HOME LEARNING WEEKs 8-9 TASKS

James Joyce’s Dubliners, a collection of 15 short stories, was first published in the early 20th century; the collection contains some of the finest short stories in the English language, and I’d like to share with you three of my favorites to finish this academic year. The stories we’re going to read are “Araby”, “Eveline”, and “The Dead”. Each can be accessed online by clicking the links I provide. If you happen to have a hard copy at home from a parent or sibling, all the better.

Each of the three stories has a main character who is crippled by his or her middle-class life in Dublin in the early 20th century. Each of the three I’ve selected covers a different phase of our lives: childhood, young adulthood, and adulthood. The main character in each, at the end of each story, has an often cryptic, Joycean, flash moment of realization, which we call an epiphany. Though the tone of each story is quite somber, the stories in Dubliners remain famous for their realistic depiction of certain key moments in the human experience.

The first, “Araby”, tells the story of a young boy who, infatuated with a girl and committed to doing something special for her, realizes that life isn’t what he’d thought it would be. The story seems to say that coming of age brings not the realization of childhood’s promise but the loss of it. Please read it for our next class.

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And so the narrator of “Araby” comes to see that he has been a “creature driven and derided by vanity,” forever jaded by the loss of the promise of childhood. If you thought that was a downer, just wait for “Eveline,” our next selection from Dubliners.

Recall that each of the stories I selected covers a distinct part of the life of a human being: “Araby” makes sense of the transition from childhood to adulthood, and now “Eveline” will stare with a steady eye at that moment most of us have early on in our adult lives when we’re presented with opportunity. “Eveline” explores why it’s so difficult to walk away from a comfortable and familiar situation in life even when that situation may not be healthy for everyone involved. It’s that “opportunity knocks” moment that comes only once in a lifetime. Think about a young Anne Elliot, for instance. What happens to her when she doesn’t take the chance she has when she’s young? She copes with regret for nearly a decade. Let’s see if Joyce has anything distinct to bring to our discussion of taking our chances while we’re young.

(1) Read “Eveline” by our next meeting.

(2) Find and highlight words, phrases, and symbols of STAGNATION and PARALYSIS. Note the narrator’s—this time it’s a third-person perspective—attitude toward Eveline throughout the story, especially toward her decision at the end. Or does the narrator remain somewhat objective? I’ll be very interested to hear what you have to say about this.

(3) Think: You’re going to college next year (most of you). What does it take to leave behind that which you have become accustomed to?

(4) Respond to the “Eveline” forum on the discussion board. It’s a good idea to paste your response into the comment box from a separate doc in case you time out. You’d hate to have to do it all over again. Also, you might get a suspicious website message before you make it to the discussion board. I’m not sure why it does that to some students, but you may proceed safely, I assure you.

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“The Dead” is not just the last of our selections but the last story in Dubliners, period. It’s certainly the grandest—in thematic scope, in complexity, in length. So, I divide the reading of it into three manageable chunks. Part 1 will be for our next session. Like the narrator in “Araby” and the main character in “Eveline”, we have another paralytic soul in “The Dead”, a main character Gabriel who struggles in both the professional and personal realm. It’s profoundly sad but one of those reading experiences everyone should have. My most sensitive readers will have a great experience; my skimmers might consider slowing down and doing it right.

Here’s Joyce’s “The Dead”. For our next class, read to the top of page 12, stopping before the paragraph that begins, “Gabriel could not listen while Mary Jane was playing her Academy piece…”

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The next section of “The Dead” encompasses Gabriel’s speech to the guests at the dinner party, an important part of the story. For our next class, read to the middle of page 33, stopping before the paragraph that begins, “The piercing morning air came into the hall where they were standing…”. This is a longer section, so it should take you about 45 minutes.

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One more assignment! I’m very proud of the way so many of you continued to work throughout our time at home. As Fr. Johnson suggested in one of his homilies, some of you even thrived in this environment despite the difficult circumstances, refusing to settle for mediocre. I could not be happier and more appreciative. So, by our last class, please finish Joyce’s novella “The Dead”. After completing your reading of “The Dead”, navigate to Flipgrid for your final assignment of the year.

