Snow Child/ SOKOL/ Gannon

Agenda:

1. Go down to the library to pick up The Snow Child.  You can begin reading the book today.  Start thinking about your short story or play adaptation of a folktale.

2. Continue to work on your Sokol and Gannon entries

Here is the link for SOKOL:
http://www3.libraryweb.org/sokolcontest.aspx

3.  MISSING WORK:  All blog entries up to date, 2nd person short story and Prayer for the Dying essay.

Folktales

Hello Everyone!

Here are links to lists of folktales from a few different countries and cultures:

African Folktales

Asian Folktales

European Folktales

North American Folktales

South American Folktales

Here is a list of several prominent fairytale writers and brief information on them as well as their fairytales:

Hans Christian Anderson

The Brothers Grimm

Andrew Lang

Charles Perrault

Here is another website that has some cultural folktales, fairytales, myths, and legends for you to browse:

Aaron's World of Stories

Some of these folktales and fairytales you might recognize (for example, most cultures have a version of the story of Cinderella) and some of them you will be completely new to you. These are great links to get you started thinking about your new writing assignment!

SOKOL/ The Snow Child

AGENDA:


1. Work on SOKOL entries and GANNON POETRY CONTEST

https://www.gannon.edu/NewsDetail.aspx?id=8589940409

2. The Snow Maiden
http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/tales/snow_maiden.html

http://vd-crystaldream.blogspot.com/2013/05/legend-of-snow-maiden-russian-fairy.html

Magical Realism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism

Prayer for the Dying Essay Response/TEST for Friday

Some of you may want to get started on this today for Friday.  The rest of you need to finish your stories, edit and proofread them, and answer the discussion questions in previous posts!   GET WORKING!

 ESSAY TEST (literary analysis):

 Write a critical essay response to one of the following discussion topics about A Prayer for the Dying using text-based references and MLA citation:



http://thelibrarium.wordpress.com/2006/11/24/discussion-starters-for-a-prayer-for-the-dying/




Here are some reviews and interviews you might want to check out:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/11/daily/041299onan-book-review.html

http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/02/reviews/990502.02mcgratt.html

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/books/99/05/06/STEWART_O_NAN.html

http://blogcritics.org/book-review-a-prayer-for-the/

http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/a-prayer-for-the-dying-a-novel

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8050-6147-5

Second person short stories/A Prayer for the Dying

AGENDA:

1. Second person short stories: Due Friday, Jan. 10.  Continue to work on your short stories by revising and editing if you have a first draft.  If not, work on completing your story.

2. A Prayer for the Dying:  THINK, PAIR, SHARE
Discuss with a partner the following questions and post a response on the blog:

6. How would you describe the relationship between Jacob and Doc? How do their different ideas about the world lead to different strategies for handling the outbreak in Friendship?
7. How does Jacob’s relationship with Marta affect his behavior in the outbreak? How do his priorities as a father and husband conflict with his responsibility to the town?
8. How do you interpret the book’s ending? What is Jacob choosing when he returns to Friendship? What do you imagine happening to him next?
9. Is Jacob sane at the end of the book? How does the author demonstrate the changes in his mind as conditions worsen?
10. “You’ve stopped believing in evil,” the narrator says of Jacob early in the story (p. 6). “Is that a sin?” Is there evil in this story? Does Jacob come to see it by the end?
11. How do the book’s two epigraphs relate to each other? Why do you think the author chose them?
12. Jacob is committed throughout the book to saving Friendship, and willing to sacrifice himself if necessary. Is he naïve? Does his commitment to principle do more harm than good in the end?
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Discussion A Prayer for the Dying/ Work on 2nd person short stories

1. The book is narrated in the second person, addressing the main character, Jacob, as “you.” Who is speaking? Why do you think the author chose this mode to tell the story?

2. When Jacob is called to take care of Clytie, he has a very hard time pulling the trigger. Look at the passage (p. 49) in which he has to convince himself to kill her. Why does he agonize when he knows it’s the right thing? What does it mean that he’s “still clinging to some dream of innocence, blamelessness”? Does he continue to cling to that dream later in the story?

3. Why does Jacob elect to bleed and treat the bodies of some victims, even after Doc has told him not to, and even though he knows he’s putting himself in danger? Why is precision and diligence so important to him even when everyone around him is worried only about survival?

4. What role does religious faith play in the story? How does it influence Jacob, Chase, and other citizens of Friendship? Is their faith rewarded?

5. Jacob is a veteran of the Civil War. How does his experience there affect the way he behaves in the crisis in Friendship? How did the war change him?

A Prayer for the Dying Discussion Starters

http://thelibrarium.wordpress.com/2006/11/24/discussion-starters-for-a-prayer-for-the-dying/