Category: Uncategorized (Page 3 of 3)

***Update: I fixed the link to Ellison’s “Prologue to Invisible Man”***

Agenda for Monday, Oct 4

1–Freewrite: If you could be a writer, which type of writer would you want to be? A journalist, a fiction writer, a poet, a science writer, music reviewer, sports writer, cultural critic, theater critic, essayist, writer of opinions, fashion writer?

Freewrite 2: If you could write a book, what would it be? Book of poetry, a novel? A play? Mystery, sports, a memoir about your life, a book about climate change? A book about racial injustice? A book about how to get rich? A book about politics, about NYC? About skateboarding?

2–New Term: Redemption:

Noun

redemption (countable and uncountable, plural redemptions)

1. The act of redeeming or something redeemed.
2. The recovery, for a fee, of a pawned article.
3. Salvation from sin.
4. Rescue upon payment of a ransom.

Verb

redeem (third-person singular simple present redeems, present participle redeeming, simple past and past participle redeemed)

1. (transitive) To recover ownership of something by buying it back.
2. (transitive) To liberate by payment of a ransom.
3. (transitive) To set free by force. quotations ▼
4. (transitive) To save, rescue
5. (transitive) To clear, release from debt or blame
6. (transitive) To expiate, atone (for)
7. (transitive, finance) To convert (some bond or security) into cash
8. (transitive) To save from a state of sin (and from its consequences).
9. (transitive) To repair, restore
10. (transitive) To reform, change (for the better)
11. (transitive) To restore the honour, worth, or reputation of oneself or something.
12. (transitive, archaic) To reclaim

Questions to ask: Who is doing the redeeming? Who has the power to redeem and who is blocked from redeeming others. Is someone blocked from seeking redemption. Can a person redeem themselves or does redemption come from the outside?

3–Review: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man:

4–Review: Gothic Short Story Essay

Homework: In your notebook: make a list of all of our terms and concepts. Look over our list of short stories and then select your favorite two stories. Be prepared to discuss in class on Wednesday.

Agenda for Wednesday, Sept 29

1—Freewrite

2—Lloyd Smith

3—Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and terms

Homework: Due in class on Monday, October 4

Read Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” and Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” and answer these two questions in your notebooks (nothing to submit): 1–discuss how each of these stories is an allegory that is meant to teach us something; what is the lesson we should learn? 2–Apply Todorov’s terms to each story.

AGENDA 9/27

1—Read through literary terms

2—Watch Film

3—Examples using literary terms

4—Todorov application

5—Lloyd-Smith exploration

Homework: Read Faulkner and apply terms + Todorov [in your your notebook, nothing to turn in]

Information for Wednesday, Sept 22

1–Review Quiz Questions

2–Discuss Todorov

3–Discuss Terms

4–Q/A over Owl Creek (Freewrite)

5–Film interpretation

6–Homework for Monday, Sept 27:

Read Alan Lloyd-Smith on American Gothic and for Coffeehouse #3, write down the five most important ideas in this chapter. Please indicate page number. This will be a fairly short Coffeehouse. Be prepared to discuss one or two of your selections on Monday.

Be Well,

Prof. Scanlan

Twelve Important Terms for Monday and Wednesday:

1–Focalization: Focalization is essentially the same thing as point of view, which means the perspective from which a story is being told. This term, Focalization, and its related terms, enable us to get a better understanding of how a story works.

2–Internal Focalization: the POV focuses on internal thoughts, emotions, and reflections

3–External Focalization: the POV focuses on actions, behaviors, settings, atmosphere.

4–Focal Distance: the distance between the POV and the character/action being viewed/narrated. In general, the focal distance of external focalization is greater than internal focalization.

Note: Depending upon the situation, differences between internal and external focalization can blur.

Example 1: Reggie saw his own hands trying to help his little green friend. His fingers were wet with swamp water, and behind his eyes, he felt a strangling tightness, as if the nerves and the synapses in his brain were confused, warring against each other, unable to arrive at the right emotion to express.

