Q3, week 9 skedj.

Monday.
In class: Dialogue and subtext in "Hills Like White Elephants."
Homework: Read Flannery O' Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" with an eye toward context (given the introductory reading).

Day 2.
In class: Southern Gothic and the Grotesque.
Homework: Read first half of Colson Whitehead's "The Gangsters."

Day 3.
In class: Who's the real Misfit?
Homework: Finish "The Gangsters."

Friday.
In class:
Homework: None.

IMPORTANT NOTE: All revisions and any other outstanding work is due by the end of the week, as the quarter three grade book will be closed as of 3:00 p.m. on Friday, March 19.

Punctuation Challenge.

Use a semi-colon correctly in a sentence of your own. Post your sentence as a comment below. There may be something in it for you; then again, there may not be.

MPR's "Talking Volumes" with Sherman Alexie.

In the past few years, author Sherman Alexie has ventured into young adult literature with two new books, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Flight. His books are sharp observations of growing up Indian among whites.

Alexie joined Kerri Miller on the stage of the Fitzgerald Theater on Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007.

Listen to the program: Talking Volumes with Sherman Alexie.

Short story unit:

• "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," Sherman Alexie
• "A Pair of Tickets," Amy Tan
• "Cathedral," Raymond Carver
• "Hills Like White Elephants," Ernest Hemingway
• "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," Flannery 'O Connor
• "The Gangsters," Colson Whitehead
• "Sonny's Blues," James Baldwin
• "The Open Boat," Stephen Crane
• "The Gilden Six-Bits," Zora Neale Hurston
• "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," J.D. Salinger
• "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities," Delmore Schwartz
• "Roman Fever," Edith Wharton

Any stories we don't get to by the end of the quarter you're encouraged to read over Spring Break. This is not homework; it is optional.

Wayne's World 2 spoof on "The Graduate" ending.

Speaking of "The Graduate" . . .

This was in this week's New Yorker:

Critic's Notebook
AND HERE'S TO YOU

Despite its abject flattery of youth and its sour slander of anyone over thirty-five, Mike Nichols’s “The Graduate” (1967) is still funny. Dustin Hoffman’s virginal panic when the leggy Anne Bancroft methodically bullies him into bed is a classic of mimicry, almost Harold Lloyd-like in its portrayal of courage barely conquering fear of the unknown. What has changed, however, is our perception of Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson. As Hoffman’s Benjamin gets interested in her pretty but vapid daughter, Elaine (Katherine Ross), Mrs. Robinson becomes a fairy-tale monster. The movie’s view of her is priggish; all she wants, after all, is sex with a nice-looking boy. Yet Bancroft, whose films are on view March 8-11 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, gives a terrific performance as a bored, frustrated Beverly Hills woman who doesn’t know what to do with her brains. Look at her expression and you see intimations of an entirely justified despair. Mrs. Robinson is the heroine of “The Graduate,” and Bancroft gives the movie its soul. ♦

Q3, week 8 skedj.

Monday.
In class: Closing discussion on Catcher & The Graduate.
Homework: Read Sherman Alexie's "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" with an eye toward extended metaphor. Optional: Alexie & Louis bios.

Day 2.
In class: Short story as a form; extended metaphor (allegory). Read Adrian C. Louis poems.
Homework: Read Amy Tan's "A Pair of Tickets"with an eye toward setting; prep for graded discussion.

Day 3.
In class: Graded discussion. Prompt: The mother of Jing-mei Woo told her that being Chinese is a matter of genetics. Jing-mei finds that to be true. What is the role of place and time (in other words, history), then, in this story?
Homework: Read Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" with an eye toward characterization.

Friday.
In class: Bringing characters to life on the page.
Homework: Read Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" with an eye toward dialogue.