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A quilt of a country......

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okay it's early in [USA quilt talking]

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an American literature course and we just finished covering the Declaration

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of Independence and the Constitution so guess we're probably going to move on to

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some other old-tiny document written on parchment where all the S's looks

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like F's right? nope we're actually going to leap ahead more than 200 years and

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look at an article that was published in Time magazine in 2001...Bet you didn't [Time magazine 2001 edition appears]

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see that coming eh and I still got some tricks up my patches all right next

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question why why are we reading it what does this article have to do with [Person giving Uncle Sam bottle of milk]

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America's formative years why not just leap all the way to Harry Potter the

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Deathly Hallows and be done with it well because this particular article has a

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lot to say about who we are as a nation where we come from, how we've grown over

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the centuries and what we can learn from our past yeah it's almost like there's a

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connection between the stuff people wrote and thought about hundreds of [Thomas Jefferson and modern man wearing helmets]

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years ago and the stuff they write and think about today weird...

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goes along with the whole why should we care thing that we keep harping on just

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because people used to wear powdered wigs and breeches and sign checks with [Man from the past signing with a quill]

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quill pens doesn't mean they weren't roughly the same folks we are...We had the same

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worries, joy's, fears, doubts and passion and they grieve the same way we grieve

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yeah we're about to get serious if you have any light-hearted puns you want to

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put out into the universe now's a good time to get them off your chest..Ana [Man dressed as sailor on a boat]

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Quinlan's article a quilt of a country was written two weeks after the New York

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terrorist attack that devastated the twin towers and resulted in the deaths of

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3,000 innocent people yeah this thing was opposite of a fluff piece

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despite the subject matter though Quinlan's article was hopeful we'll get

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to what it all meant in a sec but for now just ask yourself how would our

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founding fathers have responded if 9/11 had happened on their watch what bound

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people together as the United States was gaining its footing and what binds

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people together today and finally have we grown have we gradually come together

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as a united country over time or have we drifted further apart...

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alright now before we jump into the article a quick note about reading [Time magazine on a duvet]

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modern text as opposed to old yellowed ones you might be thrilled to death

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we're about to read something that was written recently something that won't be [Man on rollercoaster with grim reaper]

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riddled with strange looking words like quartering and brethren and all sorts of

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oddly placed apostrophes but bad news modern texts have their own set of challenges

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The words themselves may look more or less familiar but contemporary stuff

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tends to experiment more with sentence and language structures like writers

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used to have long flowing sentences that ran seamlessly together whereas today

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they like to mix things up for short choppy sentences or expectations by

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using unusual turns of phrase and so on you could still find out those classic

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literary techniques at play, like inference where an idea is suggested or

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hinted at but not said explicitly allusion where an expression makes the [Classic literary techniques examples]

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reader think about something similar or related and pretty much any other

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artistic device under the Sun that would be a cliche yeah you'll find those too...

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as with old texts the job is still roughly the same read it a few times [USA quilt discussing old texts]

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first to respond on a gut level then to summarize and finally to analyze so

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before I run this thing through our mental shredder and then attempt to put [Time magazine goes through brain shredder[

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it back together again keep one pass through just to read and

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enjoy don't even worry about understanding every little concept let

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the words and the author's emotions wash over you like you're on a beach and it's

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high tide and all of your friends are screaming at you to get back to the car [Man laying on beach and friends shout to get back in the car]

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well okay maybe it's still low tide whatever works for you....

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done reading for pleasure great now go back and read it for a displeasure

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okay you can still enjoy it but now focus on understanding what this great

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piece of writing means....summary time let's start by trying to recap each [Clock ticks and article appears on desk]

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paragraph in just a single line alright first paragraph Quinlan is talking

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about America being a mongrel nation built of ever-changing disparate parts

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well a mongrel is either a dog that's a mutt probably not what she's going for or

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a person of mixed descent ah there we go so she's saying were a country made up

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of people from all over the place in the same breath she says were held together

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by the notion that all men are created equal so yeah she's driving home the

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point that we might be different but we're all in this boat together and then [People of US standing on Noah's Ark]

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we get our first and only quilt shout out ah there's where we figure out why

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the author settled on this particular metaphor she's saying that America like

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a quilt is built of bits and pieces that seem discordant so you got this whole

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patchwork of random stuff but when you stitch them all together boom a quilt or [A quilt of the USA flag]

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a country whatever so how would we sum up this paragraph? we'll want to

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incorporate everything we just mentioned how about like a quilt, America is a

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patchwork of unique individuals with different backgrounds all of whom

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contribute equally to the nation's diversity cool moving on in the second

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paragraph there's an immediate gear shift the reality is often quite [Second paragraph highlighted]

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different Quinlan says and then harshes our buzz by bringing up slavery,

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sweatshops, burning crosses you know all that fun stuff so while we have all this

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wonderful diversity we've proven throughout our history that we don't

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always appreciate what we have but silver lining she goes on to say that

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amid all the failures is something spectacularly successful she doesn't

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explain herself yet except to say that in the wake of 9/11 the incredible

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tragedy has caused people to reflect on their blessings so a recap sentence [Summary of second paragraph appears]

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might be something like our nation's history has been rife with tragedy and

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injustice but it is often in the face of such hardship that we become more

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appreciative of the good third paragraph Kinlan says that our nation was founded

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on a conundrum ie something that's at odds

