February 2009 Listing

Choose either ''The Yellow Wallpaper'' or ''Ode on a Grecian Urn.''

Case 1: The dramatist Harold Pinter was once asked what all his plays were about, and he blurted out "The weasel under the cocktail cabinet." He later said he was amused to find that flippant response being analyzed by critics, because "for me the remark [about the weasel] meant precisely nothing."

Which of these quotes from Pinter would be 100% true?

Case 2: T.S. Eliot wrote desperate, disjointed poetry when he was a young man. While his life had its dramatic points (his fist wife died in a mental institution after spending several years there; he never visited her), he had a happy second marriage, enjoyed considerable literary success, and more people today know his work through the musical Cats (which was based upon his lighter poetry).

Permit me to speculate.

Let us imagine that, after spending many decades in comfort, enjoying the respect and admiration of the literary world, Eliot wrote a few lines that dismiss as insignificant the early poetry that he wrote as a desperate and angry 22-year-old. Would those lines be more or less valid than the opinion of an angry 22-year-old of today who finds the same poem life-changing?

In Keesey, Appendix C.

In Keesey, Ch 1

On your blog, post a brief paragraph that demonstrates your knowledge of one term that you had to look up.

Of the four literary texts covered in the textbook, choose one that you did not focus on in Ex 2.

If you are not already familiar with this play, you will need to read it or watch a video in order to fully understand the assigned critical readings.

Pages 1-16.

In Keesey, Ch 2

In Keesey, Ch 1

In Keesey, Ch 1

In Keesey, Ch 2

On your blog, post a brief paragraph that demonstrates your knowledge of one term that you had to look up.

In Keesey, Ch 2

Choose any of the four works covered in the textbook, choose whether you are going to write on either formalism or reader-response, and defend a thesis as usual.

What is your portfolio?

It begins with a richly-linked blog entry that introduces your reader to blog entries that you have created, and discussions from your peers' blogs in which you have participated, as part of a reflective statement on your progress so far.

Examples of portfolios from previous classes have included a no-nonsense list and a more personal essay. Either format is fine, but however you present your work, it's important to me that you specify where each of your posts falls amongst the categories listed below. The same post can count for more than one category, but if you keep re-using the same handful of posts that's probably a sign you can do a little better next time.

In Keesey, Ch 3

In Keesey, Appendix B. This is a long story, written in a style that will require some concentration. Don't leave this until the last minute.

In Keesey, Ch 3

On your blog, post a brief paragraph that demonstrates your knowledge of one term that you had to look up.

In Keesey, Ch 3