Catching Up

Yes, I've been a slacker the past couple of days--at least regarding the blog.  My apologies.

One quick thing about the personal essay cover sheet from today:
I forgot to discuss the "title" requirement; I didn't specifically ask for one on the earlier drafts, and in fact, I've been somewhat ambivalent since over the years I have occasionally encounted college folks who didn't really care to have the titles.  However, they are always good for insuring that your own focus or slant on a subject is the first thing the reader encounters, and so I want your class essay to have a title for sure.  And a couple of the most recent Common Application sites of merit have treated titles as an expected component these days--so I fully recommend a title on your Common App essays. I'm not as certain about how the UW regards the importance of a title, but unless the application specifically tells you not to include one, I don't see how it would hurt.

TODAY IN CLASS
We finally turned our attention to James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues," beginning with an in-class version of the Reader Response Journal.  If you were absent today, please do this at home, spending about 20-25 minutes in all:
1) Discuss the setting of the story, being careful to explain the significance of both time and place in relation to other elements of the story and its overall meaning.
2) Consider two of the "sub-stories" (yes, 1st period only wrote on one, but other classes were given more time and wrote on two; make-up papers should do two):
a) the mother's description of the father's brother
b) the narrator's daughter/daughter's death
WHY/HOW are each of these significant to the meaning of the story as a whole?

FOR TOMORROW
We'll continue with "Sonny's Blues," of course, but the reading comes from Foster, Chapters 7-9 (pp. 47-73).  We'll be continuing Foster at a pretty fast clip now, so feel free to read ahead. . .