Take the number passage I've assigned you below. Re-read the passage, and write about it in a blog post. Consider:
-How does it link to the themes we've discussed so far?
-What new themes are in your passage?
-How does it tie into other parts of the book, or the book as a whole so far?
-What words, metaphors or images are particularly evocative here?

Write for 5-10 minutes.

Start your blog post with the number of your passage. When you've posted, read the other person's post on this passage (as well as the other classmates').

1. pp 76-77: "Twists..." to "blast furnaces."

Lilia and Elizabeth

2. p 79: "The worker" to "are like?"

Sofia and Andrew

3. p 80: "Right and left" to "see them?"

Kyla and Whit

4. 81-82: "Singing!" to "the rest of us."

Hugh and Keil

5. 84-85: "And I lean over" to "what laughter can do."

Sam and McKain

Steppenwolf1

Use a quote (or two) from pages 214-216 to offer an interpretation of the murder of Hermine. What actually happened? What did it represent? Why is it the conclusion of the book?

Metamorphosis 1

How does "The Metamorphosis" tie into in "The Penal Colony," "The hunger artist," "The Judgment," or "Before the law?" What new themes are in it? Quote the text.
Take 7 minutes.

In the Penal Colony 2

Take half an hour to write a paragraph exploring what puzzles you about "In the Penal Colony." Feel free to incorporate some of the ideas we brought up in class, but your quotes should be from the final pages that we hadn't read yet. Although in formal writing a topic sentence needs to start the paragraph, here you may want to arrive at it in your final sentence.
I will only evaluate these for effort. If it looks like you spent half an hour thinking and writing, you get full credit.
Due before lunch Monday.

Penal Colony 1

Take 10 minutes (until 12:45) to free-write on "In the Penal Colony." What is puzzling you about this story? What links can you make to the Nietzsche passages we've read? What links can you make to other Kafka stories and other books we've read?
Questions here are more valuable than answers.

Writing practice

Sophomores:

1. Choose 2 passages that you want to write about from the reading. Type them in, as well as a question off of them: think of a question that would help us link these quotes — a question that would go before a topic sentence, or a question that would lead to class discussion, or a question that would lead to closely picking apart the quotes. (10 minutes)

2. Next, open up a comment bubble on one of the posts with 2 passages and a question, and then formulate a topic sentence that might answer this question or (if you want to ignore the question) might use these quotes if you wrote the whole paragraph. (10 minutes)

3. Then, click on a topic sentence, and in the comment bubble try to write out a paragraph with the topic sentence and quotes given to you. I encourage you to alter the topic sentence as you write. (20 minutes)

Good luck! This should be great practice for essay writing, particularly in-class essays. But I won't be grading these, or judging you for any misspellings or stupid ideas. So do your best, but don't worry if you know you don’t have the best idea in the world.

B. Slater

Streetcar Named Desire

Read the Introduction to Streetcar Named Desire, a very short autobiographical essay by the playwright, Tennessee Williams. Post a reaction of 250 words. What lines, themes and ideas stand out here? Can you make any links to Death of a Salesman, or to the post-War (1950's-ish) culture, or to the themes of fulfillment and ideals we've been discussing?
This time your post must include a reference to a classmate's post (the responses won't be separate from the post). So the person who posts firsts catches a break!
Good luck.

B. Slater