"Sonny's Blues" and "Redemption"

You have a few options, so choose one:

1) Write on "Sonny's Blues."

2) Write on "Redemption."

3) Write on both of them. As I hope you noticed, there are many interesting intersections and commonalities between the stories. 

Keep in mind that you are still expected to READ both of the stories, even if you only write on one of them! 

Your response is due by class time on Friday, Feb. 24. 

Your Research Paper

As I announced in class, you have been granted a reprieve. You do not need to write a response to "The Amish Farmer" for this Friday.

However, you're not completely off the hook. Instead, your assignment is to read BH 593-599 and then formulate a tentative thesis statement for your research paper. This should be an arguable statement that says something meaningful about the story or stories on which you're writing.

You research paper is due on March 7, and should be 5-7 pages. It should FOCUS on one or more of the stories from our class. If you like, you may ALLUDE to other stories by other authors. This paper will require research: you will need 5-7 secondary sources: either books or articles from a database, anthology, or journal.

Your homework, due by class time on Wednesday Feb 22, is to post your tentative thesis statement and THREE sources that you plan on using for you paper. Do not wait to the last second to do this!

Remember that there is no class on Friday Feb 17 or Monday Feb 20. Enjoy the holiday!

Standing on "The Ledge"

Please post your response to "The Ledge" below.

Also, remember that on Wednesday (Feb 8) we have a quiz on the next 6 vocabulary words, and on Friday (Feb 10) we will have a quiz on punctuation. You can prepare for the quiz by reading BH 372-391.

As per your request, here is a brief summary of the guidelines by which I grade your responses. The following information is paraphrased from the handout I gave you on the first day of class.

• Thesis (Does your essay have a clear thesis statement? Is it arguable? Persuasive? Original?)
• Organization (Does the essay "flow"? Does one idea follow logically from the previous one? Are transition words and phrases used correctly?
• Argument (Is your thesis well-supported? Do you give appropriate attention to possible objections to your thesis?)
• Prose Style (How is your grammar? Punctuation? Style? Spelling? Clarity?)
• Creativity (Do you demonstrate creative reading? Creative use of language? Creativity of thought? Or are you just going through the motions? Varied and interesting use of punctuation, vivid verbs, and strong nouns all help here.)
• Research (Although this category will be more important when I evaluate your research papers, right now it basically means that you quote relevant passages from the text and follow MLA format when doing so.)