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gatsby 1 february 2, 2, 3

Let’s talk broadly about the novel to begin. What do you think we need to discuss when we engage this book? What are questions we ask of any book? What will be our essential questions?

Take us to your favorite journal entry. What did you key in on? Has your thinking changed now that you finished the novel?

Now that you’ve finished the novel, we’re going to go back to the beginning and look at the first two pages. What do you see now that you missed last time? Why is it that Gatsby is “exempt” from the scorn Nick feels toward everyone from that summer?

Homework for our next session:

(1) Recall what I mentioned in class today about Cicero’s famous quote, “O tempora! O mores!” Go back to the novel and find an example or two of a moment you see Fitzgerald observing and turning the mirror toward his audience. What does he see that he doesn’t like?

(2) Think about the following, taking notes as you deem appropriate: Tomorrow we’re going to talk a great deal about geography in the novel, especially the contrast between East and West. Bring to class a list of references the novel makes to the West, specifically. What is associated with things in the West in this novel? This may be West Egg or things far further west. What do we normally associate with the West in American history?

gatsby 2 february 3, 4, 4

We’ll begin class today with your responses to my two questions from our last class. What does the novel force its contemporaries to confront?

Why does Fitzgerald obsess over geography? Can we connect the obsession to the novel’s themes?

Finally, let’s take a quiz.

Homework for our next session:

Read and annotate the two contextual handouts: “Lost Generation” and “F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Age of Excess”. Find a quote from the novel to support each of the three themes listed in the first article. With respect to the second article, do you buy his final claim about our own times, or is it just a desperate attempt to try to make the novel relevant?

gatsby 3 february 8, 9, 9

Section 1: While I’m out with the tennis team, you’re going to have an abridged version of my lesson on Symbolism in The Great Gatsby. Please work through and think about the following while in class. If you finish early, you may use the remaining time to work on anything you need to work on to get ready for the rest of the day. Please do use the time to work, though.

An author may use SYMBOLISM in order to imbue or invest meaning into something like object, an idea, a person, a color, the weather, a mark, or a location, among other things, in order to represent or convey an idea. As you’ll see in the video below, we don’t want always to assume that everything is a symbol. In fact, it’s quite rare that something has symbolic value outside of the context of the story. Our job as readers is to develop over time a sense for how writers use and do not use symbols.

(1) Watch the video below on symbolism. It’s done by Gilad Elbom at Oregon State University.

(2) Make a list of three things in The Great Gatsby that you think might be assumed to have symbolic value but, in fact, do not. Explain why you chose those three things.

(3) Make a list of three things in the novel that you think might actually have symbolic value. Explain why you chose those three things and how they differ from the list above.

(4) Read the handout provided by your sub. There’s an electronic copy here. Annotate as you go, marking the key points the author makes about Fitzgerald’s use of SYMBOLISM. This may be your first foray into the world of academic writing; you’ll see very quickly that it can be pedantic and even disorganized. Do your best; this is one of the clearer ones, actually. We’re going to begin a research essay on The Great Gatsby later this week that you’ll be working on throughout the remainder of the month. It’ll be your job to read essays like this one that argue about various aspects of Fitzgerald’s novel. Once you’ve read and annotated this one, write a short paragraph in your notes that engages with its ideas. Enter into the academic conversation. What do you agree with? What do you disagree with? What does the article teach you about the novel that you didn’t think of before?

GATSBY 4 FEBRUARY 9, 10, 10

During today’s class we’ll look at your list of symbols. We’ve already discussed the symbols of West and East and what they might indicate. What else did you come up with?

Who’s the main character in this novel, the protagonist?

Then let’s turn to the narrative voice. Why does Fitzgerald choose 1st person?

Let’s turn to the novel’s final pages. If it argues that it’s futile to reach into the past to rekindle that which once was, what is it that we’re supposed to do? Just keep plodding with the current toward the future? How much of the past should we bring with us? Let’s illustrate the point with the example of religion.

art of styling sentences 1 february 11, 14, 14

Today we’ll hit the pause button on Gatsby and spend some time reviewing our sentence instruction from last year and begin to imitate better sentence constructions.

9 constructions for today:

Compound sentence, Compound sentence with elliptical construction, Compound statement with explanatory statement, Series without a conjunction, Series without punctuation, Series of balanced pairs, Repetition of a key term, Parallel structure, Full sentence interrupting modifier

If you did not complete the phrasal template in class, please do so for homework.

GATSBY 5 FEBRUARY 15, 15, 16

Today we will go through a number of your phrasal templates and take any questions you have from last time.

Fitzgerald’s characterization: Do any of the minor characters have any kind of dynamism, or do they remain static from beginning to end?

I’ll also set your research assignment on The Great Gatsby.

GATSBY 6 FEBRUARY 22, 23, 23

How to write an MLA citation for an academic journal

How to write an annotated bibliography

GATSBY 7 FEBRUARY 25, 28, 28

How to incorporate secondary material into your essay

Sample Research Essay

GATSBY 8 march 1, 1, 2

Read "The Coddling of the American Mind," an article published in 2015 in The Atlantic, addressing how "microaggressions" and "trigger warnings" are actually hurting mental health on college campuses. It’s a great read in terms of the essay’s content, but it’s more important for you to consider it as a research essay that thinks in topics. As you read, pay particular attention to the authors' use of secondary material. Notice how they use sources as concisely as possible, so their own thinking isn’t crowded out by their presentation of other people’s thinking. Notice also that you're never left in doubt as to when the authors are speaking and when they're using materials from a source. Lastly, notice how the essay thinks: It’s broken up into topics rather than individual body paragraphs. We'll begin with this essay during our next class to continue our discussion of incorporating secondary material into your own writing.
Secondly, please read this chapter on Readability from John Trimble’s Writing with Style. Quiz next class.