Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. clip from original broadway performance

Link for AP English exam prep

Click Here Scholars

the thing worth doing well done

To Be of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know that they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy

links: some extra resources for the war story paper

"War is the beautiful young nymph in the fairy tale that, when kissed, exhales the vapors of the underworld." --Chris Hedges



debatepedia on the war in afghanistan

Voice of America on the killing of civilians in Afghanistan

two arguments on war in afghanistan

Chris Hedges. Murder is not an Anomaly in War. (warning graphic content)

Letter from Afghanistan: A Gathering Menace



"Make sure nothing lives. Cows: Taliban food. Sheep. Taliban food. Donkeys. Taliban transportation. Kill Everything."

"You know what? F-- these people."

"This is where I come to do f---ed-up things, so I don't do them at home."

Exam. Fallen Angels

English 11
Exam: Fallen Angels
Answer all questions thoroughly on your own piece of paper.

Part 1) In 2 or 3 sentences, identify and explain the significance of the following items, or, if a quote, identify the speaker, the context and the significance:
• Judy Duncan
• “first time in my life I got what everybody else got”
• Jenkins
• Sgt. Simpson
• VC
• ARVN
• “you pay to see unnatural things look almost natural”
• Capt. Stewart and the body count.
• “You know in the movies when the bad guy rides into town? . . . That’s us”
• Peewee’s hair growth salve
• Kenny
• Lobel’s dad
• New Sgt. Dongan puts Peewee up front and Johnson in rear?
• The spider hole
• “three of us wrapped around each other”

Part 2) Write a short paragraph in answer to the following questions; make sure you support your assertions with evidence from the text; use proper parenthetical citations.

Citation example: Judy Duncan’s answer to the question: “Where are you from?” demonstrates how a speaker (or storyteller) might make an effort to adjust her delivery of information to best meet the understanding of the listener. She is from Irving, but she tells most people that she’s from Dallas (4).

A) Describe Lobel. He seems to have quite a bit to say to Perry in the novel. With what does Lobel seem to be obsessed? How does he see the war? Is he sincere? Why did he sign up? Why do you think the writer created this character? What larger thematic purpose is developed by means of this character?
B) Choose two or more different passages in which Perry writes (or tries to write) a letter and compare the passages. To whom is he writing? What does he want to communicate? If he hesitates or struggles to write, why is this so? What larger purpose might these passages serve? (extra: How could these scenes be interpreted as metanarrative?)
C) Choose two or more passages in which Perry questions his role in Vietnam or his identity or what he would decide in terms of his ‘reason for being’ in Vietnam. Compare these passages. Why does Perry struggle with this? Is he a good guy or a bad guy? Why does he even think in these terms? What does he decide upon late in the novel? Does it make any real difference what he decides? Explain.

A new take on MacNamara's "hearts and minds" idea?

CRQs: conclusion of Fallen Angels (the valley of the shadow of death)

English 11

Chapter 16
A) In this chapter Perry is evacuated and wakes up in the hospital. Why? What happens to Brew?

B) What does Perry talk about with the Chaplain? The chapter closes with Perry thinking about PeeWee’s advice for understanding his reason for being there? What reason does he consider? Why does he think, “it meant being some other person than I was when I got to Nam?”

Chapter 17-18
C) In chapter 17, Perry returns to Alpha company. In chapter 18 they get involved in heavy fighting. What was this scene like? Who gets killed?

Chapter 19
In chapter 19 the men who survive can’t even deal properly with the dead. What do they have to do? Perry says in this chapter, “They were me and they were dead.” What symbolic purpose might this have?

Chapter 21-23 (Short essay/paragraph answer) Begin with the quote in the previous question. Then add the ingredients—imagery and dialogue—from the list below, and explain how they work together in Myers’ efforts to create archetypal symbolic significance for his story:
• crossing the river
• into the dark
• “disappear into the blackness”
• “save one (frag grenade) for myself if it came to that”
• “We were all afraid of the dark”
• yea, though I walk through the valley. . .
• “we held hands in the darkness”
• spider hole “it felt like an open grave”
• “they ain’t taking me alive”
• “if daylight comes we might live”
• thou preparest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies
• “I think this is his hole”
• pole/blade pushed in hole. “I saw blood on Peewee’s hand”
• pulling the dead Cong into the hole
• “the smell of death filled our small grave”
• “all three of us were wrapped around each other”
• recrossing the stream “the water turned bright crimson around him”
• Monaco against the tree. Dead?
• He was sitting in the shadow of death
• Monaco “I was dead and I was brought back to life again.”
• “We weren’t allright. We would have to learn to be alive again.”