Alternate assignment 2009

Here's the alternate assignment in lieu of participating the Ottawa trip, which is worth 5% of your final grade. As mentioned in class, attending either the Randall Maggs or Joseph Boyden reading also counted as an alternate assignment.

Go to the library and locate a short story or poem by a Canadian writer. Write a short review of the work (a minimum of 250 words) and post it here on the blog (in the comments on this post). If you did buy the assigned poetry anthology, Open Field, you can also choose a poem from there.

While you might want to tell us what happens in the story or poem, this should be a very small part of your review. Your main focus should be on what you think the work is about and what you found most interesting about it.

Mauve Desert blog prompt

Choose a passage from the "Mauve, the Horizon" section of Mauve Desert and compare it to its counterpart in "Mauve Desert" by Laure Angstelle. How has it changed in the translation. What is the significance of these changes? Does the translation make you look differently at the original?

In preparation for our class with Randall Maggs

In preparation for Randall Maggs' visit to UVM, here are a few things I'd like you to watch that tell us a few things about the connection between hockey and Canadian literature.

First, this video includes interviews with authors Randall Maggs, Paul Quarrington, and Dave Bidini, who have each written extensively about hockey.

Second, the short film below is based on one of the poems from Night Work. Randall's book has also inspired a new song by legendary Newfoundland singer/songwriter Ron Hynes.

This link to the page about Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems contains links to this film, but also to a number of interesting articles and reviews of the book. Please also make sure to watch this profile of Terry Sawchuk.

Although I'd like you to make sure to know a bit about the real Terry Sawchuk, it's also worth learning a few things about goaltending from who else but the grande dame of Canadian Literature, Margaret Atwood.

Finally, I don't think a consideration of the connection between hockey and Canadian literature would be complete without a nod to Richard Harrison's book of poems Hero of the Play and to Roch Carrier's story "The Sweater." Here's the short animated film the National Film Board made of this story.

I do spend a good deal of time talking about the connection between hockey and Canadians in my freshman seminar on Canadian culture that I teach here each fall. One of the best ways I've found to explain some of this connection between national identity and hockey in Canada is by having the students read Richard Harrison's introductory essay from the tenth anniversary edition of Hero of the Play.

Referring to the debates in Canada over where the game was first played, Harrison contends that "[what's] important isn't where the origin of hockey is found in Canada, but how Canada finds at least part of its origin in hockey." If one searches for a mythic origin of Canadian psyche, hockey may be as good a place as any to look first. "[. . .] perhaps most important, in terms of the intensityof the origin-of-hockey debate, is that creation myth insists that the distinguishing features of a people's character are things born with them, created when the people were created. Hockey emerges in the Canadian past at the time the Canada we lived in then as separate communities was being made into the Canada we live in now as a people. In mythic terms, hockey is one of the few things that could be said to be ours from before the beginning of Canadian time" (16-17).

Harrison's work is only one of many examples of the great writing about hockey and hockey players we've seen emerge from Canada over the last few years. The non-fiction front ranges from books about the love of playing the game as an adult -- Dave Bidini's The Best Game You Can Name, the great Bill Gaston's Midnight Hockey, and Tom Allen's The Gift of the Game are some of the best recent examples -- to more reflective books like David Adams Richards' wonderful Hockey Dreams: Memories of a Man Who Couldn't Play, Stephen Brunt's Searching for Bobby Orr, or Roch Carrier's Our Life With the Rocket, proving that the world of hockey writing is far more than simply books documenting the careers of particular players or teams. While Canadian fiction and poetry about hockey don't always spring immediately to mind, books like Harrison's Hero of the Play, Gaston's The Good Body, Roy MacGregor's The Last Season, Stephen Galloway's Finnie Walsh, Mark Anthony Jarman's Salvage King Ya! and Randall Maggs' Night Work: the Sawchuk Poems top the list of the great hockey literature of our day.

Canadian poet Randall Maggs reading at UVM on November 12

POETRY READING BY RANDALL MAGGS

Midterm information

Our midterm, originally scheduled for today, will now take place on Tuesday, November 3.

Here's what the exam will look like. There will be four passages identification questions that will cover the first four books we have read in this course. Each of those responses will be worth 10 points. This will be followed by an essay question for which you will have a choice between two essay topics. The essay question is worth 40 points.

PART A (40 points):

FOR EACH OF THE FOLLOWING FOUR PASSAGES IDENTIFY THE FOLLOWING:

• The title and author of the text from which the passage is taken (1 point)
• The names of the speakers, listeners, or narrator if relevant (1 point)
• When and where this passage takes place in the book if relevant (1 point)
• The significance of this passage. Questions you will need to consider in this regard include: What do we learn from this passage? Does this passage affect the overall plot of the text? Which of the major themes in the text are present here? How does this passage tie into other themes or ideas we’ve seen in some of the other novels we’ve looked at in the course? What else do you notice about this passage? (7-9 marks)

ANSWER ONLY IN COMPLETE SENTENCES AND PUT YOUR ANSWER IN PARAGRAPH FORM. WRITE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN WHEN ANSWERING EACH OF THESE. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ANSWER THE QUESTION FULLY IN JUST A FEW SHORT SENTENCES. EACH RESPONSE IS WORTH 10 POINTS

PART B (40 points):

USING AS YOUR CHIEF EXAMPLES TWO TEXTS WE HAVE DISCUSSED IN CLASS, WRITE AN ESSAY THAT FULLY ANSWERS ONE OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

1. In each of the works we have looked at the authors employ innovative styles to achieve a particular effect. Looking at two of the books we've read examine how the author's stylistic choices connect to the themes of the book. In other words, what techniques do the authors use and why?

2. Memory is a significant theme in many of the works we have looked at in this course. With reference to two of the texts we have read in the class, discuss the role of memory in each.

Update on our schedule

Today's final class on Running in the Family is now posted for you to read on BlackBoard. To access our course, simply go to http://bb.uvm.edu and look for our course name listed under the courses in which you are currently enrolled. Once you have read that material, head over to our course blog at http://pmartin.blog.uvm.edu/180 to answer the blog assignment for Running in the Family.

With the forced cancellation of today's class, we will NOT have the midterm exam on Thursday as scheduled. Instead, please start reading Mauve Desert and we will start discussing that book on Thursday, October 29. We'll talk briefly about the midterm on Thursday and you will write the exam on Tuesday, November 3.

If I am still under the weather with the flu on Thursday, we will again have a class online on BlackBoard.

Thanks for all your e-mails of support. I'm happy to pass along that my son is now back home from the hospital and feeling much better.

Ondaatje blog prompt 2009

Here's a chance for you to discuss one of your favourite parts of Running in the Family. When writing about the passage you choose, make sure to address the following questions:

• What did you like about this passage? Be specific
• 
  
• Is this an important passage in the book? Why?
• 
  
• How does this passage connect to other parts of the book? (themes, imagery, plot etc.)

The Diviners blog prompt 2009

Over the first few days of our discussion of The Diviners, we talked a lot about metafiction, memory, and the power of myth. What do you think are some of the other major themes in this book? Provide quotations from at least two different spots in the book to support your point.

Three Day Road blog prompt

We had some excellent discussion in class about some of the major themes in this novel. I thought you all did excellent work in groups, too, digging up quotations that connect to the themes we discussed.

As we saw in our discussion, there are many passages which connect to more than one of these themes. Your blog assignment for this week is to go back through Three Day Road and find what you feel to be a key passage that is instrumental in the development of more than one of these key themes. Tell us about the passage and how you see it connecting to each of the key themes at play in it. You do not need to quote the entire passage, but make sure to include the page number(s).

Next Episode blogging prompt

Next Episode is a challenging book for us, not only in terms of its form and use of language, but also in terms of trying to understand its socio-political context.

Now that you've had a chance to reflect on the book for a while, what did you find most interesting about the novel. If I asked you to write an essay on the novel, what topic would you choose to write about?

P.S. If you're interested in reading a bit more about Aquin and this novel, I really like Douglas Glover's essay on "Difficulty and Revolution."

Introductions

Using your first name only, tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from? What brought you to this class? What do you know about Canada? Do you have any questions about the class that I didn't answer today?

