Whitman - Click the image to read the poem we used to begin our class.

Whitman - Click the image to read the poem we used to begin our class.

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English 4 Summer Reading Assignment 2015

Monday, August 17 (3) - "When I heard the learn'd astronomer"; "Once more he breathed the air of freedom."; Course introduction; By Wednesday, read Wallace Stevens' "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" AND the accompanying essay by Austin Allen. Also, make sure you register on turnitin.com:

                    English 4 ID: 10331112

                    Password: strake

Tuesday, August 18 (4) - Course introduction, cont.; Download this Pages file and save as a template for when you write your in-class essays.; Gut reaction to The Thief and the Dogs as test run; Annotation; Sample pages (see below); Crime and Punishment notes page; For tomorrow, finish reading what I assigned you last night AND the first 5 paragraphs of this piece (stop at the paragraph beginning with the big 'P.'

Wednesday, August 19 (5) - "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" and Jonathan Franzen review; For tomorrow, read "Getting launched" and Trimble's model middle (from page 46-48).

Thursday, August 20 (6) - "Getting launched" and sample student essay in light of Trimble's model middle; How to submit an in-class essay electronically; By tomorrow, read this document on incorporating quotations into your writing.

Friday, August 21 (1) - EC OPPORTUNITY; Sample student essays; Practical advice for writing in-class essays; On Monday you will have an in-class essay on The Thief and the Dogs. You may bring your book and any handwritten notes you have. You will need a charged iPad, too. Have the Pages template with MLA formatting ready. Make sure you know how to send a Pages doc to PDF to Google Drive and then to turnitin. Over the weekend, in preparation for your essay and our discussions next week, watch this important, 7-minute video to the right, which provides a little bit of the cultural context for the novel and Mahfouz's thoughts on freedom that are featured in the novel. This is good stuff.

Monday, August 24 (2) - The Thief and the Dogs in-class essay

Tuesday, August 25 (3) - The Thief and the Dogs; Tonight, read this article published two weeks ago in The Atlantic. I really only want you to read the first part (as far as the * * *), but you're more than welcome to read the entire article. It's about the psychology behind how we tell stories, and how we make meaning through stories. It's a lot to do with what we do in this class. Here's a teaser: "In the realm of narrative psychology, a person’s life story is not a Wikipedia biography of the facts and events of a life, but rather the way a person integrates those facts and events internally—picks them apart and weaves them back together to make meaning. This narrative becomes a form of identity, in which the things someone chooses to include in the story, and the way she tells it, can both reflect and shape who she is.  A life story doesn’t just say what happened, it says why it was important, what it means for who the person is, for who they’ll become, and for what happens next."

Wednesday, August 26 (4) - The Thief and the Dogs

Thursday, August 27 (5) - The Thief and the Dogs

Friday, August 28 (6) - The Thief and the Dogs; Over the weekend, read 1.1.1-20 (shorthand for Act 1, scene 1, lines 1-20) of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Read the corresponding section of this scene-by-scene analysis BEFORE you read Shakespeare's text. Consult no other reading guides; this is as good as it gets. As you read this very short section, think about what, textually, establishes the uncertainty/anxiety/tension/suspense of the moment. Then watch the first two minutes of this RSC production, noting what the film does to pick up on the text's suggestions. Come to class ready to think about what actors and directors do to take a production from page to stage (film). 

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Due Dates

Monday, August 24 - The Thief and the Dogs in-class essay - You may bring your book and any handwritten notes you have. You will need a charged iPad, too. Have the Pages template with MLA formatting ready. Make sure you know how to send a Pages doc to PDF to Google Drive and then to turnitin.

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Below are 5 of my annotated pages from various texts and 1 of David Foster Wallace's copy of DeLillo's Players. The pages of the texts that you will be working with most closely should look just like these.

“Our central question for the study of Mahfouz’s The Thief and the Dogs: The Koran instills the belief in and deference to one God. Often, the characters refer to the “work of God” or view their fortunes as being “in God’s hands.” Consider the theme of fate vs. personal determination that runs throughout the novel. What determines Said’s actions — Fate or himself? How does your choice shape your response to Said and his story? ”
Click the image to read Naguib Mahfouz's speech upon being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988.

Click the image to read Naguib Mahfouz's speech upon being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988.

“In reading exam papers written by misled students, of both sexes, about this or that author, I have often come across such phrases — probably recollections from more tender years of schooling — as ‘his style is simple’ or ‘his style is clear and simple’ or ‘his style is beautiful and simple’ or ‘his style is quite beautiful and simple.’ But remember that ‘simplicity’ is buncombe. No major writer is simple. The Saturday Evening Post is simple. Journalese is simple. Upton Lewis is simple. Mom is simple. Digests are simple. Damnation is simple. But Tolstoys and Melvilles are not simple... This story is Tolstoy’s most artistic, most perfect, and most sophisticated achievement... Tolstoy’s style is a marvelously complicated, ponderous achievement.”
— Nabokov on "The Death of Ivan Ilych"