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.

For your first blog assignment, follow these steps.

1)  Read the Blog Assignment posted to Moodle (in the Blog tab, just above this prompt). 

2)  Also read the prompt below.  If both these are clear to you, write your first post! 

3)  If you have questions, ask them in the Thursday student hours right after class or via email before Friday (the first post is due next Monday).

Blog prompt 1

Length: 300 words maximum

In this first post, you’ll introduce yourselves to the class by discussing our common focus on literature, using one of the two options below. Whichever you choose, try to have fun with this assignment!

1) The creative approach: test your writing skills by telling us that you’re an English major (or if not a major, a literature-adjacent person) without ever using the words “English” or “major.” In other words, draw a portrait of yourself that will lead readers to that conclusion without ever directly explaining what you study in college. You may define “literature” in your own terms; you should be sure to provide concrete examples to bring your perspective to life.

Feel free to include images, links to contemporary media, etc. to enrich your portrait. 

2) If you’d rather work on your analytic skills, try this version instead: what, in your view, is the value and function of literature in the 21st century?  Can novels, plays, and poetry still give readers the sense of being transported out of everyday life, the aesthetic pleasure, and/or the insight into other worlds that many people consider central to readers’ love of reading? Or do you think that other types of media have taken the place of traditional literature? Using Culler as your model of how to ask and answer large, theoretical questions about literature, Make your case concretely, with specific examples to bring your argument to life. Again, feel free to include images, links to contemporary media, etc. to enrich your portrait.