Summary of Assignments (Fourth Marking Period)

Please be sure that you have completed the following written commentaries for the 4th marking period. All of these should be posted to your personal blogspots. (If I've missed anything, please let me know.)

1. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Selection of Quotes (The Great Gatsby)
   
2. Third Quarter Reflection
3. Death of a Salesman*
   
4. The Catcher in the Rye*
   
5. The Soloist (Part 1, Chapters 1-6)*
6. The Soloist (Part 1, Chapters 7-12)*
7. The Soloist (Part 2, Chapters 13-22)*
8. The Soloist (Part 2, Chapters 13-31)*

For the assignments listed with an asterisk, don't forget to write a sentence or two at the end of your post about how you would like your readers to respond to your post. For example, you might ask them to focus on a particular idea/argument you've put forth or to critique specific rhetorical/grammatical/stylistic aspects of your writing. Or, you might ask a specific question of your reader about what you have written. There are a number of possibilities for this, feel free to experiment with the kind of feedback you request.

Class Notes: The Soloist (Steve Lopez)

I'm using this blog posting as a way to track some the questions, ideas, and arguments that have developed in response to our reading of Lopez's writing. You might consider some of these as you post your own blog entries in response to your reading. On a separate entry I will post links to the various supplemental articles, videos, and sound bytes that I bring into our class sessions dedicated to Lopez's work.

My initial questions for discussion:

• How does Lopez tell these stories?
• How does The Soloist compare to other texts we have read this year?
• What do the interviews/news bytes/articles we've read, listened to and viewed add to our reading of this book?
• What genre does The Soloist belong to?
• What social/political issues does Lopez seem interested in addressing in his book and other writings?
• Who does he write to? Who does he write for?
• Are there aspects of Lopez's writing that make it readily attributable to him?

Ongoing questions/ideas students posed:

Topic: Why does Lopez write (in general)? Who does her write for?

• Lopez seems interested in people with “hidden talents” and whether or not they are successful in these.
• He seems ‘obsessed’ with people who strive to do better. He seems to feel connected to people as they take steps to move higher and higher with their talents. How does this connect to Lopez’s own story/career moves?
• Does he see something inside of people that we don’t see that helps him to select what he will write about?
• He seems to write about people who have overcome hardships.
• Lopez seems to write about people who overcome obstacles through their own power. Ayers seems to be content with his surroundings, regardless of whether or not he planned to end up where he is. Is this comfort a symptom of his mental illness, or something else?
• He seems to try to play an active role in Ayer’s life.
• He writes to America as whole to spread awareness. He writes for Ayers and for people like him (to spread this awareness). (His works might become models for ways of overcoming these obstacles.)
• What makes him so interested in the lives of strangers? How do journalists (Lopez) decide how deeply to pry into the lives of those they write about? How do they choose their subjects?
• When Lopez sees someone with talent who is struggling it seems to ‘set him off’ and he wants to help these individuals as much as possible.

Topic: What social/political issues does Lopez seem interested in addressing in his book and other writings?

• Lopez might write to show how the community ‘acts’ towards the homeless, psychological disorders, and other aspects tangential to the actual storyline of Nathaniel Ayers. He doesn’t just write for himself.
• He might write for his own fulfillment/happiness.
• He also writes for people who are at a disadvantage—people with disabilities or economic challenges. He wants people to rise above their individual problems to accomplish their goals.
• He writes for society, for awareness. He writes not for the government or for any larger institution, but for all of us so that we are aware of what goes on around us.
• He wants to express to his readers that poverty is more than just ‘being poor’. He wants to show all of the issues that affect the poor and have led to their current situation.
• He likes writing about the ‘underdog’ to inspire others and to challenge [essentializing] notions about the poor.
• Writers (like Lopez) take on the role of social workers in their writing, by describing the complexities and particulars of their identities.
• Lopez’s own parents were immigrants (from Italy and Spain) and may have experienced varied levels of discrimination. So when he writes about those who are discriminated against, he may connect in some way to their experiences. This may be why he has been successful as a writer who writes about these issues.
• Maybe Lopez realizes that there are less fortunate people out there than himself; maybe he was one of those people. He writes very inspirational stories about people from ‘the hood’ or the slums who attempt to better their lives. Maybe he’s starting a movement. Maybe there is something autobiographical here.

Topic: What genre does The Soloist occupy?

• This book might be both a biography and an autobiography. Lopez writes a great deal about his own experiences along with the story that he tells about Ayers.

Topic: How does Lopez write his stories (issues of style, voice, etc.)?

• He writes in the first person and analyzes characters more than events.
• He writes in a ‘modern, plain, uncomplicated’ way. His writing is very easy to read.

Topic: How does The Soloist compare to other texts we have read this year?

• Similar to The Great Gatsby, where the narrator, Nick, meets others who he sees as new, different, strange and wants to know more, Lopez also seems to want to know more about the people he meets and this might drive him to write about them.
• This might connect to Lopez’s interest in the underdog.
• In The Great Gatsby Nick is unable (or unwilling) to affect change in the lives of the people he meets. In fact, the book ends in tragedy for the most interesting of these people (Gatsby). Will Lopez be able to change Nathaniel’s life in anyway, or will this story end in tragedy as well?

Questions Lopez has posed in his writings:

Topic: Social/political/medical concerns related to Ayers’ life and condition

• "I'd like to know how a black kid growing up in the sixties—when the civil rights movement and Vietnam War divided the country and cities like Cleveland were on fire—beat the odds and ended up in Julliard's classical music program." (2008, p. 17)
• "Does the madness come up in a person randomly and without warning?" (2008, p. 17)
• "Who am I…to make his story mine?" (2008, p. 17)
• He has some big questions about Nathaniel’s symptoms and about the notes he jotted down about his initial awareness of his illness. (p. 80)
• He seems to be asking why he, as a writer, has to take on the role of agency to support Ayers. (Especially when in The Soloist he calls the workers at LAMP and enlists their help.)
• He seems to ask ‘Is Nathaniel getting better?’ every few chapters. He checks in to ask are his (Lopez’s) efforts or the efforts of others doing anything to help Ayers?

Topic: Personal and professional exploration through writing

• “Everything I’ve written about Nathaniel is extremely personal, and yet I’ve shared it with thousands of readers. Have I exploited him? Is it possible for me to me to keep writing about him without doing so? I’ve asked myself the question before, and the answer remains the same. I’m telling the story of his courage, his challenge and his humanity, and I believe there’s a benefit to him, to me and to the public” (pp. 231-232).
• He seems to ask, ‘Do I need Nathaniel as much as he needs me?’ when he writes, “I’m frustrated by my own limitations, and because I don’t know whether, in the end, I’ll have had as big an impact on Nathaniel’s life as he will have had on mine.” (p. 232)
• Lopez seems to be continually redefining himself through this work and thinking about how he has changed through his relationship with Nathaniel and in telling Ayers’ story. For instance he writes, “Life is all about the next phase, about feeding the monster, about finding a definition of himself that makes sense for at least one day. We’re like each other in many respects. Do you think about writers the way I think about musicians? he asked when I spent that night with him. Yes, I do. But I don’t have time to do enough of it” (pp. 210-211).