Talk:Blood on the Forge

Notable?
Is this notable enough?--Kanata Kid (talk) 14:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

You betcha. Only two novels by African Americans were published that year, this book and one by Richard Wright.Rudowsky (talk) 14:50, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Review
Review for Thursday's assignment: I love how you guys are organizing your page. I like how you put information about the Great Migration to start off your page. Livringo (talk) 18:43, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Review for Thursday's assignment: The layout looks great. Viewing your guys' article has given some pointers on how to approach my group's article. Rrivas27 (talk) 06:38, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Organizing class project of expanding article
hey group, we need a plan. (also, i think there may be too many of us in this group?) Most pages seem to be set up with these categories: Michaela M (talk)


 * Background
 * Great Migration History
 * Great Migration History
 * Great Migration History
 * Great Migration History


 * Publishing history (can be a separate section or can go with "background")


 * Plot summary


 * Characters
 * minor characters
 * Moss Brothers character description
 * Moss Brothers character description
 * Moss Brothers character description


 * Genres/Styles


 * Themes
 * individualism vs mass
 * individualism vs mass
 * individualism vs mass


 * Critical reception

Discussion
we can add more categories, or take ones out later. Any other suggestions for how to organize the page? Also we need to figure out who wants to do what parts. Michaela M (talk) 10:32, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe we can just have everyone type their name next to each section so we know who is doing what. I can start to work on characters.

Sure. I can help with themes and characters (unless we should each just do one section? not sure how many of us there are...) I don't have a huge preference... - Michaela

I can do the genres/styles section. - Caitlin E

Shannagrier (talk) 04:43, 13 October 2011 (UTC)Michaela- i think that works. We also need everyone in the group to add their names on the page so we know how many of us there are.
 * I added this article next to your names at WikiProject Classroom coordination/SFSU Class Project. If you have classmates who haven't signed up for an article there yet please remind them. Doing that will let other Wikipedia editors help you all with some of the technical stuff. Cloveapple (talk) 04:06, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I found a some good journal articles on JSTOR while starting to think of themes. I'll update what I have so far later, in regards to theme categories. -Michaela — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaelam315 (talk • contribs) 18:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Shannagrier (talk) 18:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

You are probably already planning on this, but a suggestion for characters: for minor characters I would include Anna and Sugar Mama too, maybe even Rosie and "the deputies" from the end. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaelam315 (talk • contribs) 20:19, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The blueprint for your page has great organization, something that I hope our group will look at to allow us to communicate our goals more clearly on our own discussion page. MattHeitland (talk) 02:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

style section: Melody isn't really the narrator, is he? the narration never takes place in first person, from what i remember... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaelam315 (talk • contribs) 18:17, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

also, Characters section: i found an article that will probably be great for you to use, good journal publication that critiques the three main characters, how they change, etc... it is available on JSTOR, called "William Attaway's Blood on the Forge: The Death of the Blues" http://www.jstor.org/stable/3041207 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaelam315 (talk • contribs) 22:11, 26 October 2011 (UTC) Michaelam315 (talk —Preceding undated comment added 18:31, 26 October 2011 (UTC).

another article that may be useful to various sections is called, "From Black Marxism to Industrial Ecosystem: Racial and Ecological Crisis in William Attaway's Blood on the Forge," and i found it on the Literature Online site. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaelam315 (talk • contribs) 22:25, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I tried to cut down on what I wrote for the Plot Summary section, but it's still pretty long. If anybody sees something in it that they feel is unnecessary, please take it out! Also, if I missed anything important please add it or let me know. Thanks! RMarchetti (talk) 05:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I cut it down a bunch but it may still be too long. Once it is the proper summary length I'll work on making it a smoother summary; right now it's very choppy. RMarchetti (talk) 05:22, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

There is a lot to write about the Great Migration. Any ideas of what to include that might be relevant to the book and its plot? There are many issues, but all of which might take up too much room....also, anyone need help on another section? I have time now to contribute, if need be. Zoesharpe (talk) 20:05, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Hey Zoe, I'd say just work on any section that looks like it needs it! Michaela M (talk) 10:31, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

So for the minor characters, for some of them, someone should add a sentence or two about their importance (from critical articles, etc…). For example, I added a few sentences on Smothers. I have a bunch of critical articles. I am happy to email them to anyone working on the characters section, or any other section. Michaela M (talk) 10:31, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Genre or Plot Summary?
Your genre sections seems to be a plot summary. Perhaps it would be better to add a section called "Plot Summary" and reserve the Genre section for discussion of the proletarian genre. See our example article on novels and for the proletarian "genre" - - see Walter Rideout's Radical Novel in the United States or the Encyclopedia of the American Left. Profhanley (talk) 15:25, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Don't add empty sections
Per best practice, please don't add empty sections. For further information, please consult: Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Formatting and Illustrating Articles/Article Sections and Tables of Contents.

