Hello Everyone--Please post for our Tuesday, May 6 class so I know which writers you are choosing (Post by 6am on May 6!).
Instructions:
1. Name the writer you are going to research and briefly describe what ideas, themes, even techniques the writer uses speak to you, appeal to you--begin to think about claim you want to make/explore about this writer.
2. Do initial biographical research--look especially to see if the writer has a website and/ or, if living, recent interviews.You may use Wikipedia ONLY if the site for the author takes you has footnotes that lead to valid academic sources--go to them!
3. Do at least one search through LaGuardia library: articles in our databases, English and World Literature, academic search premier or jstor. Put into your search your author's name and title of story, play or poem we studied.
4. State title of article and author relevant to this writer and briefly explain what article is about.
I WILL COLLECT A HARD COPY OF THIS ASSIGNMENT IN ONE WEEK. THE BLOG IS TO GET YOU STARTED, AND SO WE CAN DISCUSS YOUR CHOICES IN CLASS TUESDAY.
ALSO READ "The Lame Shall Enter First" by Flannery O'Connor for Tuesday.
Happy Sunday!
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Please Choose Your Story for Essay #1 and Post Comment Here
1. Review Guidelines for Essay #1 at end of Coursepak;
2. Choose a story that speaks to you, intrigues you;
3. Choose a specific focus: setting, symbolism, character or theme;
4. Make a list of moments in the story or symbols or scenes that would work;
5. Create a thesis--a claim you are making and will support with these examples.
Note: it is ok if your essay embraces more than one category in item 3 above!
In this blog, tell your classmates what story you are going to work on, state your thesis and list the examples that will support your thesis or claim. Please try to use words, phrases, from the text to make this an interesting blog that your classmates can help you develop into an essay.
Suggested Questions that Could Lead to a Claim:
1. How do descriptive details (setting and physical characteristics of characters) foreshadow (anticipate) the tragedy to come for Desiree in "Desiree's Baby"?
2. How does Chopin establish the contrasts between the character of Armand and the character of Desiree, and how are their contrasting natures connected to the outcome in "Desiree's Baby"?
3. How are the various symbols in Trifles connected to the character of Minnie Wright? What qualities in her do they suggest, reveal?
4. How is setting used to define the domains of men and women, their proper gender spaces and roles, in "Boys and Girls"?
5. What symbols in "Boys and Girls" help define gender codes?
6. How does Joyce Carol Oates create an atmosphere of increasing danger in her characterization of Arnold Friend? What does he represent? What does Connie represent?
7. How does Louise Erdrich depict vulnerability and loss of identity in "The World's Greatest Fisherman"? What moments, images, symbols does she use to help us understand the experience of June?
8. What symbols in "The Yellow Wallpaper" speak to the theme of female imprisonment? How does the main character use these symbols to confront and even "escape" this imprisonment?
2. Choose a story that speaks to you, intrigues you;
3. Choose a specific focus: setting, symbolism, character or theme;
4. Make a list of moments in the story or symbols or scenes that would work;
5. Create a thesis--a claim you are making and will support with these examples.
Note: it is ok if your essay embraces more than one category in item 3 above!
In this blog, tell your classmates what story you are going to work on, state your thesis and list the examples that will support your thesis or claim. Please try to use words, phrases, from the text to make this an interesting blog that your classmates can help you develop into an essay.
Suggested Questions that Could Lead to a Claim:
1. How do descriptive details (setting and physical characteristics of characters) foreshadow (anticipate) the tragedy to come for Desiree in "Desiree's Baby"?
2. How does Chopin establish the contrasts between the character of Armand and the character of Desiree, and how are their contrasting natures connected to the outcome in "Desiree's Baby"?
3. How are the various symbols in Trifles connected to the character of Minnie Wright? What qualities in her do they suggest, reveal?
4. How is setting used to define the domains of men and women, their proper gender spaces and roles, in "Boys and Girls"?
5. What symbols in "Boys and Girls" help define gender codes?
6. How does Joyce Carol Oates create an atmosphere of increasing danger in her characterization of Arnold Friend? What does he represent? What does Connie represent?
