Wednesday, Feb. 8, 8 AM we meet in the COA Library with Professor Steve Gerstle.
Homework is a cyber-assignment. In a 3-4 paragraph essay discuss the following: the themes, central characters with descriptions. Articulate the plot. Talk about the style.
In each paragraph use a citation: free paraphrase, direct quote, 1 block quote. Include a works cited page. This cyber-assignment is due Thursday.
Bob Marley's birthday was Monday. If you'd like to bring in lyrics and the song for Bob Marley.
8 comments:
Allen Lee
Professor Sabir
English 1B
8 February 2012
Courage is the willpower to overcome fear. In The Dance Boots the fear was leaving behind something that anchored t m down in life situations and gave stability. Many events occurred in the story that showed courage. From the present where Maggie makes her daring escape to the past where Henen became ambitions. Maggie and Henen faced their fears in hopes of losing the things that held them down along with the lives they lived.
With a frying pan and a will, Maggie courageously started to break off the dead weight named Andre. She knocked him out and tied him up, stealing his rifle and darted out the house towards the railroad tracks. She ran for both her safety and her children's. As a drunk, Andre was abusive, "next thing she knew, he had her by the hair and he was gasping and wheezing with the work it was to swing her around" (P. 22). She did the house work and fed the family, a true provider, but Andre attacked her. That incident made Maggie fear Andre, and so she decided to run away; she packed and left with the kids and the wedding quilt. Symbolically, the wedding quilt was made as a gift that symbolized the union of Maggie and Andre. By taking it with her and running away, it was as if she was divorcing him. When she made it to the railroad, she traded Andre's gun for a handcar and started to travel down the tracks. Traveling in the night, she started to think back into the past.
In school, the nuns provided for the students and at the same time, degraded the young children in order to further them from their heritage. Sister rock was one of the nun who abused Maggie and Henen. The name of the nun, "Sister Rock" could be name play where a rock acts as a dead weight that is weighing down Maggie and Henen from being individuals and free. For example, Maggie was having earaches and Sister Rock neglected her health:
Sister clicked her tougue and muttered, stripped the bed abd Maggie, bundled the dirty linens under her arm, and leg maggie out of the little girls' dormitory, down the stairs to the basement, where she threw the wad onto the pile of whitesto be washed, then back upstairs. Naked, Maggie shivered in the cold night air of the damp hallways (P.25)
The nun left Maggie sick and alone in the cold basement. Maggie was not the only victim, Henen was also struck down, not for heal reasons, but for being ambitious. Henen got pregnant while in school and Sister Rock would not comply to the sin. The nun sent her to the doctor and stood by watching when the doctor fidgeted with Henen's vagina. Not knowing what exactly happened, her round stomach started to deflate over time. The death of the baby caused Henen to rebel against the school and left (P.27). Henen's absence was a sign of courage because she was leaving behind the life where she was use to.
When Maggie returned to her family, Andre showed up days later. The children saw him and welcomed him back. As for Maggie, she did not want him back but at the same time if she would have kicked him out, it would dramatically affect the children. She did not want to take away Giizi and Biik's innocents and traumatize them. And so she reattached the deadweight of Andre. That, however, is not a sign of lost of courage. Rather she is not surrendering him but fighting back. It is courage to not run away but fight; she is fighting for another way to leave him with the children.
Sherrlyne Apostol
English 1B
Professor Sabir
7 February 2012
In Linda Grover’s “The Dance Boots” the chapter “Three Seasons” jumps around narrating Maggie’s most life changing moments strung through the various seasons. The theme most impressionable to me was that change is inevitable, like seasons people come and go. In each short story, a character is introduced, a terrible event occurs, and the character is forced to leave.
In the winter, Maggie and the kids Giizi and Biik leave their abusive/alcoholic husband Andre. Late winter, Maggie and her sister Henen are in boarding school: Henen becomes pregnant and is separated from Maggie. Spring, Sonny and Mickey are forced to return to Indian school. Fall, Giizi taken from home and forced to go to Indian school. Throughout these stories many characters leave home, however, come summer everyone returns again.
