HW#8 -- The Great Teacher: Death

Reflect upon Walker's "To Hell with Dying" and Stephen Jay Gould's "The Median isn't the Message" in order to answer the following prompts in-class today. If you are absent, you can submit your reply below.

1.) What do the narrator and her brother learn from the many "rescues" they perform for Mr. Sweet? Do you see these lessons as negative, positive, as a combination? Explain.

2.) Gould admits that his technical knowledge helped him to understand his illness. However, what does he say about the limitations of technology, and what does he say was most necessary to his survival, more important even, than all the research he conducted?

3.) In many ways the narrators of these two essays experience an epiphany or anagnorisis. How is death a teacher? What lessons does it force us to learn? How have you gained a better understanding of the world through loss? Explain why you feel the way that you do.

HW#7 -- Nonfictive Nature

Please answer the following prompt in response to Virginia Woolf's "The Death of the Moth" (895-897).

How do you see nature? As benign, hostile, indifferent, restorative, or wondrous? An inspiration or an obstacle? In a poem entitled "The Tables Turned," William Wordsworth writes, "Come forth into the light of things / Let nature be your teacher." To what extent has nature been a teacher in your own life? Include in your response your own experiences and compare and contrast them to the perspectives expressed in Woolf's text. (Due 4/30)

HW#5 -- Hell, Marriage, & Death

Hello everyone.

I received word from the campus bookstore that Sartre's No Exit is now available. In case you plan on obtaining the text from an outside source, here is the publisher and ISBN of the edition I would like you to purchase.

Vintage: 0679725164

 
And, here is the prompt for e-journal #5.

In a well-developed paragraph, please focus your response on one of the two plays assigned for Monday; i.e., either Wendy Wasserstein's The Man in the Case or John Milington Synge's Riders to the Sea. You can write on one of the following options:

1. Provide a detailed analysis of one character.Why did you choose to focus on this character over others?
2. Offer commentary regarding the play's theme or moral or lesson.
3. Discuss how the structural elements of the play; for example, setting, stage directions, etc., inform your response.
4. Write a subsequent Act to your chosen play, in correct dramatic format. That is, imagine how the play would continue beyond its ending.

As always, providing textual references in correct MLA format in a necessity. Email if you have further questions.

HW#3 -- People in the Walls

For the next class meeting I would like everyone to have read the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Using this story, as well as your knowledge of character following our discussion tonight on People (Stanford 32-41), please answer the following prompt:

As a result of its eerie mood and setting, Gilman's text has often been labeled as a ghost story. Do you see the woman in the wallpaper as a supernatural element? What other possibilities can you suggest?  

On such suggestion is as follows... While it is clear that there are multiple characters in this short story, it may not be so clear that within the main female character exists more than one persona. In other words, the reader could make the argument that the woman in the room and the woman in the wallpaper are actually two "parts" of the same main character. If so, how are these "parts" similar? How are they different? 

Explain your response using direct evidence from the short story as support.

HW#2 -- Soldiers and the Spoils of War

For our next meeting, Tuesday 2/21, I would like for everyone to have read the short stories by O'Brien and Vonnegut. The Vonnegut text can be accessed via the Schedule, Readings, & Rubrics page by clicking the link embedded in the author's last name. Please print and annotate this text before bringing it to class Tuesday. Also before class meets, please submit your second e-journal response to the following prompt:

Draw a relationship between the two war stories written by O'Brien and Vonnegut. First, name one theme or element from each text that you found to be similar, thus making a comparison. Second, name one theme or element from each text that you found to be different, thus highlighting a contrast. 

Lastly, express in a few sentences which story you responded to "more," and explain why in detail. Here are some general questions to guide you... Explain why you found a certain character compelling or troublesome? How were the stories' settings (both physical and mental) made vivid in your mind's eye as you read? Is there some personal connection to either of these texts?

Direct references to the readings are required, so be sure to cite page numbers when offering quotations or paraphrases.  

HW #1 -- Personal Butterflies

Please respond to the following prompt by posting a reply below.

Recall the short story "Butterflies" by Patricia Grace. In class it was argued that when the little girl shares her butterfly story in school, she undergoes an anagnorisis, which is a moment of awakening as to one's true situation or the transition from innocence to experience. Given this argument, first identify what it is that the little girl is "awakened" to; and second, describe a time in your own life when you experienced what could be called an anagnorisis or epiphany, be it large or small. Provide sensory detail and, of course, draw connections between the text and your own life. (Due 2/13)