The Color Purple MI/DI Projects & Resource Web Page

"It must piss God off for someone to walk by the color purple and not notice it." -Shug Avery to Celie

About Multiple Intelligences

  • Take the Multiple Intelligences Survey
  • Definitions of Multiple Intelligences
  • Sample Activities Based on Multiple Intelligences
  • Domains for Multiple Intelligences
  • Novel Companion Documents

  • The Color Purple Characters Key
  • The Color Purple Letters Key
  • Introduction

    Reviving Celie, the focal point of this subjective assessment, is an allusion to Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Dr. Mary Pipher, a book whose title is also an allusion to a character in Shakespeare's Hamlet, which you will read later in this course. So that you may understand the allusion, please read this brief amazon.com review of Reviving Ophelia:

    "At adolescence, says Mary Pipher, "girls become 'female impersonators' who fit their whole selves into small, crowded spaces." Many lose spark, interest, and even IQ points as a "girl-poisoning" society forces a choice between being shunned for staying true to oneself and struggling to stay within a narrow definition of female. Pipher's alarming tales of a generation swamped by pain may be partly informed by her role as a therapist who sees troubled children and teens, but her sketch of a tougher, more menacing world for girls often hits the mark. She offers some prescriptions for changing society and helping girls resist."

    The purpose of this subjective assessment is for you to bring the character of Celie, the prolific writer of letters to God in The Color Purple, to life to this world by understanding her world. Over the course of reading The Color Purple, you have seen the world through her eyes, as she survives sexual, physical, and verbal abuse, misogyny, among many other types of oppression. In the midst of this turmoil, Celie's only outlet had been that of her letters to God. Throughout the reading of this text, I have attempted to have you further identify with Celie through similar stories such as Crystal's Story. Though over forty years transpire in The Color Purple, I want you to consider whether or not there are Celies still in our contemporary world. What do they look like? What can we do about it? Is Alice Walker's portrayal still as relevant and poignant as ever? Please select one of the projects below for your subjective assessment.

    Project Options (Choose One)

  • Project #1: Volunteerism: Local Organizations That Address Various Types Of Abuse.
  • Project #2: Intertextuality: The Dave Pelzer Trilogy
  • Project #3: Audio-Visual: Five-Minute Informative iMovie Skit On Abuse
  • Project #4: Four-Page Essay: A Closer Look At the Women of The Color Purple
  • Project #5: Concept Poetry: Five Inspirational And Candid Poems Threaded By A Common Theme
  • Project #6: Drama: A Five-Minute Celie Monologue
  • Project #7: The Color Purple on Broadway
  • Instructions

    Select a project and click on the Project Page link for more information. Check out all of the projects and choose one that you will really enjoy. Your project work will be started in class but completed outside of class.

    Supplementary Material

  • See The Color Purple on Broadway!
  • Yona Harvey's "Meditation on the Color Purple"
  • Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

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