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American Literature: A Quilt of a Country 2263 Views
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Description:
Time to discuss Annay Quindlen's "A Quilt of a Country." We're going to wrap ourselves up in a cozy quilt to do so, and we highly suggest you do the same.
Transcript
- 00:02
A quilt of a country......
- 00:26
okay it's early in [USA quilt talking]
- 00:28
an American literature course and we just finished covering the Declaration
- 00:32
of Independence and the Constitution so guess we're probably going to move on to
- 00:36
some other old-tiny document written on parchment where all the S's looks
Full Transcript
- 00:41
like F's right? nope we're actually going to leap ahead more than 200 years and
- 00:47
look at an article that was published in Time magazine in 2001...Bet you didn't [Time magazine 2001 edition appears]
- 00:51
see that coming eh and I still got some tricks up my patches all right next
- 00:56
question why why are we reading it what does this article have to do with [Person giving Uncle Sam bottle of milk]
- 01:00
America's formative years why not just leap all the way to Harry Potter the
- 01:04
Deathly Hallows and be done with it well because this particular article has a
- 01:08
lot to say about who we are as a nation where we come from, how we've grown over
- 01:12
the centuries and what we can learn from our past yeah it's almost like there's a
- 01:17
connection between the stuff people wrote and thought about hundreds of [Thomas Jefferson and modern man wearing helmets]
- 01:20
years ago and the stuff they write and think about today weird...
- 01:24
goes along with the whole why should we care thing that we keep harping on just
- 01:28
because people used to wear powdered wigs and breeches and sign checks with [Man from the past signing with a quill]
- 01:31
quill pens doesn't mean they weren't roughly the same folks we are...We had the same
- 01:35
worries, joy's, fears, doubts and passion and they grieve the same way we grieve
- 01:40
yeah we're about to get serious if you have any light-hearted puns you want to
- 01:44
put out into the universe now's a good time to get them off your chest..Ana [Man dressed as sailor on a boat]
- 01:47
Quinlan's article a quilt of a country was written two weeks after the New York
- 01:51
terrorist attack that devastated the twin towers and resulted in the deaths of
- 01:54
3,000 innocent people yeah this thing was opposite of a fluff piece
- 01:58
despite the subject matter though Quinlan's article was hopeful we'll get
- 02:03
to what it all meant in a sec but for now just ask yourself how would our
- 02:06
founding fathers have responded if 9/11 had happened on their watch what bound
- 02:10
people together as the United States was gaining its footing and what binds
- 02:14
people together today and finally have we grown have we gradually come together
- 02:18
as a united country over time or have we drifted further apart...
- 02:22
alright now before we jump into the article a quick note about reading [Time magazine on a duvet]
- 02:26
modern text as opposed to old yellowed ones you might be thrilled to death
- 02:29
we're about to read something that was written recently something that won't be [Man on rollercoaster with grim reaper]
- 02:33
riddled with strange looking words like quartering and brethren and all sorts of
- 02:36
oddly placed apostrophes but bad news modern texts have their own set of challenges
- 02:41
The words themselves may look more or less familiar but contemporary stuff
- 02:45
tends to experiment more with sentence and language structures like writers
- 02:49
used to have long flowing sentences that ran seamlessly together whereas today
- 02:53
they like to mix things up for short choppy sentences or expectations by
- 02:57
using unusual turns of phrase and so on you could still find out those classic
- 03:01
literary techniques at play, like inference where an idea is suggested or
- 03:05
hinted at but not said explicitly allusion where an expression makes the [Classic literary techniques examples]
- 03:09
reader think about something similar or related and pretty much any other
- 03:12
artistic device under the Sun that would be a cliche yeah you'll find those too...
- 03:16
as with old texts the job is still roughly the same read it a few times [USA quilt discussing old texts]
- 03:21
first to respond on a gut level then to summarize and finally to analyze so
- 03:25
before I run this thing through our mental shredder and then attempt to put [Time magazine goes through brain shredder[
- 03:29
it back together again keep one pass through just to read and
- 03:32
enjoy don't even worry about understanding every little concept let
- 03:35
the words and the author's emotions wash over you like you're on a beach and it's
- 03:39
high tide and all of your friends are screaming at you to get back to the car [Man laying on beach and friends shout to get back in the car]
- 03:43
well okay maybe it's still low tide whatever works for you....
