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?

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.)

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.

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)

vanph@lagcc.cuny.edu

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.

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.

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.

Essay Planning: Essay #2 Comparison Guidelines

The Woman Writer

Guidelines for Essay #2

A Comparison/Contrast of Two Works

Deadlines: Blog for May 16; Essay due May 23 (draft in class discussion May 21.)

Choices:

1.     You may compare a technique in two writers, for example, magical realism in Ferre and Danticat.

2.     You may compare two poems or stories by the same writer, for example the poems we have read by Alvarez or Angelou—you will need a theme.

3.     You may compare a theme in two different writers, for example, identity or language in Anzaldua and Alvarez.

4.     Women’s oppression; women’s self-affirmation has been a thread throughout the course and we will return to that in new ways in the last two readings: “The Yellow Wallpaper” and In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play. Both these texts are based on real events, so another angle is to examine how real events are used fruitfully, productively to create fiction. (This also works for “The Youngest Doll,” “1937”and Trifles.)  You may choose any two texts you have not already written about to explore a feminist-type theme.

As with the previous essay, I am asking you to research your authors, and, in some cases, the historical or social issue surrounding the story or play or poem.

I will post a blog after our class May 14, so that you can begin to share ideas about your comparison contrast essay.

Simple structural advice:

·      First establish what the two texts have in common; then clearly define how each text approaches the theme differently;

·      The opening of your essay should create a structural frame for the comparison, so that you and your reader know exactly what is coming next

·      Each body paragraph should be devoted to one aspect of the theme, should have textual support that is clearly introduced, related to the theme and commented on in depth.

·      Your conclusion should make some kind of social, psychological or philosophical observation, comment on the importance of the theme and the specific way the writer chose to advance our understanding.

Example of the comparison contrast thesis:

Gloria Anzaldua and Julia Alvarez both struggle to describe the relationship between language and identity.  Both use Spanish and English in the same text and both express complex emotions about living in two languages.  However, Anzaldua writes in prose, Anzaldua in poetry.  Anzaldua wants her reader to think about how Latina women can make their voices heard in the world, while Alvarez gives us a more intimate, private analysis of an individual’s identity—between worlds.