Lackey's Class Links

"Why I Wrote the Crucible" (PDF)
By Arthur Miller
In 1996 Miller wrote this essay for The New Yorker in which he reflects on the politics surrounding his play "The Crucible".
Study Questions

PBS American Masters- Arthur Miller

"Is Hysteria Real? Brain Images Say Yes"
NYTimes By ERIKA KINETZ
September 26, 2006

The term “witch hunt” has entered the American language as a short hand for the hysterical pursuit of imagined enemies in the community. The Cold War attack on alleged “subversives” and Communist party members is often characterized as a witch hunt. The American Civil Liberties Union defends the rights of people to speak freely, to practice the religion of their choice and to be treated equally before the law. In addition, the ACLU defends other fundamental rights outlined in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution: the right to be free from unlawful searches and seizures in our homes and offices; the right to a fair trial and to legal representation; and the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

One-hundred and forty people were accused of witchcraft. Nineteen people were hanged, one person was pressed to death, and as many as thirteen people may have died in prison.
From Salem Witch Trials FAQs

Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive

Arthur Miller's The Crucible: Fact & Fiction

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Tragedy and the Common Man
By ARTHUR MILLER
February 27, 1949

In this age few tragedies are written. It has often been held that the lack is due to a paucity of heroes among us, or else that modern man has had the blood drawn out of his organs of belief by the skepticism of science, and the heroic attack on life cannot feed on an attitude of reserve and circumspection. For one reason or another, we are often held to be below tragedy-or tragedy above us. The inevitable conclusion is, of course, that the tragic mode is archaic, fit only for the very highly placed, the kings or the kingly, and where this admission is not made in so many words it is most often implied.

Attributes of a Tragic Hero
Arthur Miller on the 50th Anniversary of Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller: Present at the Birth of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman Discussion Questions
Metaphors in Death of a Salesman
Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener

Men at Work: Finding Humor in Missteps - Latter Day Bartlebys
American Playwright Arthur Miller Dies at 89
New York Times Tribute to Arthur Miller
Reviews of Miller's Plays
Chronology of a Friendship: Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan, and The Blacklist

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman: A Celebration By Joyce Carol Oates

Death of a Salesman essay prompts

We the characters

Why I Wrote the Crucible
New Yorker Magazine
October 21, 1996

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The Walt Whitman Archive
The Classroom Electric
"Song of Myself" Manuscripts
Whitman's Notebooks at the U.S. Library of Congress

Song of Myself, #52
1855

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains
of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Evening Hawk
By Robert Penn Warren, 1985

From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through
Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds,
Out of the peak's black angularity of shadow, riding
The last tumultuous avalanche of
Light above pines and the guttural gorge,
The hawk comes.
His wing
Scythes down another day, his motion
Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear
The crashless fall of stalks of Time.

The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error.

Look! Look! he is climbing the last light
Who knows neither Time nor error, and under
Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings
Into shadow.

Long now,
The last thrush is still, the last bat
Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics. His wisdom
Is ancient, too, and immense. The star
Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain.

If there were no wind we might, we think, hear
The earth grind on its axis, or history
Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.

More Hawk poems

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The Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
Benjamin Franklin . . . In His Own Words
Benjamin Franklin - An Extraordinary Life

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The Open Boat

Moby Dick Ch. 36 and Ch. 41
Write down examples of language that illustrate literary naturalism
Literary Movements including Realism and Naturalism.

Bartleby, the Scrivener
Writing Suggestions
"Bartleby" print by Katherine Jackson

Emily Dickinson's poetry
Emily Dickinson Links
Emily Dickinson: Pagan Sphinx

"I'm Unique Because" Optimist Essay Contest
Final draft due to Mr. Lackey Monday, February 6th.

Dickinson, Whitman and Spiders

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A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
- Stephen Crane

The Open Boat by Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane and the Commodore provides information on the experiences that inspired "The Open Boat," including current efforts to study the sunken vessel.

"To Build a Fire" by Jack London
Writing Suggestions

Iditarod, The Last Great Race
March 4, 2006

Balto, the Sled Dog - Cleveland's connection to the Iditarod

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The real Hollister, California, setting for the Marlon Brando film, The Wild One.

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University of Virginia - Sound Advice from an Expert

Princetons Review - An Insider's Tips on College Essays

CollegeBoard.com - College Essay Writing Tips

USNews.com - Writing a Winning Essay

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Son of Citation Machine

Citation Machine is an interactive web tool designed to assist high school, college, and university students, their teachers, and independent researchers in their effort to respect other people's intellectual properties.

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From School is Hell by Matt Groening

The Simpsons Archive

Guggenheim Study Suggests Arts Education Benefits Literacy Skills
July 27, 2006
NYTimes
PDF file

10 Classroom Approaches to Media Literacy

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junque n. things portrayed as or imagined to be more valuable than they are, such as old objects treated as antiques, junk bonds promoted as safe investments, etc. Related: English, Colloquial

Double-Tongued Word Wrester Dictionary - A growing lexicon of fringe English, focusing on slang, jargon and new words.

Martha Barnette - Learn a New Word

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Masterpiece Theatre - Our Town

Thornton Wilder Society

From The Berkeley Repertory Theater

Thornton Wilder's Berkeley Years

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Mark Twain's Hawaii
By LAWRENCE DOWNES
New York Times
Published: May 14, 2006

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Read three to five of the following Nonfiction Readings and define all of the words you don't know.
Take reading notes as follows:
1. What is the author's thesis?
2. Why do they believe this is true?
3. What evidence do they provide?
4. What type of evidence is it? (Think rhetorical strategies)
5. Do you agree or disagree with the author's thesis? What is your view on the subject?

Then, write a paper about your position on an idea or subject suggested by your reading, using several references from each of two or three of these articles to support, enhance or even refute your position. 250-350 words - Due April 4th

See also - The NYTimes and the Common Core Standards: Reading Strategies for 'Informational Text'

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Ars Poetica
By Archibald MacLeish

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown--

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

*

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind--

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

*

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea--

A poem should not mean
But be.

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Reader's Companion to American History

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Ernest Hemingway: A Storyteller's Legacy

George Plimpton journalist, author, and founder of The Paris Review, died last September at the age of 76. In his honour and memory, Pagitica made available the following interview, which originally appeared in their second issue in the last year of the previous millennium.

Literary Ambulance Drivers - WW I

Ernest Hemingway Photographic Portfolio

The NYTimes on Ernest Hemingway

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What Do Students Need to Know About Rhetoric?
AP English Language Newsletter from AP Central
Silva Rhetoricae - The Forest of Rheotric

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