Week 13 - Wrapping up the Course

This Week

This is the end: the last week of classes and your last blog assignment.

For Monday's class, please read the stories you will find here, and come to class prepared to discuss them.

The link will lead you to a collection of six-word stories, inspired by a famous story supposedly written by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway's story is an example of the power of a master writer to make every word count. His story in its entirety follows:

For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.

Some of the stories you will find after following the link are funny, others are sad, and some aren't very good. Which is your favourite?

For Wednesday, please read Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," as found on page 172-173 of your text book.

On Friday we'll have a review of the course, I'll answer your questions about the course and the exam, and I'll tell you how to get an A on the exam.

Remember that if you don't know or understand something about the class, chances are your classmates don't either, so please don't be afraid to ask.

Journal Activity

For this week, as you're thinking about the upcoming exam, put yourself in my place.

1. Write two exam questions, one on poetry, and one on short fiction.  Make sure that one of your questions has an identification passage from something we've read this year.

2. Write the first paragraph (or more if you like) of two essays, answering each of your own exam questions.

The End

That's it for this class, I hope you enjoyed it and you learned something. Feel free to come by my office if you have questions as you're preparing for our exam, which will be on Wednesday, April 10th, at 9am.

Week 12

This Week
On Monday and Wednesday this week we'll be looking at John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums," as found on pages 214-220 of your text book. Friday is Good Friday and there is no class.


Journal Activity

The satirical news site The Onion is the source of some of the most predictably funny writing around.  And although the news articles themselves are funny, most of the humour of The Onion comes in the headlines.  A good Onion headline is a satire of news style, a parody of what the media is interested in and why, and often a commentary on (usually American) society.

For your journal activity this week, write five Onion-style news headlines.  Feel free to write more if you're on a roll, but five is all you need to complete this assignment.

Remember that news headlines have a very specific style.  Read The Onion, as well as any serious newspaper, to get a sense of that style.

Example

Here are five headlines I wrote to inspire you, and hopefully make you chuckle.

NATION'S CHILDREN AGREE: BEDTIME TOO EARLY
STEPHEN HARPER ADMITS HE "SOMETIMES" EATS BABIES
NOVA SCOTIA TO FOLLOW NEWFOUNDLAND'S LEAD, SET CLOCKS FORWARD 15 MINUTES
LOCAL CAT "ADORABLE"
QUIET PEOPLE EASY TO IGNORE - STUDY

Looking Ahead to Next Week

On Monday of next week we'll be talking about the Very Short Stories found here.  We'll have other things to say about those stories in class on Monday, but one question to ask is: what is the difference between a "story" and a "headline," like the ones I asked you to write this week?

On Wednesday we're reading Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" as found on pages 172-173 of your text book.

On Friday I will be telling you how to get an A on the exam, and we'll also have time for some course review and to answer your questions about the course and the exam.

Week 11

This Week

The week we'll be reading two stories by James Joyce: "Araby" (187-190) on Monday, and "Eveline" (191-193) on Wednesday. On Friday we will discuss both stories. Please read both stories closely, and come to class prepared to discuss them.

Journal Activity


In three or four paragraphs of informal writing answer this question: "How is James Joyce's 'Araby' like his 'Eveline'"?

"Informal writing" does not mean that you shouldn't use full sentences and correct punctuation and spelling, it only means that you should not worry about tone or about structuring your answer into a formal argument.

Looking Ahead to Next Week
For next Monday please come to class having read John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthmums", from page 214 of our text book. 

Week 10

This Week

On Monday we're reading Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" found on pages 278-288 of our textbook.

On Wednesday we're reading Nathanial Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" (163-171).

Please come to class on both days having read these stories closely, and ready to discuss them.

On Friday we'll spend the day on a peer review and essay workshop. Do not forget to bring a draft of your third essay to class.

 Journal Activity

Prose writing, whether fiction or non-fiction, often succeeds or fails on description.  The ability to accurately, evocatively, and memorably describe something is important to novelists, journalists, and office managers alike.  Your journal activity this week is to practice descriptive writing.  Choose a person, a place or a thing that you want to describe.  It can be anything.  If you're having trouble thinking of something to describe, describe the room you are in as you write.

1. Write a florid description.  In one paragraph, describe your subject in as much detail as you can.  Use every adjective or descriptive phrase you can think of.  Over-write.