7. How does Louise Erdrich depict vulnerability and loss of identity in "The World's Greatest Fisherman"? What moments, images, symbols does she use to help us understand the experience of June?
8. What symbols in "The Yellow Wallpaper" speak to the theme of female imprisonment? How does the main character use these symbols to confront and even "escape" this imprisonment?
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Blog on Stories for Tuesday: Erdrich and Munro
Hi Everyone: Read the choices below and choose one story to discuss in a paragraph, using at least one quotation from the text. To enter a blog post, scroll to the bottom of this post, CLICK ON BLUE COMMENT ICON; enter comment in box and click post! Think of the blog post as, possibly, the beginning of an essay :). PLEASE POST BY MONDAY EVENING, MIDNIGHT.
ANSWER ONLY ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:
1. "The World's Greatest Fisherman"-- how does Erdrich capture June's emotional condition--what details and/or symbols help us understand her feelings and what is happening to her?
2. "Saint Marie"-- What is your interpretation of the relationship between the nun, Leopolda, and the Native-American girl, Marie? How does each see the other? Who is trying to do what to whom and why? (If this story is confusing to you, here is a little context; question to think about: Chrisitan missionaries working in poor areas in the U.S.: what would be their agenda? their attitudes toward Native American subjects?
3. "Boys and Girls"-- how does the narrator in the story show us how gender is socially "constructed"? What are some of her important responses to being treated as a "girl"? (Note: on p 292-297 of our coursepak, there is an essay on this story that is very enlightening :); on p 299 there is a theoretical discussion of gender and identity which we will refer to in class.)
ANSWER ONLY ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:
1. "The World's Greatest Fisherman"-- how does Erdrich capture June's emotional condition--what details and/or symbols help us understand her feelings and what is happening to her?
2. "Saint Marie"-- What is your interpretation of the relationship between the nun, Leopolda, and the Native-American girl, Marie? How does each see the other? Who is trying to do what to whom and why? (If this story is confusing to you, here is a little context; question to think about: Chrisitan missionaries working in poor areas in the U.S.: what would be their agenda? their attitudes toward Native American subjects?
3. "Boys and Girls"-- how does the narrator in the story show us how gender is socially "constructed"? What are some of her important responses to being treated as a "girl"? (Note: on p 292-297 of our coursepak, there is an essay on this story that is very enlightening :); on p 299 there is a theoretical discussion of gender and identity which we will refer to in class.)
Friday, March 7, 2014
Class Discussion of Trifles
We agreed that someone would post class notes in this blog--so here is space to post notes from our discussion of Trifles. Marie agreed to post; others are welcome to add comments. It's good to have a space for your notes and thoughts--we can review these for paper discussion.
We talked about:
role of setting, symbols, backstory of Minnie's life, how the women change in the play and how the playwright is challenging, deconstructing, male power, different definitions of "law" ... to post click on "comment" below and add your thoughts.
We talked about:
role of setting, symbols, backstory of Minnie's life, how the women change in the play and how the playwright is challenging, deconstructing, male power, different definitions of "law" ... to post click on "comment" below and add your thoughts.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Overview of Readings for The Woman Writer
English 247.0915
The Woman Writer: Her
Vision and Her Art
Dr. Phyllis van Slyck
Spring 2014
Tuesday: 11:45-2:00
(E258)
Thursday 11:45-12:45
(E266)
E103N x5660
Office Hours:
Tuesday/Thursday:
10:30-11:30 or by appointment
Our BLOG: http://womanwriter247.blogspot.com
Catalogue Course
Description:
This course will explore the unique experience of the woman
writer. Studying works written by women from a variety of cultures, races and
classes will reveal how being a woman has influenced the woman writer's
creative interpretation of the human condition
In our section of The
Woman Writer we will read and discuss dramas, poems and short stories by
writers from Canada, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the
United States, including Native American and African American writers.
We will consider the following themes in a series of thematically
grouped stories, poems and plays:
1.
