“The Lesson”
• Read
o Introduction, pgs 1-13 (in your textbook)
o “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara (in your textbook)
• Review Presentation: Introduction to Fiction (Discover)
• Review Reading and Writing About Fiction Notes (Discover)
First, review these guides to thesis statements in literary analysis ess:
• From UTA: Libguide on thesis statements https://libguides.uta.edu/literarycriticism/thesis
• LibreText: Thesis statement guide https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Literature_and_Literacy/Writing_and_Critical_Thinking_Through_Literature_(Ringo_and_Kashyap)/12%3A_Writing_About_Literature/12.06%3A_Literary_Thesis_Statements#:~:text=Contributors%20and%20Attributions-,The%20Literary%20Thesis%20Statement,essay’s%20main%20argument%2C%20or%20interpretation.
Then, think about the stories we read in Module 2
Now, consider these questions:
· How does the story define or depict what it means to grow up?
· According to the story, what character trait or life lesson is essential to have in order to be an adult?
Write a thesis statement over the chosen story. Be sure it:
• Is one or two sentences long.
• Meets the criteria for a thesis statement.
• Includes the name of the story’s author and title.
Reading a story and writing about friction in literature
This site explains literary devicesLinks to an external site.
THE LESSON” STORY.TONI CADE BAMBARA (1939–95) The Lesson Born in New York City, Toni Cade Bambara grew up in Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant, two of New York’s poorest neighborhoods. She began writing as a child and took her last name from a signature on a sketchbook she found in a trunk belong-ing to her great-grandmother. (The Bambara are a people of northwest Africa.) After graduating from Queens College, she wrote fiction in “the predawn in-betweens” while studying for her MA at the City College of New York and working at a variety of jobs: dancer, social worker, recreation director, psychiatric counselor, college English teacher, literary critic, and film producer. Bambara began to publish her stories in 1962. Her fiction includes two collections of stories, Gorilla, My Love (1972) and The Sea Birds Are Still Alive (1977), as well as two novels, The Salt Eaters (1980) and If Blessing Comes (1987). Bambara also edited two anthologies, The Black Woman (1970) and Stories for Black Folks (1971). B ack in the days when everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish and me and Sugar were the only ones just right, this lady moved on our block with nappy1 hair and proper speech and no makeup. And quite naturally we laughed at her, laughed the way we did at the junk man who went about his business like he was some big-time president and his sorry-ass horse his secre-tary. And we kinda hated her too, hated the way we did the winos who clut-tered up our parks and pissed on our handball walls and stank up our hallways and stairs so you couldn’t halfway play hide-and-seek without a goddamn gas mask. Miss Moore was her name. The only woman on the block with no first name. And she was black as hell, cept for her feet, which were fish-white and spooky. And she was always planning these boring-ass things for us to do, us being my cousin, mostly, who lived on the block cause we all moved North the same time and to the same apartment then spread out gradual to breathe. And our parents would yank our heads into some kinda shape and crisp up our clothes so we’d be presentable for travel with Miss Moore, who always looked like she was going to church, though she never did. Which is just one of the things the grown-ups talked about when they talked behind her back like a dog. But when she came calling with some sachet she’d sewed up or some gin-gerbread she’d made or some book, why then they’d all be too embarrassed to turn her down and we’d get handed over all spruced up. She’d been to college and said it was only right that she should take responsibility for the young ones’ education, and she not even related by marriage or blood. So they’d go for it. Specially Aunt Gretchen. She was the main gofer in the family. You got some ole dumb shit foolishness you want somebody to go for, you send for Aunt Gretchen. She been screwed into the go-along for so long, it’s a blood-deep 1. Untreated and unstraightened, naturally curly or coiled.
Sample Solution
`The Lesson,’ written by Toni Cade Bambara, takes place on a seemingly ordinary day in Harlem, probably in the 1960s. Sylvia, the narrator, and a small group of neighborhood children visit an F.A.O Schwartz toy store in another part of the city. Miss Moore, an educated black woman who frequently takes the neighborhood children on educational outings, accompanies them. Sylvia makes it clear that she would much rather be doing anything else. The toy store seems like an unlikely place for a field trip, but Miss Moore has a point to make. The kids learn through this experience how different their own economic situation is from that of the more fortunate kids. By the end of the story, Sylvia, the main character, has grown and become mature enough to be considered an adult, acknowledging this truth and starting to feel a feeling of duty to confront it.