I have already discussed Gothic elements with the class, and
we touched on Southern Gothic. On Wednesday the students read “A Rose for
Emily.” Today they are going to focus on another example of the Southern Gothic
tradition: Edgar Masters’ Spoon River
Anthology. This is the story of a town, told not by its living, but by its
dead, supposedly by the writing on their “tombstones.”
Have the students read the attached selections from Spoon River. What new things do they
find out from each piece? How do the
works dovetail into each other? Are there some things we don’t find out
about?—maybe they’ll have to read the whole work to find out! It’s available on
line, and it is fairly short.
Tell students that we are still writing epitaphs in today’s
world—all they need to do is go to a cemetery to find out. Tell the students
that we are going to try our hand at writing epitaphs. Show them the example
epitaphs overhead with Ben Franklin, etc. They can also look at the orange
epitaphs handouts (I’d like them back.)
Show them the epitaph assignment overhead, and have them
work together in pairs to create two different epitaphs for two different
characters that we’ve “met” this year. Collect the epitaphs (have the students
fill out the tombstones) as exit passes as the students leave.
