"I've been trying to do the country like Cezanne and having a hell of a time and times getting it a little bit." (Hemingway speaking to Gertrude Stein)
Write like Cezanne Paints - "Big Two-Hearted River" Day 2 - Class Discussion : One of my favorite lessons all year - the class has just spent the previous class (lesson) doing a very close reading of Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River" in small groups (that are jigsawed) - and discovered ON THEIR OWN that the story is in fact "really" about a man (Hemingway, Nick, Harold Krebs) coming back, shell-shocked, from war - and relearning to do the things that he loved and found so easy before he left - the methodical, unadorned style of the write displays his needing to rewrite the "manual" of how to live again in the world. Well - today's class completely undermines that interpretation of the story. After going some of the more important lines from the text using a Vertext - we look at four alternate meanings behind "Big Two-Hearted River" - each of which is just as valid as the commonly accepted view of it being the story of a combat veteran experiencing PTSD.
The quiz today is not on "Big Two-Hearted River" - that quiz can be found in the previous lesson and covers both parts. Instead. at the end of the last class, the students were given a copy of Hemingway's story, "Now I Lay Me" to read for today's class - and the quiz is on that.
The majority of the Power Point (found below) is a Vertext (quotes verbatim) from both parts of the story. As with all Vertexts, a student reads the quote (just go down each row, giving each student a chance) and the class responds to the quote through discussion. I have included below a version of that Vertext with my notes on what should (though anything can) come up in discussion - and possible areas for the teacher to make sure get covered. After having done their exhilarating Group Work in the previous class - the students will have a lot to say about these quotes, and that will probably go far beyond what I've included in my notes. The discussion for this part (the Vertext) will present theory #1 - the one that they did in their Group Work, that "Big Two-Hearted River" is about Hemingway (Nick) after he returns from the war. It is a struggle but by taking it in "small bites" he can do it.
Have a student read the first part of this handout aloud (from James R. Mellows's Hemingway - A Life without Consequences). This reiterates the idea of Nick's fishing trip as rehabilitation after the war.
On the Power Point and on this handout are found parts of the text of Hemingway's story, "Now I Lay Me". In that story, the entire fishing trip is just a way for the wounded, disturbed soldier (Hemingway/Nick) to keep from falling asleep by creating a river and its surroundings with such detail that the creation of it - keeps him from falling asleep because he believes that if he does fall asleep he will lose his soul and go mad.
Have students read the paragraphs of this handout aloud. Here they will find a very different backstory (or lack of it) for "Big Two-Hearted River". In his recounting of his years in Paris, Hemingway writes that he wanted to write a story - in the same way that Cezanne painted landscapes - and he found himself doing a pretty good job of it! This is also a good time to bring up the fact that the idea for "Big Two-Hearted River" being the story of a soldier's attempt to return to normalcy only came many years after "In Our Time" was published an in absolutely none of his contemporaneous letters did he even hint that was the kind of story he was writing. The Power Point includes a number of Cezanne landscapes to give the students an idea of what Hemingway may have been aiming for.
The students will be given this theory when they hear the two day lecture on Hemingway's life.
That's a great question. The students came up with a theory to explain the unique nature of "Big Two-Hearted River" in their previous class - the Group Work - and now this lesson undermines (though it doesn't negate) what they came up with. Well - to fully understand that, the best explanation is to show them that nothing is simple in literature and that putting too much stock into the history and biography surrounding a text - may turn out to be a waste of time. For a deeper dive into that idea please see my lesson on Stephen Booth and his lens of literary criticism.
This is a very short quiz (it's a very short reading). I think it's important to give a quiz on the story - because you also want to make sure they are here for today's lesson, as it is so much of a follow-through for the last lesson. By giving them a quiz, you can almost be assured they will find out what they missed for today's lesson as well.
This is a two sided Handout. The first page is covered in the Lesson Overview above as Part 1A & 1B and is a handout that first covers the theory (1A) that the students came up with in their Group Work (the previous lesson) and the bottom of that page summarizes "Now I Lay Me" - a story the students read for home work and that is covered above in 1B.
The other side of the handout gives theory #3, primarily in an excerpt from A Movable Feast. Hemingway wanted to write a story that resembled the way that Cezanne painted.
Make sure you download and follow along with the Vertext that goes with this discussion. We go through the story, first following up on what the students did in groups - what they came up with as a plausible under-the-iceberg motivation for this story. Next, we take a look at "Now I Lay Me" which offers another possibility. Finally, we look at what Hemingway wrote about the story at the time that he was writing it ( a third theory).
I try to leave enough room in the margins for students to take extensive notes. If possible, I preferred that students had their own copy of the novel that they could write in. The work, published before 1930, is in the Public Domain.
Over 30 years of notes on here - but if you are at all curious at how I come up with my lessons - this will tell you a lot. The great thing about this story is that every year I read it - I would see more and try to share that with the students. What the students came up with would also get added to this document as well.
This is a complete copy of the book - found at the Internet Archive , complete with the Interchapters. The book was originally posted by the Harold B. Lee Library. The work, published before 1930, is in the Public Domain.
Especially by having the Power Point found above - this lesson works great.
I very rarely lecture - perhaps two or three times a year for each of my classes. Because I am such an afficiando of Hemingway's life and his work, I wanted to share some of what I had learned with my students. The lecture is divided into two parts - the first part covers his birth until the tragic loss of all of his early writing. The second part picks up at that point and goes until the end of his life. Though lecturing is zealotly frowned upon these days in teaching - I honestly believe that some of the best classes that I've ever experienced were lectures - talks by speakers who cared deeply and energetically about their subjects, and were able to make them come alive for their listeners.
Every once in a while, I really believed as a teacher - that it was important to show students that things are just not "that simple". The previous lesson was great - and the students feel that they - like so many critics, have this story figured out. But, there's no reason to believe it is the story of a man dealing with PTSD any more than the other theories. The important thing is the text - and the text allows to see many things, but most of all it show us beauty.