How does the diction reveal the meaning in Ellen Kay's "Pathedy of Manners"? To intelligently respond to this prompt (and why would you want to respond any other way?), you need to work the poem thoroughly first and ascertain what that "meaning" actually is.
Also, be sure to read chapter three on denotation and connotation. Two of the poems, "Naming of Parts" and "The world is too much with us", are ones we will be returning to at some point this quarter.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
"Suicide's Note" -- join in the discussion prior to class Friday
Suicide's Note
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
--Langston Hughes
Discuss the diction, sound, personification, and tone of this poem. Explore the frame of mind that would create this comparison.
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
--Langston Hughes
Discuss the diction, sound, personification, and tone of this poem. Explore the frame of mind that would create this comparison.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Homework for 1/28
"Acquire" a copy of Perrine's Sound and Sense and bring it to class.
Get a start on Crime and Punishment. It's pretty long, so start early.
Crime and punishment is an out of copyright book, so you should easily find an acceptably translated edition online. Pevear-Volkonsky, Coulson, and Constance Garnett versions are all acceptable.
Manybooks.net
Feedbooks
Get a start on Crime and Punishment. It's pretty long, so start early.
Crime and punishment is an out of copyright book, so you should easily find an acceptably translated edition online. Pevear-Volkonsky, Coulson, and Constance Garnett versions are all acceptable.
Manybooks.net
Feedbooks
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Hamlet Revisions and Extra Credit
In order to received extra credit for attending theatrical performances you must turn in a 1-2 page typed review of the play and your response to it. I allow two extra-credit reviews per term, for a maximum of 20 points total.
I will be stopping by Westview on Wed. morning to pick up any Hamlet revisions I might find on my desk. Since I will have all your finals to read, I want to get through any revisions before Friday. I'll be glued to the television much of Tuesday watching inaugural events and tomorrow I will be responding to my new president's call to service, so Wednesday and Thursday are my days to grade.
Study hard for those finals!
I will be stopping by Westview on Wed. morning to pick up any Hamlet revisions I might find on my desk. Since I will have all your finals to read, I want to get through any revisions before Friday. I'll be glued to the television much of Tuesday watching inaugural events and tomorrow I will be responding to my new president's call to service, so Wednesday and Thursday are my days to grade.
Study hard for those finals!
One Acts
I thought it would be nice if the meager amount of people who went to One Acts share their thoughts about the experience. We should try to promote the show so more people come to the next one this Friday (Jan. 23).
Hard Candy gave the audience a view of certain personalities of prospective applicants to a major corporation. Ranging from old fraternity members to an "I'm-to-sexy-for-my-shirt" applicant, I got the joy of viewing the quirky ways of the hiring process in this One Act.
Terms of the Agreement was not just a play but the real deal between boys and girls. I really don't want to try to describe what goes on for fear of ruining the unexpected actions of this One Act. I just really advise people to see Terms of the Agreement.
I'm actually planning to go back on Friday to see these One Acts again and the third One Act that couldn't go on last Friday. Does anyone know what the third One Act is titled?
Friday, January 16, 2009
Hamlet Essay Revision / The Final
Turn in your Hamlet essay revisions to Mrs. Minor's desk in lower south. Mrs. Minor will be showing up Wednesday morning to pick up any Hamlet essay revisions on her desk, so if you're planning on turning them in, please do so before then.
Remember that you need to include a copy of your un-revised essay with your revised essay. Also, you can only increase your essay score by one letter grade.
Study for the final! 45 something multiple choice questions based on the readings and authors we've had this year (Brave New World, Great Expectations, Oedipus Rex, Heart of Darkness, Hamlet, Mr. Green, Roschild's Fiddle, Cathedral), with an in class essay on one of those prompts you got handed in class. It's not your choice, it's Mrs. Minor's choice.
Just for fun, all the prompts are copied below. Preparing is acceptable and encouraged.
