Nov. 12  Melville, Moby-Dick, first half

Nov. 19  Moby-Dick, second half

Thanksgiving Break   Nov. 26, 5 p.m. --  Dec. 1, 8 a.m.

Dec. 3  Heath, Hawthorne, "The Birth-Mark," 2204-15; Heath, Poe, 2387-89, 2400-13, 2465, 2467-70, 2473-74

Critical Paper DUE

Take-Home Quiz #3 DUE

Papers:  All papers must use MLA format

Syllabus:  The correct syllabus is on this webpage.  Check it for updates when asked by your professor.

Absence: Class attendance is a course requirement .  Absence and tardiness are strongly discouraged.  For each missed class above one (one week of classes), 30 pts. will be deducted from your final grade.

Conferences: You are encouraged to seek individual discussion with the professor during regular office hours, after class, and by appointment. It is highly recommended that you discuss your critical paper with your professor, bringing research and drafts to her office.

  Reader Responses: Two 2-page reader responses before midterm exam. Choose two classes for which to write your reactions to the material (#1 on or before Oct. 8th; #2 on or before Nov. 5th) .  These are comments written after you have read the assignment due for that week's class. These should be loose -- free-writing, free association, gut reaction, or unabashed opinion about the material as well as some critical analysis -- and can have moments of wild rants. Don't worry about consistency or organization, but make sure half of your comments directly discuss the material itself.

 Critical Papers  From your Reader Responses, but using strong textual evidence and organized analysis, you will present a critical opinion of a work or a group of short works on the syllabus. You should worry a lot about consistency and organization.  See criteria sheet.

Rachela Permenter's Homepage

Return to English Department

Due: Friday, Nov. 14^th (professor’s mailbox by 4 p.m. or e-mail attachment by 11 a.m. Saturday)

Exact MLA format. Use a handbook, or at least Bailey Library’s link. You'll use parenthetical references for page numbers, but you needn't have a Works Cited page since we're all referring to the same texts. No title page, please, just a heading in the upper left (Name, course, prof, Exam #2, date).

A. 10 pts. Reader Response. Respond to one of the following. In as informal a way as possible, free-write on the following topic for twenty minutes for 250 words. Remember to make this a wild and ranting free-write. You are not permitted to be organized or to spend more than five minutes planning your comments. You will be graded on length and on the degree of uninhibited interaction with the material.

1. How was Thoreau America’s first ecologist?

2. If someone said to you, "You need a Thoreau walk. Walk with a beginner’s mind and fresh eyes." What do you think they would mean?

3. What do the songs "Everything" by REM or "Skating Away" by Jethro Tull have to do with Thoreau? (See I-Drive Powerpoint and/or check internet for sample from album.)

4. If you were told to go find some answers to some of the universal questions about how and why we humans are here in this natural, mortal environment, would you rather go to sea like Ishmael or to the woods like Thoreau? What would you do?

B. 15 pts. Mimic. Write your own first paragraph to your novel, using the first paragraph from Moby-Dick. Use the same sentence structure, punctuation, etc., as closely as possible, but your own words.

C. 75 pts. (3 @ 25). Formal Analysis Essays. Answer three of the following questions. Be thoughtful, consistent, and organized (consciously construct an introduction and conclusion, for example). Use textual evidence to back up your points; use at least three quotations (a few words to three lines each) for each question. Should be approximately 400 words each (slightly more for first two, slightly fewer for last one). Choose one essay from each group. Choose questions so you do not repeat quotations or your development of ideas.

Group 1 - Choose one.

Refer to the "Course Description" on your syllabus. Making references mostly to your readings since the last exam, what have you discovered so far in this course in terms of one or more of the following (a, b, and/or c) 

a. Students will be asked to explore what "American" means and what major ideas were at work to create a cultural definition for that term.

 b. How are assumptions and worldviews inherent and explicit in texts?

 c. Some of the central issues and tensions explored will be:

The divine
The individual, the community, environment
American identity
Human nature (good/evil, etc.)
The place and purpose of art
Wealth, success, responsibility, leisure, fun
The role of government
Freedom and rights
Women and men

(choose one or two from the above list)

Group 2 – Choose one.

1. What is transcendentalism? Why does Thoreau go to the woods? Was he a hermit? What does Walden have to do with Emerson?
2. What is transcendentalism? Take two of your favorite quotations from Walden. Bring them together and explicate, tying their meaning to an overall theme of the book.

 

3. What is transcendentalism? How is the pond a central metaphor in Walden?
4. What is transcendentalism? Comment on a chapter from Segal’s Graceful Simplicity by comparing his ideas to quotations and ideas from Walden.
5. What is transcendentalism? Comment on a chapter from Walden. by comparing his ideas to quotations and ideas from Segal’s Graceful Simplicity.
6. What is transcendentalism? How is Thoreau the poet, scholar, and/or priest that Emerson called for in his essays?
7. What is transcendentalism? Explain: Jo March meets Frederick Beher. She tells him her family’s transcendentalist. He speaks of Goethe and describes transcendentalism: "We throw off all our constraints and we come to know ourselves through insight and experience . . . It’s out of fashion now."
8. What is transcendentalism? In "Self-Reliance," what does Emerson say we should be dependent upon and independent from?
9. What is transcendentalism? With political independence won, the Constitution in place, and cities vibrant, most well-placed Americans in mid-19th century were desperately trying to create a new culture for their new country. What did Emerson think culture should be based on?
10. What is transcendentalism? What does Emerson have to say about human potential? What inhibits human potential?

Group 3 – Choose one.

a. Choose a quotation from Thoreau and a quotation from Emerson. Identify each quotation’s place in the work in terms of content and discuss in terms of your reading of the entire work. Please number these, write the entire quotations, and give page references according to our text.

b. Choose a quotation from Graceful Simplicity and a quotation from Emerson. Identify each quotation’s place in the work in terms of content and discuss in terms of your reading of the entire work. Please number these, write the entire quotations, and give page references according to our texts.