Reading Response Due Tuesday, November 29th

This assignment is in lieu of a second explication paper.

Please choose one of the short stories we have read by Irving, Hawthorne, Melville, or Poe.  Write a reader response/reaction paper of about 3 pages.  For the sake of this assignment, you may assume that your reader knows the work you are writing about, so there is no need to summarize it at length.

Instead, you will examine your personal reaction to the text and then explain and defend that reaction.  While there is no "right response" or "wrong response" to a piece of fiction (at least not for the sake of this assignment!), there may be "weak responses" (ones that do not demonstrate a deep understanding of the text or are not well supported with evidence from the text) or "strong responses" (ones that show thoughtfulness about the text and use evidence from the text to support claims made).

Please write a thoughtful, organized, and well-supported (using direct evidence from the text) answer to the following three questions:

1.  What about this story stands out in your mind or strikes you either emotionally or intellectually?
2.  What in your background, values, needs, and interests contributes to your reaction?
3.  What specific passages in the work trigger that reaction?
4.  (Optional)  You may also want to consider whether this reaction is one that the author might have anticipated, or if it is one that his readers might have shared with you.

Your essay must:

• Mention the title of the text and the author and provide a short (1-2 sentence) summary of what the text is about, in the introduction.
• Include a thesis statement that makes an argument that encompasses all the claims you make in the paper (in other words, the paper cannot be a laundry list of your reactions to the text--your claims about the text and your reaction need to be connected through a central thesis).
• Document your source with in text citations and a works cited page, as needed.
• Be well written and proofread.  Use Standard English.  Write in complete sentences.
• Follow the guidelines as listed in the syllabus--EXACTLY.  

If you have any questions, please email me over the weekend.  I would also be VERY HAPPY to look at rough drafts, if you send them no later than Sunday evening.  You might also look at this webpage, which has a great process for brainstorming ideas for a reaction paper. 

Please remember that this will be your only, graded draft of this paper.  Good luck.  I look forward to hearing what you come up with.

Links for End-of-Term Readings

We will spend more time on "Sleepy Hollow" next Tuesday, but also read:

"The Minister's Black Veil"
"Young Goodman Brown" 
Both by Hawthorne

And for Thursday it will be all Poe:

"The Cask of Amontillado"
and "The Haunted Palace"

The following week for Tuesday, please read the selections from Walden Pond
and from Emerson's Nature  (Selections are on the previous blog post.)

Please let me know if you have problems accessing any of these.

Discussion Questions--"Bartleby"

1.  Who, or what, is this story about? What is the evidence for your answer?

2.  How would you characterize the narrator of the story?  What kind of man is he?

3.  What is the function of the other employees in the story?  Why do you think they are described at such length?

4.  What is a dead letter office and why does the narrator mention it at the end of the story?

Reading for Week of November 15-17 AND November 22

You have a relatively modest reading assignment for next week but will have a writing assignment due on November 22.  I'll give you the details on Tuesday.

Tuesday:  We'll finish discussion Douglass and also talk a little about Wheatley and Equiano.

Wednesday/Thursday:  We'll begin discussing the American Renaissance writers.  Please read "Bartleby" by Melville.  We may also begin discussing "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Irving.

We will finish "Sleepy Hollow" on Tuesday the 22nd.

Reading Schedule for Nov. 8-10

On Tuesday we will discuss the end of Wieland (and anything else that you feel we didn't get to that might be important!) and we will talk about explications, pass back papers, etc.

On Wednesday and Thursday we will be discussing ALL of the Frederick Douglass autobiography.  You will likely find it to be the easiest and fastest reading of the term. Also, for Thursday, please read the section on Equiano (AEW 510-522) and Phillis Wheatley (AEW 565-569).  These are both fairly short.

Someone (thank you, Sydney!) reminded me that this is going to cause a disruption in discussion questions for next week.  Yes, it will.  So--everyone's discussion questions will be due on Thursday next week--after you have completed all of the readings for the week. 

I'll post in the next day or so with new deadlines for writing assignments.  Enjoy Douglass!  He's a fine, fine writer.