2. Write a stark description.  In one paragraph, describe the same subject using as few adjective or descriptive phrases as you can while still getting across what the subject is and what it is like.  Under-write.

3. In as many paragraphs as you like, describe the subject a third time, being as florid or as stark as you like.

4. Think about how many details and how many adjectives work best and why.  Your answer says something personal about the kind of writer you are, but also gives you some insight into what makes a good writer good and what makes a bad writer bad.  You don't have to write your reflections down, but feel free to if you wish to do so.

Looking Ahead to Next Week

Next week we'll be reading two stories by James Joyce: "Araby"(187-190), and "Eveline" (191-193).

Week 9 - Theme

This Week

On Monday and Tuesday this week we will be discussing Flannery O'Connor's story "A Good Man is Hard to Find."  

On Friday we will discuss Achebe's "Dead Men's Path," found on pages 269-271 of your text book. Please note that this is a change from our syllabus. If you previously read "Dead Men's Path" when it was originally assigned, please re-read it so it will be fresh in your mind. 

Journal Activity (Edited for clarity)

We're focusing on theme this week and next week. For your journal assignment this week please write two simple outlines, one each for two different essays on theme that you might write.  Since I am asking for two outlines, I will credit this as two journal assignments--you will receive full credit for each outline, so that it is possible this week to make up for one missed assignment from the past.

Your imaginary essays can be an in-depth argument about theme or a comparison of two stories with a connected theme, or a comparison of a poem and story with a theme in common, but they must both include reference to at least one short story I assigned this term.

A simple outline for an essay looks like this:

1. Thesis
1. First main point
1. Evidence for main point
2. Evidence
2. Second main point
1. Evidence for main point
2. Evidence
3. Third main point
1. Evidence
2. Evidence

You must include at least three main points and at least two pieces of evidence per point.  Here is an example:

1. Timothy Findley's "Stones" is a story about the lasting destructive effects of war.
1. David Max's experiences in war damage him emotionally
1. "His torment and his grief were to lead my father all the way to the grave" (80).
2. Before the war he is happy and loving. After the war he isn't.
2. The war damages the Max family
1. David attacks the mother.
2. David alienates all of his children.
3. The war and its effects diminish the community in Toronto. The people there, even those not directly involved in the war, become less kind.
1. Oskar Schickel gets driven out because of his German name.
2. "If my father had appeared on the street with his military greatcoat worn over his civilian clothes, it would have been assumed he was a Zombie or a deserter and he would have been arrested instantly. Our neighbours would have turned him in, no matter who he was. Our patriotism had come to that" (75-76).

Note that "evidence" can be generalized facts about the story, quotations, or logic. If I was to turn this outline into a full essay I would need make sure my evidence was well chosen to make the point, and I would need to polish the language and phrasing quite a bit as well as expand and link the ideas to one another.


Looking Ahead to Next Week

Next week we will continue our discussion of theme, focusing on two stories from our textbook: "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" on Monday, and "Young Goodman Brown" on Wednesday.

Next Friday the draft of your third essay is due and we will be doing another in-class peer review. Please be sure to have a draft of your third essay ready for Friday's class.

Announcement: Syllabus Change

Hi everyone.

After much thought, I've decided to make a change to our syllabus. On Friday, March 8 we are scheduled to spend a third day discussing Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard To Find." Although the story is complex and we could easily spend three days on it, I've decided to spend that Friday's class instead discussing Chinua Achebe's "Dead Men's Path," which we missed reading due to a school closure on February 22nd.

I've altered the online version of the syllabus, as found on the link on the right, to reflect the change.

For Friday, March 8, please read Chinua Achebe's "Dead Men's Path."

Week 8: Structure and Symbolism

This Week's Classes

Since class was cancelled last Friday we're going to skip Achebe's "Dead Men's Path." The syllabus won't change in any way.

Please come to class on Monday having read Timothy Findley's "Stones", as well as pages 68-88 from the McMahan text book.

On Wednesday, please come to class ready to discuss imagery in Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants." You'll find the story on pages 210-213 of our text book and a discussion about imagery and symbolism on pages 89-91.

Come to class on Friday having read Alice Munro's "Boys and Girls," as well as pages 119-121 and 142-146 from the McMahan text book.

Assignment

For this week's blog assignment, please write a review.  You may review anything: a story, a novel, a movie, a song, a restaurant, a piece of electronics, etc.