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HOME LEARNING WEEKs 6-7 TASKS

We’re ready to move to the next phase of the research essay process, the actual writing of the essay. I’ve put together a document with principles of integrating secondary material into your own writing. The most helpful part of that document will undoubtedly be the examples at the bottom. By our next class, I’d like you to read through the PDF—PowerPoints are for the weak—and familiarize yourself with the principles and the examples. I’ll take questions and clarify during our next session. We’ll begin writing during our next Zoom call, too, so you should come to our next class with everything you need to start that process: your book, your notes, your secondary material, your thesis, your topic sentences, your quotes. I’ll be there to assist. Those of you who are behind, now’s your chance to get yourself caught up. Those of you who are totally up-to-date, well done.
Please note that next Tuesday, May 5 there will be an extra credit vocabulary quiz on these words. Enjoy!

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The Persuasion research essay will be due Friday, May 8 for both of my sections. You will have three regularly scheduled class periods to work on your essay; the remainder of the essay will be completed outside of class. I suggest you use the class time to write your body paragraphs; write the introduction and conclusion when you can between this coming weekend and next Friday. That’s plenty of time, especially considering you should already have an outline with a full idea, a plan, and primary and secondary quotations.
This essay will be graded generously, rest assured, for obvious reasons but also because it’s your first time undertaking a research essay. While under normal circumstances I’m looking to be wowed, now I’m just looking for an attempt at good thinking and clear writing. Show me you learned what goes into a thesis and a topic sentence; show me you learned how to blend quotations; show me you know how to coordinate and subordinate clauses; show me you engaged the novel’s ideas; show me you made an attempt to engage others’ ideas about Jane Austen’s novel; most of all, though, show me one last time, if you’re able and willing, something you’re proud of. That’s all I’ve ever asked for.
Today I am going to meet with half of the class to give my stamp of approval or disapproval on your outlines. Next time, it’ll be the remaining students who’ve turned in an outline. The remaining students should begin writing the first body paragraph.

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Remember that your essay is due this coming Friday, May 8. I’m going to continue giving you the time to work on your body paragraphs before we turn to the writing of the introduction and conclusion later in the week.
Before you continue writing today, read through the body paragraphs below from three students who were open to putting their work on the line for everybody’s scrutiny. Carefully look at my notes as well.

Sieler (Copy)

Gilbert (Copy)

Gadbois (Copy)

Bordelon (Copy)

Gonzalez (Copy)

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VOCABULARY QUIZ

If you’re not taking the vocabulary quiz, I’ve linked to the docs we used last semester to learn how to write introductions and conclusions. You’ll find the examples we looked at on those docs. Before you enter the final phase of writing, it’s a good idea to review what goes into introductions and conclusions.

REVISION DOC FOR OFFICE HOURS

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HOME LEARNING WEEKs 4-5 TASKS

This week we’re going to use our Zoom meetings as office hours for you to ask individual questions about your topics, working theses, and secondary material. It’s a work week with check-ins. By the beginning of our class on either Green or White order, Friday or Monday, I’d like you to have prepared the following:

1. Revise your working thesis. Some of you have brief edits. Some of you have major revisions or just need to start over. Before you continue, you really do want to have command over your idea to put before the secondary reading.

2. You probably remember last semester I said that the single most important question you need to ask yourself when you think about a structure for your essay is, “What does my thesis demand I include in my essay?” Think first: Do I need a paragraph comparing and contrasting two characters’ outlooks? Do I need a paragraph establishing a character’s baseline attitudes? Do I need a paragraph to define an idea in the world of the novel? What do I logically need to show in my essay in order to prove my overall point? This is what I’d like you to determine by Green or White order. Bring to that class your revised thesis and each of the topic sentences, or at least a description of each topic, in the order you believe they’ll appear in the essay. Remember that topic sentences, like thesis statements, should be debatable claims. Each topic sentence will be some aspect of the thesis. Below is one example about Pride and Prejudice, another Jane Austen novel.

a. Thesis: In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth, although evidently cunning and wary of people who pretend to be something they’re not, lets her guard down around Wickham simply because he is charming and attractive. She goes against her own value of using rationalism to determines a person’s character and is hornswoggled because of it. Her lack of rationalism is clear when Wickham lies to her about his experience with Darcy, as she “went away with her head full of him. She could think of nothing but of Mr. Wickham, and of what he had told her” (59). Wickham relies on performance and deception for social growth, but he is eventually found out by Elizabeth, who had the option of ruining his social status. Elizabeth learns from her own eagerness to trust Wickham that it is important to be wary of performance and not be so trusting of people she has only formed initial opinions of.

