Category: Gothic Coffeehouse (Page 4 of 4)

This summer I did not do anything that was surprised or scared me. The majority of the time my family and I stayed home because of the pandemic. There was nothing exciting or motivating to do outside that would have also followed the social distancing rules that I would have been interested in. The one thing I guess I would say made me feel good was taking a summer class so I would not have to take it during the fall or spring semester. It was stressful but I felt good after knowing I passed it. 

Of the three stories, my favorite was The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe. I think this one was my favorite because of how dramatic the writing is. When I was reading I noticed how the words are chosen to manipulate the reader’s emotion and also change with the narrator’s perspective. The story is chaotic but I liked its chaos because when reading or watching something chaotic there is a relief at the end of the story that this isn’t your reality; the chaos ends with the last sentence. This is the only story, for me, out of the three that made me pay close attention to the word choice; that was most likely because I had to read sentences a couple times before understanding what they meant but in doing so I realized different things each time I reread. 

I liked the narrator’s reasoning as to why he did cruel things; not because I agreed with those things but because it was interesting to see someone try to justify cruel and evil acts as if it were something everyone does regularly. I’m referring to when he speaks about the spirit of perverseness. The narrator introduces this by saying “Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a stupid action, for no other reason than because he know he should not?”. The way they word it makes it seem as though everyone does these things, and therefore since you have possibly fallen victim to this ideology, you are not in a place to judge what the narrator has done out of perverseness as well. I think this type of manipulation of the reading is interesting and makes me question other events in the story. It was spooky and mysterious which I really liked. 

Hi Everybody. This is where we will practice our critical writing skills on subjects related to gothic literature and culture. For this first gothic coffeehouse post (DUE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9), I wish to students to consider these two questions: First, name one fun thing that you did this summer that surprised you, or motivated you, or made you feel good. My answer to this is that I took a paddleboarding lesson. Always wanted to learn how, and it was pretty fun, but also stressful. I took my lesson on Jamaica Bay. The problem is that I have a fairly serious fear of sharks, so I was very timid and worried about falling in. I fell in once, but luckily, the sharks did not eat me.

The second question that I would like students to answer is this: which of the three stories we have read so far is your favorite? And why? [“The Captive,” “The Black Cat,” and “The Lottery”] I won’t write my opinion here because that might sway students too much. At any rate, these coffeehouse posts should be conversational, friendly, and experimental. This means that you don’t have to be overly formal, but you should stretch yourself in terms of vocabulary and sentence structures. And, of course, please proof your work carefully before publishing.

How do we post to OpenLab? It’s pretty simple. Once logged in and on our class site, go to Dashboard, and find Posts > Add New on the top-left. Then, click the Category type. This is very important or it will show up on the Home page. Once you click the category “Virtual Coffeehouse,” then you can start typing. Proofread your work, then save. Then, you can preview it. Finally click publish.

Here’s a short video I made last semester on how to create and post a Virtual Coffeehouse post:

Here are the directions from OpenLab:

Cheers,

Prof. Scanlan