Thursday, April 2, 2015

Ideas for the Miko Kings Response Paper

You will have a choice fourth quarter of writing your response paper on LeAnne Howe's Miko Kings or on Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima, the next book we'll read together. If you choose to write in response to Miko Kings, here are a few ideas to consider. (As always, students are welcome to offer additional ideas for response paper topics in the form of a comment to this post.)

Miko Kings as a baseball story. Did you find Miko Kings to be a satisfying baseball story? Why or why not? If so, how did Howe's incorporation of baseball-related details and events enrich the novel? if not, how might a more in-depth or different approach to the baseball aspect of the novel have enriched it?

Miko Kings and time travel. What role does time travel play in this novel, and what thoughts and/or questions did that aspect of the novel leave you with?

Miko Kings and history. How did reading Miko Kings change, enrich, or illuminate your understanding of history? Did you find this novel satisfying as a work of historical fiction, and why or why not?

The role of science and/or language in Miko Kings. What assumptions, arguments, and/or challenges does Miko Kings make regarding scientific knowledge, language, culture, and the relationship between the three? Does Miko Kings offer compelling portrayals of physical and/or temporal principles as you understand them? What connections does it seem to make between the physical world, the realm of time, and language? Do these connections strike you as insightful or do you find yourself resisting them, and why?

Miko Kings as a multi-genre novel. LeAnne Howe incorporates a number of different genres of writing and artifact throughout Miko Kings. What effects does this create for you as a reader? In what ways might this shifting, collage-like strategy enrich our understanding of particular characters, relationships, and events, or any other aspect of the novel?

Miko Kings as postmodern fiction. How does Miko Kings compare to other postmodern fiction you've read? What elements of the book strike you as typical of postmodern fiction, and to what degree does the book depart from, add to, and/or challenge your perceptions of postmodernism?

8 comments:

  1. I'd love to read a more fleshed-out/re-imagined telling of Justina Maurepas's life. We only really get her voice through snippets of Algernon Pinchot's telling. How do her activities as "Black Juice" fit with America's actual Civil Rights history? Can we get some more details/scenes of her relationship with Hope? Why does she say "she abandoned Hope Little Leader, as she had all men in her life" (more details of her other exciting relationships)? Justina is a character with so much potential, but we don't quite get enough in the novel.

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  2. I think a really cool idea for a response paper would be to look at all of the echoes of "baseball's childhood memories" that are at the beginning of every chapter. At first, I thought they were real songs and sayings relating to baseball in Ada, but one of them refers to Henri Day, which makes me wonder about their historical accuracy. Looking into each quotation could answer that question. Perhaps there is a story being told through the small excerpts, or some overarching significance?

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  3. While at the Goodland Orphanage the following books are ordered for Ezol to study from: The Expanse of Heaven, The Ministry of Flowers, First History of Greece, First History of Rome, Ocean Wonders, and The New Army Drill Regulations for Infantry (in French)
    How might these books and their ideas shaped her character? What sort of synergism can you find in the book between traditional Choctaw beliefs as well as Western disciplines? How do Ezol, Lena, and Algernon Pinchot compare as scholars? How do their personalities differ when they narrate the story?

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  4. Before Hope "re-lives" the scene when he throws off the game/ wins the tournament, almost all of the main characters have bad endings. Ezol dies in a fire, Cora feels guilty for the rest of her life, Hope loses his hands, Blip and others are killed, etc.. What do these bad endings signify? Are they there only for plot, or is there a message the author is trying to portray?

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  5. All of these are great ideas for response papers. Thanks for sharing, Michelle, Iulianna, Ellen, and Haneen!

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  7. There isn't a post yet for Bless Me Ultima Response papers, however I want to suggest that the discussion questions in the back of a book are an excellent place to start in terms of ideas to draw upon for a response paper

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  8. Thanks, Ellen! Good suggestion. There are now Ultima response paper topic ideas up (see above), but it's still worth checking out the discussion questions in the back of the book.

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