1. What is your view of Connie in Oates' short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been"? What do you think is the point of this story?
2. Discuss Oates' depiction of manhood in this story?
3. Your thoughts on the short story "Shiloh"?
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Thesis Topics for Paper 3
Paper Topics for the Third & Last Paper
Thirty Percent of Your Grade
Due Date: Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Instructions for the Essay:
Minimum number of outside sources: Three LiterActive sources and one internet source used in class
No outside sources may be used that have not been shown in class (on Monday or during your Wednesday and Friday class).
All summaries, use of quotations, and/or use of ideas from sources must be cited appropriately using MLA Style citation form.
Write a well-developed essay with an interesting introduction, a debatable thesis statement, and paragraphs that build in interest. Write a conclusion that discusses the points of your essay without repeating yourself. You may discuss the relevance of your ideas to life today or the importance of the stories, or figure out some other way to end your essay, but do not repeat yourself, and do not start on a new topic.
Make sure each paragraph of the paper has strong evidence for your viewpoint with clear analysis, and that it is easy for your reader to understand how your evidence proves your paragraph’s idea and your thesis statement.
Topics to Choose From:
1.One definition of enslavement is taking complete control of a group of people against their wills (i.e., involuntarily) and doing whatever it takes in order to use them for your own benefit economically, sexually, socially, and in whatever other ways you wish to have authority over them. Select two stories that embody this definition of the term enslavement; briefly demonstrate the major way in which each story fulfills the above definition. Then, focus on the central issue of this question which is the following:
Upon first looking at the above definition, you would most likely say enslavement is not a part of American daily life. Think about what things in our culture and society control us most today? How are these things communicated to us? What is the vehicle in twentieth and twenty-first century America through which the above definition of enslavement is fulfilled? Provide concrete examples that this is the case and see if you can draw parallels between what is happening now and what you see happening in the two stories you selected. Don’t forget to include your LiterActive documents.
2.The value of life, land ownership, and human relationship is central to many stories we’ve read this semester. In diverse racial, cultural, social, political, and historical contexts, some characters we’ve encountered have shed their blood or risked their lives for a sense of belonging to a community and/or to a relationship.
For your final paper, write a fully developed literary analysis, using research, as assigned above, about one or two of the short stories read in class, in which you examine the way the author(s) use the literary devices of setting, plot, character, and point of view to relay a theme. Include a very brief biographical sketch of the author and a review of the literary criticism in your paper. In your thesis statement, be sure to identify a specific issue the protagonist struggle with and/or confronts. Your essay must demonstrate what the characters represent and what the story reveals (or what the stories reveal) about all of humanity.
3.In the story “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie,” the narrator makes broad generalizations about what a guy can expect when dating females of different racial/ethnic backgrounds; these generalizations are less than flattering and are, frankly, prejudicial. Why would a writer like Diaz, a Dominican who immigrated to the United States at the ages of seven and received his MFA from Cornell University, indulge in this type of language and writing. To what end? What could he be trying to accomplish by including these prejudicial stereotypes? Justify your viewpoint with textual evidence and LiterActive documents.
4.When a person is raised in an abusive environment, often she or he grows up with low self-esteem because of the way s/he has been treated through his or her lifetime. A person may feel less than when meeting with constant disapproval of a parent with unrealistic expectations of that individual throughout his/her childhood or when a person’s race makes the teacher expect less of that student than of others, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of a student who learns less than others. Many early childhood situations that silence a person have an impact on a person’s self-image later in life.
Select three stories we have read and figure out how and why the major characters have become emotionally enslaved to their or in their dysfunctional relationships (whether it be with their romantic partners or whether it enmeshment in their families of origin). Explain what makes these characters feel less than; use your text to support your argument; make sure you analyze the passages you select and that your thesis does not just focus on a single character but discuss the issue of the impact of the way we are treated in society or perceived by society and the level at which we function emotionally in our lives. Make the thesis inclusive.
5. In his letter to Peter Wilhelm Lund, dated August 31, 1835, Existentialist Philosopher, Soren, Kierkegaard writes:
What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. ... I certainly do not deny that I still recognize an imperative of knowledge and that through it one can work upon men, but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognize as the most important thing (emphasis added).
