Monday, June 2, 2008

Summer Blogging...

Typing that title just made me want to start creating my own, AP-ish version of a "Grease" standard...oh, good, it's passed. Anyway, this is your summer blog, your place to discuss your reading. Just in case you lost your handout, here's what you are responsible for over the summer

1. Read and take one page of two column notes(see attached template) for each chapter of How to Read Literature Like A Professor. Yes, that’s something like 47 pages of notes, but you’ll thank us later. This will be a resource that we will use all next year, so you really want to do a good job on it. This will be turned in on the first day of school.

2. Read the three required summer reading books:

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

For each book, you need to post to the blog (http://mhsapliterature.blogspot.com) three times. There is a posting area for each third of the book(no worries about spoilers) – you post in the comments section. Your comments should be your questions, your observations, and your opinions about your reading. You should read all of the other comments in a thread before responding. You may include agreement with the comments of others, but your posts must include some original thinking or observation about the text; we need to know that you have read it! Please do pay attention to your spelling, grammar, conventions, etc.; over 40 people will be reading this blog, so it’s common courtesy.

3. Finally, when you have finished all the summer reading, you’ll be writing a 3-5 page typed analytical essay, due the first day of school. Here’s the assignment:
· Select one book and one chapter of How to Read…then, using the information from your chapter, write an analysis of that particular element of literature in your chosen novel. For example, you might write about weather in One Hundred Years or journeys in Remains or irony in Things Fall Apart. This is a thesis driven, analytical essay; you need to argue how the author uses that element to support his purpose.

You can post any questions you have in the comments section here. Happy reading!

5 comments:

Paul_In_A_Nutshell said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Analu said...

Ms. Clapp i had a question about the journal entries for How to read like a Professor. Do we have to type out the entries or can we just do it on notebook paper, because I've only done it on notebook paper so far.
Thankies

Analu said...

Also my name was under Babaloo for a while but i changed it back to my name so you can grade my blogs.

Malisa said...

I was wondering about the notes for How to Read Literature Like a Professor, do we take notes on just the chapters, or do we have to take notes on the two interludes as well?

Malisa said...

Another question about How to Read...

How are we supposed to do the two column notes on the last chapter, considering it's not so much a chapter as it is a quasi-test of sorts?