Hopkins -- Part III

Does Hopkins simply incorporate the fallen woman plot into her narrative? Or does she signify on it -- that is, revise, critique, extend it in some way? ( I think I gave you notes on the fallen woman plot when we did Harriet Jacobs.)

Pauline Hopkins -- Part II

How does the debate between W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington inform Hopkins's characterizations? What characters does the author identify with most? What position does she take on that debate?

Pauline E. Hopkins -- Part I

In The Souls of Black Folks, W.E.B. Du Bois made the very important philosophical move of conceiving of race as a "veil" (social construction)as opposed to something that exists in one's blood (hereditary essence). Do you think that Hopkins views race as a veil that society forces a person to wear or an essence that people carry in their blood?

W.E.B. Du Bois and the N.A.A.C.P.

In the essay "How NAACP Began" by Mary White Ovington, what did you learn about the formation of the NAACP that impressed or even surprised you? And how does Du Bois, in the excerpt we read from The Souls of Black Folk, echo the spirit and mission of the NAACP?

Booker T. Washington

Critics have pointed out that Booker T. Washington in Up From Slavery adopts Frederick Douglass's slave narrative. Where does Washington copy the central elements/themes of the slave narrative? More importantly, how does he rework those elements/themes, endowing them with a different meaning or significance?

William Wells Brown II -- The Georgiana Issue

Clearly, Georgiana is an antislavery advocate. In the last part of the book, what do you think about the choices she made when it came to her slaves? Do you think Brown viewed her -- a northerner by education and sentiment -- as he viewed the North -- "prejudice[d] . . . on account of color"? In the last part of the story, how does Brown represent Georgiana?

William Wells Brown

How do Reverend Peck and Carlton differ on the importance of the Bible/Christianity to the slaves? How does Georgiana mediate their disagreement?

SBOHP History Issues

Shannon and Carol are the class historians. If you need background information or historical context either before or after you conduct your interview, please post your questions to this site and Shannon and Carol will look them up and post the answers here.

SBOHP Questions

Please share with each other one good interview question. As Fred Fussell suggested, questions should be open-ended so the person cannot just answer yes or no. Also, questions should elicit an easy response without being too invasive.

Jena 6 Rally

The Rally on Thursday was a very powerful experience for those of us who attended, and I saw a lot of you there. I wanted to create a post where you could share your thoughts in the aftermath of the event. What did you think about the rally? How did you feel? What feedback have you received?

Harriet Jacobs

Who does Harriet Jacobs imagine her audience to be? (Hint: Pay close attention to the preface.) Focusing on moments in the narrative when she breaks from the story to address her audience directly, do you find that her audience makes her self-conscious? Of what? What does she want from them? (You must post your response before class on Thursday, September 20).

Oral History Project

Let's use this blog space to talk about our emerging Oral History Project. You may want to record your thoughts about why you think this is a worthwhile project for the class. Later, you may want to shares ideas, tips, information with each other.

Frederick Douglass

I have asked you to read the first several pages of "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave" and My Bondage and My Freedom. "Narrative," as you may have expected, is prefaced by two authenticating letters by white abolitionists. In the one letter, William Lloyd Garrison describes Douglass at his first abolitionist meeting when he got up a spoke to the group. Douglass himself describes his experience in the excerpt from My Bondage and My Freedom that I gave you to read. Do Douglas and Garrison both tell the same story? Do their details differ? What are some of the differences in their accounts and how are those differences significant? (You must post a response before class meets on Tuesday, September 11.)

Jupiter Hammon

When you read Jupiter Hammon's "An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley," I am sure you noticed that Hammon had read some of Wheatley's poems and responded to her in his poem. What Wheatley poems do you think Hammon read, and what is his response to her poetic message? (Only responses posted before class on Tuesday, August 28 will be accepted.)

Welcome to the Journal

Hi Everyone:

I thought it might be fun to keep our journal entries on a blog this semester. I plan to split the class into two groups and post prompts to the blog. You will need to respond in about 300-400 words — but remember this is a blog, not a formal English paper. I want thoughtful answers but not perfelctly polished ones. (To make my point, I will not go back and fix that type-o).

When it is your turn to blog, you will read the literature and post your comments before the day on which we are scheduled to discuss them. As they say, you snooze; you lose. You will not receive credits for comments posted after we discussed the works in class. (The point is to do some focused thinking before the discussion, get it?) You’ll each do five of these before it’s all over.

I will really look favorably on bloggers that comment on what other bloggers say. Let’s see if we can manage a little give-and-take.

Dr. Lape

P.S. Now that we have clarified the grading standards in class, let me state them here.

A The blogger asks original questions and/or offers insightful interpretations. S/he also includes a lot of relevant details from the texts.

B The blogger asks original questions and/or offers insightful interpretations. S/he includes relevant details from the texts but does not develop points as well as A bloggers.
C The blogger shows he has read the course material, but the blogger states the obvious or make only superficial observations.
D The blogger summarizes what other people have said and agrees with them.
F The blogger makes it really obvious that the s/he has not been reading or following along with class discussion.

Obviously, I am not going to post your grades on the blog. Feel free to ask me your grade, or we can devise a better system in class.