Headlines are describing how violence is escalating in Jerusalem and the Occupied West Bank. Aside from a larger number of keffiyes around students' necks these past few days, there is little indication of the violence at school. However, in my twelfth grade HL literature class today we got up close and personal with some characters who had been knocked flat by life, like so many Palestinians and Israelis in this conflict.
The first passage I read to them without them seeing it. It was the opening passage from James Joyce's short story "Grace."
"Two gentlemen who were in the lavatory at the time tried to lift him up: but he was quite helpless. He lay curled up at the foot of the stairs down which he had fallen. They succeeded in turning him over. His hat had rolled a few yards away and his clothes were smeared with the filth and ooze of the floor on which he had lain, face downwards. His eyes were closed and he breathed with a grunting noise. A thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth."
Then I asked the students to write down all the words they remembered (they didn't know they were going to have to do this.) I had them compare their lists with a partner, then categorise the words based on whether they had a positive or negative connotation. We talked about the overall impression the passage makes. It is truly incredible how much they absorbed in that one reading, and once they had the key, memorable words on their paper, how much analysis of a passage they had never seen they were able to offer.
Someone pointed out that there were two men that helped the guy, which gave a nice feeling to the passage. Reem countered, "but they couldn't help, so it was useless." I asked whether their ability to help was all that mattered. Saja said "Well, at least they tried," and we acknowledged that our sense that this is a setting in which people help each other is comforting, regardless of the success of their efforts to help.
Then I gave them this magnificent passage by Yashar Kamal, featuring another man lying flat out- this one perhaps less fortunate.
"He lay mouth up on the bank, a long, long body with his arms and legs spreadeagled. Beside him a wide pool of blood had soaked into the ground and dried into a crust. His striped shirt was torn from his right shoulder down and a dark streak of hairy chest showed through like a festering wound in the sun. On the left side of the shirt the blood had hardened into a large patch as stiff as a block of wood. Midges swarmed over his face, fighting for his eyes, and now and then a bright-winged green fly whizzed by, slashing through the sunlight like a long flash of lightning. His hands lay wide open, huge wet hands. The pebbles, the dusty burdock shrubs, the tamarisks, the laurels, the plane trees shone wetly as the sun rose. His grey hair fell over his forehead. His head, half sunk in the stream, lay pillowed against a large striated stone. Shoals of tiny fish skimmed up, sniffing at his right ear, then swam off like quicksilver to rally against the next instant. The sluggish river flowed, crystal-clear in the sunlight, its polished green-lichened stones bright as darting fish. The sun was higher now, warming up the earth. A bitter smell rose from the burdock shrubs as the sultry heat sank deeper into the water, the trees and the grass."
For this particular HL class we were in Ustaz Habbas's classroom, a small classroom which has no overhead projector. I had put the text of the passage on the powerpoint I planned to use so we could look at it as a class and annotate it after they had written on their own papers. Since we didn't have the projector, I ended up having us move into a circle to discuss the passage, which in fact was much more effective. I beamed with pride as the students offered top notch analysis of the passage. Saja pointed out that he had probably been dead a while, since the blood had crusted on him. Yasmin built on that, describing how graphic the description of the body was, and how it appealed to touch and visual senses. Tareq pointed out the way the body seemed to be becoming part of the environment, sinking into the mud, getting wet like the other natural elements of the environment. In fact he pointed out how all human qualities and dignity seemed to be fading from this figure, as the only beings paying attention to him are the flies and the minnows, feeding on him as if he were prey, a mere link in the food chain. Shams saw things slightly differently. She noted the more positive imagery describing the setting, while the body was described in negative imagery.
Much of the imagery of the setting could also be considered violent or disturbing. Her comment led directly to Fakher's contribution about the brightness of the environment compared to the dullness of the body: "It's like, life goes on, but not for this dead man." Dina added to this, pointing out that the sun's motion up into the sky, and the warmth it offers to the environment, doesn't touch or seem to affect the body, emphasising the "stopped" quality of life. I was pleased to see how far these students' analysis has come since a year ago.