- 04:13
done reading for pleasure great now go back and read it for a displeasure
- 04:18
okay you can still enjoy it but now focus on understanding what this great
- 04:22
piece of writing means....summary time let's start by trying to recap each [Clock ticks and article appears on desk]
- 04:29
paragraph in just a single line alright first paragraph Quinlan is talking
- 04:33
about America being a mongrel nation built of ever-changing disparate parts
- 04:36
well a mongrel is either a dog that's a mutt probably not what she's going for or
- 04:41
a person of mixed descent ah there we go so she's saying were a country made up
- 04:45
of people from all over the place in the same breath she says were held together
- 04:49
by the notion that all men are created equal so yeah she's driving home the
- 04:52
point that we might be different but we're all in this boat together and then [People of US standing on Noah's Ark]
- 04:56
we get our first and only quilt shout out ah there's where we figure out why
- 05:01
the author settled on this particular metaphor she's saying that America like
- 05:04
a quilt is built of bits and pieces that seem discordant so you got this whole
- 05:09
patchwork of random stuff but when you stitch them all together boom a quilt or [A quilt of the USA flag]
- 05:14
a country whatever so how would we sum up this paragraph? we'll want to
- 05:18
incorporate everything we just mentioned how about like a quilt, America is a
- 05:22
patchwork of unique individuals with different backgrounds all of whom
- 05:25
contribute equally to the nation's diversity cool moving on in the second
- 05:29
paragraph there's an immediate gear shift the reality is often quite [Second paragraph highlighted]
- 05:33
different Quinlan says and then harshes our buzz by bringing up slavery,
- 05:37
sweatshops, burning crosses you know all that fun stuff so while we have all this
- 05:42
wonderful diversity we've proven throughout our history that we don't
- 05:46
always appreciate what we have but silver lining she goes on to say that
- 05:50
amid all the failures is something spectacularly successful she doesn't
- 05:55
explain herself yet except to say that in the wake of 9/11 the incredible
- 05:59
tragedy has caused people to reflect on their blessings so a recap sentence [Summary of second paragraph appears]
- 06:03
might be something like our nation's history has been rife with tragedy and
- 06:06
injustice but it is often in the face of such hardship that we become more
- 06:10
appreciative of the good third paragraph Kinlan says that our nation was founded
- 06:15
on a conundrum ie something that's at odds
- 06:18
with itself like a vegan who's trapped inside a meat locker [Vegan man inside a meat locker]
- 06:22
what is that conundrum well that our nation has a strong focus on both
- 06:26
community and individualism and it's kind of hard to do both are we out for [Man celebrating]
- 06:30
ourselves are we out to serve our neighbors who come first and maybe most
- 06:34
importantly if the roles were reversed what our neighbors do the same for us [Neighbor appears at the door with a pizza]
- 06:38
that we seek to do for them for the rest of the paragraph were treated to a
- 06:42
personal anecdote about the author's childhood where she was already well
- 06:45
aware of how splintered the community was dividing clearly along ethnic lines [Street with different ethnicities either side]
- 06:49
to sum up we can say America's defining ideals of community and individualism
- 06:54
are frequently in conflict leading to a sharp and obvious division between
- 06:58
ethnic groups next one here Quinlan's asking quite a lot of questions so she's
- 07:03
basically setting up the second half of her article which we hope will provide
- 07:08
some answers what is the point of this splintered whole.. she asks, she also asked
- 07:11
how can it be that we all live on the same bit of land interact with one [Man saying hello to woman walking by]
- 07:15
another even help each other get around and survive and yet at the same time we
- 07:19
claim to hate one another, often coming to blows or worse but she says
- 07:24
other countries that become that divided actually divide in other words they
- 07:28
become two countries not the US though not yet anyway so for this paragraph we
- 07:34
can say it's hard to imagine the reason that despite all the words and acts of
- 07:38
hatred aimed at one another we remain united as countrymen paragraph number
- 07:43
five we get a bit of a history lesson here our disparate parts tend to be held
- 07:47
together by a common enemy by the fault lines of world wars and the electrified
- 07:51
fence of communism so yeah she's saying that for a long time we could kind of [Static on a TV screen]
- 07:55
set aside all our internal squabbles because we had wars to fight and obvious
- 07:59
enemies to defeat but once all that stuff was over well people were kind of [Person cooking burgers on a barbecue]
- 08:02
worried that our personal problems would come to light and tear us apart but they
- 08:07
