Fall for the Book Assignment

Beginning on Sunday, Sept. 18, and continuing through Friday, Sept. 23, GMU and the surrounding area is host to a huge and important literary festival: Fall for the Book.

I gave out schedules in class last week.

Your assignment: 

Attend at least one Fall for the Book reading. There are many types of readings, so I feel confident you can find one that you will be interested in.

At the event: Take notes. Write down the author's name and book. Write down comments the author makes. If it's appropriate, ask the author a question during the Q&A session.

After the event: Write a 250-word blog post responding to the reading you attended. You should include the date and location of the event as well as the author's name and publication. Half of your blog post should be about what happened at the reading, and the other half of the blog post should be a reflection of the event: what did you learn? What did you expect? Did it meet/exceed your expectations?

The blog post should be posted on this very blog no later than Monday, Sept. 26, 11:59 p.m.

Nuts and bolts: Most of the readings are on campus, and there are many readings, so you should not have a problem finding one that works for your schedule. Of course, if you wait until Thursday to try to attend a reading, you may have trouble finding one that works for your schedule. To that end, I will not accept an excuse of scheduling presented to me after Fall for the Book begins.

I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. And I think you'll have fun!

Reading for Wednesday, 9/7

Here's the reading for Wednesday, 9/7. Remember to write your blog post and have it posted by Tuesday, 9/6, at 6 p.m. Sooner is fine!

"A Good Man is Hard to Find," Flannery O'Connor

Print a copy out, and follow these instructions:

• Read it through once. Don't make any marks on the story or worry about literary devices. 
• Read it a second time. This time, read with a pen in hand, and take notes the way you think works best for you (on the paper or in a separate notebook). 

Reading for next Wednesday: posted tomorrow!

I'll post the reading for next week tomorrow. Thanks!

Sample Reading Response Journal Post

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth” (Salinger 1).

This quote displays Holden Caulfield’s intentions with his story. He doesn’t want to give you his entire background, but would rather just begin in media res — in the middle of things — and pick up from a certain point in his life. We see that Holden is willing to talk about his life, but not to necessarily address his past directly. He wants us to hear his story, but this passage gives the reader a clue that we might also have to read between the lines a bit to get the whole picture. It also displays J.D. Salinger’s desire to break away from the “old guard” of novelists. When Holden talks about “that David Copperfield kind of crap,” he’s referring to the Charles Dickens novel of the same name. Salinger, implicitly, is saying that The Catcher in the Rye will be a different kind of novel, one that tries to tell a story more true to contemporary life. Indeed, reading on, we see that Holden drops us into his story quite quickly, and we learn about his past and history through subtle references as the book unfolds. The book does, to me, feel more contemporary in its voice than a Dickens novel, largely due to Holden’s conversational tone and the spirit of intimacy he immediately creates with the reader. We are invited in, and this passage is that invitation — hesitant, but present nonetheless.

[so, here you have an example of a proper Reading Response journal. open with a quotation, citing it properly in MLA format. then, write about what in the passage strikes you as interesting and important. you'll want to reference diction, style, voice, tone, imagery -- literary devices that may be present. ~250 words, not including the quotation.]

Texts for English 201-008

Our texts for this course are available through the Mason bookstore. I expect you to have purchased each of these books so that the copy you have is your copy.

We'll be reading the following, plus some supplementary materials:

• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
• Field Work, Seamus Heaney
• Macbeth, Shakespeare
• Zeitoun, Dave Eggers

Welcome to English 201-008!

Welcome to English 201-008! We’re going to have a great semester. We’ll be using this blog to share ideas and reflections on the readings we do. We’ll be using this blog to start and join conversations about literature and about, just maybe, things beyond that. It’s up to you.

We also have a Blackboard site, which we’ll be using for assignments. But this is where you’ll post all of your reading response journals throughout the semester.