Begin the Week with Words

My AP Literature students have to pick a novel to read and write about on their own time every nine weeks. Of course, they are not only looking for interest, but for length. That might bother some, but it doesn't bother me. The list they have to choose from is a compilation of classics - both older and contemporary - that have appeared on the AP Lit test since 1970. The more numbers next to the title, the more times it has been mentioned/used on the test. So it doesn't matter the size of the book, as long as they're reading from this list, it will benefit them. Plus, we all know little books can pack a powerful punch...Of Mice and Men anyone?

A recent novel the girls seem to be picking up is Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Reading their essays had me looking back through the book and pondering the emotional roller coaster of the main character. It speaks something of humanity that many could or have identified with such waves of emotion. Thought I'd share one today for Sunday Sentence.


"There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day. She liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and to be alone and unmolested.

There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why—when it did not seem worth while to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation."