For Thursday

Please bring the materials you need to work on the final exam. We will discuss Part III of Beloved on next Monday.

Reminders!!! And a link to Sean dancing :)

• If you haven't already, please declare your plans for the final by posting on the final exam post.
• We will discuss section II next class (Tuesday), and the remainder of the book must be read by next Thursday.
• Sean dancing....enjoy! http://youtu.be/MhOTm-9Jlqg

Reading assignment for 5/21

• Read Part II of Beloved for 5/21

Final exam for 12 H

And, one last thing….

Over the course of this year we have read about men turning into bugs, people stuck in hells with gauche furniture, coins endlessly coming up heads, and the problem with mothers marrying uncles, to name just a few of the situations we have encountered. While some anonymous sage has commented that “truth is stranger than fiction,” it is difficult to imagine a world stranger than some of those that we have encountered in the fictional plays, poems and dramas that we have read.

            As strange as these stories are, the purpose of stories is to speak to us and to our experience. No one knows when story telling (or literature) began, but it is safe to say that as soon as men and women emerged from the primordial muck, storytelling was not far behind. In ninth grade you read The Odyssey, a story that predates our own language and a story that is still being read, albeit sometimes grudgingly, by people around the world. And we are still telling stories. In fact, we are obsessed by stories: stories in novels; stories in children’s books; stories on the evening news; stories in movies; and blogs, as well as the stories we pass around the dinner table, the locker room and the cafeteria.  

            Many writers and thinkers have developed reasons why stories, both fictional and non-fictional, are so instrumental to peoples’ lives. And there are numerous theories (among them Marxist, Feminist, New Critical, Post-colonial etc…) that attempt to explain why stories are so important and what they provide for us individually and culturally.

            In class, we’ve articulated some of the questions that are encompassed by the study of literary theory, and they include, but are not limited to, the following:

 

• Why do we read?
• Why do we write?
• How should we find meaning in text? Where in the text do we find meaning?
• What is “literature”?
• What makes a text valuable? Worthy of being read, valued and studied?
• Does or how does identity influence reading? Writing?
• Does culture influence our reading? How?
• Does the meaning of texts change?
• How does language work? What are its limitations?
• Is there relationship between texts and “real life”?  If so, what is it?
• What is the relationship between texts and our identity? (both individual identity and cultural identity?
• How do the genre and the structure of the text affect meaning?
• What is real?
• What is true?
• Who am I?
• Who’s there?
• What’s the purpose?

 

 

 

Project 1

The first response option is an analytical paper in which you do the following:

• Develop your own theory of the purpose of literature. You should draw from your own experience as well as the experience of writers, theorists and thinkers. At least one of the sources that you discuss in your paper should be your outside reading for fourth quarter. For example, Thoreau in his chapter “Reading” has a theory of literature, and the theorist Robert Scholes expresses his own theory in his book Textual Power. Toni Morrison, Plath, and T.S.Eliot and many other writers have written on this topic. There are a wide variety of books in the library written by writers on writing. I can help you with suggestions, or you could simply find a several essays about the purpose of literature from writers you respect and develop your theory from these essays.
• Then, you would support your view of the value and purpose of literature using examples from pieces that we have read this year, and from pieces that you have read on your own.
• The final paper would be about 5-8 pages in length and include a final annotated works consulted page.

OR

 

The second response is a small group assignment, which would require you to write and perform an original drama. The drama should put people and characters that we have met in class in dialogue with each other in order to ponder a question that has been central to the course. For example, Sartre, Gregor, Hamlet and Virgil might be put in a dramatic situation that forces them to consider the feasibility of free will, or the purpose of literature. Groups can be as large as four people, but no longer. All group members are required to participate in both the writing and the acting, failure to participate in both aspects of the exam will result in a failing grade for the exam.

 

The creative piece would be about fifteen pages in length, and it must include a one to two page discussion of why you have chosen the characters, situation, issues and setting. The drama should allow you to “talk back” to the literature you’ve studied this year, in much the same way that “Prufrock” talks back to Hamlet, and “The Dead” and Heart of Darkness talk back to Dante, who in turn talks back to Virgil.

 

 

Grading

Your paper will be graded on the quality of your analysis of the literature, your insight, development and the quality of the writing. The paper is due on June _____.

 

Performances will be scheduled for the final week of classes and for the final exam period. This is your final examination grade. No late papers will be accepted.  If a group member is absent for the presentation the entire group will need to schedule a performance time during exam week to make up the final exam work.

 

Post your Beloved questions (reading assignment part 1) here