Being Men, Being Women

Very nice discussion. I hope you can see how it works. I am posting early this week. Your first response is due by 10:50 on Tuesday, March 3.

Okay, this next week you will be working on writing drafts of your short story analysis. Which of the stories that we read for this week seem to be the most revealing about any aspect about what it means to be a man or a woman in our society? What kinds of ideas does the story present? Do you agree or disagree with those ideas?

Truth and Fiction

Yesterday in class we discussed the definition of fiction--stories that originate in the imaginations of the author. Now, I said that just because fiction isn't real doesn't mean it isn't true.

What do you think of that? Do you agree? Why? Do you disagree? Why?

Journey Through Life's Course

Now that you are drafting your poetry explications, can you think of how your poem describes a journey through life's course? You can, of course, use this as part of your explication. All the poems are in the chapter entitled "Journeys," so they all describe some kind of a journey. Discuss both the literal and the figurative journey, if you see both.

I apologize for the late post.

This week we will all be embarking on a new form of jorney--a cultural journey. A cultural journey could be tied to a specific time and space. However it could also have a universal appeal. Some of the readings from this week in English dicusses some timeless journeys including ""Ulysses", "A far cry from Africa".
Think about "Cultural Universals"-practices, beliefs, emotions and ideas that transcend the boundaries of a specific time and locale. What could be one such Cultural Universal? Why do you think all people, and all cultures would follow it? ( e.g. Literature is endemic to all societies, and is thus a cultural universal. When literature becomes popular it is immortalized through translated works. Thus Homer could be a Greek poet, but we all know about the Odyssey)