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with itself like a vegan who's trapped inside a meat locker [Vegan man inside a meat locker]

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what is that conundrum well that our nation has a strong focus on both

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community and individualism and it's kind of hard to do both are we out for [Man celebrating]

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ourselves are we out to serve our neighbors who come first and maybe most

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importantly if the roles were reversed what our neighbors do the same for us [Neighbor appears at the door with a pizza]

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that we seek to do for them for the rest of the paragraph were treated to a

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personal anecdote about the author's childhood where she was already well

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aware of how splintered the community was dividing clearly along ethnic lines [Street with different ethnicities either side]

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to sum up we can say America's defining ideals of community and individualism

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are frequently in conflict leading to a sharp and obvious division between

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ethnic groups next one here Quinlan's asking quite a lot of questions so she's

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basically setting up the second half of her article which we hope will provide

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some answers what is the point of this splintered whole.. she asks, she also asked

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how can it be that we all live on the same bit of land interact with one [Man saying hello to woman walking by]

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another even help each other get around and survive and yet at the same time we

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claim to hate one another, often coming to blows or worse but she says

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other countries that become that divided actually divide in other words they

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become two countries not the US though not yet anyway so for this paragraph we

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can say it's hard to imagine the reason that despite all the words and acts of

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hatred aimed at one another we remain united as countrymen paragraph number

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five we get a bit of a history lesson here our disparate parts tend to be held

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together by a common enemy by the fault lines of world wars and the electrified

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fence of communism so yeah she's saying that for a long time we could kind of [Static on a TV screen]

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set aside all our internal squabbles because we had wars to fight and obvious

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enemies to defeat but once all that stuff was over well people were kind of [Person cooking burgers on a barbecue]

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worried that our personal problems would come to light and tear us apart but they

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didn't we retained our national identity how does Quinlan know that's true at the

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end of the paragraph she references terrorism bringing it back to 9/11, it

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was an awful day one of the worst in our history no doubt about it [Twin Tower aftermath rubble]

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but the fact that we were able to pull through it together spoke volumes about

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who we were as a country of Americans let's summarize by saying even when we

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are not facing a common enemy Americans have proven that they can

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overcome ethnic differences to stand together in times of tragedy all right

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let's keep it rollin the next paragraph cites a survey in which nearly everyone

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seemed able to get on board with the idea that the US is a unique country

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that stands for something special in the world maybe it stands for unique and

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[Russia flag appears] special but yea Quinlan goes on to suggest that there's the undercurrent of

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a philosophy running through American culture which basically says hey

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America's diverse always going to be that way you might be one country but

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we're always going to be divided our national character takes a hit because [Boxer punches statue of liberty]

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how can we ever have a single identity with so much disparity, Batman knows

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what we're talking about he never could swing the single identity thing ever [Batman stood in his cave]

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so in short this paragraph is saying Americans have learned to live together

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but because of the lines drawn due to ethnic and cultural differences it is

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difficult to define a single overarching national character okay we're getting

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there paragraph number seven proposes two [Paragraph 7 highlighted]

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reasons why we might actually be a united people able to accept immigrants

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despite what she said in the previous paragraph first there's just something

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about the American psyche that loves the the difficult, the demanding that sees

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mastering the impossible as a test of character so rather than be bummed out

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that we have to cohabitate with all these others we see it as a challenge [People sitting on a boat]

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for us to meet head-on and to overcome and second there's a grudging fairness

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how generous, that leads most to admit that the new immigrants are not so

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different from our own parents or grandparents well yeah if our ancestors

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never came over on a boat we wouldn't be here so how can you hate on somebody [Ancestors sailing a boat to the US]

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who's doing the same thing recap despite their issues with immigrants other

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Americans are able to feel a sense of unity with them because for one thing

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they look at the challenge of accepting differences as a test of their character

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and for another they recognize that they came from immigrants themselves okay

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final paragraph - Quinlan takes issue with the word tolerance we're not tolerating

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immigrants like they're an in-law who's staying at our house for three more days [Father-in-law walks in to room]

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so she feels a more fitting word is patriotism in the sense that we take

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pride in our unlikely ability to throw all of us together in a country that is

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different as a dozen countries and still able to call

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it by one name and of course she's got to bring it back around to the World

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Trade Center and the attack and our mongrel nation the faces that looked upon [Man helping survivor of terrorist attack]

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all that devastation and sadness of that day were all different colors but the

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sadness and the determination written clearly on every one of those faces

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formed a single spirit to sum up American patriotism allows us to do more

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than just tolerate our immigrant countrymen but to truly unite thanks to

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our shared experiences and common spirit interestingly no more mentions of the

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quilt metaphor all she had to do was throw it out there once and the point

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was made all right believe it or not we can go even deeper into this thing so [Quilt of US flag discussing article]

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now that you understand what the article is saying, read it one last time and

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give it a thorough analysis ask yourself some of these questions...

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what is Quindlen's overall claim how does she support that claim

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to what extent does the reality of American and Americans live up to the

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ideals within declaration in the Constitution why does Quindlen think we

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should even strive for out of many one how do you think Quindlen would feel about

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our view and treatment of immigrants today compared to back in 2001 has it

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gotten better, worse or stayed the same and these are just some starter

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questions I'm sure a bunch more will occur to you as you go if nothing comes

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to you that's alright too I didn't mean to send you on a quilt

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trip [Quilt of US flag telling a joke]

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