Final exam

The final exam will follow a form similar to an in-class writing exercise, which is comprised of multiple short questions based on reading. It is scheduled for Monday (May 9) at 11:30a in the regular classroom. It will account for 30 points (out of 180 points in total).

Texts involved in the exam will include:

1. “Realism” (p. 889)
2. “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen (p. 890)
3. Week 15’s reading on “neuro lit”.

The following tips may help you get prepared for the exam:

• Make sure that you have answers to all the questions on page 954-955.
• Try to see connections between the three readings above.
• Bring your computer with a power adapter.
• See yourself in ten layered mirrors and be sure that you understand 10 levels of intentionality. No, that’s a joke.

Reading for Week 15

Before this Thursday (April 22), please read the following two (really interesting) articles.

• Next Big Thing in English: Knowing They Know That You Know
• Can ‘Neuro Lit Crit’ Save the Humanities?

Reading for Week 14

By April 28, please read:

Introduction to drama (p664-667)

Introduction to comedy (p687-699)

David Ives: Soap Opera (p701-711)

Reading for W13

For Monday (April 11), please read Visual Poetry Today (including all the visual poems following the article), “London” by William Blake (p. 442), and “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost (p. 445).

Response paper # 2 and Visual Poetry

You are free to choose any poem from “Poems for further reading” (Backpack Literature p. 581- 659) to write about (except D. H. Lawrence’s “Piano”). Choose at least three of the following perspectives to offer your interpretation of the poem.

• Diction (word choice and word order)
• Denotation and Connotation
• Imagery
• Metaphor
• Myth
• Rhythm
• Symbol
• Tone

You will write about the poem on both personal and academic levels. Do extensive library research on the poet and the historical context of the poem, if any, as well as the literary criticism that the poem has received. Also, in the analysis, tell us about how you resonate with the poem in the same ways that your favorite long lyric moves you inside.

A more exciting part is probably creating a visual representation of the poem on Animoto.com by using your “plus” account (you will need to click here to sign up by using the promo code you received in your email). Find images online and blend them with the verses and music to show the essence of the poem in a visually stunning way. If you happen to land on the relatively long poem with many stanzas, you may select the most important stanza or reweave the whole poem by picking the most telling verses.

The visual poem needs to be longer than 60 seconds.

You can type in limited amount text for each slide on Animoto. There are two ways to deal with restriction.

• You may break a long verse into smaller segments. That means you will need to find more images to “cover” the verse.
• You may paraphrase the verse to shorten it (more instructions on p. 393 in Backpack Literature). This is a somewhat risky approach because you may alter/lose things that you do not want to alter/lose in the poem.

In sum, you will email one document to me (lxie@fairfield.edu). The first part is an analytical response essay about the poem, and the second part is a reflective essay that tells us about your making of the visual poem, including where you found the images, what are the keywords you used to find these images, why you used these images, how you paired the images with the verses, and whether the visual practice helped you understand the poem a little better. Do not forget to include the web address of the slideshow.

Of course, you will get two grades – one for the analytical essay and the other for the visual poem.

The analytical essay should be 2.5-3 pages double-spaced with at least 3 scholarly sources in MLA style (“Works Cited” page and in-text citations are required). Limit the reflective essay to 2 pages.

Deadline: 11pm, April 17. Subject line: EN 12 visual poetry

How to get the link of the slideshow

You can find the “Share” button above your slideshow. Click it and go to “Share the link”  and your will see the link.

 

Reading for W12

By Monday (April 4), please read “The winter evening settles down” by T.S. Eliot (p. 453) and page 458-460 on Haiku.

[Readers’ Hive] Paraphrasing “Piano” by D.H. Lawrence [Mar. 28]

Paraphrasing a poem is a good way to approach poetry (example on p. 394). Now paraphrase “Piano” by D.H. Lawrence and then summarize the poem’s message in a single sentence. What does the poem offer that the paraphrase does not? Then what’s the point of paraphrasing?

Lyric/Music on Thursday (Mar 31)

I guess this is one of the more entertaining assignments you will ever have in your college life. It is very simple.

(1) Find a song you like and have the lyric ready to be shown on the projector screen. The lyric must at least somewhat resemble the form of a poem.

(2) Read the lyric out loud for us and tell us something like why you like it, why it goes well with the music, its connotation, etc.

(3) Play the music (via itune or other MP3 programs) and let’s enjoy it.

Reading for Week 9

By Mar. 17, please read:

Reading a poem (p. 381-382)

Introduction to each category of poetry (lyric, narrative, didactic, etc)

D. H. Lawrence: Piano

William Butler Yeats: The Lake Isle of Innisfree (p. 383)

Robert Frost: “Out, out -” (p. 389)

[Readers’ Hive] Word Cloud for “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” [Mar. 14]

Diction refers to the choice of words that can deliver certain styles or moods. Click on the above WordCloud and observe the most frequently used the words in the story “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”. Examine how Hemingway used word choice and repetition of words to craft the theme of the story. In a large context, does the Diction in the story reflect Hemingway’s style of writing in general, or not?