Rejecting the conventional and systematic way of doing things, the existentialist characters seeks to find his/her own meaning to life in his/her own way. Consequently, s/he is often alienated from the majority though s/he chooses to have the freedom to seek what is important and meaningful to him/her rather than to blindly follow the crowd. Using Kafka’s A Hunger Artist and one more story we have read this semester, of your own choice, discuss the way society treats characters who depart from the social constructs to find their own meanings. Explain why society treats people who don’t follow social constructs in this way. Find evidence for your viewpoint and be sure to use LiterActive and to relate it to today’s world.
6. Consider the story, The Lottery the article, The Newest Abuse Excuse for Violence Against Women, and the short film, Submission. How do these reflect community and traditions within communities? How are these similar, and what do these similarities mean? How are they different, and what do these differences represent?
Thirty Percent of Your Grade
Due Date: Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Instructions for the Essay:
Minimum number of outside sources: Three LiterActive sources and one internet source used in class
No outside sources may be used that have not been shown in class (on Monday or during your Wednesday and Friday class).
All summaries, use of quotations, and/or use of ideas from sources must be cited appropriately using MLA Style citation form.
Write a well-developed essay with an interesting introduction, a debatable thesis statement, and paragraphs that build in interest. Write a conclusion that discusses the points of your essay without repeating yourself. You may discuss the relevance of your ideas to life today or the importance of the stories, or figure out some other way to end your essay, but do not repeat yourself, and do not start on a new topic.
Make sure each paragraph of the paper has strong evidence for your viewpoint with clear analysis, and that it is easy for your reader to understand how your evidence proves your paragraph’s idea and your thesis statement.
Topics to Choose From:
1.One definition of enslavement is taking complete control of a group of people against their wills (i.e., involuntarily) and doing whatever it takes in order to use them for your own benefit economically, sexually, socially, and in whatever other ways you wish to have authority over them. Select two stories that embody this definition of the term enslavement; briefly demonstrate the major way in which each story fulfills the above definition. Then, focus on the central issue of this question which is the following:
Upon first looking at the above definition, you would most likely say enslavement is not a part of American daily life. Think about what things in our culture and society control us most today? How are these things communicated to us? What is the vehicle in twentieth and twenty-first century America through which the above definition of enslavement is fulfilled? Provide concrete examples that this is the case and see if you can draw parallels between what is happening now and what you see happening in the two stories you selected. Don’t forget to include your LiterActive documents.
2.The value of life, land ownership, and human relationship is central to many stories we’ve read this semester. In diverse racial, cultural, social, political, and historical contexts, some characters we’ve encountered have shed their blood or risked their lives for a sense of belonging to a community and/or to a relationship.
For your final paper, write a fully developed literary analysis, using research, as assigned above, about one or two of the short stories read in class, in which you examine the way the author(s) use the literary devices of setting, plot, character, and point of view to relay a theme. Include a very brief biographical sketch of the author and a review of the literary criticism in your paper. In your thesis statement, be sure to identify a specific issue the protagonist struggle with and/or confronts. Your essay must demonstrate what the characters represent and what the story reveals (or what the stories reveal) about all of humanity.
3.In the story “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie,” the narrator makes broad generalizations about what a guy can expect when dating females of different racial/ethnic backgrounds; these generalizations are less than flattering and are, frankly, prejudicial. Why would a writer like Diaz, a Dominican who immigrated to the United States at the ages of seven and received his MFA from Cornell University, indulge in this type of language and writing. To what end? What could he be trying to accomplish by including these prejudicial stereotypes? Justify your viewpoint with textual evidence and LiterActive documents.
4.When a person is raised in an abusive environment, often she or he grows up with low self-esteem because of the way s/he has been treated through his or her lifetime. A person may feel less than when meeting with constant disapproval of a parent with unrealistic expectations of that individual throughout his/her childhood or when a person’s race makes the teacher expect less of that student than of others, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of a student who learns less than others. Many early childhood situations that silence a person have an impact on a person’s self-image later in life.
