Category Archives: The Story of an Hour

Class Notes 9/7

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Assignments

Print, read, annotate, and blog about the ” Yellow Wallpaper”. The blog is due on 09/11 ( Monday night).

Make sure to bring all reading assignments to class next Tuesday.

In your reading responses have at least three text evidences.

REMINDER: Reread the blogging guidelines. The titles should not be ‘reading response #1’ or ‘my reading response for Girl’.

 

Definitions

  • Analyze –  is the practice of looking closely at small parts to see how they affect the whole, breaking the text apart.
  • Synthesis  –  is to combine two or more elements to form a new whole, putting the text together.
  • Direct dialogue – a conversation between the characters in the story.
  • Indirect dialogue –  summary of a dialogue.
  • Oxymoron – two opposite ideas are joined to create an effect in a text.
  • Prodox – a statement that appears to contradict itself, but may be the same.
  • Prose Poem – applies a natural flow of speech/rhythm.

 

Tips for blogging

  • Don’t be reductive ( Tending to present a subject or problem in a simplified form ) in your blogging. Pay attention and include details in a complex situation.
  • Pick a focus point, and then find evidence in the text to support the blog. 
  • It’s important to transition from one paragraph to another. The topic sentences of each paragraph needs to be a connected link. 
  • Don’t write about endless observations of each paragraph. Instead, analyze and focus on why it’s important and link it.

If anyone has any questions or thoughts about the readings that you would like to discuss, feel free to post and comment!

 

Class Notes 9/5

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Announcements

  • Classroom change :  N705. This will be PERMANENT 
  • Blogging Workshop Thursday
  • Quiz on Elements of Fiction Thursday 9/7
  • Bring in stories for class Thursday (reread and annotate)

Definitions 

  • Genre: A type of literature
  • Character: The people who have a part in the story
  • Agency: To do things on your own
  • Narrator: Story teller who may or may not be apart of the story
  • Point of View (P.O.V): How the story is told
  • Omniscient: Knowing things that happen outside the story (Omi =all) (Scient= knowledge)
    • First person is associated with pronoun I or We
    • Second person is associated with the pronoun You
    • Third person is associated with the pronoun He, She, It
  • Limited: Knowing only what one person knows
  • Voice: The persona of the text
  • Tone: How the narrator feels about the story
  • Juxtaposition: Placing two things side by side
  • Forestall: To prevent something from happening
  • Hastened: To move quickly
  • Personification: Giving human characteristics to something not living
  • Simile: Two things being compared using the words ‘like or as’
  • Metaphor:  Two things being compared WITHOUT using the words like or as

Story of An Hour

Characters:

  • Protagonist : Mrs. Mallard
  • Richard : Mrs. Mallard husband friend
  • Brently Mallard : deceased husband
  • Josephine : Mrs. Mallard sister

¶2 “It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing.” -Shows that her sister was beating around the bush , trying not to hurt her.

¶3 “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arm. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away too her room alone…” – In this paragraph we find out how she reacts to hearing the news of her husband passing away

  • “Storm of grief” is a metaphor which her grieving is being compared to being a storm without using the words like or as.
  • “Wild abandonment” brings out how deeply the news of her husband affected her

¶4″…facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul” – In this paragraph this is where the tone of the text changes from sad to slightly freedom.

  • “A comfortable, roomy armchair”, armchairs are only for one person, how can it be roomy? Maybe foreshadowing?
  • Imagery is presented a lot in this paragraph, “..the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair”.

 

 

Class Notes for Thursday, 8/31

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Hello Class,

Here are the notes I took on todays class, as well as some reminders for next Tuesday’s class. I didn’t quite get everything but this is most of what was discussed!

What kinds of things do we annotate while we read?

  • Vocabulary words unfamiliar to us
  • Key lines in the story (Similes, Metaphors, language/dialogue
  • Parts of the story that stand out or can be important or pertinent to the message
  • Characters, protagonist/antagonist, plot
  • Foreshadowing
  • Mood/Setting

Objective: Factual, unbiased information

Subjective: Biased preferences or personal opinion

Why do we reread stories?

  • To go over important info that may have been missed by the reader
  • To get a better sense of what the text is saying/the message

Characterization:  Learning about characters and their traits.

Denotation: A dictionary’s definition of something

Connotation: Your idea or feeling of what something means

Reminders!

Bring in printed copies of “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, “Puertoricanness” by Aurora Levins Morales, and

Blog a response to EITHER ‘Girl” or “Puertoricanness”, by Monday at 11:59pm!

See you guys next Tuesday!

HW for Thursday (8/31)

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Hi everyone:

Lovely to meet you all today, and to start to get to know you! And thanks for bearing with things as we improvised, since the whiteboard was destroyed & the computer didn’t work and we couldn’t project the OpenLab as planned.

As I mentioned in class, everything you need to know for the course, and everything you need to do for HW is here on this site (remember, the course site URL is at the top of the Syllabus). Your first stop here should always be the Schedule, which has up-to-date info. on readings, assignments, and deadlines.

If you’re new to the OpenLab and need help getting started, check out these posts (the “OpenLab Help” category) I made that explain how to get an account, join the course, make a post, categorize, comment, add images, etc..  Remember to always read from the bottom up (the newest posts are on top!)

As discussed, the HW is on the Schedule. Remember that HW is due on the date listed, so to see what is due for today, check today’s date (Tu 8/29). You should

  • Register for OpenLab account, join our course site, and familiarize yourself with its content and navigation (look at OpenLab Help to get started blogging)
  • Review Syllabus & Blogging Guidelines

To see what is due for our next class (Th 8/31), check that date. Before Thursday’s class, you also need to do the following:

  • Watch this very brief slideshow on The Elements of Fiction (remember to take notes!), and read/annotate “The Story of an Hour” and “For Better Social Skills, Scientists Recommend a Little Checkhov” (both handed out in class today).
  • Finally, don’t forget to make your Introductions post (by W 8/30), and to read through/comment on your classmates’ posts before class.

Things are pretty self-explanatory on our course site (if you take some time to read through everything), but as always, feel free to email me with any questions or just leave a comment (“reply”) here on this post. And don’t worry: once you get the hang of the OpenLab, it’s actually quite fun! Looking forward to seeing you on Thursday 🙂

Cheers,
Professor Belli

*P.S. Thanks Nick for taking Class Notes today! If you’re feeling ambitious, please type them up and post them to the site (categorizing as “Class Notes”). Class Notes should be posted no later than the night of class, going forward.