1; Choose a work a literature written before 1950. Write an essay in which you present arguments for and against the work's relevance for a person in 2009. Your own position should emerge in the course of youe essay. You may refer to works of literature written after 1950 for the purpose of contrast or comparison.
2; Critic Roland Barthes has said, "Literature is the question minus the answer." Choose a novel or play and, considering Barthes' observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers an answers. Explain how the author's treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole.
3; In some works of literature, a character who appears briefly, or does not appear at all, is a significant presence. Choose a novel or play of literary merit and write an essay in which you show such a character functions in the work. You may wish to discuss how the character affects action, theme, or the development of other characters. Avoid plot summary.
4; In his essay, "Walking," Henry David Thoreau offers the following assessment of literature;
From the works that you have studied in school, choose a novel, play or epic pem that you may initially have thought was conventional and tame but that you now value for its "uncivilized free and wild thinking." Write an essay in which you explain what constitutes its "uncivilized free and wild thinking" and how that thinking is central to the value of the work as a whole. Support your ideas with specific references to the work you choose.
5; The eighteenth-century British novelist, Sterne wrote,
From a novel or play, choose a character (not necessarily the protagonist) whose mind is pulling in conflicting directions by two compelling desires, ambitions, obligations, or influences. Then, in a well-organized essay, identify each of the two conflicting forces and explain how this conflict within one character illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may use one of the novels or plays listed below or another novel or play of similar literary quality.
6; A critic has said that one important measure of a superior work of literature is its ability to produce in the reader a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. Select a literary work that produces this "healthy confusion." Write an essay in which you explain the sources of the "pleasure and disquietude" experienced by the readers of the work.
Remember that you need to include a copy of your un-revised essay with your revised essay. Also, you can only increase your essay score by one letter grade.
Study for the final! 45 something multiple choice questions based on the readings and authors we've had this year (Brave New World, Great Expectations, Oedipus Rex, Heart of Darkness, Hamlet, Mr. Green, Roschild's Fiddle, Cathedral), with an in class essay on one of those prompts you got handed in class. It's not your choice, it's Mrs. Minor's choice.
Just for fun, all the prompts are copied below. Preparing is acceptable and encouraged.
1; Choose a work a literature written before 1950. Write an essay in which you present arguments for and against the work's relevance for a person in 2009. Your own position should emerge in the course of youe essay. You may refer to works of literature written after 1950 for the purpose of contrast or comparison.
2; Critic Roland Barthes has said, "Literature is the question minus the answer." Choose a novel or play and, considering Barthes' observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers an answers. Explain how the author's treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole.
3; In some works of literature, a character who appears briefly, or does not appear at all, is a significant presence. Choose a novel or play of literary merit and write an essay in which you show such a character functions in the work. You may wish to discuss how the character affects action, theme, or the development of other characters. Avoid plot summary.
4; In his essay, "Walking," Henry David Thoreau offers the following assessment of literature;
In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking in Hamlet and The Iliad in all scriptures and mythologies, not learned in schools, that delights us.
From the works that you have studied in school, choose a novel, play or epic pem that you may initially have thought was conventional and tame but that you now value for its "uncivilized free and wild thinking." Write an essay in which you explain what constitutes its "uncivilized free and wild thinking" and how that thinking is central to the value of the work as a whole. Support your ideas with specific references to the work you choose.
5; The eighteenth-century British novelist, Sterne wrote,
No body, but he who has felt it, can concieve what a plaguing thing it is to have a man's mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strenght, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time.
From a novel or play, choose a character (not necessarily the protagonist) whose mind is pulling in conflicting directions by two compelling desires, ambitions, obligations, or influences. Then, in a well-organized essay, identify each of the two conflicting forces and explain how this conflict within one character illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may use one of the novels or plays listed below or another novel or play of similar literary quality.
6; A critic has said that one important measure of a superior work of literature is its ability to produce in the reader a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. Select a literary work that produces this "healthy confusion." Write an essay in which you explain the sources of the "pleasure and disquietude" experienced by the readers of the work.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
"Homework" for 1/16
Revisions for your Hamlet essay are due Friday. Remember that you can only raise your grade one letter grade, and that you get only one revision.
