Week 4 Required Post- Allusions

The novel we're starting this week contains many allusions- some of which may be familiar to you while others may not be. In class on Friday, bring information about your assigned allusion to share with the class. You are NOT turning in anything typed about your allusion- you are just verbally presenting on it. However, I'd like you to put post on the blog the factual information about your allusion for everyone to see and keep (and include a source. Where did you get your information? Please use MLA, as always, for citing your source.) More than one person has each allusion, so please try not to repeat each other.

Note: Wikipedia does not count as a source. "Answers.com," "Geocities," "Book Rags" or similar pages are also not sources. You should know by now how to do proper research, and you should know what counts as a credible website and what is simply non-academic, or even junk.

In your post, describe your allusion- who is he/she or what is it? biographical info? historical info? This information should take the form of a good paragraph (8-10 sentences at least) or paragraphs, not bulleted points. I'll post the assigned allusions this weekend on this blog.

Week 3 Required Post- Short Stories

For Week 3, I'd simply like you to respond to one of the short stories assigned this week. You may want to wait until the end of the week to post so that you've read all of the assigned readings. Your response should take the form of a lengthy paragraph or paragraphs- somewhere between 8-10 sentences at least. Basically, I want to see your thinking on one of the short stories.

Keep in mind that your response should be a thoughtful contribution to our discussion of the stories- not a summary or review. Think about the following:

What are some of the themes for these stories?

What jumped out at you the most in one, or in more than one, of these stories? What was your initial reaction?

What questions still remain following your reading of the stories? What did you notice that we did not talk about in class?

Here's your chance to say something you didn't get to say in class or didn't think about until it was too late. Please do not summarize the story or restate what we already said in class.

Week 2 Required Post- Crime and Punishment

"The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the community of mankind" - the great Joseph Conrad

For week 2, respond to one or more of the following questions:

Are there different levels of crime? Are some crimes worse than others? How do you rank what's worse?

For example, is it worse to break a promise to a friend or to cheat on a test? Is it worse to NOT help someone in need or to damage someone's property? Is there such thing as a just crime? a just war? How can we make these types of decisions? (I'm not asking you to answer THESE questions in particular, but to think about and discuss them in a general sense.) Feel free to use Crime and Punishment to support your opinions!

How do we know what's wrong or right? Where do we get our value systems? Does everyone have the same one? How do you know your value system is the right one to follow?