Perhaps it seems silly for these students to be inside analysing prose while the clashes rage in other parts of the city. But literature teaches compassion and understanding, and we may consider the fallen fighters on both sides differently because of today's analysis.
The first passage I read to them without them seeing it. It was the opening passage from James Joyce's short story "Grace."
"Two gentlemen who were in the lavatory at the time tried to lift him up: but he was quite helpless. He lay curled up at the foot of the stairs down which he had fallen. They succeeded in turning him over. His hat had rolled a few yards away and his clothes were smeared with the filth and ooze of the floor on which he had lain, face downwards. His eyes were closed and he breathed with a grunting noise. A thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth."
Then I asked the students to write down all the words they remembered (they didn't know they were going to have to do this.) I had them compare their lists with a partner, then categorise the words based on whether they had a positive or negative connotation. We talked about the overall impression the passage makes. It is truly incredible how much they absorbed in that one reading, and once they had the key, memorable words on their paper, how much analysis of a passage they had never seen they were able to offer.
Someone pointed out that there were two men that helped the guy, which gave a nice feeling to the passage. Reem countered, "but they couldn't help, so it was useless." I asked whether their ability to help was all that mattered. Saja said "Well, at least they tried," and we acknowledged that our sense that this is a setting in which people help each other is comforting, regardless of the success of their efforts to help.
Then I gave them this magnificent passage by Yashar Kamal, featuring another man lying flat out- this one perhaps less fortunate.
"He lay mouth up on the bank, a long, long body with his arms and legs spreadeagled. Beside him a wide pool of blood had soaked into the ground and dried into a crust. His striped shirt was torn from his right shoulder down and a dark streak of hairy chest showed through like a festering wound in the sun. On the left side of the shirt the blood had hardened into a large patch as stiff as a block of wood. Midges swarmed over his face, fighting for his eyes, and now and then a bright-winged green fly whizzed by, slashing through the sunlight like a long flash of lightning. His hands lay wide open, huge wet hands. The pebbles, the dusty burdock shrubs, the tamarisks, the laurels, the plane trees shone wetly as the sun rose. His grey hair fell over his forehead. His head, half sunk in the stream, lay pillowed against a large striated stone. Shoals of tiny fish skimmed up, sniffing at his right ear, then swam off like quicksilver to rally against the next instant. The sluggish river flowed, crystal-clear in the sunlight, its polished green-lichened stones bright as darting fish. The sun was higher now, warming up the earth. A bitter smell rose from the burdock shrubs as the sultry heat sank deeper into the water, the trees and the grass."
For this particular HL class we were in Ustaz Habbas's classroom, a small classroom which has no overhead projector. I had put the text of the passage on the powerpoint I planned to use so we could look at it as a class and annotate it after they had written on their own papers. Since we didn't have the projector, I ended up having us move into a circle to discuss the passage, which in fact was much more effective. I beamed with pride as the students offered top notch analysis of the passage. Saja pointed out that he had probably been dead a while, since the blood had crusted on him. Yasmin built on that, describing how graphic the description of the body was, and how it appealed to touch and visual senses. Tareq pointed out the way the body seemed to be becoming part of the environment, sinking into the mud, getting wet like the other natural elements of the environment. In fact he pointed out how all human qualities and dignity seemed to be fading from this figure, as the only beings paying attention to him are the flies and the minnows, feeding on him as if he were prey, a mere link in the food chain. Shams saw things slightly differently. She noted the more positive imagery describing the setting, while the body was described in negative imagery.
Much of the imagery of the setting could also be considered violent or disturbing. Her comment led directly to Fakher's contribution about the brightness of the environment compared to the dullness of the body: "It's like, life goes on, but not for this dead man." Dina added to this, pointing out that the sun's motion up into the sky, and the warmth it offers to the environment, doesn't touch or seem to affect the body, emphasising the "stopped" quality of life. I was pleased to see how far these students' analysis has come since a year ago.
Perhaps it seems silly for these students to be inside analysing prose while the clashes rage in other parts of the city. But literature teaches compassion and understanding, and we may consider the fallen fighters on both sides differently because of today's analysis.
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