Women’s Ways of Knowing: Glaspell, Trifles
2.
Patriarchy and its Challengers: “Desiree’s Baby,
“The World’s Greatest Fisherman,” “The Yellow Wallpaper” and In The Other Room or The Vibrator Play
3.
Gender and Girls: Munro, “Boys and Girls,” Engel,
“Green,” and Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
4.
Parents and Children: Olson, “I Stand Here
Ironing,” and Walker, “Everyday Use”; “Where Are You Going, Where Have You
Been?” and O’Connor, Everything
That Rises Must Converge” and “The Lame Shall Enter First”
5.
Possession and Magic; Female Power: Danticat, “1937,”
Erdrich, “The World’s Greatest Fisherman” and Saint Marie”; Ferre, “The
Youngest Doll”
6.
Language and Identity: Anzaldua, “La conciencia
de la mestiza,” and Alvarez, “Bilingual Sestina” and “American Girl”
7.
Race and Identity: Angelou, “Still I Rise” and
“Phenomenal Woman”; Hurston, “How it Feels to Be Colored Me”; Sapphire, “Breaking Karma #2
and #5” and "She Asks About My Mother"
8.
Aging/Mortality: Mansfield, “Miss Brill” and “A
Wagner Matinee” and “The Death of the Moth”
Texts:
You will need to purchase the Course Pak from Neko (basement of B building). All of the readings for this course are
included in the Course Pak. It
will cost about $20-$25, which is a very good deal. You should have the
course-pak by our second class.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Here is your Final Reflective Essay for The Woman Writer: Due June 5--No Exceptions
ENG 247.18014
The Woman Writer
Spring 2013
Dr. Van Slyck
Final Reflective Essay
On page 3 of your coursepak I have listed some of the major
themes we have discussed in this course on The Woman Writer. We will review these themes again in
the next two weeks and you will choose one theme and two texts to compare and contrast
in the way they explore, illuminate that theme. You must choose texts you have not already written about!
Possible themes and suggested directions:
1.
women’s ways of knowing; women’s strategies for
self-expression, self-knowledge: hidden insights, hidden powers, tearing down
the wallpaper
2.
women and the use of material culture: from
quilts to dolls to ironing
3.
gender ideology: how it is developed and
maintained; how women collaborate; how they resist: setting horses free,
setting selves free
4.
how women speak back to patriarchy: from murder
to seizing the vibrator
5.
women and magical powers: crying madonnas,
flying women in flames, dolls that express women’s oppression
6.
language and women’s voices: race and
culture—claiming voice, redefining voice, embracing hybridity
Your essay should be 600 to 800 words. It should be typed, double-spaced,
using 12pt font, Times New Roman.
It should have a title of your own that reflects your argument. You should quote from each poem 2-3
times. Be sure to integrate the
quotations carefully, comment fully on each and use line numbers in
parentheses. Do not use overly
long quotations. Use an ellipsis
(. . .) if you are leaving out some of the words and be sure to mark line
breaks and capitals for the beginnings of each line: “You may write me down in
history/With your bitter, twisted lies. . .”
Please remember to put a heading in the upper left corner of
your essay with the course, section number and your name as well as mine! This is the only essay you may not
revise and it must be returned to me.
Due Date: June 5. You
may review this essay at our final class meeting and celebration on Tuesday,
June 11.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Writer, Theme, Texts for Essay #2--Post your ideas here--try to post tonight--Wednesday May 15
Hi Everyone--on this blog I have already posted guidelines for Essay #2. What you need to do here is tell your classmates and your professor what writer or writers you have chosen and answer the following questions:
1. why did you choose this writer or writers?
2. what do the texts or writers have in common?
3. how do the texts differ in the treatment of theme?
4. what kind of research would be helpful?
We will brainstorm in class to help you refine your thesis based on the blogs you write.
1. why did you choose this writer or writers?
2. what do the texts or writers have in common?
3. how do the texts differ in the treatment of theme?
4. what kind of research would be helpful?
We will brainstorm in class to help you refine your thesis based on the blogs you write.
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