Response to Literature

Hey All!

Your writing assignment for this weekend will be to analyze one of the short stories we read this week using the Tools for Talking about Literature and Questions for Critiquing Short Stories.

1. Decide what the main idea you want to explore is and then reveal it to your reader using examples from the text.

2. Be sure to refer to hard textual examples as this will increase the strength of your analysis.

3.Also, I mentioned that you should use the questions from the handouts this week. When you do this, be sure to only choose those questions you feel lend themselves well to supporting you main idea. For example, the Tools sheet offers "What universal situations and general values are involved?" under theme. This would be a strong question to consider in a paper that examines Sarty's internal conflict regarding the sacrifice of his moral code or the betrayal of his loyalty to his family. (A successful paper will end up including all of the questions from the Tools sheet whether on purpose or by default.)

Please write me if you have questions. Remember, you should try to make this 5 paragraphs.

Good Luck and be sure to proofread!!!

Of Mice and Men Test

Hey all! I hope you are enjoying the beautiful snow today; it feels so festive :)

The test Monday will ask you to identify the main characters, discuss those with power and those without. It will ask you to identify the source of power for those who possess it. for example, Curly holds power over his wife using physical intimidation and entrapment while he also has power of the workers because his father owns the farm. Then you will be expected to discuss the dreams of the central characters and whether they are achieved or not. In this same vein you will also need to include the repercussions of a failed dream (Remember Langston Hughes "A Dream Deferred").

Let me know if you have any questions; if I don't get back to you soon enough, please text me at 779 1359...I am going to be away from my computer this evening but I want to be available to those of you who may have questions already :)

Enjoy the snow! We'll have had enough come mid February!!