on Mercury Theatre.  Check out the Mercury Theatre website for streaming audio and downloadable versions of radio programs from the 1930’s.

Hear Dracula, War of the Worlds, Treasure Island, and, at the bottom of the page, an interview with Wells by Welles.

• War of the Worlds audio book here.
• The Island of Dr. Moreau audio book here.  (This one’s computer-read, not sure of quality.)

We will be finishing Dracula by February 4th.  Read at your own pace (finish early if you want), but finish chapter 15 by Monday 28, chapter 20 by Thursday 31, and the rest of the book by the 4th.  We will have a reading quiz on each of the days mentioned, so be sure you have read at least the recommended number of chapters.

Today we discussed possible topics for our next essays.  Here’s what we came up with:

1st Hour Dracula—after exploring various symbols in Stoker’s novel (vampires, the stake, blood, the transfusions, lightness and darkness, etc), we came up with several topics from the book, which are listed below:

• Fear of the unknown
• Fear of death
• Good versus evil
• Holy versus unholy
• Purity versus corruption

We also explored the vampire metaphor (life/health/soul/purity/blood-sucking) in modern culture and society.  For the essay, each student will be writing a short fictional piece implementing the vampire metaphor and one or more of the topics listed above.  We will be workshopping these in class tomorrow, and they are due Monday the 14th.  The papers should be at least two typed pages, double-spaced, 12 pt font, header, etc.

3rd Hour War of the Worlds—as with Dracula, we explored various symbols in the novel (aliens, the alien technology, the curate, the hero), then pulled several topics from the work:

• Foreign versus domestic
• Adversity
• Humanity/inhumanity
• War
• Interaction between opposing cultures

Students will write a short analysis of "Book I" from Wells’s novel, discussing one of the topics above and supplementing their argument with quotations from the text.

4th Hour War of the Worlds—Using an "invasion" metaphor, students will write a short fiction piece using one or more of the topics above from War of the Worlds.  The perimeters of the paper are the same as those for the Dracula piece above.