Example 2: I saw Reggie’s face contorted into anguish because he had just witnessed the terrible death of his pet grasshopper.

Example 3: The grasshopper hopped fast and high for such a small creature. It hopped just ahead of little Reggie. And just then, Reggie’s dad came around the corner of the house pushing the old red lawnmower.

Example 4: As she cleaned up from dinner, Reggie’s mother thought the scene of the grasshopper’s accident was complex. It uncovered the terrible power of the men in her life. And it revealed those past lessons of control: her father’s inability to love her, and the boy’s father’s non-stop work ethic.

5–Sarcasm: speech or action that is the opposite from actual words/action. Example:  During a thunderstorm, your friends says “it’s quite nice outside.”

6–Paradox: A contradictory statement that, upon closer inspection, resolves itself or contains truth. The key to this complex term is that the opposition forms a relationship. Example: “The son is father to the man.”

7–Allegory: As a literary device, an allegory is a narrative in which a character, place, or event is used to deliver a broader message about real-world issues and occurrences. Authors have used allegory throughout history in all forms of art to illustrate or convey complex ideas and concepts in ways that are comprehensible or striking to its viewers, readers, or listeners. Example:  Fox and Grapes Allegory

8–Flashback: A flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point in the story. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events to fill in crucial backstory. In the opposite direction, a flashforward reveals events that will occur in the future. Both flashback and flashforward are used to cohere a story, develop a character, or add structure to the narrative.

9–Irony, in its broadest sense, is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or event in which what is on the surface (or to be expected) differs radically from what is actually the case.

10–Verbal Irony: characters are aware of the irony and intend to create it. In Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony calls Brutus “an honorable man.”

11–Dramatic Irony: characters are unaware of the irony. Example: In The Truman Show, Truman does not know he is the focus of the tv show; and in Romeo and Juliet, Romeo believes Juliet is dead, but the audience knows that she is sleeping.

12–Situational Irony: an action or event the goes agains the expected, and the characters are aware of it (often as the climax of a narrative). Example: Harry Potter’s enemy, Professor Snape, turns out, in the end, to be his protector.

HOMEWORK FOR WEDNESDAY, SEPT 22:

Review the above definitions and read the handout on Todorov’s ideas of the Fantastic, Uncanny, and Marvelous–in Readings. Bring to class at least one question on one of the terms or how a term relates to our readings.

Best wishes,

Prof. Scanlan

Hi Class,

I hope everyone is doing well. Quiz 1 is now live on Blackboard. Please follow the directions carefully, and submit through the “Write Submission” box.

The quiz is due before class on Monday, September 20.

Email any questions.

Best,

Prof. Scanlan

Monday’s Agenda:

1–No Class on Wednesday, Sept 15

2–SOP

3–Gothic Definitions

4–Freewrite

5–Review YGB an YW

6–Homework: Due Monday, Sept 20:

Read Read “Incident at Owl Creek Bridge” by Bierce and “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Marquez. Quiz 1 over readings will be posted to Blackboard by Wednesday evening at 5pm, and it will be due (submit via Blackboard) by class time on Monday, Sept 20.

Email any questions.

Best wishes,

Prof. Scanlan

Hi Class,

SOME UPDATES:

***I updated the homework so that it is clearer

***I posted the article on the reception of Jackson’s “The Lottery” in Readings

—————————————————–

Here’s the agenda for Wednesday:

1–Author facts and attendance

2–Freewrite

3–Borges

4–Davis

5–SOP

6–Gothic Definitions

7–How to post to Coffeehouse:

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/blog/help/writing-a-post/

Homework: REMEMBER, WE DO NOT HAVE CLASS AT ALL NEXT WEEK. SO, HOMEWORK IS DUE MONDAY SEPT. 13:

Read the handout on Gothic Definitions and “Young Goodman Brown” by Hawthorne and  “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Gilman (all are in the Readings menu tab), then write Coffeehouse #2: 300 words on which of the six stories that we have read so far you liked the best and why––See my post in Coffeehouse #2 for more details.

