole community of the Bottom with her return.
• Eva Peace: Sula's grandmother, who is missing one leg. Though the circumstances are never fully explained, it is suggested that she purposely put it under a train in order to collect insurance money to support her three young children.
• BoyBoy: Sula's grandfather, who leaves Eva for another woman.
• Hannah Peace: Sula's mother; Eva's eldest daughter. Hannah is a promiscuous and care-free woman who burned to death early on. Her daughter Sula witnessed the fire but did nothing.
• Eva (Pearl) Peace: Sula's aunt; Eva Sr.'s youngest daughter and middle child.
• Ralph (Plum) Peace: Sula's uncle; Eva's son and youngest child. Plum was a WWI veteran and a heroin addict. Eva burns him alive with kerosene because of his mental instability.
• Helene Wright: Nel's strait-laced and clean mother.
• Nel Wright: Sula's best friend (can also be considered a main protagonist) who doesn't want to be like her mother because she will never be reduced to "custard" and she will not be humiliated by other people as her mother is.
• Shadrack: A paranoid shell-shocked WWI veteran, who returns to Sula and Nel's hometown, Medallion. He invents National Suicide Day.
• Jude Greene: Nel's husband, who leaves Nel due to a love affair with Sula.
• Ajax (Albert Jacks): Sula's confidant and lover.
• Tar Baby (Pretty Johnnie): A quiet, cowardly, and reserved partially or possibly fully white man who rents out one of the rooms in the Peace household. It is believed that Tar Baby has come up to the bottom to drink himself to death.
• The deweys: three boys, each about one year apart from one another in age, who were each nicknamed "Dewey" by Eva. Their real names are never written in the novel, and after the introduction of these characters, the three were referred as one being, thus Morrison's use of a lowercase "d" in "dewey" for the rest of the novel.
• Chicken Little: The little boy whom Sula accidentally drowns by throwing into the river.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sula_(novel)#Characters

MORE ABOUT PHONETICS

Visit and explore this link!

BRAINS

Watch the following video and answer the questions below:

- According to Mark, what's the main difference between men's brain and women's brain?

- What's "men's special box"?

- What do women expect from men when they are worried or angry about something?

- Did you enjoy Mark's humour? Why/ why not?

MORE ABOUT BRITISH vs AMERICAN

British vs American and other Accents

SHELL SHOCK

Shell shock was a term used to describe the reaction of soldiers in World War I to the trauma of battle. It has been described as a reaction to the intensity of the bombardment and fighting that produced a helplessness appearing variously as panic, or flight, an inability to reason, sleep, walk or talk. "Simply put, after even the most obedient soldier had enough shells rain down on him, without any means of fighting back, he often lost all self control."^[1]

During the War, the concept of shell-shock was ill-defined. Cases of "shell shock" could be interpreted as either a physical or psychological injury, or simply as a lack of moral fibre. While the term 'shell shock' is no longer used in either medical or military discourse, it has entered into popular imagination and memory, and often identified as the signature injury of the War.

In World War II and thereafter, diagnosis of "shell shock" was replaced by that of Combat stress reaction, a similar but not identical response to the trauma of warfare.

Source: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LANGUAGE IS MUSIC

ACCIDENTAL VOCABULARY (6) 


a "bicycle/bike/cycle lane" is in an urban setting and is a separate lane (carril) on a street that also carries cars, buses, etc., whereas a "bicycle/bike/cycle path" tends to be a completely independent road specifically for use by cyclists, often in the countryside.


SOURCE: http://forum.wordreference.com/

ACCIDENTAL VOCABULARY (5)


golddigger: Any woman whose primary interest in a relationship is material benefits. A woman who cares more about a man's bank account than she does about the man. 

The closest male equivalent is a gigolo or boytoy.

"That golddigging tramp was never in love with him; she was in love with his money."

SOURCE: http://www.urbandictionary.com/

FINAL EXAM DATES

Friday, July 6th "Reading and Writing Sections"

Tuesday, July 10th "Grammar Section"

Friday, July 13th - Feedback 

QUOTES

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

Groucho Marx

Listening Logs

Source: Adapted from Tapestry 4

Ø       What is a Listening Log?

It is like a journal. It is a small booklet or section of your notebook in which you write information and your thoughts about what you listened to on TV or the radio. At least twice a month (to agree in class), you will watch or listen to programs and take notes. You will put your notes into your log and then write a short summary of what you saw and heard. After that, you will write your reaction to the program in a short paragraph.

Ø       What should go into my log?

§         The name of the program

§         The date of broadcast

§         Your notes, in list form

§         A short summary in your own words- no more than one paragraph. Just main idea and a few details

§         Your personal opinion of the program in a separate paragraph

Ø       Why should we keep listening logs?

§         Listening outside of class helps you to learn English and understand other cultures.

§         You practice the important skills of note taking, summarizing, and writing down your reactions. Then, in class you have opportunities to express your ideas orally in a small group.

§         It encourages you to be aware of good programs, to search them and listen to them regularly.

Ø       How often should I turn in my log?

It depends on your course, needs and possibilities. You will decide together with your teacher. In our case, it would just be once for our OOA #2

Ø       What should I do if I don’t understand what I’m listening to?

You should write a note to your teacher in your log that you didn’t understand a particular program. Then try to find something else to listen to.

Log Example

General Information:

NPR

April 27, 1993, 5:30-6:00 p.m.

Denmark’s child care system

Notes / Expressions (words / phrases) to share in class

Careers and Motherhood:

Denmark’s second largest city

Nursery –elementary school

Rich- pay on-third of operating cost

Poor –pay nothing

Summary:

Denmark’s second largest city has a wonderful child care system. Mothers who juggle careers and motherhood really love this system. The program is subsidized by the ministry policies. These child-care centers are no different from regular kindergartens. They take care of children from the age of three months, and will even care for elementary schoolers after school. The only difference is that better-off families pay one third of operating cost and less well-off families pay nothing.

Personal Reaction:

Many women have to struggle to keep their jobs while raising children at the same time. The government or individual communities in the U.S. should develop a program like the one in Denmark. This would help reduce the hardship of balancing working with parenting

Debate Question/s:  Should mothers work when their children are so young?

Log Template

Student’s Name:

Course:

General Information:

Name of the program:

Date:

Time:

About:

Notes / Expressions (words / phrases) to share in class:

Summary:

Personal Reaction:

Debate Question/s: 

Implications of being in a classmate reunion  - Gisela Algaze

When you finish school, you only wish you would not loose touch your best friends. However, new duties (e.g.: University, work) appear in our life and time to meet our friends from school is less than ever. Thanks that our school organizes every 2 years a classmate reunion I am able to catch on them time to time. It is an idea that I really take to.

I participated in the last reunion. It really was an interesting experience because we met again after 2 years without seeing each other; the meeting brought plenty of surprises. Many of my friends were married, some of them had kids and others were divorced. I came down to my friends’ lives changed a lot and I was still the only one that continued with the same one. I am a single woman with no kids, who is working every day in the same company for about 10 years; I can say that I can get by, but I am not millionaire. To be honest, I was a little sad by putting my life together with the others.

However, I came across to the most beautiful girl in the school of that time. She did the reunion living up. She is 1 or 2 years younger than me and I was surprised that she looked like a woman of 40. I felt a little more comfortable by watching that my life was not so bad! I can say that I felt that I get thought something.

FAMOUS HOAXES

For more examples see museum of hoaxes

ACCIDENTAL VOCABULARY (4)

INDIGENT -though archaic and formal, it exists!

Synonyms:  destitute, poor, impoverished, needy, penniless, poverty-stricken, down and out, in want, down at heel (informal), impecunious, dirt-poor, straitened, on the breadline, short, flat broke (informal), penurious, necessitous

Antonyms: rich, wealthy, prosperous, affluent, well-off, well-to-do

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Composition

Homework Page 21 – 8

Buenos Aires is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

It is a place where you can find everything: culture, good restaurants, nice places to go out and have fun!.

If you are planning to visit Argentina, Buenos Aires is a must.
I suggest coming to Buenos Aires for at least 5 days.

You can take buses that let you visit the main sights of the city. These tours can also be made by bicycle with companies that handle them.