Topic 1: Lizzie’s wary of those pretending to be something they’re not

Topic 2: Lizzie lets her guard down because Wickham is charming and attractive, going against her rationalism

Topic 3: Lizzie learns from her own eagerness to trust Wickham that it is important to be wary of performance

3. Continue your search for scholarly essays on JSTOR and Cambridge Companions. Keep PDFs of each article you find that you think will be of use to you. Bring to class each of the articles you were able to find that are related to your idea in some way.

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With your working thesis now revised, a list of topics you think your thesis demands, and a collection of secondary material, it’s now time to begin an outline. This is a 3-step process, the first of which I’d like you to do for the next class.

1. Each of your topics needs evidence to support its claim. Each topic sentence—that is, each debatable claim—needs textual detail from the novel to develop it. So it’s now time to go back to the novel and find three examples—direct quotes are always preferable to paraphrases and mere references to moments—for each of your topics. The examples you find should be the best possible evidence to support whatever the claim is. Find more than three? Fantastic. What a great paragraph that’ll be. Find fewer than three? Go back. There’re more.

Why do we do this part before you read your secondary material closely? Well, you don’t want to be overly influenced by what others have had to say about your topic, so you collect your own examples and develop your own idea before slotting in others’ points.

Begin to assemble an outline akin to the one on the research assignment document (just without the secondary material). Post to turnitin.com before our next class.

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2. Now that you’ve found your own examples to develop your ideas, it’s time to read your secondary material in earnest. Print ‘em, grab a highlighter and a pen, and get to reading. You can also use Notability to take notes if you prefer that method. This is a hard part of this process for some students, but it’s fun to see things you’ve thought of on your own verified by scholars or challenged in some cases. Pull quotes, keeping diligent notes on where they come from.

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3. Go back to your outline. Now you want to find places on that outline where you can slot in that research. Type up the quotes that you plan to use directly on that document in the order you believe they’ll appear. Doing this part well will make the drafting of the first version of your essay so much easier. Trust me! Once again, post to turnitin.com before our next class.

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HOME LEARNING WEEK 3 TASKS

I’ll keep a copy of the research assignment sheet up at the top for easy access. I hope you had a chance to read it through. Today I’ll take whatever questions you have about the assignment before showing you how to complete domain specific Google searches, JSTOR searches, and searches on Cambridge Companions Online.
By our next class I’d like you to write a draft of a more formalized working hypothesis. You’ll copy/paste into a Google doc during our next session. Please have it ready to go. For further instruction, read pages 1 and 2 of the assignment sheet.

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At the beginning of class today you’ll open up this Google doc. Find your name. Paste or type your working thesis. We can edit a few together; the rest I’ll work on over the weekend.
Meanwhile, I’d like you to begin step two of the process—collecting secondary material. The first step in research is to accumulate material and to follow the trail of citations. You want to discover the ways scholars look at your topic. As you search, look for articles and essays that offer a range of readings/contributions to your topic, articles that open your eyes, in other words. You have your first ideas. Now see what others have to say. Think of the research process as a round-table discussion at which people have different views. Sit at that table.
For now, simply accumulating articles and essays is enough. Read the abstracts and opening paragraphs to determine each essay’s thesis. In what way will it contribute to your research paper? Save each article to Notability or to your device to have ready to go when it comes time to sit down and read them in earnest. Find as much as you can for now; we’ll narrow down later.

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HOME LEARNING WEEK 2 TASKS

Very soon I am going to officially set the final project for the semester that you’ll be working on while we’re learning at home. I’ll be remotely giving you resources for approaching this small research project, but it really will come down to your level of engagement with Jane Austen’s Persuasion. To get you ready for this project I first want you to read the next chapter of the novel, particularly keeping in mind the idea, concept, or motif that you’ve been tracing from the beginning. Maybe you’ve been noting Austen’s use of the motif of eyes as a means of understanding characters’ varying degrees of self-confidence, persuadability, or firmness. Pay particular attention, then, to that motif or anything else you’ve been tracking as you finish the novel.

1. Begin by reading Volume 2, Chapter 10 (or Chapter 22 in the edition without volumes), taking notes as you see fit.

2. Once you’ve finished reading, register in my flipgrid class by clicking this link. Please use your full first and last names, as well as your mail.strakejesuit e-mail. Once registered, click here to make your first video. The prompt is posted in flipgrid.