“Maggie in the summer” focuses on themes of togetherness and family, illustrated where everyone from different places gathers to feast in Maggie’s house (32.) In “Maggie and Henen: late winter” togetherness and family appears yet again, through the never ending bond between the two sisters. “Henen had taken good care of Maggie all right so once Maggie got to Duluth, she walked, carrying Biike and Giizis’s hand, over to the rooming house where Henen didn’t ask any questions or say a word about that damn bastard.”(27)
This chapter is a series of unfortunate events. It illustrates the many hurdles Maggie must overcome as an adolescent and a mother; change, togetherness and family were all reoccurring themes throughout the chapters. Despite the obstacles Maggie faced, she maintained her generosity and was able to keep her family together, if only for a short season. “Like I said, she died poor, Gave it all away”(35).
Billy Russell
Professor Sabir
English 1B
8 February 2012
The novel, "The Dance Boots" is about a woman, Artense, who is trying to uncover her family's history and learn more about her heritage, or in Artense's words, "I owe it to the past to survive in the present" (p.7). Artense is a Native American, and she has been dealing with oppression her whole life. Oppression is a major theme in the novel, and because her people have been oppressed they often turn to alcohol, which is another major theme.
The first major theme, oppression, is apparent throughout the novel. It is most apparent though, in chapter two when we start learning about the life of Artense's relatives in the early 1900's. The way they are treated is brutal. For example, they are punished severely for even speaking their native language. In one scene, Sonny and his cousin are simply joking around while being forced to carry a heavy wash bucket when Mr. Mcgoun overhears them speaking. He gets so angry at the fact that they might have been speaking an Indian language that he pushes Mickey, Sonny's cousin, with so much force that he collapses on the ground (p.30). Not only is speaking any kind of Indian language forbidden, but it is enforced with excessive amounts of violence.
While Artense is the main character in the first chapter, Maggie and Hellen are the two main characters in the second chapter of "The Dance Boots." Maggie and Hellen are Artense's relatives from the early 1900's. Maggie and Hellen both attend a mission where they are taught how to be proper ladies. They are later both rejected from the school when they get pregnant. Hellen's baby turns out to be a stillborn, while Maggie gives birth to Sonny. Both Maggie and Hellen experience suffering and oppression eventually, however, they are still respected for the values they learned in the mission school:
Mama and Aunt Helen always acted like ladies,
no matter what. They would sit there at the
table perched on the edge of their chairs, with
their backs straight and their skirts neat and
straight over their legs just like they had
learned form the sisters when they were at
that mission school, and they would just sip,
very delicately; they were never guzzlers
(p.38)
This shows that even though they were both abused at the mission, they retained the values they learned, and even drink alcohol gracefully.
The novel has a unique style, in that there are many different viewpoints in the story. The first chapter is from Artense's point of view, while the second chapter switches from Maggie's point of view to Hellen's to Sonny's. This causes the novel to have many different styles because of the different narrators. Sonny's narration is filled with childish charm and even optimism, while Artense's narration is a little more refined and sometimes sarcastic.
Works Cited
Grover, Linda. The Dance Boots. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010. Print.
Pauline Ng
Prof. Sabir
Eng 1B
2/8/12
In the short story, Three Seasons, in The Dance Boots was split up into a few little short stories with the seasons. During winter it focused a lot on Maggie struggle and growth in independence and her relationship with her sister Henen. Maggie had it rough with her relationship with her husband, Andre, he often got drunk and was mean to her when he drank (p.21) and he would grab her by her hair to swing her around (p.22) for no reason. She finally got the courage to defend herself and knocked him out with the frying pan and tied him up, so that she had enough time to pack what she needed to run away with the kids. Her relationship with Henen were good, she was a good sister that cared a lot about her. Henen was always liked from everyone and was nearly perfect at the mission school. She was perceived as well-mannered, light spoken, and well-put together. It was a disappointment when one of the teachers noticed she was pregnant and had it removed and sent home because of disgrace.
In the spring, Sonny and Mickey was getting mistreated at the Indian school and found a way to run away. They were on the road for three to four days of walking, and hitching, and slept in fields for the first two nights (p.31). They finally got home, but after some time their teacher from the school came looking for them and forcing to take them back to school. Maggie spoke up to the teaching and was able to keep the older son home because he was needed around the house.
