Michael Lesy Wisconsin Death Trip

A Prayer for the Dying is in part inspired by this book (later turned into a film).



Check it out!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=voKdxD07PgE


Another interview with Stewart O'Nan about A Prayer for the Dying

www.weeklywire.com/ww/05-10-99/boston_books_1.html

More 2nd person stories

Read Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Haunted Mind"
http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/nh/hmind.html


Read Italo Calvino's "If on a winter's night a traveler...""


http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/winter.htm


Another example:


They are coming for you, to take you to the firing squad, the gallows, the stake, the electric chair, the gas chamber. You have to stand up; but you can't. Your body, gorged with fear, is too heavy$to move. You'd like to be able to rise and walk between them out the open door of your cell with dignity; but you can't. So they have to drag you away.

Or, it is coming, it is upon you and the others; bells or sirens have gone off (air raid, hurricane, rising flood), and you've taken shelter in this cell-like space, as out of harm's way as you can be, and out of the way of those trained to cope with the emergency. But you don't feel safer; you feel trapped. There's no place to run, and even if there were, fear has made your limbs too heavy, you can barely move. It's an alien weight that you shift from the bed to the chair, the chair to the floor. And you are shivering with fear or cold; and there is absolutely nothing you can do except try not to be any more terrified than you already are. If you remain very still, you pretend that this is what you have decided to do.
(Susan Sontag, The Volcano Lover 2.4.217; original emphasis(1))

Writing in the Second Person POV

What is the Second Person

An example
from
www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1200131-That-Second-Person


Let us talk about writing, just me and you. Pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable. Pour a cup of joe, or whatever your favorite poison is. Settle in and we'll get down to the nitty gritty. I can go on for hours about this writing business, but I won't take up too much of your time today. Writing is one my favorite subjects. I'm thinking it might be yours too. Why do I think it might be yours? Well, you're here aren't you? That's a pretty good indication. I could be wrong though, and I'm more than willing to admit that. But let's talk a bit if you don't mind.

See this paragraph above? That's one way to use the second person properly, when directly addressing someone. I'm addressing you, the reader and possible writer, directly. The paragraph is written with a specific audience in mind, not a general one. I blame my first college professor for my pet peeve about the misuse of the second person. He pounded it into my freshmen skull many years ago that "you" had no place in any essay except for extraordinary circumstances. When I had him again for nearly every other English class, that lesson was simply emphasized in other writings. Other professors touched on it in literature, but he really sent it home.

I mostly blame advertisement for the misuse of the second person in new writing. I don't know how many times I have driven my family to distraction because I've absentmindedly disagreed with an advertisement. Listen to those things sometime - advertisements. Most of them are trying to target a specific market, but the way the commercials are written is so broad. The net thrown tries to catch as many people as possible. The public at large is included in the message. "You" is inclusive. The message is worded so everyone hearing it is led to believe they need that product or service by the simple use of that one little word. It's no wonder beginning writers use it in their writing; they're exposed to it constantly.

Another reason some beginning writers use the second person incorrectly is because they are "telling the tale." Most people learn to talk before they learn to write, and more people are better at telling stories than writing them. When beginning writers start to write the stories in their heads, often things become lost in the translation. Oral telling is different than the written word, and some writers don't make the distinction between what's said and what's written. When storytellers have an audience in front of them, they can say "It's so black that you can't see your hand in front of your face..." or "...the wind's so cold it'll cut right through ya." Storytellers talk directly to their audience. Even if the audience doesn't "feel" the cold, the use of the second person can bring them deeper into the story.

It can be done; Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tim Robbins is a fictional novel written in second person, and there are several short stories which use the second person well, but they are rare. Also, the "choose your own adventure" genre of fiction has often been written in second person. Now that the Internet is so well established, interactive stories and many role playing forums are perfect homes for fictional stories that incorporate the second person.

In non-fiction writing, the use of the second person is commonplace. As in this opening sentence from Take Control of Your Sales by Sonya Carmichael Jones, "Regardless of your writing genre, marketing is the primary means by which your book sales are generated." This article addresses a specific audience, the book writer who wants to sell books. By inserting "you" into the article, the author attempts to draw the writer in and make the article personal. Such casual writing is routine nowadays. However, the above sentence could just have easily been written, "Regardless of genre, marketing is the primary means by which book sales are generated." Both are correct, it's simply a matter of preference.

