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Thank you all for the fantastic semester. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Your final papers can be found in my mailbox in the English department.

Happy Holidays!

For those students who missed our final class meeting on Monday, you can find your graded and annotated second essay in my mailbox in the English department on the 7th floor of the Vertical Campus. Thanks!

If you might take a moment to evaluate the course, it would be very helpful. You can find the link here:

https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/bctc/course_evaluations_landing.htm

Hey Folks,

I am uploading the grading rubric used to grade your second essay here.

As with the previous essay, I am happy to allow revisions, if you are not satisfied with your grade. However, as before, the revised grade will count for 40% of the final grade for the assignment, and the original grade will count for 60%.

If you’d like to write another draft, please email it to me no later than Monday, December 19th, at 5:40pm.

Thanks!

 

Our discussion of the film reviews of American Honey on Monday was extremely useful, I thought, and I wanted to reiterate some of the points we made. In particular, I think you might use these two reviews as models for your own. (Here is the one by Brian Tallerico. The other was from the New York Times, and was written by A.O. Scott.)

The basic structure of both reviews was the same, and it might be a useful outline to follow. Of course, you can deviate from and develop upon it as you see fit. Both two reviews are organized, more or less, as follows:

Paragraph 1: Main Idea (For Tallerico, this is the “youth=movement” equation; for Scott, it is a more basic introduction, with some criticism of the film’s title and an overview of its subject matter.)

Paragraph 2: Plot Summary (Both Tallerico and Scott begin the plot summary by introducing the main character. Scott spends two paragraphs summarizing.)

Paragraph 3: Large-view criticisms (Both Tallerico and Scott step back, here, to consider “narrative elements.” You might consider “picaresque elements.”)

Paragraph 4: Technical criticisms (Cinematography, writing style, actors’ performances, believability; this is a good opportunity to discuss the merits of your text as a work of art.)

Paragraph 5: Conclusion (You should try to return to your main idea from P1, as Tallerico does by returning to the youth=movement question.)

 

 

 

 

Here are some pointers as you prepare to present your reviews and narratives to the class. Your presentations may be informal, but you should plan on directing the discussion for five to ten minutes. If you don’t know how long your presentation will take, you can practice it.

In fact, you should practice it no matter what. You will be more prepared and in better command of your material if you do. Make sure to find your audio/video clips ahead of class time. Send the links to yourself. Find the video-time you want to begin showing it at. We can set the video or image up before it is your turn to present.

In terms of your actual presentation, I suggest combining several elements including some or all of these:

• a prepared written presentation for you to read
• a summary of the text you are reviewing, or of your narrative
• an example of the text you are reviewing, perhaps a video clip or an image, which you can share with the group
• an excerpt from your narrative (if you are choosing option one)
• a careful analysis of what is “picaresque” in your narrative or text
• one or two questions to ask the class, to facilitate a brief discussion

 

For our next class meeting, please read the short story attached here, called “The Hitch-Hikers,” by Eudora Welty. There will be no blog post or presentation, but if you would like to comment on the story, feel free to start a new thread.

The Hitch-Hikers

Just in case you missed today’s class or misplaced the handout, I will upload a copy of the assignment for your final project and presentation here.

Final Project Assignment

 

“On the Road,” by Jack Kerouac

Upon reading about the relationship between the narrator and Dean I thought about how we need people in life. Somewhat, for a given moment or time people come into your life to fulfill a purpose and then they vanish like was the example of Dean. Dean and the narrator meet because Marylou, Dean’s girlfriend, accused him with the police after a fight they had. Therefore, he had to “lam” for their apartment. Dean, being an ex-conn he was, would have ended back in jail. Hence, he needed the intervention of someone, and a good excuse as well for the help. Here’s why this is interesting to me, ironically people look for others just to fulfill a purpose and then move on like nothing ever happen. Although I understand the logic behind this, it’s quite touching to me because today people are straight forward with their intentions. For instance, when these characters meet in the bar Dean actually expresses his reality. In my own words, he is saying “Look, I can’t stay my girlfriend, I need a place to stay and I hope you can help” forget the intention with which I came to see you. Becoming a writer, forget that…… However, I also like the fact that Dean really wanted to better himself, be more intellectual considering the fact that he was in ex-conn, that was something good for that sense. This pattern repeats with Eddie, who was a free soul, and at the end became traveling buddies. Eddie ended up using the narrators clothing for warmth and eventually meets their end and Eddie vanishes.

As the story progresses to the point that the narrator is working his way to the west, I kind of thought about Lazarillo. Lazaro was trying to get to a specific point in his life and so was the narrator. Lazaro endure tribes and tribulations to make to where he wanted to go, so did the narrator of this story. Although the narrator of story did not endure the same pain Lazaro did, there is element of sacrifice that the narrator endures in order to make it to where he wanted to go.  For example: he stated “I’ve been all day and into the night going up and down, north and south, like something that can’t get started.”  But he continued trying just like Lazaro did until finally making it.

There will be four reading assignments for Wednesday’s class. The first, and longest, is an excerpt from “On The Road,” by Jack Keruac. This is about twenty pages, but it will go quickly. Please also read three short film reviews for “Scarecrow,” which I will link to here. Thanks!

1. On The Road, by Jack Keruac
2. Roger Ebert’s review of “Scarecrow,” from 1973: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/scarecrow-1973
3. Peter Bradshaw’s review of “Scarecrow,” from 2013: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/apr/25/scarecrow-review
4. Bud Wilkin’s review of “Scarecrow,” from 2013: http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/scarecrow