Notes
1. Chapter 1 "School Profile," William C. Overfelt Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) Report 2012-2013. WASC is the organization that provides accreditation for public and private schools, colleges, and universities. The states of California and Hawaii, as well as U.S. territories including, but not limited to Guam and American Samoa, fall under its jurisdiction. Last year, after a year of self-study, Overfelt was granted by WASC six more years of accreditation, with a third-year mid-term report. This is the longest period that WASC grants to any institution. More information about the organization can be found at: http://www.acswasc.org.
2. On the 2012 STAR tests, the last year for which we have data, 37% of freshmen, 32% of sophomores, and 25% of juniors scored proficient or advanced.
3. For several decades, California has measured student achievement in 1 st through 12 th grades based on results from a variety of annual tests, most recently the California Standardized Testing and Reporting Tests (STAR Tests) and California Standards Tests (CSTs); however, the state will be joining a growing number that utilize tests based on the Common Core State Standards, colloquially known as Common Core. During the 2013-2014 school year, Overfelt will be a preparing for implementation beginning with the 2014-2015 academic year.
4. Latin: "Let there be light."
5. Chinua Achebe, "Image of Africa," quoting Albert J. Gerard, 337.
6. Though Wimsatt and Beardsley wrote specifically of poetry, I believe that the same general issues they discuss can be applied to fiction.
7. J. Hillis Miller, "Should We Read Heart of Darkness?" in Heart of Darkness, 474.
8. Ibid., 463.
9. Joseph Conrad, "Conrad in the Congo," in Heart of Darkness, 242.
10. Gary Adelman, Heart of Darkness, xii-xiii.
11. Ibid., xiv-xv.
12. Allan Simmons, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, 8.
13. Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost, 225.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., 225-26.
16. "Imperialism and the Congo," in Heart of Darkness, 99.
17. Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost, 226.
18. Ibid., 233.
19. Ibid.
20. Achebe, "Image of Africa," in Heart of Darkness, 343.
21. Ibid., 337.
22. Ibid., 340.
23. Ibid., 342.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid., 346
26. Ibid.
27. Hunt Hawkins, "Heart of Darkness and Racism," in Heart of Darkness, 366.
28. Ibid., 367.
29. Ibid., 368.
30. Ibid.
31. Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 33.
32. Hawkins, "Heart of Darkness and Racism," in Heart of Darkness, 369.
33. Ibid., 375.
34. Paul B. Armstrong, Reading, Race, 430.
35. Ibid., 431.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid., 432
38. Ibid., 444.
39. For all three formats, I require students to come to class with five discussion questions on the upper-end of Bloom's Taxonomy and having read the assigned text. Whole-class discussions require a discussion leader whose job it is to make sure that discussion flows freely and to maintain order should conversation become quite animated.
40. A few days prior to the seminar, students are asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1-5, "1" for those who almost never say anything to "5" for those who proudly claim, "Just try and shut me up!" I then place them into one of two groups: the talkers and the quiet ones, with those students who rated themselves 3 (+/-) interspersed in the two groups.
41. dialectic. Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Encyclopaedia Britannica Company. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dialectic (accessed July 12, 2013).
42. The original questions were developed by the late Robert Litchfield, College Board consultant and teacher at Point Loma High School in San Diego. Kris Tully, English teacher at University High School in Tucson, Arizona, revised the questions into their current form. The questions can be found and downloaded at: http://teacherweb.com/CA/PalisadesCharterHighSchool/StephenBerger/Heart-of-Darkness-Reading-Questions.doc
43. The audio recording I will use can be accessed in iTunes and is provided by LoudLit.org, a site "committed to delivering public domain literature paired with high quality audio performances." Heart of Darkness, read by David Kirkwood and narrated by Tom Franks, is one of several novels, short stories, poems, and historical documents. Their limited library can be accessed at http://www.loudlit.org/collection.htm.
44. Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 7-8.
45. Ibid., 10 (The paragraph beginning with "A narrow and deserted street in deep shadow,…" and ending at "Bon Voyage").
46. A pdf of the exam can be viewed and downloaded at the College Board's website: http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap04_frq_english_lit_36149.pdf. There are also examples of student responses to the prompt.
Comments: