Informal Reflections

Module 1 Literature

1.Voltaire, Candide

2.Flaubert, "A Simple Heart"

3.William Wordsworth: "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey," "Ode on 4.Intimations of Immortality," "The World is Too Much With Us"

5.John Keats: "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Ode to a Nightingale," "To Autumn"

6.Giacomo Leopardi: "The Infinite," "To Himself," "To Sylvia"

7.Charles Baudelaire: "To the Reader," "Correspondences," "A Carcass," "Song of Autumn I," "Spleen LXXVIII"

8.Virginia Woolf, "A Room of One's Own"

9.Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

10.Franz Kafka, "The Metamorphosis"

At three points during the course you will submit a set of informal reflections on the literature we are reading.This gives you the opportunity to become a reader actively engaged with the text, rather than a passive spectator. It is a chance to offer observations, opinions on the reading, to play with some ideas you might have for a paper or an interpretation of the text, etc. If you fulfill the requirement and your observations are well thought-out, you will receive an A. If your contributions meet the requirement but communicate less well thought-out reflections, you will receive a B. Fewer than the required number, or very brief and cursory entries, will receive a C. A grade of D or F will be assigned to those who ignore this requirement.These informal reflections should be 2–4 pages, double spaced in 12-point font. This is a freeform exercise, so you can format your thoughts in whichever way makes the most sense to you (bullet points, paragraphs, etc.), so long as your instructor can understand it. If you find the exercise extremely valuable and have more pages, edit and submit your best 4 pages. Submit these prior to turning in your formal essay in Modules 1, 2, and 3 of the course.Your informal reflections for Module 1 should be 2–4 pages, double-spaced in 12-point font. This is a chance to offer observations, and opinions on the reading, to play with some ideas you might have for a paper or an interpretation of the text. This does not have to be a formal essay, but it should include some reflection—in other words, not simply a summary of what you have read. You can reflect more deeply on one of the readings, or may choose to comment upon several of them. One suggestion would be for you to reflect on how things have evolved in Western Culture or have failed to change sufficiently—for this you could use any number of the readings. You might also reflect on some cultural aspects, whether it has to do with class, gender, the issue of masters and servants, culinary culture, or some other aspect of the social world. How were your assumptions or beliefs changed or challenged by the readings? What did you learn that you did not know prior? What surprised you the most?Comments on style may be best focused on the structure of the stories or poems (particularly those read in translation). It is also fair game to look at the translation used in the Norton compared to a different translation (easily found for Kafka, Voltaire, Leopardi, Dostoevsky). You can highlight your own reaction to some of the elements of the text, or engage in an exercise where you develop a thesis on author intentions, characterizations, etc.Your format may be outline, bullet points, paragraphs, journal entries, etc., so long as your instructor can assess that you have been actively engaged in the reading process. The exercise is designed to give you a little practice writing and reflecting on the literature before you tackle the more formal first analysis essay, so please submit this as your first piece of writing. If you find the exercise extremely valuable and have more pages, edit and submit your best four pages only. You may want to keep up the practice of making informal observations throughout the course, for your own use.Please get into the habit of offsetting titles with proper punctuation. Novels, play, films (anything that stands alone as published) are in italics. Thus, Voltaire's Candide, Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. Poems, essays, short stories (anything that is a smaller unit in a collection) are in quotation marks, in regular print (not italics). Thus, Leopardi's "The Infinite." Kafka's "The Metamorphosis."