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During our session today I’m going to place you in breakout rooms to share with each other what it is you’ve been tracing in Persuasion. You’ll suggest passages with whomever shared his idea, passages that you think would be helpful for him to re-read as he continues to develop his idea.
1. CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE SPREADSHEET WITH YOUR TOPICS Double check that everything is correct, and let me know ASAP if you intend to switch. It’s probably a good idea to read through everyone else’s topics just to get a sense of what everyone is doing.
2. Once you’ve finished looking over the spreadsheet, continue reading Persuasion, Volume 2, Chapter 11 (or Chapter 23). Continue to read with a focus. Remember you’re now reading for the most part with only your understanding of the novel without the advantage of class discussion or any other type of input—that means you and the words on the page, no Shmoop, no Googling, no other “research” for now. Just you and your book, alone. So have the courage to see what you think as you think it. And have the courage to be less than perfect. Developing your ability to think for yourself about a book isn’t easy. No one ever said it was.

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Let’s take a break from Persuasion and turn to work on our sentence-level writing. Follow these simple steps to review the concepts of independent/dependent clauses, comma splices, and combining multiple clauses into one sentence.
1. Begin by watching Video 1, a presentation on the distinction between independent and dependent clauses. Recall last semester when we talked a great deal about the differences between these two and, more importantly, about how to combine multiple clauses together in the same sentence. This is absolutely something you want to review to be able to complete the following exercises. Don’t skip this step even if you think you absolutely know this already. It’s 7:32 long.
2. Then turn to Video 2, a presentation on inappropriate ways of combining two independent clauses. This contains a review of what a comma splice is. Don’t skip this step even if you think you absolutely know this already. It’s 4:37 long.

Video 1 (Copy)

Video 2 (Copy)

3. Combine each set of the following sentences INTO ONE SENTENCE. Notice how different subordinating conjunctions (such as "because" and "if") and coordinating conjunctions (such as "and" and "but") can alter the meaning of sentences. Your revisions should not only be grammatically correct, but should also exemplify some of the elements of good writing we have covered in class this semester (e.g., participles, appositives, etc.).

Sentence One:
My doctor warned me about trying to lose weight too fast.
My coach reminded me of the danger involved.
My mother told me the same thing.
Sentence Two:
The first documented case of AIDS within the United States occurred in 1977.
The AIDS crisis continues to grow.
The number of newspaper and magazine articles on AIDS has declined in the last few years.
Sentence Three:
Breakfast cereals contain fiber.
Oat bran may reduce cholesterol.
Advertisers stress the health benefits of their products.
Sentence Four:
The cost of running shoes is escalating.
Most people are very selective about the kind of running shoe they buy.
Sentence Five:
Scientists use guinea pigs in their laboratory experiments.
They inject them with a disease.
They observe their behavior.
They dissect them.
They examine the effect of the disease on their organs.

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Today we’ll use this Google doc to check your sentences from last time. Any questions about these?
For our next class I’d like you to do two things:
1. Read this document all the way through and prepare any questions for me to ask during our next class. You’ll probably notice that there’re no deadlines on this document. I’m going to walk you through this process every step of the way. All I’d like you to do for next time is just read through the document, so you can get a sense of what we’ll be doing over the next few weeks.
2. There is one more chapter left of Persuasion, and it’s only a few pages! I’d also like for you to finish the novel before our next session.

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welcome to home learning

Dear students,

More than anything I hope you and your families are healthy, safe, comfortable, and able to access essentials during this extraordinary time.

I’m grateful to say that my immediate family and I are doing well and in our new routine, ready to continue for as long as we need. Like you and yours, my family and I have been looking after each other, virtually checking in on extended family, friends, and neighbors in between meals, my own kids’ home schooling, and many board games.

I’d like to hear from you. Send me a message—an e-mail, yes—if you’d like just to tell me how you’re doing. I may not be able to get back to all of you, but I will get back to as many of you as I can. We’ll try to remain in each other’s lives as best and as much as we can. Of course, my restrictions on electronic communication no longer apply, and you should feel most welcome to be in touch whenever you need me, keeping in mind that it will take time for me to get back.

As we now turn to home learning, I’d like to give you some guidelines about how we will proceed. Like I told you in class during our last meeting, we are prepared to extend our classroom to our own spaces in innovative ways. We’re going at this with fresh eyes and open minds. I ask that you be open to trying new things and that you be flexible as always.

