Ma Rainey's Monologue Project Due: 11/28 B or 11/29 A

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Character Monologue

 I have placed templates for the monologues, the handout below, and a template for your CHARACTER MAPS in DRIVE

Please Remember to use the templates I've provided. They'll make life easier for this work and for those in the future. THANKS!!!

Assignment: Submit to Turnitin.com:  11/28 B or 11/29 A (300 points – 200 project, 100 test)

1.       Choose one character from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Levee, Ma, Cutler, or Toledo) and create a dramatic monologue/soliloquy from only/mostly that character’s lines that capture h/her values, desires, life experience, and loss. The piece may be poetry, prose, and/or something in between and should be at least one page typed and formatted. To help you, refer to the “questions for consideration” on the Blog.

2.       At the end and on a separate typed page please compose a 1^st person two paragraph reflection/analysis of your monologue. Please explain your process for selecting particular lines and how they reflect the character traits you wanted to capture. Similarly, how do these lines and this character speak to the central idea of the play: that the interaction between African American and dominant white culture in America not only damages African Americans, but leaves them with scars that often influence the other aspects (if not all aspects) of their lives? Or, how do these lines and this character represent (like the blues) the African American experience in America?

Just as August Wilson used the blues to establish rhythms and patterns of speech in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, try to think of this monologue as a blues variation. To this end and if you choose, you may record your monologue as a video with or without music, with or without images, or perform the piece in class with or without music. For an extra credit grade category of your choice (except semester exam). If you choose to video/record please share your project to the appropriate DRIVE folder

Please remember, you are student writers and performers in a public space and as such should not take the same liberties with language (profanity) that Wilson takes to heighten readers’ senses or denote a hierarchy.  Similarly, as Dr. Lundeana Thomas documented, “raced” words are intimate, cultural, sacred expressions that denote an exclusivity of ownership.  They do not belong to those outside of the culture and are to be respected and left alone.

Periods 5,6,2 - Blackberry-Picking 11/17 Due

Compose

Please compose essay introductions for Blackberry-Picking with complete thesis statements.

Compose Two (2) Topic Sentences that each make an assertion which supports one part of your Thesis. Prove two (2) bullet points of support for each topic sentence written as complete sentences. 

When you finish drafting, read your writing aloud to proof for errors, download the Poetry Thesis-Support Template in Dropbox  (The Document is already formatted). Type your work, check for errors in grammar and spelling, then . . . .

Please upload your completed writing to turnitin.com : Blackberry-Picking Thesis and support.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - Assignment Checklist and Reading List

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Due Date 11/28/16 No Exceptions)

1. Character Quotes Journal - See Previous Post

2. A Completely Annotated Text with tone/attitude interactions for assigned passages ( I will provide these in class)  and Six (6) self-selected interactions (three from each act) - See previous Post for example.

3. Complete, Thorough Character Analysis Charts for Levee, Toledo, and Ma Rainey

 

 Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Reading: 11/16 (A) 11/17 (B)

Please Read ALL of Act 2 before Class(11/16 or 11/17) and come with questions and observations about character, motive, and what you think Wilson is trying to tell us through these characters.

Consider: To what extent can is any person defined by a specific trauma? Is a lifetime of experience in an unchanging context similar to a singular trauma?

Consider: Given Toledo's definition, to what extent do you think anyone who is not a white male can be classified as a "leftover" (57-58)? 

Consider: Wilson seems to be saying two contradictory things in this  play: 1) you have to know where you’ve come from in order to make any kind of progress; you have to own your own history, and 2) If you want to participate in life, you have to deny your identity; you have to forget. Which characters represent each argument. Are there any "bridge" characters that reconcile the two?

Which character "speaks" to you the the most? Why? Select quotes that will help you support this statement.

Ms Rainey's Black Bottom Homework - I apologize for the late update

Determining Character Motivation and Thoughts

As we saw in class, characters often think one thing and do another. Each line a character speaks in a play is designed to get others to respond, react, interpret, and even move. Try to see if you can uncover what each participant wants from these interactions as the play progresses.

Assignment: Read the lines on pp 40 - 42, determine what each character's motive and/or attitude might be as he delivers a line, and annotate it on your text.  If a word feels like it has added weight in a sentence,  circle it as a word to be pinned/stressed by the character. Remember, they may begin (as Levee does at the bottom of p. 40) with one attitude/motive and then shift directions: 

     ". . . [dismissive] it don't need explaining. [mocking] Ain't you never had no good time before?" (40) 

Read Levee on p 46  from:  "Oh,Shit! . . . [to] . . . talking about bad luck" and do the same thing.  

Assignment: Character Quotes.  Create a page for each character and begin collecting quick, important, defining quotes. Write the quote, the page #, context, and what it made you think about the character or how represents their personality.  The can be what the character says or what others say about him.

 

ex: on Toledo's page -

"I just wish there was some way I could show you the right and wrong of it" (29) Context:  M-u-s-i-k.  Toledo seems frustrated correcting others, but can't help himself because he thinks reading ability = understanding. It seems like this could get lonely for him and alienate others - particularly Levee.

 

Read Ahead: Read Ma's 1st scene beginning on p. 48 and let's try to perform it Thursday. 

B Day (5/6/7) Read to p71.