We’re so close!

Thank you to everyone for your hard work this semester.  As I look back on the past 3 months, I feel tremendous respect for those of you who have pushed the boundaries of thought and practiced the art of interpretation.  You have challenged me to think of these texts in ways I had not previously considered.

For Monday’s class, as mentioned on Wednesday, please bring copies of all the short stories we have read so far in class.  We’ll continue our final review with these texts.  Your classmates in Blog Groups 5 + 6 have done an excellent job beginning the review of these stories.

Under Handouts, you should be able to access sample exam instructions.  Please alert me if you have issues accessing that document.   And best wishes as you finish Paper 3.

Sincerely,

Professor Kwong

Hi class,

We’re so close!  Please finish Things Fall Apart for Monday’s class.   Group 4, you’re up to blog by 5 pm on Sunday.  Whether blogging, commenting, or merely reading closely, pay attention to the themes and questions that have come up in this unit so far – regarding images of Africa, Okonkwo’s character, the place of culture, the villagers’ relationship to nature, religion and myth, etc.

Moreover, as one last annotation exercise, please upload a scanned page or .jpg of one page from part III of Things Fall Apart by the beginning of class.  This exercise will count towards your blogs/comment score.

Finally, a reminder that Monday is the last day to show me drafts of your paper.  We will be doing some work with organizing your analysis on Monday’s class.  To that end, please bring Things Fall Apart as well as “At The Mountains of Madness.”

Cheers,

Professor Kwong

Hi all,

Quick reminder to finish Part II of Things Fall Apart for tomorrow.  Blog group 3 up to post by 5 pm today.  Please refer to questions/themes from class.  Best,

Professor Kwong

Class,

Thanks for your excellent work today.  Keep thinking about the broad guiding questions that have come up as you continue reading: culture as performance, Okonkwo’s relationship to culture, parallels between colonizers and villagers, gender relations, the role of religion, etc.

For Monday, please read chapters 9-13.  Ideally, we’ll finish the book by December 12 and have a couple sessions to do review for the final exam (more on that shortly).  Blog group 2, you’re’ up; please post a Create, Connect or Clue (make sure this is only your 1st or 2nd time doing whichever category you choose) by Sunday at 5.  Looking forward to seeing your posts and your classmates’ responses.

Hi class,

I just want to encourage you, in your blog posts/comments/essays, to keep practicing the art of interpreting literary elements.  There’s three weeks left, and it would be easy to do the easy thing and write responses that mainly restate information about characters, events, customs, etc.  Remember, though, that if you write a whole blog/comment/paper without mentioning any literary analysis terms/ideas (first person narration?  Dynamic character?  Setting as reflection of inner psychology?), you’re missing a pretty important piece.

Godspeed,

Professor Kwong