In your review you should evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your subject.  You should tell us both what is good and what is bad about the thing you are reviewing, but you should also come to a solid conclusion so that your review is a useful representation of your opinion as a tool for making recommendations to others.

As you're writing your review, think about whether you liked the subject, whether it is good, and whether your reader should see/read/buy/whatever that subject.  Those are, in the end, three different questions, and a good review answers all of them.

Announcement

Hi everybody!

Since class was cancelled today, your essays are now due on Monday. Take the extra time to further revise and polish.

Your blog, however, is still due today by the end of the day.

I'd also like to take this moment to remind you that the blog assignments are marks that are easy to achieve. If you haven't been blogging, do consider changing that habit--those marks will make a big difference by the end of the term. In times I've taught this class in the past the highest marks by the end of the term have always been people who blogged actively.

Have a good weekend, and I'll see you on Monday.

Week 7: Getting Ready for Fiction

We're leaving poetry behind and starting short fiction this week. We've got some very good stories on the horizon. All of the skills that we've learned for analysing poetry are useful to us here too. Even the work we've done on form is useful; although stories have a different form from poems (a study of the scansion or the rhyme scheme will rarely be fruitful) they are always written in a deliberate form, and that is something we can and will talk about.

For Friday, please read pages 62-67 in our text book, and Chinua Achebe's story “Dead Men's Path”, on pages 269-271.

Journal Activity

I want to help you shift your thinking from poetry to fiction by asking you to write some fiction.  Your journal activity for this week is to write that most scorned of all forms of fiction: fan fiction.

Have you ever read or watched a story and wished it wouldn't end? Or wished it had ended differently? Fan fiction is a way some fans of literature, comic books, movies, tv shows, and even real life have expressed this desire. Writing your own piece of fan fiction will likely encourage you to think about your chosen story in a new way, and to understand a little bit more about the process that went into writing the original.

Any story you choose is fair game, from classical literature to your favourite soap opera, but please note what the original story is and who wrote it. Your piece of fan fiction need not be a long continuation of the original--4 or 5 paragraphs should do--but feel free to make it as long as you like, or as long as you need to to do justice to your story.

If you'd like to see some examples, check out http://www.FanFiction.net/ where you'll find some good and some not-so-good attempts. Let the good ones inspire you and the not-so-good ones encourage you that there's no reason you can't do this too.

One more note about fan fiction: it is often used as wish fulfillment, and sometimes as erotic wish fulfillment. That's not the kind of thing I'm hoping for here.

Looking Ahead to Next Week

For next week going more in depth in our readings of fiction.  Please come to class on Monday having read Timothy Findley's "Stones" as well as pages 68-91 of our text book.

Week 6: Wrapping up Poetry

This Week

For the first half of this week we're looking at two poems by Gerard Manly Hopkins.  Please read "Pied Beauty" (417) and "Spring and Fall" (417) for Monday.

On Wednesday we'll be looking at some poems within a single poetic movement called Imagism.  Please read Ezra Pound's “In a Station in a Metro” (427), and Carl Sandburg's “Fog” (424), and come to class prepared to discuss them.  William Carlos Williams' “The Red Wheelbarrow” (426) is also an imagist poem, so you may wish to re-read that as well since we will briefly revisit it on Wednesday.

On Friday your second essay draft is due and we'll spend the day reading and editing essays.  Remember to bring your essay with a title and your student number, but without a name.  

Journal Activity

Canadian poet Gregory Betts explains Plunderverse in this online article. Betts writes "Plunderverse makes poetry through other people’s words." Here's how it works:

1. Find a poem you wish to plunder. It can be a poem we have studied together but it doesn't have to be. You will probably find that a longer poem is easier to work with.

2. Type up or copy and paste the poem you have chosen, and post it in its whole--credited to the original poet.

3. Make a second copy of the same poem, and take out bits and pieces to make a new poem. Don't rearrange anything, and don't add anything; only take parts out. Remove words, remove whole lines, remove parts of words so that you can use individual letters; it's all fair game. When you're done, you will have a new poem: a Plunderverse poem by you.

Here is an example in my Plunderverse of Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias".

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.




Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.


For more inspiration, check out these great plunderverse poems made by Austin Kleon out of street signs.

Looking Ahead to Next Week

Next week is your winter break, so we have no class on Monday or Wednesday.  On Friday the final draft of your second essay is due and we'll start reading short fiction with Chinua Achebe's "Dead Men's Path."