So far, we have read:

“The Captive”

“A Story Told to Me by a Friend”

“The Black Cat”

“The Lottery”

“Young Goodman Brown”

“The Yellow Wallpaper”

Best wishes and enjoy the break,

Prof. Scanlan

Hi Class,

Here’s our agenda:

1–Attendance and Self Introduction:

                     Name, hometown, major, dream job, favorite place to study, favorite food

2–Freewrite: what is it, and how should we do it?

3–5-Part Reading Tool (Readings)

4–Borges

5–Poe

6–Homework:

Reading: “The Lottery” and in your notebook, write down five facts about one of our authors so far. We will go over the Davis story on Wednesday.

*Please “join” the class on OpenLab if you have not done so yet.

**And submit the Questionnaire if you have not done so yet.

***Email any questions!

-Prof. Scanlan

***UPDATE 8/25

I changed a setting that should allow all students to  join the class. If it still doesn’t work, please email me:

sscanlan@citytech.cuny.edu

–

Hi Students,

Welcome to Introduction to Fiction–ENG2001, Section O525.

We will spend much of our time on this OpenLab site as it will be the place where we will find general information about the class…as well as readings,  homework, and major assignments. Right now, the site is in its infancy, but it will grow throughout the first few weeks of class. Take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the menu headings.

Agenda for Wednesday, August 25:

1–Introduction and how are we doing these days? Did you do anything new this summer?

2–Attendance

3–OpenLab tour

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/blog/help/signing-up-on-the-openlab/

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/blog/help/joining-a-course/

4–Course Policy and Weekly Schedule

5–About this course

6–Short Stories:

Discussion: What is a story? What are its defining characteristics?

A short story is an invented prose narrative shorter than a novel usually dealing with a few characters and aiming at unity of effect and often concentrating on the creation of mood rather than plot (Merriam-Webster online dictionary).

Let’s read this short story by Jose Luis Borges:

The Captive

by Jose Luis Borges, published 1960

 

The story is told in Junín or in Tapalquén. A boy disappeared after an Indian attack. People said the Indians had kidnapped him. His parents searched for him in vain. Then, long years later, a soldier who came from the interior told them about an Indian with blue eyes who might well be their son. At length they found him (the chronicle has lost the circumstances and I will not invent what I do not know) and thought they recognized him. The man, buffeted by the wilderness and by barbaric life, no longer knew how to understand the words of his mother tongue, but indifferent and docile, he let himself be led home. There he stopped, perhaps because the others stopped. He looked at the door as if he did not know what it was for. Then suddenly he lowered his head, let out a shout, ran across the entrance way and the two long patios, and plunged into the kitchen. Without hesitating, he sank his arm into the blackened chimney and pulled out the little horn-handled knife he had hidden there as a boy. His eyes shone with joy and his parents wept because they had found their son.

Perhaps this recollection was followed by others, but the Indian could not live within walls, and one day he went in search of his wilderness. I wonder what he felt in that dizzying moment when past and present became one. I wonder whether the lost son was reborn and died in that instant of ecstasy; and whether he ever managed to recognize, if only as an infant or a dog does, his parents and his home.

[Source: Borges, Jorge Luis. Collected Fictions. Translated by Andrew Hurley. Penguin, 1998, p 300.]

Question: How should we read this? Let’s explore our five-part short story reading tool (Readings menu tab)

—–

Homework due Monday, August 30 — before class

1–Sign up for OpenLab if you have not already done so. Register for my class.

2–Read two short stories: Lydia Davis’s “A Story Told to Me by a Friend” and Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat” –find these stories in the Readings menu tab…scroll to the bottom. And in your notes (either a physical notebook or on your digital device) write down: Author’s name, story title, date of publication, setting, narration style (first, second, or third person), basic plot (what happens in the beginning, middle, and end of the story), and…did you like the story?–Why or why not?

3–Fill out the Questionnaire below and remember to submit: