Week 7 Syllabus: September 30
MARGINAL ANNOTATONS SHOULD REFLECT THE READERS dialogue with the text about meaning. For narrative works, that includes your questions about what you’re reading: questions of clarification and questions that develop your thinking. Readers should write out their observations about the theme within the story, identifying and explaining a passage’s importance—be that a character conflict, a symbolic description, or an extended metaphor that develops the writer’s theme. There are lots of ways to annotate. Most importantly, you should practice engaging your reading in a dialogue. What do you notice? What is the writer doing? What would good readers notice, and what do they think it means?
MONDAY, September 30
Discussion of the short story, “The Machine Stops.” Who is responsible for the downfall of society?
HW: Write an answer to question #4 on the last page of our short story. I will collect your annotations on “The Machine Stops” for class on Wednesday.
WEDNESDAY, October 2
Returning to the Machine crossword for a bit, while I collect annotations from the story.
Second half of class, reading, re-reading, and re-re-reading the introduction to the Maxim Gorky short story, “Chelkash".” Annotating for language that describes nature, objects, and people respectively, each reading. The audio for the story is here.
HW: When class resumes on Monday, we will work on the worksheets on the introduction and part one. We’ll also read part two and complete a worksheet on part two.