I personally recommend visiting:

- Palermo: it is divided into Palermo Hollywood, Palermo Soho, and Plaza Armenia. This area is good for eating in good restaurants and going out for drinks as there are excellent bars and dancing clubs. There are also good markets where you can buy nice gifts.

- Las Cañitas: other places to eat and walk.

- Puerto Madero: another must. An area to see the river, walk and eat. There is a large park by the river called the “ecological reserve” where you can also practice sports. There are restaurants specialize in attending foreign people.

- La Boca and San Telmo local places you should not miss.

One thing to be aware of is thieves. There are plenty of them in the city. You should watch you things all the time.. specially cameras and cell phones. Also, try not to take taxis from street!, ask to call them!

I hope you will enjoy Buenos Aires as I do!...Come and visit us!

PICTURE DICTIONARY (seafood and etc.)

Click HERE to learn some vocabulary on FOOD

ACCIDENTAL VOCABULARY (3)

Estrella fugaz: shooting star

BRITISH WRITER

You may be interested to know better about Julian Barnes

NEWSPAPERS AROUND THE WORLD

I love the organization of  kiosko.net 

PHONETIC SYMBOLS

Visit the following link http://www.phonetizer.com/

Type or cut and paste a text, then click on the 'Transcribe' 

button and the text will appear on the right with the phonetic symbols under each line.

Start practising!

StoryCorps

PASSIVE VOICE

Click HERE and start practising!

ACCIDENTAL VOCABULARY (2)

Debut y despedida = first and last time

ACCIDENTAL VOCABULARY (1)

Molinete (para pasar en el subte por ej.) = turnstill

Puerta giratoria (en un edificio) = revolving door

Molinillo (de café) = coffee grinder (AmE) or coffee mill (BrE)

VERB TENSES

VERB TENSE TUTORIAL AND EXERCISES

WELCOME!

This is the material we will be using during our course:

-Course book and workbook: Total English Advanced (Longman Pearson) - Units 1 to 3

-Skills 13

-Extensive reading: Ishiguro, K. The Remains of the Day

The Remains of the Day (1989) is Kazuo Ishiguro's third published novel. The work was awarded the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989. A film adaptation of the novel, made in 1993 and starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, was nominated for eight Academy Awards.

As in Ishiguro's two previous novels, the story is told from a first person point of view. The narrator Stevens, a butler, recalls his life in the form of a diary while the action progresses through the present. Much of the novel is concerned with Stevens's professional and, above all, personal relationship with a former colleague, the housekeeper Miss Kenton.

Plot summary

The Remains of the Day tells the story of Stevens, an English butler who has dedicated his life to the loyal service of Lord Darlington (mentioned in increasing detail in flashbacks). The novel begins with Stevens receiving a letter from a former colleague, Miss Kenton, describing her married life, which he believes hints at an unhappy marriage. The receipt of the letter coincides with Stevens having the opportunity to revisit this once-cherished relationship, if only under the guise of investigating the possibility of re-employment. Stevens's new employer, a wealthy American named Mr Farraday, encourages Stevens to borrow his car to take a well-earned break, a "motoring trip". As he sets out, Stevens has the opportunity to reflect on his immutable loyalty to Lord Darlington, on the meaning of the term "dignity", and even on his relationship with his own late father. Ultimately Stevens is forced to ponder the true nature of his relationship with Miss Kenton. As the book progresses, increasing evidence of Miss Kenton's one-time love for Stevens, and of his for her, is revealed.

Working together during the years leading up to the Second World War, Stevens and Miss Kenton fail to admit their true feelings towards each other. All of their recollected conversations show a professional friendship which at times came close to crossing the line into romance, but never dared to do so.

Miss Kenton, it later emerges, has been married for over 20 years and therefore is no longer Miss Kenton but has become Mrs Benn. She admits to wondering occasionally what a life with Stevens might have been like, but she has come to love her husband and is looking forward to the birth of their first grandchild. Stevens muses over lost opportunities, both with Miss Kenton and with his long-time employer, Lord Darlington. At the end of the novel, Stevens instead focuses on the "remains of [his] day", referring to his future service with Mr Farraday.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/