George, Maggie, and Girlie’s summer focuses on the big gathering of all the families and friends. All the kids come home for the summer and are able to party and eat together for days. People would stop by and stay a while; they would bring their kids and their quilts and food, flour or salt pork or maybe a sack of rice (p.33). Quilts was symbolic in the stories, it stated that quilts hold stories of their ways.
Ryan Gozinsky-Irwin
Professor Wanda Sabir
08 February, 2012
English 1B
Period 8-8:50
Their were many themes that came up in the Chapter Three Seasons of the novel “The Dance Boots” by Linda Legarde Grover. This chapter focused more on Helen and Maggie as they were youth and the struggles that they had to deal with growing up in a school on the Indian reservation. It is a bit unclear why they have to attended school on the reservation, it is most likely the law like it is now for children to be in school but, the main point is how difficult it is to be Native American in the United States after if was taken from them. How Maggie, her sister, brother, cousin, and mom continue to resist the tyranny of the United States government as they try and repress the natives and brainwash alternate fundamentals and ideologies into them.
Being in a situation where your always anticipating for the worse or always have an idea that things are not going to end so well can take a toll on an individual. The character I feel that has been impacted the most by all of these events is Maggie. Growing up she looked up to her big sister Helen and really took away some of the stronger qualities to endure all of the negativity, “She(Helen) was always as king and polite, and she still wore the brown scapular that the nuns had given her underneath her clothes right next to her skin, but Maggie could see that her sister’s drinking was getting closer to winning the upper hand in its battle with her spirits” (p.28). It seems as if Maggie learned early that she was going to have to stay strong and accept the situation and try to make the best of it.
However, Maggie develops into a zombie, not literally but figuratively, where her body consumes all of her actions and she just moves with no intention, “She had practiced this so many times in her head that her body moved and her hands did the work without thought”(p.41). Essentially, Maggie got to a point where her soul was drained and she became victim of routines that she could not prevent.
A great example of how the young ladies are trying to resist as zombies against a system that is forced upon them would be Maggie’s conflict with Andre. One day, Andre returned home and began to get a bit fresh and frisky with Maggie and all of a sudden her response kicked in which was a sautee pan to the face knocking him unconscious, “First the frying pan, to keep him out for a while. Then the twine...”(p.22). She once again allowed her actions to take over her body as she watched herself act out in rage.
Marie Heide
Prof. Sabir
English 1B
09 February 2012
The second chapter of dance boots displays the extraordinary way people have to learn to change under extraordinary circumstances. They must learn to leave what they know, and adapt to what is. Every year the seasons change, and so do the characters. They change for each season, preparing to endure the next. The theme of the chapter is constatnt change, the main characters are Maggie, Mickey and Sonny, and the style of writing is informal.
The theme in "The Dance Boots" is quite similar to the seasons. Just like the seasons, family members temporarily leave, onlyto return later. Each time they leave and then return home, they have changed in some way, just as the earth changes with each season to prepare itself for the next change.
Maggie goes through the most drastic changes. She leaves her husband with her two young boys to live with her sister Henen. While living with her sister, Maggie learns that Henen has become the exact opposite of the girl she knew at the mission school. Henen's drinking had "...distilled Henen to an exaggeration and mockery of the mission school girl she had been" (p.28). Further in the chapter, Maggie has face reality and send Giizis off to school with the other children.
Sonny and Mickey are the other two characters in chapter two. These are two cousins who decide to run away from the mission school after Mr. McGoun had pushed Mickey into the mud and scattered the clean white clothing along with him. As a consequence, Mickey suffers with minor bruises and welts. The two boys take about three to four days to make it back home to Duluth. Mr. McGoun eventually catches up to the boys, and takes Mickey back to school. During the summer, Mickey "grew" the most. As if he used the previous experience (mud incident) as water, to become tall and strong, like a plant. By the next school year, McGoun severely punished Mickey, but Mickey responds by saying "It was nothin', he said, McGoun would get his one day. He smiled then, crooked and snaggletoothed, like Mickey, but with glints and flashes of something hungry and wolfish; in changing from booy to man he was also changing from Waboos to Mainger" (p.39-40).