If used properly, use of the second person can draw the reader into a piece like no other word. Such as this statement: "If you're one of the millions of people in the United States who has ever..." It is written directly to a specific audience. It attempts to hook that audience immediately. Hopefully, anyone who falls into the category of the article will read the rest of article with interest. Those who do not fall under the umbrella of whatever the article covers will most likely not read it. However, since they are not the intended audience, the use of the second person has fulfilled a purpose as well.

Using the second person is the easy way, but it can alienate half the readers in the blink of an eye. Consider an article written about some extreme sport where the author has written "... and you feel the rush of wind screaming through your hair. This is why you dig freefall, the rush..." Well, there went all of his sensitive bald readers and anyone who's never felt freefall, or those who don't "dig" it.

Using the second person can be a very powerful tool in an author's toolkit. But if it's used incorrectly it can gum up the works good and proper. Generally, try not to use the second person in an essay or a fictional story that is not aimed at a specific audience. There are always exceptions of course. What would this wonderful language be without exceptions? In my opinion, there are ways to get around using the second person - notice how I have not used it since the first paragraph except in quotations? A writer simply has to be creative. It's more fun that way. Is there a better way to enhance writing skills than finding more creative ways to say things? I can't think of one.

Well, I enjoyed this time with you. I hope you did too. Thanks for coming by and listening to me voice my opinion. It was a blast. I've got to get on to other things, but I hope you'll stop by again soon.

Take care.
from
www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1200131-That-Second-Person

UNTIL GWEN--Dennis Lehane

UNTIL GWEN--Dennis Lehane 

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lXthgpRBoM

Click on this link and read (saving paper):

 

adlibris.com/se/images/UntilGwen.pdf

What does this picture say about the story?

An interview with Dennis Lehane

theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/hookers-guns-and-money/3125/


Until Gwen Response
What about "Until Gwen" sticks out the most to you? You could focus on a scene, an image, a character, the style, the point of view, a theme--anything really. Write a perfect paragraph of 5-7 sentences in response.

Also:


"Until Gwen"
Use the title "Until Gwen" in a sentence about the main character of this story: "Until Gwen, he ______. During Gwen, he ______. After Gwen, he ______." Do the same with the main character's father: "Until Gwen, his father ______. During Gwen, his father ______. After Gwen, his father ______." Describe the lasting impact Gwen had on these two men. Are there similarities?

At the story's end, the main character has all the means to completely re-invent himself. Financially he is secure. On paper he has no past. He is able to completely start somewhere new where no one knows him. If you could write an epilogue to this story, one year later, where would he be?


Post your comments!

Continue reading A Prayer for the Dying over the holidays.

Current Contests: Sokol--a poem and/or story
Gannon--1-3 poems
Lelia Tupper Scholarship---essay, and creative writing variety, (up to 12 pages total--4 essay and 8 creative writing)
Scholastic  --Jan 6
Frederick Douglas 500 word essay--Jan 6

A Prayer for the Dying

A Prayer for the Dying Discussion questions

READING GROUP GUIDE
A Prayer for the Dying
A Novel
by Stewart O’Nan
ISBN-10: 0-312-42891-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-42891-4
About this Guide
The following author biography and list of questions about A Prayer for the Dying are intended as resources to aid individual readers and book groups who would like to learn more about the author and this book. We hope that this guide will provide you a starting place for discussion, and suggest a variety of perspectives from which you might approach A Prayer for the Dying.
About the Book
Set in Friendship, Wisconsin, just after the Civil War, A Prayer for the Dying tells of a horrible epidemic that is suddenly and gruesomely killing the town's residents and setting off a terrifying paranoia. Jacob Hansen, Friendship's sheriff, undertaker, and pastor, is soon overwhelmed by the fear and anguish around him, and his sanity begins to fray. Dark, poetic, and chilling, A Prayer for the Dying examines the effect of madness and violence on the morality of a once-decent man.
About the Author
Stewart O’Nan’s novels include Last Night at the Lobster, The Night Country, and A Prayer for the Dying. He is also the author of the nonfiction books The Circus Fire and, with Stephen King, the bestselling Faithful. Granta named him one of the Twenty Best Young American Novelists. He lives in Connecticut.

Discussion Questions
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?
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?

Wrapping up The Eyre Affair

Good Morning Everyone,

Today, you will have two periods worth of studio time.  During this time, you should be finishing the peer reviews that we started last class as well as continuing to work on your blog.

