Briefly Blogged. . . .

The College Application Essay/Senior Personal Essay
We went over the hand-outs, and you should be getting started.  But I can't stress enough that you need to clear your topic with me if it's anything other than what we went over today.  There are a variety of schools that some of you are applying to that DO require one several written responses that do not really allow the same kind of evaluation as a cohesive "essay" does.  Don't assume that just because you need to do something for a specific school, it qualifies as a personal essay. 

If you did not see and do the "Admit Slip" for Thursday's class, I still want to see the information requested in Wednesday's blog. Do it for Friday, please.

Tomorrow we will start with Atonement; our overall purpose will be to highlight some of the innovative literary techniques of this book and to emphasize some of the thematic connections that will prove important later on in the course.  We will not do an exhaustive "rehashing" of the book, but I DO welcome questions that you may have about the book, and we'll try to make time every day for purely student-generated discussion of aspects of interest to you.

SPECIFIC PREPARATION FOR TOMORROW
In your regular notes (not as an installment of the RRJ), I want you to consider characterization in the first two chapters.  For Briony in Ch. 2 and Cecilia in Ch. 2, write down some qualities or characteristics that McEwan establishes right from the start that prove to be important in the long run--and be sure to note the page number for easy reference and discussion.  And what is the process/way in which McEwan reveals these traits?  (The writerly task of conveying to the reader what a character is like.)