“Ten minutes later, we stood in front of the warehouse. A German employee, a civilian, the Meister, came to meet us. He paid as much attention to us as would a shopkeeper receiving a delivery of old rags....
There were many Polish civilians here and a few French-women as well. The women silently greeted (some of the workers) with their eyes.”

Why did the Meister pay so little attention to them? What might he have been thinking?
Was there any sort of solidarity between the women and the Jews? Or did the women even care?


“There followed days and nights of traveling. Occasionally, we would pass through German towns. Usually, very early in the morning. German laborers were going to work. They would stop and look at us without surprise.
One day when we had come to a stop, a worker took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into a wagon. There was a stampede. Dozens of starving men fought desperately over a few crumbs. The worker watched the spectacle with great interest.”

How could German laborers not be surprised to see Jews stuck in trains? How could it be normal for them?
Why would the laborer toss bread into a wagon? Why take pleasure in others’ pain?

11/27/17 - Graphic Novels in the Classroom

Graphic novels are nothing new in literature. Something of the sort has always existed. What has changed, however, is how we interpret the medium in modern times. Most people view graphic novels like this only as comic books. That’s all graphic novels are to them and that’s all they will ever be. Yet something is happening as of late – that graphic novels are becoming more and more acceptable in the literature community. Take the graphic novel The Watchmen: it wasn’t just a comic meant to go on and sell as many copies as it could for as long as it could until the company could no longer drain any money out of it. Rather, it was a story about the nature of mankind and its tendencies toward depravity – that only lies ever united humanity and that’s just the way we were. Many graphic novels still fit the criteria of children’s comics, but some are legitimately fantastic stories now given new life through this medium.

Heck, sometimes the stories in these graphic novels aren’t original works, but recent adaptations of older ones. Over the last week, our class read the Frankenstein adaptation by Jason Cobley and Declan Shalvey. It was fantastic! As someone who has never read Frankenstein, this graphic novel is pushing me toward reading the original book, which is probably at least part its intention. This method of adapting older texts to graphic novel form gives the book a much wider audience. Our current generation of students are aware of classic novels, but don’t actually give them a chance because they are older texts. Like, students know the basic premise of Moby Dick, Lord of the Flies, Pride and Prejudice, and many other books simply because they are part of the cultural consciousness. Adapting them in part to a graphic novel would easily create interest in these classics.

11/13/17 - Poe, Dread, and Annabel Lee

I have never been a fan of Edgar Allen Poe’s work. He comes across as far too creepy, but a very specific type of creepy: he is extremely specific with creating a sense of dread in readers. Most details Poe includes in his stories are either directly used in the story or are brilliant cases of foreshadowing. So, I agree when others say Poe is a great writer – he certainly is – but the way he writes and the subjects he covers are usually too much for me. Out of the five pieces he wrote which we read this week (The Black Cat, Fall of the House of Usher, Cask of Amontillado, Ligeia, and Annabel Lee), I can only get through Annabel Lee in a single sitting. This is probably because Annabel Lee is only a poem while the other four works are short stories.

Death is ever-present in Poe’s work, with a beautiful or mysterious woman dying in every story mentioned except the Cask of Amontillado (since there are only two men in the story, with one killing the other). In Annabel Lee, however, Poe is a bit more reserved. Annabel Lee herself dies tragically, but that’s the end of it. There’s no supernatural force like in Ligeia, no tragic death like in the Fall of the House of Usher, and no sinister reveal like at the end of The Black Cat. Annabel Lee dies and her lover can only like next to her in her tomb each and every night. It’s certainly creepy, but it never goes beyond that, which is extremely unlike Poe, in my opinion. Furthermore, Poe writes how the two of them will eventually be reunited, giving the promise of a happy ending. Since Poe wrote Annabel Lee close to the time of his death, perhaps he was writing about himself – the promise of seeing his wife again.

Whatever the case, Poe will always be remembered for his fascinating obsession with death. And if Annabel Lee really was about his wife, I certainly hope he was reunited with her in whatever life there is to come.

11/10/17 - Sherman Alexie & How to Write About Prejudice

Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Dairy of a Part Time Indian is a novel about the struggles of the fictitious Arnold “Junior” Spirits, a young Spokane Indian born with hydrocephalus. At only 14 years old, he struggles to adapt to his new white school, face discrimination from those on “the rez” and at school, and eventually find his place as a basketball player for his new school, leading to his acceptance.

What stuck out to me the most about this book was how Alexie goes in depth with how Arnold was treated and how he responds. For instance, Alexie does not shy away from having his characters use some very severe racial/homophobic slurs against Arnold. The slurs aren’t censored out, nor do they linger any longer than they need to; Alexie uses such powerful and awful words because that’s exactly what some entitled kids say to others they see as beneath them. I was honestly surprised to see an author use words like that in a young adult novel from 2007. Whether we like it or not, some kids use that kind of language with each other and it’s refreshing to see an author tackle the use of the word “nigger” in a respectful manner.

Discrimination like this in young adult novels often gets censored to the point of uselessness, touched upon briefly so it doesn’t leave an impact, or makes whoever the bigot is into such a caricature of a racist that it comes across as disingenuous. Very few young adult books have such a casual depiction of prejudice. The book doesn’t waste time trying to tell the reader how prejudice is wrong. Instead, the reader is shown how it is wrong through the reactions of the characters – the equivalent of “show, don’t tell” except for a book instead of film. Furthermore, Alexie is not afraid to show Arnold’s own racism. While told through the eyes of a young teen, Alexie gives a compelling analysis of a complex topic which is very rarely touched upon in such detail.