Tuesday, Jan. 07, 2003
Zora and her horizon, posted at 8:52 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com I had a great day today in the classroom. A day after a snow day, I thought the kids wouldn't be into our discussions, but they were. We're getting into the motif of the horizon in Their Eyes Were Watching God, and I turned them around in their desks and told them to look out over the city from the windows. "This is your horizon. See how you cannot see the end of it, that it looks sort of infinite? What do you think it represents to Janie in the story?"One girl's hand shot up: "Her future?"
Another boy shouted out: "Her dreams"
A girl chimed in: "True love?"
I shouted, "Yes, yes, yes! So why was Janie so upset that Nanny had made her marry Logan?"
The kids got it - because it destroyed her horizon (or, as Hurston writes, "Here Nanny had taken the horizon, the biggest thing God ever made - for wherever you are, the horizon still stretches forever beyond you - and pinched it into such a little thing and tied it around Janie's neck until it choked her." (I'm paraphrasing from memory, so the wording might be off)
Then I told them that through the windows they could see their horizon. "This is your dreams, your future, everything you want in life. And what did Nanny do to Janie's?" I then, dramatically, walked over and shut the shades. The shades stuck about three times as I was trying to lower them, easing some of the tension. Heh.
"This why Janie was upset, why she decided she hated her grandmother. Nanny restricted her future, didn't let her see her horizon. Pinched it around her neck, even."
Then, this smartass raised his hand and said he could still see through the cracks of the blinds. I said that this was part of the point - sometimes your horizon can be tougher to reach, that you might have to squint a little... but you can still get there. We then talked about our own horizons a little, talking aabout what or who might make it tougher to see our own versions of them.
It was deep.
I love this novel so much. But the more I teach it, the more I think that 9th grade is probably a little young for it. They, somewhat sweetly, do not get any of the sexual metaphors of the pear tree, not even getting phrases like "the ecstatic shiver of the roots and leaves creaming in the blossoms..." I basically think that as people get older, people invariably get more out of most good works of art or literature. Even a simply-structured novel like Of Mice and Men, the quintessential 9th grade novel with its clear use of foreshadowing, sense of setting, and themes, is a book that can still be more fully understood once someone is an adult - 9th graders have a hard time grasping the concept of the fallibility of the American Dream, for example. Does this mean they shouldn't read it? Of course not. Great works of literature hopefully will be revisited throughout a lifetime. For this reason, I was against previous department discussions to move Their Eyes Were Watching God to a higher level. I mean, they're getting something from the novel, right?
Now, though, I'm not sure. It's awkward trying to discuss sexual metaphors with 14-year olds, that's for sure. These kids are younger than Janie was when her grandmother forced her to marry Logan Killicks. I'm not sure if they can understand the beauty of Hurston's figurative language or use of metaphor, or if that's the thing we should be focusing on most in freshmen year when many kids are still having a problem with theme. Lastly, I think the basic subject of the book - that of a woman on her journey to self-discovery - is one that probably can be related to more at a junior level.
Still, most of the kids are enjoying it, although I'm afraid I have to rush through it so much. I'm disillusioned by a lot of things going on outside the classroom right now at school, from the mammoth testing instituted on a city, state, and federal level that we have to subject our students to over the next month. The more I think about it and live through the testing, the more angry I get at our public educational system. Kids are being groomed to take tests, not learn about life. Courses like "Women in Society" and "Film Studies" were eliminated at our school last week, mostly because they do not raise standardized test scores we all theorize. Dubya is one of the greatest offenders, with his "No Child Left Behind meaning we test 'em until they drop with no extra support to help carry out the goals" program.
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Man, 24 was good tonight. Intense, shocking, emotional. What an incredible show.
I had wanted to watch The Shield tonight for the first time, but new roomie's girlfriend wanted to watch The Real World, and I'm not too opposed.