Select three stories we have read and figure out how and why the major characters have become emotionally enslaved to their or in their dysfunctional relationships (whether it be with their romantic partners or whether it enmeshment in their families of origin). Explain what makes these characters feel less than; use your text to support your argument; make sure you analyze the passages you select and that your thesis does not just focus on a single character but discuss the issue of the impact of the way we are treated in society or perceived by society and the level at which we function emotionally in our lives. Make the thesis inclusive.
5. In his letter to Peter Wilhelm Lund, dated August 31, 1835, Existentialist Philosopher, Soren, Kierkegaard writes:
What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. ... I certainly do not deny that I still recognize an imperative of knowledge and that through it one can work upon men, but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognize as the most important thing (emphasis added).
Rejecting the conventional and systematic way of doing things, the existentialist characters seeks to find his/her own meaning to life in his/her own way. Consequently, s/he is often alienated from the majority though s/he chooses to have the freedom to seek what is important and meaningful to him/her rather than to blindly follow the crowd. Using Kafka’s A Hunger Artist and one more story we have read this semester, of your own choice, discuss the way society treats characters who depart from the social constructs to find their own meanings. Explain why society treats people who don’t follow social constructs in this way. Find evidence for your viewpoint and be sure to use LiterActive and to relate it to today’s world.
6. Consider the story, The Lottery the article, The Newest Abuse Excuse for Violence Against Women, and the short film, Submission. How do these reflect community and traditions within communities? How are these similar, and what do these similarities mean? How are they different, and what do these differences represent?
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
For Wednesday, April 21st.
We will be briefly discussing "The Lottery" and "A Hunger Artist" and will also be discussing "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" (1367). Make sure you read.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Paper 2
Those of you folks who haven't turned in a hard copy of Paper 2 with your rough draft attached to it, please do so on Wednesday, April 14th.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Post your comments on the following questions by Tuesday, the 13th.
Reading for April 12th: "The Lottery" (587), by Shirley Jackson.
"A Hunger Artist", by Frank Kafka.
Also, read "Everyday Use" (1306)along with the above two short stories for our class discussion on Wednesday, the 14th.
1. What are your thoughts on the short story "The Lottery"?
2. Discuss any ideas that came to you when reading "A Hunger Artist".
"A Hunger Artist", by Frank Kafka.
Also, read "Everyday Use" (1306)along with the above two short stories for our class discussion on Wednesday, the 14th.
1. What are your thoughts on the short story "The Lottery"?
2. Discuss any ideas that came to you when reading "A Hunger Artist".
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Example of analysis and explication - Dr. Pruss
Many readers believe that description is the least important part of any story and can be skipped without much consequence; however, the description at the opening of Jean Toomer’s “Blood-Burning Moon” not only is significant because it conveys the story’s setting but is also important because it foreshadows events sets the tone of the entire story. Skipping the description causes the reader to miss the setting of the story, to fail to gather hints of the inhumane events about to happen, and to neglect to perceive the ominous feelings the story conveys. Missing these important clues makes for a historically inaccurate and an emotionally absent reader who, most likely, will not fully understand or enjoy the story.
Most notable, in the very first sentence of the story “Blood-Burning Moon,” the narrator repeats the word “up,” three times and a fourth time at the beginning of the second one. The walls, the floor, the moon – all are rising, but the hour is “dusk,” a time when dark and light are mixed and things should be dying down and setting. Normally, rising is considered to be a positive movement; however, this bloody moon “Glowing like a fired pine-knot” and the movement of Louisa’s mind “vaguely upon [Bob and Tom] as she walks over the crest of the hill coming from white folks’ kitchen” (1274) while the “The moon was rising” (1275) increasingly are not positive omens. Everything portends something that is about to happen, and although no one knows exactly what it is, the sensations are threatening. After all, images of destruction abound from the start. The walls are “skeleton stone walls” reminiscent of bones without flesh or a corpse; the walls are almost human since they are described as “skeleton,” and the new economy that the emancipated slaves are taking part in which is reflected in the description of the "rotting" floor boards lets the reader know that it is not allowing the African American people to lead better lives; finally, the factory is described as a “pre-war cotton factory,” informing the reader that the freed men are currently working in the same building they worked in while they were slaves. The ghosts of the pasts haunt the black people in their new lives. Furthermore, “pre-war cotton” immediately brings pictures of slaves working the fields to mind. The reader can picture the slaves bending in the heat and picking the crops. Then the reader sees “shanties aligned along the single street of factory town” – a ghettoized slum. Clearly the moon’s “pine-knot” glow ”illumined the [factory’s] great door,” and the black begin to sing “against its spell.” Nothing promising is about to happen here. Fear, doom, death, and blood mark the beginning of Jean Toomer’s story. Though the story is taking place during the early years of reconstruction, the remnants of slavery still abound within the culture. The landscape and nature carry the bloodshed and the spirit of all the evil that has transpired here over the years and all that is yet to come in this story.
