Tag Archives: MA

[MA students] secondary reading for Tuesday

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I’ve just added a useful and accessible secondary reading for Tuesday’s class on LIGHT IN AUGUST.  It’s a chapter from Carolyn Porter’s critical survey of Faulkner’s work, and it nicely places the book in biographical context as it examines the tricky issue of the novel’s plot/s.  I recommend that you skip ahead and read the section on LIA, and as an added bonus, you’ll see that the first 2/3 of the chapter deals with AILD and the interesting potboiler from the 30s that didn’t fit on the syllabus, SANCTUARY.

blog post assignment

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As you can see in the syllabus, you are responsible for making regular posts to this blog.  I do this in lieu of the kind of “response papers” many of my colleagues assign (and until recently I did to).  Why?

1. Blogging is sharable: rather than have a private circuit between you and me, we have a much more dynamic conversation across the entire class (and here, between MA and BA students that don’t meet in real time).

2. Blogging in public, sort of: I like the idea that we are responsible for our ideas in front of broader audiences.  In practical terms, I doubt anyone is listening in most of the time, but I think it’s important that we roll up our sleeves and defend our arguments in an open and public forum as often as possible.  And of course, you can show your family/friends/pets what we’ve been up to in class.

3. Blogging is sturdy: rather than forget the piece of paper once it’s been handed back, we can link back to prior statements or observations, or to each others.

4. Blogging is responsive: rather than only getting comments from me, you’ll comment on and get comments on each other’s work.

 

So what are you responsible for doing for Tuesday?  I want something short and pithy, about 400-800 words.  I want it to engage some part of the text (here, the “Benjy” section of TSAF).  I want it to have quotations and what we English types call “close reading”: careful attention not just to what is said, but how it is constructed.  This latter issue is easy with Faulkner, since nearly everything he wrote is quite dense and poetic and practically begs for this treatment.

Also, don’t be afraid to express confusion, doubt, frustration, and the like, so long as you do so via close encounters with the text that’s confounding you.  Rather than just throw up your hands and say “I don’t get it,” say “here’s what I don’t quite get” and/or “I’m not sure, but I think the text is saying X and Y” or “I’m not clear on how Z is working, but I find the following aspects of it interesting in some way.”

Below you’ll find an example of a good response with my comments in the margins.  It’s a real response from a real student, and I use it anonymously with permission.

[scribd id=164210402 key=key-16chtmjefp6sdsb1zh35 mode=scroll]

So use this as a model of sorts, and I look forward to seeing what you’ve posted by *Tuesday, Sept 3* at classtime (for BAs: 9/10 for MA students).