Sorry I missed a post yesterday! We spent the day writing over the three short stories we’ve read so far. Today, we discussed my feedback on your rough drafts/outlines and continued working on the drafts.

The goal is to find commonalities (you can simply compare your annotations for a starting point here), then place those within the paragraph section of your outline. Once you’ve done that, take a step back and ask, “What do we learn from this? What is the message?” That’ll be your thesis. Note how each paragraph in your outline contributes to your answer, and those will be your topic sentences. From there it is simply a matter of turning the outline into an essay.

As always:

• Avoid retelling the story (your audience has read them!).
• Use proper MLA citations for each work: (Author page number); (Ellison 7).
• Bring the stories together within each paragraph; don’t devote a paragraph to each story.

We wrapped up the third in our initial series of depressing short stories: Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”

After discussion about the nature of the hero, the desire for happiness, and the relationship between rebellion and oppression, I asked you to begin laying out a plan for a paper. Here’s the prompt:

Write an essay in which you explain what a reader should learn from these three stories. Do they all say the same thing? Do some disagree? How are they relevant?

Wrap up your annotations tonight and we’ll begin writing in class tomorrow.

Hope your first days are going well. We began yesterday with Harlan Ellison’s “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman.” Hope you enjoyed it.

I asked you to note anything that stood out to you, and we’ll continue that discussion today. The goal (as it always is with annotations) is to keep a log of things that might be important to you later, and to suss out the author’s meaning in the form of themes, etc. “What makes something important, you ask?” The ultimate answer is simple: if it helps you understand the work, or if you use it in a paper. You’ll only know if something is important after you’ve read and mulled over a work, so mark anything that stands out to you; the only way you can screw up your annotations is to not do them.

We should be on to our next reading today as well, but I haven’t decided which it’ll be. We will write over three or four of the short stories in a few days, so see above if your copy of Harlequin is blank.

It is going to be a great year. Stop by the grade book explanation page if you haven’t. And, as always, email or comment below if you have any questions.

We’ve been making steady progress with Frankenstein over the past week: the monster has told his story and made a request sublime of Victor. Good times.

This weekend you should wrap up your latest comparison between the novel and one of the sources. We workshopped your outlines on Friday, but if you have any questions please let me know. The standard guidelines apply here as always:

• MLA format
• Argumentative topic sentences
• Cited support from both works

This will allow me to provide feedback on your progress before we launch into the larger paper where you will be asked to compare the novel to a number of contemporary works.

Grades for progress reports are due soon so if you would like to revise any previous paper before that you are more than welcome to. If your journal grades aren’t what you’d like, spend some time with your book outside over this beautiful weekend to make some progress. Of course, I will accept revisions/updates after Monday, but they will not apply to your progress grade.

We began Frankenstein last night. Our goal in this section of the course is to better understand the Romantic era and the novel’s place within it. To this end, your prompt:

How does Mary Shelley’s argument compare/contrast with the arguments of contemporary works?

When put this way it is fairly straightforward. Indeed, you’ve already practiced this kind of comparison in your previous writings (rebellion and poetry). However, this will take it to another level—we will read contemporary works (poems, philosophy, short stories), discover and compare major themes, and use them to better understand Mary Shelley’s larger work.

If you’re interested in the Prometheus myth (or mythology in general) check out Theoi.com for the most comprehensive collection of stories on the ‘net.

I’m checking journals today, but may not get to all of them. If you need a refresher on what I’m looking for, check out this post from a while back or look over the journal rubric handout I gave you at the beginning of the year.

You should read (and journal) through chapter two by Friday.