In the news: Pope apologizes for abuse at residential schools

We spoke at length about the residential schools in class. Here's some news on that front from today's Globe and Mail

What We All Long For blog prompt 2009

Here's your assignment for our discussion of Dionne Brand's novel What We All Long For.

Pick one of the main characters in the novel and answer the following questions:

What is it this character longs for?

Does he or she find this by the end of the book?

In your answer, use at least a couple of examples from the text to support your argument.

Monkey Beach blog prompt for 2009

So, now that you've finished reading Monkey Beach, what did you think? Which part(s) of the book did you find most interesting? Any questions about the book you'd like us to cover in class?

You might also want to check out the video of Eden Robinson's reading here in 2006. You can find out a bit more about Eden by following each of these links.

Mauve Desert blog prompt

Sorry, I've fallen behind on our blog prompts. So, as we've left Mauve Desert behind already, the most appropriate question to ask is a retrospective one:

Now that you've had some time to let Mauve Desert settle in your thoughts, what strikes you most about the book? What did you find to be the most interesting about the novel? Do you have any lingering questions about our discussion of the book that you'd like to ask here?

You also might be interested in the following article about Brossard that was published in the Globe and Mail a couple of days ago:

Playing 'the game of the novel,' by her rules

Essay topics 2009

1. In many of the books we've looked at there are strong female characters who find themselves at odds with the expectations of society and/or family. Choose two of these characters and discuss how each battles against the way others think she should think or act.

2. Examine the role of violence in two of the novels we've studied in this course. Looking at one or several characters from each of two novels, look at how violence affects the trajectory of those characters' lives and how those characters respond to the violence they encounter.   

3. Create your own topic that allows you to look at a common theme or connection between two of the novels we've looked at in this course.

Whatever your topic, make sure your essay deals with both books at the same time as much as possible. Don't write two short essays, one about each book, and simply try to join them in the middle. Find points of comparison throughout. Also, make sure that your approach to the topic is narrow enough that you can address it sufficiently and in some detail in a 2000 word essay. Although I've chosen not to require you to do secondary research, I encourage you to do so if it's relevant to your topic.

I recommend that you run your topic by me either in person or by e-mail. I'm also willing, if time permits, to review introductory paragraphs and/or outlines to help make certain that you are on the right track.

Word length: 1800-2000 words

Due date: Tuesday April 21

Here are links to a couple of documents that might help you as you're writing your essay:

- Paul's tips on writing essays

- the grading rubric I'll use while grading your essays

Reading both of these documents carefully will help you avoid some of the common difficulties I see in student essays.

The Handmaid's Tale blog prompt

What did you think of The Handmaid's Tale? Some of you, I believe, have read the book before, while for others this is your first exposure to Atwood. What do you make of it? For those of you who've read it before, what was your reaction the second time around?

Atwood said in an interview that the reaction to the novel varied between countries. The British told her it was a "jolly good yarn," the Canadians said "that could never happen here," and the Americans asked "How much longer do you think we've got?". In which camp does your reaction to the book belong? Is this even a relevant question?

Alice Munro blog prompt

Pick one of your favourite stories from Carried Away that we are not discussing in class. After a brief summary of the story, reflect at some length on what you found interesting about it. Include a passage or two from the story in your analysis and explain to us how these passages connect to what you liked about the story.

The Stone Angel

If one had to find only one thing about The Stone Angel that makes it a fascinating novel, chances are one would point to the character of Hagar Shipley. Critics and readers alike often mention Hagar Shipley as one of the most memorable characters from Canadian literature.

As Laurence wrote in an article called "Gadgetry or Growing: Form and Voice in the Novel," she worked hard to make sure that Hagar seemed real to her as well as to the reader: "I felt when I was writing The Stone Angel an enormous conviction in the authenticity of Hagar's voice, and I experienced a strange pleasure in rediscovering an idiom I hardly knew I knew, as phrases from my grandparents kept coming back to me. A first-person narrative can be limiting, of course, but in this case it provided an opportunity to reveal to the reader more of Hagar than she knew about herself, as her judgements about everything are so plainly and strongly biased" (56).