didn't we retained our national identity how does Quinlan know that's true at the
- 08:11
end of the paragraph she references terrorism bringing it back to 9/11, it
- 08:15
was an awful day one of the worst in our history no doubt about it [Twin Tower aftermath rubble]
- 08:19
but the fact that we were able to pull through it together spoke volumes about
- 08:23
who we were as a country of Americans let's summarize by saying even when we
- 08:28
are not facing a common enemy Americans have proven that they can
- 08:32
overcome ethnic differences to stand together in times of tragedy all right
- 08:36
let's keep it rollin the next paragraph cites a survey in which nearly everyone
- 08:40
seemed able to get on board with the idea that the US is a unique country
- 08:44
that stands for something special in the world maybe it stands for unique and
- 08:48
[Russia flag appears] special but yea Quinlan goes on to suggest that there's the undercurrent of
- 08:52
a philosophy running through American culture which basically says hey
- 08:56
America's diverse always going to be that way you might be one country but
- 08:59
we're always going to be divided our national character takes a hit because [Boxer punches statue of liberty]
- 09:03
how can we ever have a single identity with so much disparity, Batman knows
- 09:07
what we're talking about he never could swing the single identity thing ever [Batman stood in his cave]
- 09:11
so in short this paragraph is saying Americans have learned to live together
- 09:15
but because of the lines drawn due to ethnic and cultural differences it is
- 09:19
difficult to define a single overarching national character okay we're getting
- 09:24
there paragraph number seven proposes two [Paragraph 7 highlighted]
- 09:26
reasons why we might actually be a united people able to accept immigrants
- 09:31
despite what she said in the previous paragraph first there's just something
- 09:35
about the American psyche that loves the the difficult, the demanding that sees
- 09:39
mastering the impossible as a test of character so rather than be bummed out
- 09:44
that we have to cohabitate with all these others we see it as a challenge [People sitting on a boat]
- 09:48
for us to meet head-on and to overcome and second there's a grudging fairness
- 09:52
how generous, that leads most to admit that the new immigrants are not so
- 09:56
different from our own parents or grandparents well yeah if our ancestors
- 10:00
never came over on a boat we wouldn't be here so how can you hate on somebody [Ancestors sailing a boat to the US]
- 10:04
who's doing the same thing recap despite their issues with immigrants other
- 10:08
Americans are able to feel a sense of unity with them because for one thing
- 10:12
they look at the challenge of accepting differences as a test of their character
- 10:16
and for another they recognize that they came from immigrants themselves okay
- 10:21
final paragraph - Quinlan takes issue with the word tolerance we're not tolerating
- 10:26
immigrants like they're an in-law who's staying at our house for three more days [Father-in-law walks in to room]
- 10:29
so she feels a more fitting word is patriotism in the sense that we take
- 10:33
pride in our unlikely ability to throw all of us together in a country that is
- 10:37
different as a dozen countries and still able to call
- 10:40
it by one name and of course she's got to bring it back around to the World
- 10:44
Trade Center and the attack and our mongrel nation the faces that looked upon [Man helping survivor of terrorist attack]
- 10:48
all that devastation and sadness of that day were all different colors but the
- 10:53
sadness and the determination written clearly on every one of those faces
- 10:57
formed a single spirit to sum up American patriotism allows us to do more
- 11:02
than just tolerate our immigrant countrymen but to truly unite thanks to
- 11:06
our shared experiences and common spirit interestingly no more mentions of the
- 11:11
quilt metaphor all she had to do was throw it out there once and the point
- 11:14
was made all right believe it or not we can go even deeper into this thing so [Quilt of US flag discussing article]
- 11:19
now that you understand what the article is saying, read it one last time and
- 11:23
give it a thorough analysis ask yourself some of these questions...
- 11:27
what is Quindlen's overall claim how does she support that claim
- 11:30
to what extent does the reality of American and Americans live up to the
- 11:35
ideals within declaration in the Constitution why does Quindlen think we
- 11:40
should even strive for out of many one how do you think Quindlen would feel about
- 11:44
our view and treatment of immigrants today compared to back in 2001 has it
- 11:50
gotten better, worse or stayed the same and these are just some starter
- 11:54
questions I'm sure a bunch more will occur to you as you go if nothing comes
- 11:58
to you that's alright too I didn't mean to send you on a quilt
- 12:01
trip [Quilt of US flag telling a joke]
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