Peer Reviews--Due today at the end of the period.  Please print them out and hand them in to me.  (I will not be able to accept late peer reviews because today is my last day with Contemporary Writers (unless you are absent, in which case, you can e-mail it to me).


Blogs Requirements (a reminder)
-Due at the end of class: a link to your character's blog--you can e-mail this to me or print this out.  I would like you to do this again even if you have previously provided me with a link.
-Final Blog due date: Monday (take the weekend to polish your character's blog.
-a blog designed to include background information on your character, pictures of your character, things your character likes (you could have the character follow certain blogs in order to indicate this)
-hypertext blog entry (this should include links, pictures, videos, etc.)
-magical realism blog entry
-5-7 other entries from the point of view of your character
-developed entries (these should not be one sentence long.  They should be (roughly) at least two well-developed paragraphs in length
-appropriate spelling and grammar (unless, of course, you have chosen a character that speaks in a dialect, etc.  (in which case you should make a note of it somewhere).

Lastly, thank you all for a wonderful four weeks of student teaching.  It has been a great experience.  I enjoyed being able to work with such a receptive group of creative writers.  If you need to e-mail me for any of the aforementioned assignments (or even about college admissions, etc.), you can reach me at Jennifer.Hoffmann@Rochester.edu .

Peer Review Day

Good Morning Everyone,

Today, we will be finishing up the 1999 A&E film adaptation of Jane Eyre that we began in class on Friday.  If you have not yet posted a comment to the blog in response to it (using one of the questions in the last post) make sure that you do in order to receive class credit.

For the rest of the period, you will be working on a peer review of a classmate's blog.  This will count towards your classwork grade.  This will allow you to share your blog with another member of the class as well as to learn more about the peer review process.  Additionally, this will allow you to see what you need to edit or build upon in your own blog. 

In order to receive credit for this, please answer the following questions about your partner's blog in a word document that you will print out and hand in at the end of class.  You should give one copy to the person whose blog you reviewed and one copy to me.  To receive full credit, you should be thorough and point to specific examples in your partner's test.  You should always provide constructive criticism--any reviews that include hurtful criticisms or put-downs of the person being reviewed will receive no credit. 


Name:
Partner's Name:
Date:

1. Does this blog fit your expectations of a blog in general?  Does it have enough background information on the character?  Does it adequately use media modes other than text?
2. Does the blog fit the voice of the character it is aiming to adapt?  Why or why not?  What are some particularly well-written passages?  What are some passages that could be improved upon?
3.  Do the blog posts fit the project requirements? Are the blog posts well-developed?  (Are they at least a couple of paragraphs long?  Do they get across some unified idea?  Are there 5-7 distinct blog posts?  In addition to these posts, does the blog include the hypertext post and the magical realism post?  Point to specific examples. 
4. Did you find any sentences or ideas that were unclear (either because of sentence structure or because they expressed concepts that were difficult to follow)?  If possible, suggest a way to improve these sentences (without rewriting them for your partner). 
5. Pick a quote you particularly liked from your partner's blog and explain why. 
6. Are there grammar and style issues (other than ones used to fit with the character's voice)?
7. What are the blog's greatest strengths?  Explain.
8. What could be improved in the blog?  Explain. 
9. Additional comments:

Jane Eyre and its Adaptations

Good Morning,

Today we are going to be thinking about The Eyre Affair by looking at the source of some of the characters that it reappropriates, Jane Eyre.  I will be presenting a power point that covers Charlotte Bronte's background, The Victorian Era, the novel, and the novel's adaptations.  Afterward, we will look at one of the recent film adaptations.

Class Credit: Post a comment to the blog that responds to Fforde's use of Bronte's characters in light of what you have seen in class today.  To help you think of something to write, you might one to consider one or more of the following questions: What types of scenes does Fforde choose to depict, and why do you think he chooses them?  Does Fforde seem faithful to the characters, why or why not?

Magical Realism and the Eyre Affair

Good Morning Everyone,

Today, we will be taking a look at magical realism in The Eyre Affair.  In order to do this, you are all going to work in groups of 4-5 people.  Your group will work to answer the following set of questions on a poster paper:

1.  What is magical realism?  Put both what you remember from past classes at SOTA as well as what you find from a brief google search.  I particularly recommend this site: http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/MagicalRealism.html

2.  How does Fforde use magical realism in the novel?  Provice specific examples.

At the end of the first period, your group will share its answers with the rest of the class, so make sure to write clearly on your paper to help you present.

