Be sure that every week’s set of comments includes each item on this specs checklist:

• Meet weekly deadline
• Include two comments per week (for each two-week average; may also write four comments in alternate weeks)
• Leave comments for different classmates each week
• Include one positive: what did you love about this post, whether in its content, tone, style, techniques, etc.? What did it inspire you to think about? What connections did you make? Let your classmate know that their post made a difference in your day.
• Beginning with our third post, include one specific, constructive bit of advice to help the author hone their writing and improve for next time: what was less clear to you, whether in theme, specific passage, word choice, etc? What might have helped you, as a reader, to stay fully within this piece or understand it more clearly, e.g. did you love most of it but feel jarred or lost in one specific section?

A reminder: How to write constructive and helpful comments

• Avoid subjective or very general feedback,  e.g. “this piece is too flowery” or “this is too negative” or “use more irony,” because generalities or personal reactions are not usually helpful for writers.
• Instead, be as specific and objective as possible, e.g. “on lines 3-6, I appreciate all of the sensory details you use. I notice the details are all negative, though. Is this intentional, do you want readers to be repelled or disgusted by your narrator’s experience?”

Open week! You are free use this blog post in whatever way you wish, with the usual 300 word limit and these additional restrictions:

1) Relate your post clearly to our course: what have we zipped past too quickly that you’d like to discuss in more detail? You may draw on our readings, assignments, discussions, broader cultural issues that relate to our texts . . . or you could connect whatever you want to discuss to the critical approaches and/or broader questions we’ve been asking (how would we interpret a specific text or cultural phenomenon from a structuralist, deconstructionist, or gender studies perspective; what is the function of literature; how does language reflect – or fail to reflect – reality; how do genres conform to or subvert their genre; etc.).

2) Use the post to develop your own critical or creative voice and to stretch yourself, in whatever way you find most useful.

3) Add an image, both to complement your written text and to expand your digital skills!

Analyzing Character (pre-writing for Essay 1)

Since you have an essay due, for your own sake, keep this blog post short—200 words maximum!

Choose either of these prompts:

1)  Choose any one of the fairy tales we’ve read in common so far. How does the tale prompt us to regard its main character:  with sympathy? annoyance? bafflement? Give brief evidence for your claim. If writing on “The Little Mermaid,” you might also consider the Disney adaptation:  does the film elicit the same response from the audience as the original tale?  Again, give brief support.

2)  Answer the same question, but concerning an antagonist instead of the protagonist (e.g. the wolf, the Sea Witch/Ursula.