I wouldn't count on turning them in Tuesday until Mrs. Minor comments on this blog confirming that it's alright.
For some Extra Credit, there are those three one-act plays at Westview. 7:30 PM, 5$ paid upfront.
There is no prompt for tomorrow.
I wouldn't count on turning them in Tuesday until Mrs. Minor comments on this blog confirming that it's alright.
For some Extra Credit, there are those three one-act plays at Westview. 7:30 PM, 5$ paid upfront.
There is no prompt for tomorrow.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Cathedral prompt for 1/12
Raymond Carver, the author of Cathedral, wrote the following in an article about literature: "It is possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things -- a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring -- with immense, even startling, power. It is possible to write a line of seemingly innocuous dialogue and have it send a chill along the reader's spine. That's the kind of writing that most interests me."
After reading, re-reading, and annotating Cathedral (I have noticed that many of you are skipping steps two and three, i. e. you are reading but not studying), choose a passage or line to discuss that strikes you as masterfully written. Masterful writing, by the way, need not be deadly serious. Power is power, whether used in the service of humor, irony, or the pulpit. Explain your reasons for your choice and respond to the choices of your colleages.
Reminder: (1) Get a copy of Perrine's Sound & Sense: Introduction to Poetry (ed. 9, 10, 11, or 12) and bring it the first day of class after finals. (2) Get a copy of Crime and Punishment and get started -- discussion begins right after the poetry unit. (4) Have a lovely weekend!
If you have lost your copy, you may find it at: http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/cinichol/GovSchool/Cathedral2.htm
After reading, re-reading, and annotating Cathedral (I have noticed that many of you are skipping steps two and three, i. e. you are reading but not studying), choose a passage or line to discuss that strikes you as masterfully written. Masterful writing, by the way, need not be deadly serious. Power is power, whether used in the service of humor, irony, or the pulpit. Explain your reasons for your choice and respond to the choices of your colleages.
Reminder: (1) Get a copy of Perrine's Sound & Sense: Introduction to Poetry (ed. 9, 10, 11, or 12) and bring it the first day of class after finals. (2) Get a copy of Crime and Punishment and get started -- discussion begins right after the poetry unit. (4) Have a lovely weekend!
If you have lost your copy, you may find it at: http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/cinichol/GovSchool/Cathedral2.htm
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
"Rothschild's Fiddle" discussion prompt 1/8
One characteristic of Chekhov's fiction is the Chekhovian Moment, the "Aha" moment when, metaphorically speaking, a light bulb comes on above a character's head and he/she recognizes an essential truth. After reading and re-reading Rothschild's Fiddle, make a decision about what you think the Chekhovian Moment is and discuss it with your colleagues.
Also, make sure your Hamlet essay is submitted to turnitin.com TODAY!
Also, make sure your Hamlet essay is submitted to turnitin.com TODAY!
Monday, January 5, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
Don't Count on a Snow Day to save you Tuesday
Just a reminder: Hamlet essays due Tuesday. Be sure to submit them to turnitin.com by Tuesday also.
Also -- Please re-read "Mr. Green" and the blog entries so you are ready to discuss the story. After three weeks, you need a refresher.
Finally, OPB has two interesting programs coming up: On Wed. the 7th, 9:00: Cyrano de Bergerac, with Kevin Kline in the title role; on Thursday, Jan 22 at 9:00 a 1/2 hour show on Financial Aid for college.
See you Tuesday!!
Also -- Please re-read "Mr. Green" and the blog entries so you are ready to discuss the story. After three weeks, you need a refresher.
Finally, OPB has two interesting programs coming up: On Wed. the 7th, 9:00: Cyrano de Bergerac, with Kevin Kline in the title role; on Thursday, Jan 22 at 9:00 a 1/2 hour show on Financial Aid for college.
See you Tuesday!!
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