Metaphor by Metaphor » Assignments

Reflecting on your writing

sdgibson — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:38:07 +0000

Contrast the research you did while working on the last two essay assignments. How did differences in the assignments change the way you worked on each of them? Which was more difficult? Why? Which of the classroom activities gave you the greatest understanding of the assignment? Was the textbook more or less useful in understanding the assignment than our discussions in class? Why?

English 2250 workshopping

sdgibson — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:23:55 +0000

This PDF contains the first set of poems we’ll workshop this semester. They’re in the order I received them. This is the second set of poems. Here is the third.

2250 fragments

sdgibson — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:15:18 +0000

Remember, you need to bring an electronic version of your notes on these fragments. I suggest using the fiction criteria on the course syllabus in the writing of your notes.

Brown’s Wieland, exploration, and doubt

sdgibson — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:16:17 +0000

From Richard Gray’s A History of American Literature: “Brown is exploring the two prevailing systems of thought in early America: respectively, the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the mysticism of Christianity. He is also casting both into doubt” (97-98).

What evidence might Gray use to support the idea that Brown casts doubt on both Enlightenment thinking and Christian mysticism? Cite specific examples from Wieland.

Controlling point of view

sdgibson — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:32:39 +0000

How do we move from an exterior to the inner life of a character? One method:

exterior description of character and setting (at least three sentences)
explicit thoughts about the setting (one sentence): “He thought,” “she thought”
implicit thoughts/interior monologue (at least three sentences)

character’s past or
inner life

explicit thoughts about the setting (one sentence)
exterior description of character and setting (at least three sentences)

What breaks readers out of a character’s inner life? Abrupt movement back up this scale of closeness.

Try it.

Encountering objections

sdgibson — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:14:07 +0000

Which of the objections (generated by either you or a peer) to your thesis or supporting points are most likely to be presented by your audience? Of these, which do you want to refute or concede?

How can you directly refute?

If you are conceding, what is the greater “support” to your thesis you can explicitly mention?

Brainstorm a brief plan for replying to each objection you are likely to encounter.

Poetry portfolio questions

sdgibson — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:15:52 +0000

What worked well as you wrote poems for class this semester? What could have been better? If you had another week to finish this assignment, how would you use that time? Describe the process of assembling the portfolio: what did you do first? Why? When did you know you were finished with the portfolio? Why did you include the poems you did?

English 3510 (“Skeptics May Object”)

sdgibson — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:50:31 +0000

Let’s follow the directions Graff and Birkenstien give on page 90, but replace the paragraph they provide with the following, from Ruland and Bradbury’s From Puritanism to Postmodernism:

Because of such exclusions, much later American writing, and some would say the American imagination itself, revolted against Puritanism. In fact to many later artists the very idea of a “Puritan imagination” would come to seem a contradiction in terms. Hawthorne, one of whose ancestors was a judge at the Salem witchcraft trials, returned with a sense of curious ambiguity to the world of his steeple-hatted Puritan ancestors in The Scarlet Letter (1850). He tests the idea of “iron-bound” Puritan society against the world of nature, but discloses as well that the power of the Puritan spirit has not died. (31)

Or this one, about Anne Bradstreet:

But, though [Bradstreet's poem's] strongest subjects are drawn from the stuff of daily life . . . they have a metaphysical wit and texture that anticipate the works of a New Englander of two hundred years later, Emily Dickinson. This comes in part from the struggle between dissent and acceptance in the life of a strong-willed woman living in a commonwealth which required double submission, to domestic and divine duty, but also in part from the sense of felt experience she inherited from British poetry, mixing an alert vivacity with an apparent simplicity. Her love is marital, her landscape plain but brightly seen, her meditations troubled but ultimately pious, her awareness of nature acute but also respectful of the Maker of it. (22-23)

Revision examples (expansion) and peer review

sdgibson — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:23:26 +0000

Here are the first few pages of the short story “Ender’s Game.” Here are the first few pages of the novel Ender’s Game. Practice peer review by comparing them and addressing these questions (which can also be found at the link “Peer review: second draft” under English 3420/4420).

The English 2010 thesis exchange

sdgibson — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:19:15 +0000

Draft or revise a tentative thesis statement in an open doc window.

Trade machines.

Answer these questions about the thesis in front of you:

• Is the thesis debatable? Exactly who would disagree with it? Why?

• How could the thesis be made more focused, risky, and clear?

• What question does it seem to answer? What ill-structured problem does it address?

• What does the thesis imply about the essay? Reading the thesis, what predictions can you make about the essay?

• What specific points do you think the essay will raise in support of the thesis?

Trade again. Answer the questions again.