September
9
ELA 20: Sept 9 “Back to Wolf Willow” discussion / questions…
- The whole focus of our unit is about looking back. It’s difficult for people still living in their childhood homes to appreciate how strange that feeling can be when you return somewhere that was once very familiar but after many years have passed. What should be still quite familiar may seem blurred, uncertain, and it can be an offputting experience.
- The author of the essay “Back to Wolf Willow” writes of a man on a journey back to the small prairie town he was raised in until the age of eleven. He goes back expecting to encounter or confront his childhood, but finds it disturbing how little evidence there is of his time spent there. He looks for something to support the beleif that the memories he’s held on to all these years can be counted on, but is disappointed nothing really is found. Until finally he encounters Something that makes it all ring true – a smell from a Wolf Willow bush – the smell that “is” his childhood.
- Students discussed the questions together before the end of class. This means tomorrow begins their work on their first major assignment – their own reflective essay.