Finally, the style of writing in chapter two is informal. I get the feeling that the narration is more like a family conversation. It feels like you are being filled in with family secrets you never knew before. It is a bit conversational, because it sparks some questions as to why after all this time, that Maggie would decide to leave. Why now? The plot of the story, is to catch the reader up to present day events, but in order to do that, we must know what and how things happened in the past.
Works Cited:
Grover, Linda LeGarde. The Dance Boots. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2010. Print.
Tatiana Alexander
Professor W.Sabir
English 1B
2/09/12
Three Seasons
Reading the book The Dance Boots,by Linda LeGurde Grover each story reveals the layers of Native American culture. “ Three Season” takes a close look at the seasons in which Maggie’s family find most important to their lives.Maggie’s family had difficult lives due them all having to attend Indian School which sucked all the native out of them by teaching them the European way.Maggie’s family ran from the chaos of life in search of stability for their family.
“Three Season” began with a vivid flashback about Maggie leaving her husband Andre. Andre was abusive and had a drinking problem which made Maggie run from him .“She had practiced this so many times in her head that her hands did the work without thought(p.23 Grover).” This allows me as a reader to see that Maggie’s life with Andre was unpleasant and full of chaotic events. Maggie was the leaving Andre physically, yet emotionally she was already gone.Maggie ambition was to seek asylum in the protective arms of her sister Henen.
Maggie’s older sister Henen was very kind and loving to her when they went off to Indian school. She showed that she was an honorable young lady and was made to be “perfect” to the Nuns at the school, yet her pregnancy made her the greatest “disgrace”. The book states that Henen was losing her spirit to a bottle of alcohol. I see this as another form of running away from the turmoils of life. In the case of Maggie’s sister Henen running mentally away from the pain of losing her status at school and unborn child.Thus, after reading “Three Seasons” I concluded Maggie’s family was chase and heartache,however stability was their aim.
Maribel Arrizon
Professor Sabir
English 1B
29 February 2012
The Dance Boots by Linda Legarde Grover is a myriad of stories of a Native American family’s hardship after the take over of the white man. The stories all vary in narration and time period but focus on the children, grandchildren and friends of Maggie LaForce. The chapter “Three Seasons” is a retelling of Maggie’s miserable life with her husbands and then goes back in time with Maggie at the boarding school and from then on the narration is taken over by many of Maggie’s children and friends who often enough mention her.
The chapter is divided into the narrations of Maggie’s children as teenagers facing the difficulties of the boarding school they were in while at times shedding light to Maggie’s character. In this chapter practically every piece of narration deals with friends and family coming and going, mostly leaving unwillingly. Maggie watches her children one by one leave her dragging their feet to return to the wretched boarding school while she stays behind trying desperately to hide her younger sons from the same fate. The coming and going of Maggie’s beloved shows how strong of a woman she is for bearing all of that pain and yet she is “always very generous with people”(34), even the people that hurt her like Andre.
Legarde Grover many times uses rhythm in her stories in order to describe a sequence of actions. She uses it in “Three Seasons” in the section that Girlie narrates. Girlie sits soothing her two younger brothers as they secretly hear Maggie discussing with an Uncle what to do with the boys. Though the eventual fate of the boys isn’t resolved in that one moment, Girlie moves on to discuss about how her family drinks. The whole community drank simply because of the pain and oppression that they suffered through, drinking becomes a symbol of pain and hopelessness.
“…I am the only one left of all Maggie’s children, the first daughter and the last to die, Mama’s ways and Aunt Helen’s too, that lived their longest in me will probably die with me. And their faces, too; I am the last living person who remembers those composed masks, marked by life to a state beyond beauty, and those kind and indirect eyes”(39).
Another theme through the book is the half-forgotten past and it’s ways. Though the Ojibwe never forget some of their customs, like dancing, or their language they do forget the rest. Through the book, the characters have been identified as Catholics rather than staying the Native American beliefs, they do succumb to some of the changes presented to them by the white men and little by little the old ways are forgotten.
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