1. American Literature Wednesday, September 5

2. Learning Groups / A: Rob, Gary, Stephanie H., Caitlin, Alicia / B: McKenzie, Raul, Hassai, Kent, Stephanie T. / C: David, Danielle, Zach, Katrina / A: Rob, Gary, Stephanie H., Caitlin, Alicia / B: McKenzie, Raul, Hassai, Kent, Stephanie T. / C: David, Danielle, Zach, Katrina / D: Michael, Chris, Jessica, Kristen, Christina / E: Donald, Lauren, Hillary, Alyssa, Nathan / F: Deborah, Rebecca, Vincent, Erik, Keegan

3. Learning Group Activity / Introduce each other: name, major, code name, favorite writers… / Complete contact information section of syllabus / Introduce each other: name, major, code name, favorite writers… / Complete contact information section of syllabus / Pick a scene from the play that you wish to discuss / Discuss some key issues: representations of NDN’s, gender, class, land, writing and colonization / conquest…

4. Scene Read Through / Assign each group member a role (or more than one if needed) / Read through the text / “Perform” language as much as possible-- have fun with it!

5. Discussion Card: Front / “For such despite they cast on female wit / If what I do prove well, it won’t advance, / They’ll say it’s stol’n, or else it was by chance” (“Prologue” 28- 30). Works Cited Bradstreet, Anne. “Prologue.” Belasco, Susan and Link Johnson. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature, Volume One: Beginnings to 1865. Boston: Bedford / St. Martins, 2007. / “For such despite they cast on female wit / If what I do prove well, it won’t advance, / They’ll say it’s stol’n, or else it was by chance” (“Prologue” 28- 30). Works Cited Bradstreet, Anne. “Prologue.” Belasco, Susan and Link Johnson. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature, Volume One: Beginnings to 1865. Boston: Bedford / St. Martins, 2007.

6. Discussion Card: Front / For me, Bradstreet’s feminism emerges more in these lines from “Prologue” than almost any other place in her poetry. Lamenting the patriarchal criticism of female literary effort, Bradstreet “disses” the “despite” male critics “cast on female wit,” or female intellectual effort (28). In the lines that follow, she lays out the typical critiques made: female poets steal or borrow words and ideas from men or only happen to stumble across a fortuitously phrased line or concept. Here, as elsewhere in her writing, I find myself admiring Bradstreet’s intellectual courage as she takes on a theocratic and patriarchal political system that is concerned enough about female power to censor and condemn the writing of women within their culture. Finally, in terms of language, I see Bradstreet struggling in these lines to maintain the iambic pentameter she wants so much because it validates her place as a poet in the social and linguistic codes of her time. But having to resort to three contractions in two lines, suggests that this effort was a bit of a strain on her diction and syntax.