This Pass or Prepared? is based on a poem, Way Down Souf!, by Elliott Blaine Henderson. Dis, dat an' tutter : poems by Elliott Baline Henderson. Scroll about a third of the way down the file, to Way Down Souf!, page 16:

I'd like you to try to see in this poem the means to find empathy through local narrative. I came across the poem on the University of Michigan American Verse Project. I had just been reading Fellman's Rambo and the Dalai Lama, Madelyn Jablon's Black Metafiction: Sefl-Consciousness in African American Literature, and Philip W. Jackson's John Dewey and the Lessons of Art. I thought what a good example this was of literature making it easier for me to empathize with someone whose experiences were very different from my own. I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I did.

For further theoretical background: Critical Theory and Art

Click on any question number to see jeanne's answer to that question.

1. How does this poem relate to story telling?

2. How does this reflect "speakerly" style?

3. Are the memories all sad?

4. Can you find anything akin, in this poem, to Goffman's "front stage, back stage"?

5. Can you find any evidence of adversarial relationships in the poem?

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   Figurine by Rudiger Appel. Notice that you can see three effects in the animation. Either the Variation on the Kandinsky figurine appears to turn in a clockwise direction, or in a counterclockwise direction, or it appears to open and close. Can you see all three effects? Try. Fascinated? Link to Appel's site and then link to the background he provides. Scroll down until you find a link to background.

Copright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata, June 2000. "Fair Use" encouraged.