Week 5: Theme

This Week

This week we'll be reading John Donne's "Death Be Not Proud" (p. 406), Ben Jonson's "On My First Son" (p. 407) and Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" (431).  We are likely to also refer back to Dylan Thomas' “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” (438), so if you didn't read that closely or didn't understand it last week, read it again please.

We will likely focus on Donne's poem on Monday, Jonson's on Wednesday, and Owen's on Friday, but please come to class on Monday having read all three poems so that we will be free to compare if we want to.

Journal Activity

Please choose either the creative or the critical option.

Creative
All of our poems for this week are about death. Your creative writing assignment is equally morbid.

1. Write a poem about death. It doesn't have to be depressing, and it doesn't have to be profound. It can be flippant or funny or it can be personal and thoughtful, whatever you like. Although this won't affect your ability to achieve full marks on the assignment, my advice to you is to try to be surprising. Try to think about this assignment in a way none of your classmates will.

2. Offer a brief analysis of your own poem. This should not be a reflection on your experience when writing it; it should be an analysis of the poem as if it wasn't yours. You may wish to talk about the form, or the poetic language, or about the meaning, or any analytical strategy you choose. A suggested strategy for this is to write the poem and then go do something else for awhile. Come back to the poem later so you can analyse it with fresher eyes.

Sample

Here is my poem, written for this assignment.

Is it worth it?
My friend does his exercises every day
He doesn't eat red meat or fat
He watches his sugar and watches his salt
And he doesn't eat much of that.
He doesn't play xbox or watch the tv.
He doesn't drink (soda OR beer)
He won't listen to music if it is too loud
(He doesn't want to damage his ear).
He ends every day by making a list
of the people he needs to forgive
So he doesn't get angry and damage his heart
Geez! How long does this guy want to live?

And my brief analysis of the poem.
"Is it worth it?" is a twelve line poem with regular rhyme and rhythm composed of three quatrains. Each quatrain follows an abcb. The rhythm alternates between four and three feet per line. The combination of the sing-song rhythm and the close, almost careless rhymes give the poem a comic tone. This comic tone is somewhat undercut, however, by the implied message of the poem, that death is unavoidable.

Critical

The poems we are reading this week are all about death, but that isn't the only thing they were about.  Jonson's "On My First Son," for example, is also about fathers and sons, and so is Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night."  Choose any two of the poems we've read so far in this course and, in a few paragraphs, discuss a shared theme between them.

Your discussion need not be structured as a formal essay, but remember that the more you practice the skills you will need to write academic essays the more you will develop those skills.

Some examples of possible themes include (but are not limited to) love, childhood, art, marriage, war, nature.

Looking Ahead to Next Week

Your second essay draft will be due on Friday of next week, February 15th.  Please feel free to come talk to me about your ideas as you prepare to write this essay.

Week 4: Voice and Diction

This Week

For Monday please read Shelley's "Ozymandias" (411).

For Wednesday please read Browning's "My Last Duchess" (413).

For Friday read Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" (438).

Every day this week, please come to class prepared to discuss the tone of the poem and the persona and character of the speaker or speakers.

Journal Activity

Both last week and this one we are thinking about persona and tone in poetry. Poetry is capable of an incredible amount of nuance and subtlety in its tone, and we as readers are capable of an incredible amount of disagreement. For this week's writing assignment I want you to think more about persona and tone in poetry.

Write the first two paragraphs of an imaginary essay about the tone of  one of the poems we've read together. Follow the style and tone of a formal essay, and try to make us feel that you have a whole essay written but we're only seeing the first two paragraphs.

Example

In Dorothy Parker’s “One Perfect Rose” the final stanza effectively subverts the expectations built by the previous two. The language of the first two stanzas follows a pattern that should be familiar to us—and certainly was familiar to Parker. This familiarity leads us into a false sense of security. We think we know what kind of poem this is, and we think we can predict what the conclusion will be. Parker’s abrupt shift in tone subverts these expectations and forces us to reread the entire poem. With the new understanding of the speaker’s tone that we gain in the final stanza, we are able to reread the tone of the first two stanzas as well, and to understand the irony that was at first inaccessible.

 Parker's first stanza begins with the line, "A single flow'r he sent me, since we met" (1).  Parker could expect that her readers would immediately recognize the symbolic meaning of a single flower.  When this line is coupled with the title of the poem, "One Perfect Rose", it immediately sets expectations of the reader.  We recognize the sentiment as conventional and even cliche.  The speaker is being romantically pursued by the "he" of the first line.  She is the passive recipient of gifts and he is the conventional wooer.  The use of an apostrophe in the word "flow'r" is a strange one here, however.  It is, in 1926, when the poem was written, an archaic device.  The language of the poem in its first line, then, is conventional, predictable, and even stale.

Looking ahead to Next Week

Next week we'll be reading three poems about death.  Though they're assigned for different days, and we will most likely stay with them in that order, please come to class on Monday having read all three so that we can feel free to compare if we need to.

Week 3: Poetic Language

This Week's Classes

For Monday please read Shakespeare's "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day" from page 374 and  William Wordsworth's sonnet "Nuns Fret Not", found on page 3940 of our text book, as well as McMahan's advice on writing about poetic language on pages 370-381.

For Wednesday, please read McMahan's advice on writing about persona and tone, as found on pages 352-364, and come to class prepared to discuss the persona and tone of Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" (354) and Parker's "One Perfect Rose" (357).

On Friday the 25th we will be writing our first essay in class.  If you want to talk to me about it before then--to prepare an outline or to talk to me about your ideas--please come by my office or send me an email.

Journal Activity

As you write this week, please continue to think about form and its relationship to content and meaning, but add to that a consideration of poetic language, tone, and persona.  Remember that all you need to do to get full marks is to try. Nothing will help you to understand the sonnet as a form like writing one.

1. Write an original sonnet. Keep in mind the rules of the form (iambic pentameter, 14 lines, a b a b, c d c d, e f e f, g g rhyme scheme).

2. Write a brief reflection on your sonnet. Do you think the form had an influence on your subject matter, mood, tone, or language? Why or why not? Did you deliberately use poetic language? Why or why not?

Example

Here is a sonnet written by me, about my daughters.

When Guinevere was born, the sun broke through
the clouds that had been raining all that night.
She opened wide her eyes, so small and new;
The sunshine bathed her perfect face with light.
I thought that must be how all babies are.
The world takes note, because the world has changed.
But Margaret went unnoticed by the stars
And I thought that it was strange.
She is as much a miracle, and as rare
As beautiful, as lovely, as adored
As was her sister. Why should the sky not care?
Why should her birth by nature be ignored?
"Because she is herself" the answer came
"she's not her sister. Don't force them to be the same."

As I wrote this sonnet, the constraint of the form definitely affected my content.  I wrote the first line first, and didn't know where to go from there, but the form of a sonnet--not just the meter and the rhyme but also the volta in the last two lines helped me choose a direction for the poem.  I knew I needed to change the thrust of the poem in the last two lines, so I decided to use them to answer a question I would raise in the rest of the poem.  I was probably also influenced by Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, in which he both uses and also undermines natural symbolism.  I tried to make the sun breaking through the clouds a symbol of my love for my daughters, but also to say that it's just the sun and clouds and the rain.

Looking Ahead to Next Week
For next week we'll be talking more about persona and tone, and about how poets create a voice.  Please come to class each day ready to think and to talk about the tone and poetic voice of each assigned poem and how the poet has achieved that tone and voice.

Week 2: Form

This Week

Please come to class on Monday having read pages 348-351 of the text book and Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 (Let Me Not To the Marriage of True Minds).


For Wednesday read pages 388-95 and be ready to discuss poetic form in general and the poems "We Real Cool" and "landscape: 1" in particular.

For Friday we'll keep talking about form, and we'll be thinking especially about how to write an essay about poetic form. We'll work toward writing essays on the haikus and limericks on pages 398-400, so come to class with essay ideas ready.

Journal Activities

Poetry is an especially useful place to begin thinking about form in literature, because the form of poetry is so unlike the form of casual writing or conversation. Whether in poetry, in fiction, in non-fiction or even in conversation, however, form contributes to meaning. A writer's use of form is always deliberate, never arbitrary, even if the writer doesn't know the terms to describe the form. No one has ever accidentally written a haiku when she intended to write a limerick, or accidentally written a limerick when he meant to write a story. Form is also one of the least subjective parts about literature. The subjectivity of literature is one of the things that excites some readers and frustrates others. Some of us love the way a poem can mean different things to different people. Others just want to know the right answer! Form is a part of literature for which there are often objective right answers. That makes it a good place to start. It gives us firm footing, so that once we understand form we will always be able to say something intelligent and correct about a poem; it also gives us the necessary roots so that we don't end up drifting away into hot air.

As you complete your journal activities this week, whether you choose the creative or the critical option, please try to think critically about the relationship of form to content.

Choose either the creative OR the critical option to complete.

Creative

1. Write an original haiku. Remember the rules of the form, not only the rhythmic rules (three lines, following a syllable pattern of five, seven, five), but also the conventions of content (nature imagery, allusion to a season).

2. Write an original limerick. Remember the rules of both meter and rhyme scheme (five lines, anapestic, a a b b a rhyme scheme).

3. Write a brief reflection on how the form of your writing influenced your content.

Critical

1. In a few paragraphs, analyse the form of Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool." You may wish to answer some or all of the questions posed about the poem on p. 395-396.

2. In a few paragraphs, analyse the relationship of form to content in bp Nichol's "landscape: 1."

Looking Ahead to Next Week

Next week we will be continuing our discussion of form, and starting to think about poetic language. Please come to class on Monday having read McMahan's "Writing about Poetic Language," (370-381), Shakespeare's "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" (374) and Wordsworth's "Nuns Fret Not" (394-395).

Good luck with your writing and enjoy your reading!

Announcements: Storms, cancellations, and blogs

Hi everybody,

As I'm sure you noticed, classes were cancelled on Friday.  We'll go ahead with class as scheduled on Monday, talking about Shakespeare's sonnet.

As for you blogs, I know many of you, like me, were without power on Friday and some are still without power. With this in mind, I'll change the time requirement for this blog post. Write a blog post analyzing the lyrics of a song of your choice and post it at any time before next Friday and you'll still get full credit for completing the assignment.

Have a good weekend, and I hope to see you all on Monday.

Week 1: Getting Ready

Hello everyone, and welcome to English 1080.

Each Monday on this blog I will post this week's writing activity or activities, as well as other information of value to you in the coming week. Sometimes that will be reminders of what we have previously covered in class, sometimes that will be a preview of the coming week's readings and lessons, and it will also include any announcements or administrative business I need you to know.

To the right you will find some helpful links, including the course outline, the website for our course texts, and links to MLA style guides. Please make good use of these resources. Please try to pick up your course text books as soon as possible. The McMahan text, Literature and the Writing Process will be our major text book, and you will be expected have read the appropriate sections for each class. The recommended Troyka text, Quick Access: Reference for Writers, is a handbook to which we will not make specific reference in class but which will be useful to you as you write your major essays.  I have made it "recommended" rather than "required" because I don't want you to buy texts you won't use, but I do genuinely recommend it; if you actually use it it will make you a better writer.

Journal Activities

This week you will have two journal activities: one due on Wednesday and one due on Friday.

For Wednesday:

I do not expect you to make a critical stand yet, to decide for all time how you will approach reading and writing. However, it is useful to you to have some sense of what approaches there are. Now that you have read McMahan's explanation of some of the critical approaches for interpreting literature (p. 819-824), I would like you to respond.

One idea I will bring up as we proceed through this course is the value of an attempt. The word "essay" comes to English from the French essayer, meaning to try or to test. We'll come back to that idea when it comes time to write your essays, but the same approach is useful here. Think of these critical approaches more like tools you are able to try out then like something you need to choose forever. With this in mind:

1. Write a paragraph explaining which of the approaches McMahan mentions is the most appealing to you.

2. Put your favourite approach into practice analyzing any poem of your choice from our text.

For Friday 

The most common experience we have with poetry on a day to day basis in our society is through popular music.  Please choose a piece of music you enjoy and provide a two or three paragraph analysis of it as a poetic work, paying special attention to form and to poetic language.  Remember when you're talking about form that what I'm looking for is an analysis of the poetic form, so don't talk about the music, just the words.

If you can find it, please provide us with a link to the song you have chosen, or include a link to a you-tube video, or otherwise give us the ability to hear the song.

Looking Ahead to Week 2

Please come to class on Monday of next week having read Shakespeare's sonnet "Let Me Not To the Marriage of True Minds" and prepared to read it aloud if I call on you.

Please consider looking at the syllabus and reading ahead--not all days will be equal in work load. Please feel free also to ask me if you have any questions, either by finding me during my office hours, by commenting here on the blog, or by e-mailing me. Good luck on your journal activities this week. I look forward to reading your work this week, and this year.