Academic Article (due by noon Monday)

So we just consider the questions...We aren't writing them anywhere? Do you want us to print a copy and bring it to class?

I'm not requiring that you bring a printout to class, since I don't want to encourage unnecessary consumption of paper, but if you do choose to make a printout for your own purposes, it would be a good idea to bring it to class.

That's right, I'm not going to collect answers to these questions, but asking questions like these is part of analyzing and comprehending an academic article, so I'm sharing these questions with you in order to help you approach the reading.

Oh, I tried...and sorry about the length. I hope people will still read it.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AjaHannah/2009/03/making_sense_of_the_myths.html

Painful. Irrelevant. Disjointed. All thoughts that swirled through my mind as I struggled through "Turning wine into water: Water as privileged signifier in The Grapes of Wrath." Initially, I was shocked at the poor stylistic choices made by the author.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AlyssaSanow/2009/03/a_watery_mess.html

"If the novel caused both the government and the nation-at-large to reevaluate federal irrigation subsidies for corporate growers, clearly it must have effectively criticized the inequity and corruption infusing California's water-appropriation schema."

Is he using evidence from the real world to support a claim about a fictional work?! Gasp!

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MatthewHenderson/2009/03/the_real_world_can_serve_as_ev.html

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/CarlosPeredo/2009/03/the_perfect_example_of_what_no.html

"The cycle of poverty imposed on the Okies contained a seasonal period of starvation during the rainy season. Water again, this time through super-abundance, became the immediate threat to the Okies' survival."
~page 89

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JenniferPrex/2009/03/the_flip_side.html

Thesis?

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/RebeccaMarrie/2009/03/thesis.html

I picked two small passages to discuss...
"The Plains were classed upon to supply grain for the international ward effort in 1914 and to feed a hungry nation whose population continued to multiply exponentially"...
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/RosalindBlair/2009/03/water_law.html

American Dream is still in The Grapes of Wrath.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/ChelsieBitner/2009/03/american_dream_academic_articl.html

"The myth of the garden held that the land would yield bountiful harvests to any American willing to work it. Rain would fall in direct proportion to the farmer's yield."

Cassuto, page 77

Cassuto's point about the myth of the garden and its plentiful supply of water goes hand in hand with the idea of America's opportunity.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/ChristopherDufalla/2009/03/overlapping_myths.html

The power of scarcity and mother nature

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AndrewAdams/2009/03/the_power_of_scarcity.html

"The Joads' saga offers a fictional version of the consequences of this myth of the garden and the accompanying myth of the American Frontier. Both were driven by a perceived superabundance of resources, a national fantasy that prodded the Joads towards Oklahoma and then later to California."
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AliciaCampbell/2009/03/when_myths_go_awry.html

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/NikitaMcClellan/2009/03/primal_instincts.html

Society becomes uncivilized during hard times.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JulianneBanda/2009/03/article_about_the_bookor_natur.html

Semi-interesting essay on a semi-obvious claim.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/QuinnKerno/2009/03/comments_on_dav.html

The author does a good job of explaining how the myths of the frontier and the "Garden of Eden" were bestowed upon the nation well into the dust bowl era. The idealology that lead to this point in history from the American standpoint and how Steinbeck mocks these ideas in relating to water in "The Grapes of Wrath" are well explained throughout the article.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JustinIellimo/2009/03/the_author_does_a_good.html

Turning Wine to Water: Water as a privileged signifier in The Grapes of Wrath-
Cassuto, David

"The difference between the Okies and the banks lay more in scale and philosophy than methodology and eventual result. Both sides participated in the capitalist mechanism, but the banks had better adapted to thrive within it" (78)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AshleyPascoe/2009/03/it_is_horrifying_that_we_have.html

Where's the distinction between reality and a work of fiction?
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AprilMinerd/2009/03/seperation_of_reality_and_fict.html

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JoshuaWilks/2009/03/academic_article_boring_articl.html

It's true, they were dumb.

Posted the wrong link first time, oops.

ok here it goes one more time.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/RobertZanni/2009/03/its_true_they_were_dumb.html

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JessicaBitar/2009/03/wateracademic_article.html

"The flooding that climaxes the novel is thematically situated to provide maximum counterpoint to the drought which originally forced the Joads to migrate west... Their survival has come to depend on shelter from the elements rather than the elements themselves." (Cassuto)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/SueMyers/2009/03/back-to-the-pas.html

"This story was published in 1957, using the best information Baldwin had at the time, and it is meant as a study of relations between brothers, not as a treatsie on addiction. It's about redemption, not reconver. If you read it as the latter, that is, if you don't akjust your eyes and mind to transport you from contemporary reality to Baldwin's 1957, whatever the ending has to offer will be pretty well lost on you." (Foster 228)