What is it about Hagar Shipley or Laurence's skills as a writer that makes her so compelling a character? Find and quote from a passage from the novel that shows what you found to be most interesting about the portrayal of this fascinating character.

The Double Hook

Here, finally, is our blog prompt about The Double Hook. Your response should be completed by February 26.

What was your reaction to The Double Hook? What did you find most interesting about this book?

Did reading this novel change your impressions of the literatures of Canada and, particularly, literature written by Canadian women?

Street of Riches

Here's your discussion assignment for Street of Riches:

Choose one of the stories you found most interesting and tell us a bit more about what you appreciated about it. Make sure to use at least two quotations from the novel to demonstrate to us what you found engaging about this particular story.

Your response should be about 200 words in length. In other words, it should be substantial enough for you to explain your observations about the story in some detail.

Gabrielle Roy resources

Even if you don't understand the French, it's worth taking a look at some of these video clips of Gabrielle Roy at the Radio-Canada website.

Anne of Green Gables discussion questions

Here are a few questions for you to answer for this week's blog discussion.

As I've mentioned in class, L.M. Montgomery's novel is widely read to this day and has influenced generations of readers, young women readers in particular. Thinking about readers of the novel today, what do you think resonates most strongly with them?

Looking at this novel through the lens of feminist criticism, what do you think of the portrayal of the roles of women in this novel?

Course syllabus now posted

The syllabus for this semester's English 180 is now ready to go. Click on the syllabus tab above to see our plans for the next few months!

Final exam questions for Fall 2008

Here are the essay questions for the final, as well as the layout of the first part of the exam.

For the essay questions, only two of those listed below will be on the actual final. So, you should plan out how you would respond to at least two of them; if you plan for only one of them, you might find that it is the one I've chosen not to include. When you prepare to write on the essay topics, give yourself some flexibility as to which texts you might use so that you can have a wider range of choice for the passage identifications. Remember that you can't deal with the same work twice over the course of the exam, so you need to be ready to discuss all of the books we've covered in the course.

PART A (50 points):

CHOOSE FIVE OF THE FOLLOWING EIGHT PASSAGES AND IDENTIFY THE FOLLOWING:

• The title and author of the text from which the passage is taken (1 point)
• The names of the speakers, listeners, or narrator if relevant (1 point)
• When and where this passage takes place in the book if relevant (1 point)
• The significance of this passage. Questions you will need to consider in this regard include: What do we learn from this passage? Does this passage affect the overall plot of the text? Which of the major themes in the text are present here? How does this passage tie into other themes or ideas we’ve seen in some of the other novels we’ve looked at in the course? What else do you notice about this passage? (7-9 marks)

ANSWER ONLY IN COMPLETE SENTENCES AND PUT YOUR ANSWER IN PARAGRAPH FORM. WRITE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN WHEN ANSWERING EACH OF THESE. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ANSWER THE QUESTION FULLY IN JUST A FEW SHORT SENTENCES.

PART B (50 points):

USING AS YOUR CHIEF EXAMPLES THREE TEXTS WE HAVE DISCUSSED IN CLASS, WRITE AN ESSAY THAT FULLY ANSWERS ONE OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS (N.B. only two of the following questions will be on the actual final exam)

1. Violence and/or death figure prominently in many of the works we've read in English 180 this semester. Discuss this theme as it relates to three novels we've read.

2. Over the course of English 180 this semester we have studied works from a variety of regions and historical eras. Using specific examples form three books we have read, discuss how geographic and/or historic contexts shape the experiences of the characters.

3. Memory is a significant theme in many of the works we have looked at in this course. With reference to three of the texts we have read in the class, discuss the role of memory in each.

What We All Long For blog prompt

Here's your assignment for our discussion of Dionne Brand's novel What We All Long For.

Pick one of the main characters in the novel and answer the following questions:

What is it this character longs for?

Does he or she find this by the end of the book?

In your answer, use at least a couple of examples from the text to support your argument.

Monkey Beach

So, now that you've finished reading Monkey Beach, what did you think? Which part(s) of the book did you find most interesting? Any questions about the book you'd like us to cover in class?

You might also want to check out the video of Eden Robinson's reading here in 2006. You can find out a bit more about Eden by following each of these links.