Lesson Overview 

The Quiz 

As always, you want to quiz the students on the reading.  If they haven't read - nothing else matters that you do.   I've included the quiz for Chapter 11 below.

Class Discussion - Vertext

For the hows and whys of running a Vertext Discussion - please see my page on Class Discussion Methods.

I call the Vertext "Communion" because of a scene where Milkman consumes the heart of the Bobcat that he helped kill on the hunt that night.  Here is a brief summary of the Vertext:

This Vertext carries students through Chapter 11 of Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon — the "Communion" chapter — in thirty-two slides of verbatim quotes, following Milkman's arrival in Shalimar from the moment he notices the empty-handed women through the fight at Solomon's store, the night bobcat hunt, and his morning with Sweet. The quotes are sequenced to let the chapter's central transformation emerge from the students themselves: Milkman stripped, piece by piece, of his money, his car, his father's reputation, and his sense of what he does and doesn't "deserve," until he can finally walk the earth without limping. Along the way students will land on the children's Solomon song, the hostility of the Shalimar men, and the wire at Milkman's throat — all rich ground for observation, question, and connection.

The centerpiece is a slide that breaks the usual one-quote form: the skinning of the bobcat interleaved line by line with Guitar's words about love and the life of a black man, put to the class with a single prompt — what does this resemble? It's the kind of juxtaposition that a teacher-led discussion would flatten but a Vertext lets students discover, and it sets up the chapter's closing movement, where the reciprocal exchange with Sweet answers the taking and killing that came before. Expect the discussion to circle themes of masculinity, community, inheritance, and what a man has to shed before he can belong anywhere — with the critical thinking, as always in a Vertext, coming from the students rather than the teacher.

Group Work

Unlike the more recent Group Works that I've posted here - I won't summarize the questions in this space.  If it is at all possible - you should use the Vertext to foster a student led whole-class discussion.  It's preferrable to the Group Work, but I also understand that some days we have to miss class and Group Works are great for when you do.  Here are the opening instructions - for the actual questions see the Group Work (found below):

As we get near the end of this book, the end of this year, your group work takes on new importance.  You need to show yourself what you are capable of doing if you push yourself.  Try to be as creative, thoughtful, and specific here as possible.  Break new ground...  ABOVE ALL – be specific and focused – though this is not about quantity, for this group work you should have at least 2 pages of specific answers.