Assignment:

For the rest of second period, complete a blog entry that uses some of the elements of magical realism. 

Homework:
*Work on your blogs (remember for the unit assignment, I will be looking for the hyptertext entry, the magical realism entry, and the 5-7 entries that illustrate a week (or other time frame) in the life of your character).

*Read through chapter 31 in The Eyre Affair (clearly, the quiz is Friday).

Allusions in the Eyre Affair

The Eyre Affair is filled with literary and historical allusions and references that make reading it enjoyable.  It does this by referencing people, places, and items outside of the novel in a way that brings another layer of meaning to the plot and its events.  In this way it creates an experience of meta-reading, something that is not unlike the experiences that we had when reading the hypertext fiction and working to create our own. 

However, you can only experience the reading this way if you are in on the allusions (and the jokes that they are trying to make, in the case of Fforde's novel).  Did you recognize all the allusions?  How did you feel when you recognized one?  How did this compare to how you felt when you did not recognize one? 

In order to delve into the book, you will each be embarking on a webquest to determine to what each of the items listed below is referring.

al·lu·sion

Noun:

An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference. The practice of making such references, esp. as an artistic device.

Look up the following references:

Boswell
Pickwick

Goliath (as in "Goliath Corporation")
Crimean War
William Thackeray
Mycroft
Cardenio
Longfellow
surrealism
impressionism
Gad's Hill
Martin Chuzzlewit
Dickens
Haworth House
Austen
Swift
Gulliver's Travels
Mill on the Floss
Byron
Keats
Poe
Acheron Hades
chimera
Henry Fielding
Styx Hades
Jane Eyre
Bronte
Francis Bacon
Toad (toady) news
Stoker
Spike
Liz Barrett Browning
The Chesire Cat
Bowden Cable
Wordsworth
Braxton Hicks
Felix Tabularasa

Studio Time:  With this understanding of the meaningful use of allusions and references in mind, edit your Hypertext blog entry.  If you have time you may want to start on the seven blog entries that will be due as part of your end-of-unit assignment, due at the beginning of next week. 

Homework:
*Read the next 50pp. in The Eyre Affair (be ready for another reading quiz this week)
*Start to work on your blog entries for your unit assignment
*Poke around Jasper Fforde's website-->www.jasperfforde.com

Kids Philosophy Slam Contest

Here is an essay contest you might be interested in:

philosophyslam.org/rules_fin.html#special

Setting up Your Blog and Hyptertext Posts

Blog Setup and Hypertext Entry

             Last class, we discussed Hypertext Fiction, a type of narrative that has existed since the early 1900s in textual form and that has grown and flourished in the digital age and with the capabilities that it allows.  This class session will require you to utilize some of these capabilities on your own as you begin to set up the blog from the perspective of your chosen character. 

Process:

1. Choose the blog site you want to use
1. http://www.blogger.com/
2. www.wordpress.com
3. www.opensalon.com

                                                              i.      Save this as a last resort.  It will not allow you the same kind of design capabilities as the other sites.  It will also not allow you enough space to write a biography for your character.

2. Fill in the basic information for the blog using the information that you researched for your character sketch.  (If you have not completed your character sketch or your I-Remember exercises, it will be difficult for you to complete these exercises). 
1. Fill in background information that is appropriate for your character.
2. Provide a photograph that is appropriate for your character.
3. List interests that fit with those of your character
4. Follow other blogs that your character would be likely to follow.
5. Use a blog template that your character would be likely to use.

etc., etc., etc.

3. Adapt one of your writing pieces
1. Choose one of your I-Remember exercises

                                                              i.      Pick one that is well developed and that you like

2. Find some words or phrases to turn into links

                                                              i.      Link to appropriate sites that relate to what your character is saying

                                                            ii.      Make this something meaningful.  Your goal is to add an additional layer of meaning and to create a winding narrative. 

3. Add appropriate pictures and videos to better get across your character’s message.

Due:  By the end of class today, December 1^st

Requirements:

*Thoroughly complete the process listed above.

*Write in the voice of your character.  Write something that is well developed (you may want to add onto what you wrote for the I-Remember exercises). 

*Use elements of hypertext narratives (as briefly touched upon in #3) in order to create a second layer of meaning.   

*Use the conventional standards for written English (though you may need to deviate to write authentically in the voice of your character).