OBJECTIVE
Structuring the prewriting.
MATERIAL
Sequences from Ossie Davis’ “Purlie Victorious” (in
I/You—We/They: Literature By and About Ethnic Groups
, Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1976, pp.337Ð390.)
METHOD
Reading, discussing, and drawing conclusions.
1.
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Distribute a sequence such as this:
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“(Gitlow sits, unfolds comic section and reads.)
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Missy: Where’s Lutiebelle, Gitlow?
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Gitlow: ‘The history of the War Between the States will be continued next week.’ That sure is a good story—I wonder how that’s gonna come out?
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Missy: Grown man, deacon in the church, reading the funny-paper. And your shirt. You sneaked outta here this morning in your clean white shirt, after I told you time and time again I was saving it!
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Gitlow: Saving it for what?
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Missy: It’s the only decent thing you got to get buried in! (Exits side door.)”
2.
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Ask students to consider the pro’s and con’s of the form Ossie Davis chose:
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-a play permits visualization and the sound of the language used, but prevents free-flowing external and internal description by the author;
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-if he had written the sequence as a poem, he would have been restricted by meter and image;
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-if he had decided to use the incident as a story, he would have had to introduce stronger conflict, and built up to a resolution of whether Gitlow should continue to wear the shirt or not.
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-if he had written it as a letter, relating the incident, it would have been only in Missy’s or Gitlow’s voice and would have been directed to one audience.
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-if it were a journal entry, it would have been confined to one speaker with an amorphous audience.
3..
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After sufficient discussion, have students take out their brainstorming notes of the previous day. Ask them to consider what form might be best suited to the anecdote upon which they had decided. Discuss their decisions.
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Remind them that in writing comic situations, the humor may lie in the event itself (as in the Matzo ball soup) or in reversing the reader’s expectations. Point out the first paragraphs establish certain reasonable expectations. The sons planning the Mother’s Day celebration, for example, might consider giving their mother perfume, flowers, or serving her breakfast in bed. The final decision (to take her to a baseball game) is a reversal of the reader’s expectation; and, as such, serves as a source of humor.
4.
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Have students write the family situation upon which they had decided in the form they feel would express it best.
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-for the student who is “stuck,” this might be tried: at the dinner table, a daughter reaches across her mother to get the salt. “Use your tongue,” her mother says, feeling the daughter is rude. “My arm is longer,” the daughter answers, practically.
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-ask the student what his/her mother might say in that situation?
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5. Offer whatever assistance you can, as the students are writing, to have them include details which emphasize the ethnicity of the holiday situation about which they are writing.