A-Grief–What have you learned about grief this semester?
B-Poetry–Which poem that we read touched you most? Why?
C-Writing–What have you learned about writing this semester?
D-Workshop–Share the experience of workshopping your personal essay:
Journal 19: We Praise Our Peers
For three months, you have listened to each other’s papers, prompts, presentations, and editing suggestions. Or maybe you even read some extra drafts on line. Think back to all that you have heard or read from your peers in this class. Single out some instances when you were wowed, moved, impressed, grateful for what you heard.
Journal 20: Take a Bow
Which paper, project, journal, or prompt are you proudest of this semester—either for your writing or for the courage it took you to write it?
J15
What is your final project? How will you present your project? Describe your research, thus far, on your final project. Are there sources you are still looking for?
J16-18
Comment on the presentations of at least three of your classmates.
J11: Question One
Answer any one of these questions about Opening Up:
J11: Question Two
How can a memoir about poverty be a comedy? How can a memoir about starvation and death make readers laugh? What’s funny about Angela’s Ashes? Discuss the elements that make the memoir comic. Which characters are comic? Which situations are comic? How does McCourt’s use of language affect the reader?
J11: Question Three
The title of the memoir is Angela’s Ashes, but is Angela the central character in this work so far?
Journal 12
One question for everyone. From your reading for today in either McCourt or Pennebaker, describe an idea or incident to which you had a strong response.
Journal 13
* From your reading for today in either McCourt or Pennebaker, describe an idea or incident to which you had a strong response.
* If you wish, instead, you may pose a question for your classmates to answer.
What is the topic of your project, and how will you do it?
Journal 14
In A Grief Obseved, C.S. Lewis states: “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” What does grief feel like to you? Have your experiences with grief been similar to or different from Lewis’s?
J9: Question One After reading Didion, Chapters 1-10 (3-120), discuss why you think Didion named her book,Year of Magical Thinking.
J9: Question Two Part of the strength and impact of Didion’s writing comes from her use of specific details, such as in the following passage:
Several years ago, walking east on Fifty-seventh Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues on a bright fall day, I had what I believed to be at the time to be an apprehension of death. It was an effect of light: quick sunlight dappling, yellow leaves falling (but from what? were there even trees on West Fifty-seventh street?), a shower of gold, spangled, very fast, a falling of the bright. (Didion 76)
Pick another sentence or two, and notice specific details in it. How do these details add to the intensity of the passage you have picked?
J9: Question Three How does Didion describe grief? From your own experience, or from your observation of others, or from the representations of grief we have read in literature this semester, agree or disagree with Didion’s experience of grief.
J10: Respond to Didion
For this post, respond to the second half of Didion’s book. What did you find moving, compelling, or true? If you want, you can read some of the articles I’ve linked to about Didion. Or you can consider whether Pennebaker and Didion have a similar point of view about writing and grief. Or you can surprise us with your own original ideas about the book. For this post, all of you can play in the same sandbox. Remember to respond to each other.
J8: Question One
Discuss a scene that you thought was effective in the film version of Persuasion.
What did you find effective in this scene? Was it in the book? If so, was the scene similar or different from the scene in the book?
J8: Question Two
The film of All My Sons opens up the action of the drama by including scenes in Keller’s plant, dinner at a restaurant, a trip to see Mr. Deever in prison
Discuss one of these added scenes. Does it add to or detract from the effectiveness of the story? Why
J8: Question Three
After reading chapters 1-6 of Opening Up:The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions by James Pennebaker, discuss one of Pennebaker’s arguments. Why does he believe that “expressing emotions” leads to healing? What evidence does he have to back up his argument?
J6: Question One
In All my Sons,Chris is disturbed that his mother still believes his brother Larry is alive. He tells his father ” . . . it’s time she realized that nobody believes Larry is alive any more.” Chris asks his father, “Do we say straight out that we have no hope any more?”
If you were Chris, what would you do?
J6: Question Two
Keller does not want Annie to hold a grudge against her father because he shipped defective airplane parts during World War II. Keller tells Annie, “. . .he meant no harm. He believed they’d hold up a hundred percent. That’s a mistake, but it ain’t murder.”
What do you think–was it a “mistake” or “murder”?
Could you forgive a family member or friend who did that?
J6: Question Three
If you were Annie, how would you react to Kate Keller’s comments to you?
J7: Question One
Why does Sue Bayliss (the wife of Dr. Jim Bayliss) dislike Chris so much? How does what she tells Annie about Chris become important at the end of the play?
J7: Question Two
In Act II, Chris asks his father “Don’t you live in the world?” (70).
Why does he ask this question, and how does this question relate to the title of the play: All My Sons?
J7: Question Three
When the action of the play is over, do you think Chris and Annie can have a future together? Why or why not?
J3: Question One
Persuasion makes use of images of fall and falling. How do these images relate to Anne’s situation?
J3: Question Two
Anne and Captain Benwick (Wentworth’s friend) react to past losses in different ways. How does Rico’s chapter on the brain explain why these two people might react in different ways to loss or tragedy.View Full Description Hide Full Description
J3: Question Three
How do Anne and others react to the two accident that occur in this section of the novel? Do Anne’s reactions to these situations seem in keeping with her character? Why? Why not?
J4: Question One
Bath, the balance of power in the relationship between Anne and Captain Wentworth shifts.
How? Why?
J4: Question Two
Rico (105) suggests writing a guilt list and a blame list. Take any one character in Persuasion and create a guilt list and a blame list for that one character.
Do you think your character would have the self-awareness to compose lists like these? Why or Why not?
J4: Question Three
Compare Mrs. Smith’s attitude to her misfortunes to Captain Benwick’s attitude toward his misfortunes and to Anne’s attitude about hers.
What do their different attitudes reveal about each of them?
J5: Question One
The most famous act of persuading in Persuasion is, of course, Lady Russell’s persuading Anne to give up her engagement to Captain Wentworth. Look at one or two other acts of persuasion in the novel.
J5: Question Two
Practice Rico’s yes/no “letting go” exercise (134) as any one character in Persuasion. Start with a yes/no word cluster, and then complete a yes/no word sketch for your character.
J5: Question Three
At the end of Chapter XX (127), Anne worries, “How, in all the peculiar disadvantages of their respective situations, would he [Wentworth] learn her real sentiments?” How does he? What does the way in which he discovers the truth reveal about Anne?
J1: Question One: Minot’s first chapter “Hiding” concerns itself not only with physical hiding but with other kinds of hiding as well. In your opinion, what are some of these characters hiding? Why?
J1: Question Two: Explain what you think Rico means by “naming and framing.” Give an example of an incident or emotion that one of the characters in Minot’s Monkeys might name or frame.
J1: Question Three: In Minot’s Monkeys, the narrator’s point of view shifts from first person in “Hiding” to third person in “Thanksgiving Day” and in the rest of the novel. What effect does this shift in the narrator’s point of view have on you as a reader? Why? Who is the first person narrator in “Hiding”? Is the narrator’s identity important?
J2: Question One: How does Rico suggest that clustering can be helpful in determining feelings and anxieties?
Take any one character in Monkeys, and imagine you are creating a cluster for that character.
What words might you include in your cluster?
What might those words reveal to you?
J2: Question Two: In Monkeys, the chapter “Accident,” ends with the frightening image:
. . . the Devil had swooped down and had landed and was lingering with them all, hulking in the middle of the kitchen table, settling down to stay. (126)
React to this image in the context of the two different accidents referred to in this chapter.
J2: Question Three: Minot uses the word “navigator” in both a literal and a metaphorical sense, literally, as someone who steers or manages a boat when sailing; metaphorically, as someone who steers or manages a family on an appropriate course.
Explore the idea of the “navigator” in Monkeys.
Who is the navigator? Who should be the navigator? Can there be more than one navigator in a family? Does this role shift during the course of the novel?