Your literature review and reaction chart for Jefferson is due in class. See you then.

Literature Review drafts due for response in class on Monday

There wasn't as much reading this week, but still plenty to write about. Knight and Franklin represent something of a departure from the earlier Puritan writers. Though both of them are heavily influenced by the Puritans who came before, each is also expressing a good deal of intellectual independence. For this week, compare the didacticism of Knight and Franklin to the didacticism of at least two earlier writers, one for each. Find some idea where Knight and Franklin align with what the earlier writers were seeking to teach. Describe how likely you think each of their intended audiences is likely to actually learn and embrace the particular lesson and why that may or may not matter. Be sure to illustrate your discussion with passages from this week's writers and the earlier writers as well.

As always, once you have posted your journal, respond to at least two other journals and to at least one response to your journal. Deadline for journals is midnight Sunday and responses is midnight Wednesday.

I'll be at the Celebration of Student Writing during our regular class time Thursday. I'm postponing the reading drafts of your literature review until Monday, the 14th. We'll cover the Benjamin Franklin readings on Friday. Plan on a midterm sometime next week. Maybe next Friday. A study guide will be provided beforehand.

My apologies for this late posting. Give yourself an extra day to get both this and the response done.

In class the other day, I went over what constitutes a romance, a notion Hawthorne was working with in the writing of The Scarlet Letter. For those who were not in class, or those who would like a refresher, here is the glossary information on Romance. As you will see or remember, one of the concerns Hawthorne tried to balance the distinction between history and fiction. Looking back over the readings from the last two weeks, maybe further back, find some examples from the history we have read and describe how that knowledge of early American history enables us to better understand Hawthorne's romance. If you can, work in the verisimilitude and ideality along with the marvelous and natural. Be sure to illustrate your points with passages from both The Scarlet Letter and the sources you use to shed some light on the work.

As always, once you have posted your journal, respond to at least two other journals and to at least one response to your journal. Deadline for journals is midnight Monday and responses is midnight Thursday.

Reaction Charts

The reaction chart assignment, which is an informal writing-to-learn assignment, serves several purposes. One, frankly, is to insure that you read all the assigned readings, for you can’t write a reaction chart unless you do. Also, these charts should help you organize and articulate your responses to the various readings, and they also provide valuable information to me.

Reaction charts should have two parts. For the first part, use the following format to give me a general sense of your response to the day’s reading:

+ aspects of the reading you found particularly engaging, interesting, effective, etc.
- aspects of the reading you found ineffective, frustrating, or problematic
? questions you have

The second part of the reaction chart is more analytical. Here I’d like you to identify a passage that you believe plays an important role in the reading, one that deserves analysis. Be prepared to explain in class why you chose this passage since we will refer to these charts in discussion. Also, in this second part, write one question for possible class discussion. This should be a question that provokes thought in some important way.

Whenever a reading is scheduled to be discussed on your course calendar, a reaction chart is due. I will collect the reaction sheets at the start of class because the information you provide helps me anticipate important issues and questions that we need to address. I encourage you to word process reaction charts and print two copies—one for me, and one for you to use during class discussions and group work.

For this week's readings, in terms of 'X' view each of these as documents as historical artifacts. The question then, is what do these artifacts tell us about the time in which they were written, the time that produced them? For your journal, tell us what you see being revealed by each of the readings about the time, place and people that produced them. What do they tell us about America than and what light might they shed on America today? In answering these questions, provide specific examples from each of this week's readings to illustrate the point under discussion. As always, this is due by midnight Sunday. Respond to at least two other journals and to at least one response to your journal by midnight Wednesday the 2nd of May.

As with last week's journal, I want us to focus on "What does X do?" and "What might X mean?" This time, though, we will look at the earliest of the English writers and explorers. Address both questions, "What does X do?" and "What might X mean?" for each of the readings. You can look at them in the context of the "systems" covered in class or you can look at them in relative isolation. Whichever way you choose, be sure to illustrate your thoughts with specific examples from each reading and some explanation as to what each may be seen to mean, either then or now. Having posted your journals by midnight Sunday, respond to at least two journals (in the manner described in class) and to one response to your journal, all by Wednesday.

Each is attached. Be sure to go through them in order: Close Reading, Close Reading II and Close Reading III.

I don't know how much sense they will make on their own, so feel free to ask any questions they raise for you.

Each of the writings for this week have been filtered through a particular system (or set of systems) that result from the world view of the writer. This world view or system, however you might describe it, is 'X'. For each of the readings, describe what this X, what this system, does (what does X do?) while transferring information and ideas from the writer to the reader and what this might mean to the reader, then or now (What does X mean?). For instance, for Cabeza de Vaca, the lecture covered how at least four systems were at play in the telling of his story: psychological (Freudian flight/fight/fear), market (the economic place of the Shaman), mythological (the role of Mala Cosa or "Evil Thing" in creating the natives' fear of the Shaman) and political (though in much less degree than the other three, where women mediated between the men of warring tribes). How does this information regarding de Vaca inform our understanding of the text and what does it mean that we come to understand the text differently? What is gained? Lost?

Be sure to illustrate your discussion with a passage from each of the reading assignments and to post that by midnight Sunday, April 15. Responses to at least two journals and to one response to your journal should be posted by midnight Wednesday, April 18.