Everything you need to know will be on the website, www.kubusenglish.com. I’ve posted my contact information on your course page. There’s also a (helpful) flowchart for how best to get in touch with me. Beginning on Tuesday you may call me whenever you need, Monday through Friday, 9-5. My Google Voice number is 832-479-9238. It goes directly to my cell. I’d prefer this method of contact over e-mail.

To access our virtual classroom at the time when we’d normally meet, simply navigate to zoom.us/join. Enter my classroom number, 640-291-5956. The room may open in a browser or you may be prompted to download the app. You do NOT need to create an account. These instructions are also posted on our course page on my website. Do not begin your first assignments that I’ve begun to post until we meet next week as I still need to add and adapt.

Whether home learning is a bridge to a return to campus in April or the new normal for the rest of the year, we’ll make the best of it and more.

Until Tuesday you have two things to do for homework: (1) Eat pancakes for dinner. (2) Take something off your parents’ to-do list without them knowing.

Best wishes,

Matt Kubus

HOME LEARNING WEEK 1 TASKS

By our next class, please register on the following platforms and read through the information below. For now we’ll start with the following major platforms to facilitate home learning: Peergrade, Kialo, Zoom, and the discussion board on my website.

1. Register on Peergrade. The course code is 2NRCE7. Please use your full first name, last name, and mail.strakejesuit email.

2. We’re going to try to use Kialo to continue having discussions about our readings. Click this link to create an account on Kialo. You’ll need this for a class in the near future. Please use your full first and last name as your username so that you’re easily recognizable when I monitor the discussion. Please use your mail.strakejesuit email. It’s your responsibility to remember your password. Once you’ve created an account, you’re good to go for now.

3. You’ll see that on my website’s navigation you can access the discussion board where I’ll monitor discussion about various issues in the our readings. Whenever I refer to the discussion board in my instructions, that’s what I’m referring to.

4. As per the new school policy, we’ll begin each scheduled period with a check-in right when the bell would normally signal the beginning of class. We’ll check in using Zoom, which you’ll all very quickly become quite familiar with.

You do not need to create an account, but you will have to download the Zoom app to your device. Then click this link and it will open the room in your default browser. Upon entering the room your microphone will be muted. You can manually unmute when I address you. Otherwise, you should keep your microphone off as the microphone will pick up ambient noise.

Before we return to Persuasion at the end of the week, I wanted to take a day to share with you an episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast Revisionist History called “The Standard Case”, which explores a particular type of moral reasoning made famous by the Jesuits—casuistry. Casuistry, as you'll hear, reframes a new (novel) problem that world world has never seen not by relying on a set of principles but by creating a taxonomy of “standard cases” on which the new problem can be placed and assessed. The podcast episode is fantastic. I really hope you enjoy. The assignment is two-fold:

1. Listen to the episode embedded just below. It’s 37 minutes. Find a quiet corner, pop in your AirPods, and enjoy, taking notes as you see fit. You’ll probably see where this is going pretty quickly vis a vis the novel Coronavirus. We’ll discuss in detail during our next synchronous session.

2. After you’re done listening to the episode, navigate to this post on the discussion board and, using the Comment function, respond to the prompt that I’ve posted.

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For our next class, guys, I’d like you to go back in Persuasion a bit and re-read Volume 2, Chapters 8 and 9 (Chapters 20 and 21 in the edition without Volumes). The chapter begins with “Sir Walter, his two daughters, and Mrs. Clay, were the earliest of all their party…”. While we did already read these chapters and, in fact, discuss them in one of my classes, I think it’d be a good idea to refresh where we were and look closer at these two key chapters in the novel.
So, by our next class, just re-read those two chapters. During our next session in Zoom, I’ll lead a short discussion, refocusing us on the novel.

STOP FOR NOW. WE’ll PICK UP FROM HERE NEXT TIME.

Very soon I am going to officially set the final project for the semester that you’ll be working on while we’re learning at home. I’ll be remotely giving you resources for approaching this small research project, but it really will come down to your level of engagement with Jane Austen’s Persuasion. To get you ready for this project I first want you to read the next chapter of the novel, particularly keeping in mind the idea, concept, or motif that you’ve been tracing from the beginning. Maybe you’ve been noting Austen’s use of the motif of eyes as a means of understanding characters’ varying degrees of self-confidence, persuadability, or firmness. Pay particular attention, then, to that motif or anything else you’ve been tracking as you finish the novel.

1. Begin by reading Volume 2, Chapter 10 (or Chapter 22 in the edition without volumes), taking notes as you see fit.