I've placed a backup copy of the empty sections here below. Please add them when you are ready to add prose. Alternatively, you can keep the text hidden inside the article using hidden text. Viriditas (talk) 08:24, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Themes
 * Individuals vs Mass Culture
 * North vs South
 * Mechanization
 * Labor vs Leisure
 * Myth of the American Dream & the Working Class

Genre and reception
First, the page is really starting to shape up! Congrats! A few minor things - - keep researching. You will need more sources to fill out some of your sections - - in particular you might look for book reviews from the 1940s of BotF. A helpful source should also be Robert Bone's Negro Novel in America. For migration narratives, you will need to look at Farah Griffin's book, Who Set You Flowin? Just the introduction will help sharpen up your migration narrative discussion. The reception section needs more work - - BotF did garner a fair bit of attention when it was published; how did it get republished later on? e.g. who helped to pull it back into the light? Style section needs major investment - - for this, you might want to look to Bernard Bell's work The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition. If some of you are digging up critical articles on JSTOR - -share the wealth - - what do lit critics say about Attaway's style? etc. Profhanley (talk) 15:04, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I found a lot more information on genre/style, and everything I found talks about these two aspects together. I haven't put anything up on the page yet because I'm going to finalize it on Word first, but I am going to be talking about these two sections together. caitlinannee (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:18, 7 November 2011 (UTC).

Feedback/reviewing other pages
Hey. I looked at the Life In The Iron Mills page and they seem to have a good reception section so far, background too, and they seem to be doing a good job with using citations in those sections. Michaela M (talk) 10:35, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I like the background section of the page; More background information about the time of when the novel was written could help beef up the section. Erikar345 (talk) 18:51, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I look at Blanche on the Lamb's page. What i like was how they stepped outside the box when looking at critical reception. However, I don't know if will help us because our book is a bit older, but we should definitely take a look at magazines of the time and see what kind of reception was out there. Shannagrier (talk) 06:51, 27 October 2011 (UTC)shannagrier

I looked at Life in the Iron Mills' page, and their style section is making me reconsider my take on our style section. They seem to have merged style and genre, and since I am working on both sections (and having some trouble finding information on style), I am going to see what I can do to relate the style to the genre. caitlinannee (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:15, 31 October 2011 (UTC).

I looked at the 'What Work Is' page and liked the direction they were taking with the "themes" section. Maybe we could talk a bit more about the Proletariat idea (as there seems to be a couple different types/genres of Proletariat literature) and see where B.O.T.F. falls. I can also look into some Critical Reception sources. Zoesharpe (talk) 02:27, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I really enjoyed reading the Life in the Iron Mills page. The group has done a superb job citing reliable sources and footnoting them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ivannalq (talk • contribs) 00:56, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Hey group, I was doing a review of the What Work Is page and noticed that their Style section could use some support. Looking back at our page, the same could be said of ours. Maybe we can explore the vernacular used within Attaway's dialogue? Mikayla Moore —Preceding undated comment added 22:17, 10 November 2011 (UTC).

Plot summary length
Please see How to write a plot summary and Manual of Style/Writing about fiction. The plot summary is too long. Viriditas (talk) 23:09, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Rise of the proletariat

 * The novel showcases the political fervor in the 1920's specifically the rise of the proletariat

According to our sourced article on the labor history of the United States: "The 1920s marked a period of decline for the labor movement. In 1919, more than 4 million workers (or 21 percent of the labor force) participated in about 3,600 strikes. In contrast, 1929 witnessed about 289,000 workers (or 1.2 percent of the labor force) stage only 900 strikes.[38] Union membership and activities fell sharply in the face of economic prosperity, a lack of leadership within the movement, and anti-union sentiments from both employers and the government."

Perhaps you meant to say something else or refer to different dates? Viriditas (talk) 23:16, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Lead section
Per WP:LEAD, the lead section should summarize the most important points in the article. This may include:


 * Genre ✅
 * Author ✅
 * Setting ✅
 * Plot ✅
 * Primary themes
 * Critical reception
 * Literary analysis
 * Influence or impact
 * Legacy

Two to three paragraphs is acceptable for an article of this size. Viriditas (talk) 23:27, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Suggestions
You've got lots of good stuff here - - time to polish it up. Rewrite and clean up that lead/intro - - including refs etc. Compress plot summary, especially Part Three. Your Genre section looks good - - though you need to explain/contextualize the "proletarian literature" part - - e.g. this was a literary movement of the 1930s, how is Attaway's novel related?, other black writers w/i movement? "Migration narrative" section needs to be tightened up and cleaned up. Your "Style" section needs work: I'd work on the second paragraph of the "migration narrative" section - - where you outline Griffin's narrative sequence in relation to BoF - - seems very helpful, e.g. eliminate or reduce first paragraph and expand second. The "Dialogue" section needs more work as well as more references. Major characters: reduce/compress these descriptions; they are too long and wordy. I like your themes section - - though it needs to be formatted properly. I'd eliminate the tiny paragraph on Individuals vs. Mass Culture and focus on cleaning up the other much more interesting sections on Mechanization, North v. South, etc. Profhanley (talk) 17:22, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

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