Most notable, in the very first sentence of the story “Blood-Burning Moon,” the narrator repeats the word “up,” three times and a fourth time at the beginning of the second one. The walls, the floor, the moon – all are rising, but the hour is “dusk,” a time when dark and light are mixed and things should be dying down and setting. Normally, rising is considered to be a positive movement; however, this bloody moon “Glowing like a fired pine-knot” and the movement of Louisa’s mind “vaguely upon [Bob and Tom] as she walks over the crest of the hill coming from white folks’ kitchen” (1274) while the “The moon was rising” (1275) increasingly are not positive omens. Everything portends something that is about to happen, and although no one knows exactly what it is, the sensations are threatening. After all, images of destruction abound from the start. The walls are “skeleton stone walls” reminiscent of bones without flesh or a corpse; the walls are almost human since they are described as “skeleton,” and the new economy that the emancipated slaves are taking part in which is reflected in the description of the "rotting" floor boards lets the reader know that it is not allowing the African American people to lead better lives; finally, the factory is described as a “pre-war cotton factory,” informing the reader that the freed men are currently working in the same building they worked in while they were slaves. The ghosts of the pasts haunt the black people in their new lives. Furthermore, “pre-war cotton” immediately brings pictures of slaves working the fields to mind. The reader can picture the slaves bending in the heat and picking the crops. Then the reader sees “shanties aligned along the single street of factory town” – a ghettoized slum. Clearly the moon’s “pine-knot” glow ”illumined the [factory’s] great door,” and the black begin to sing “against its spell.” Nothing promising is about to happen here. Fear, doom, death, and blood mark the beginning of Jean Toomer’s story. Though the story is taking place during the early years of reconstruction, the remnants of slavery still abound within the culture. The landscape and nature carry the bloodshed and the spirit of all the evil that has transpired here over the years and all that is yet to come in this story.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Respond by Tuesday, April 6th.
1. Do you think that Louisa is in any way a victim? Discuss whether you believe that either of the men love Louisa with textual evidence to prove it?
2. Feel free to put forth any ideas that struck you when reading this story. You could also post questions about any aspect related to the subject matter and I hope everyone responds and gets a discussion going.
For next week: We will do a mini workshop with Paper 2. No, you will not be exchanging papers with your peers. We will discuss a little bit about Works Cited so that there are no errors on your final draft of Paper 2. Please bring in your papers on Wednesday next week for the workshop.
The deadline for submission of Paper 2 -(hard copy only) after all revisions is Friday, April 19th. No late submissions will be accepted.
We will also discuss "Blood Burning Moon", "Everyday Use" and "Lynching in Tennessee".
Quiz on Friday, the 9th, on the above three stories. Do not miss it.
2. Feel free to put forth any ideas that struck you when reading this story. You could also post questions about any aspect related to the subject matter and I hope everyone responds and gets a discussion going.
For next week: We will do a mini workshop with Paper 2. No, you will not be exchanging papers with your peers. We will discuss a little bit about Works Cited so that there are no errors on your final draft of Paper 2. Please bring in your papers on Wednesday next week for the workshop.
The deadline for submission of Paper 2 -(hard copy only) after all revisions is Friday, April 19th. No late submissions will be accepted.
We will also discuss "Blood Burning Moon", "Everyday Use" and "Lynching in Tennessee".
Quiz on Friday, the 9th, on the above three stories. Do not miss it.
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