Skip to main content

Announcements for Starting Up Again

Welcome Back (Almost)! I know the class won't be the same as it was, but I do intend to keep reading along with you guys, and giving you questions, a few videos (see below), and one more paper assignment late in the semester. However, here are the changes I propose for the class going forward:

 1. No more MWF classes. Instead, I'll give you two sets of readings/questions, one at the beginning of the week, and one at the end. So your Monday questions will be due on Friday, and your Friday the following Monday. The readings will follow roughly the same schedule as on the syllabus, except I'll cut the movie and the supplementary readings I had planned prior to Spring Break.

 2. Once a week, I'll also post a short lecture (10-15 minutes, approx) along with a Powerpoint to either introduce historical context or highlight aspects of the reading. These are versions of what I would have otherwise done in class, just minus the great discussion.  I think it would be difficult to get everyone in class together to do a live chat, but at least this way, you can still hear me ramble about each work and say the word "interesting" a dozen times.

 3. Each lecture will have its own post, and on the post, I'll ask you a short question based on the lecture. Respond to this question as a "comment" on the blog post (you shouldn't need to create an account to do this). Just click on "comments" on the bottom of the post and write your own. This will replace your Participation grade since you obviously won't be able to come to class and talk in any other way. 

 4. PAPER #2 will be due no later than Friday, April 3rd. Please feel free to turn it in earlier. E-mail me a copy of the paper at jgrasso@ecok.edu. I'll e-mail it back to you with comments. 

 PLEASE write me with any questions or concerns, and I'll be happy to help. The recorded lectures will be in Zoom, so if you want to chat, I can also open up a Zoom chat at any time, in lieu of coming to my office. I'll post the lecture on Colonialism and Katherine Mansfield in a day or two, so be sure to watch it and respond with your comment (okay, it's 17 minutes long, but that's better than 50 minutes, right?) 

 Hope everyone is doing okay and I look forward to reading your work again! I miss our class and hope that we can all have a face-to-face class together again soon, if only in the Fall semester.

 --Joshua Grasso

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

For Monday: Short Lecture on Colonialism and Mansfield

As a way to introduce you to some of the themes we'll be exploring with our last two books, I've recorded a short lecture (about 18 min.) that I would have discussed with you in class if we were still meeting. I know 18 minutes is a lot to watch in a single stretch, so feel free to start and stop, or simply leave it playing in the background. However, I think it will help you see and understand some of the larger ideas going on behind the scenes in Mansfield's stories.  AFTER you watch the video, answer the following question as a COMMENT below: "Since many women in the early 19th century tried to hide their identity as a woman by adopting a male name, or writing more 'male' stories, how do you think colonial writers did the same? That is, how did they hide their colonial identity in writing to sound more 'English'? What might they have had to hide, or ignore, or not reveal as a writer? (This will count toward your participation grade, since I can...
40 comments
Read more

Short Lecture on Being "Weak" in Mansfield's Stories

Before we race to the end of Mansfield's stories, I wanted to discuss some of the major themes we've encountered in several of them, particularly "Daughters of the Late Colonel," "The Life of Ma Parker," "Mr. and Mrs. Dove," and "Marriage a la Mode." Watch the video to hear some of my thoughts on these stories, most of which are drawn from your responses to the reading questions. It's a little longer than the last one, but still only about 25 minutes (sorry)!  After you finish, answer the following question as a COMMENT on the blog.  Q: Talking about emotions, love, death, or otherwise being "weak" was very taboo in British society at this time. What subjects or relationships do you feel are taboo in our own society? And I don't just mean awkward subjects (abortion, politics, etc.), but what emotions or experiences would you have trouble discussing with your parents, your siblings, your friends, and even your sig...
32 comments
Read more

For Friday: Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality"

“Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections in Early Childhood” (pp.51-57): read the entire poem, but the questions will only focus on Stanzas 1-7 NOTE: This is a longer poem, though it’s broken up into short stanza chapters.  Read it slowly, and focus on each stanza as an individual poem.  Then consider how each one develops a general ‘story’ or narrative about Wordsworth’s life.  Consider this, too, as a kind of mid-life crisis poem: Wordsworth feels himself pulling away from the innocent joys he used to experience in life, and the poem is an attempt to find himself—and to convince other readers to find themselves in the thickets of adulthood.  Answer TWO of the following... Q1: According to Stanzas 1-4, what causes the poet to feel distanced from the natural world?   What has come between him and his imagination/emotions?   In Stanza 2 he writes that “But yet I know, where’er I go,/That there hath past away a glory from the earth...
25 comments
Read more