Weeks 8-11: Personal Essay/Coates
Week Eight:
Weds 10/9 (Block E) or 10/10(Block D) L:
Homework for personal essay draft
Please note a new suggested topic for the personal essay (inspired by Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground):
Describe a scene where you were in conflict with yourself. Perhaps you wanted something but sabotaged yourself. Perhaps you treated another person poorly--and knew it--but still continued to treat that person poorly. Did you find a way to break free from that kind of behavior or do you still behave this way from time to time? If so, why?
Fri 10/11 (S):
For tonight's homework, write a dialogue between you and another person involved in the event/scene you're describing.
The dialogue should be crafted around some sort of conflict, but submerge the conflict.
In other words, don't have either of the "characters" in your dialogue actually state what they're in conflict about--at least until the end of the exchange.
It's also possible that the conflict is between what you--the narrator--say and what you think. In other words, the conflict isn't really with the other person.
Another possibility: you don't have conflict with another person at all
Perhaps you use dialogue simply to help you create the scene
Incorporate some setting details into the dialogue
Also incorporate 1-2 distinctive aspects of the other person's appearance (face, body, movement, clothing, way of speaking, etc.)
Word count: 300 words total
Post the assignment on Canvas
Week Nine:
Mon 10/14 (S): Personal Essay draft due: topics and instructions here
Weds 10/16(Blocks D and E) L: Start Between the World and Me, pp. 3-26 (22 pages, to "Why, precisely, was I sitting in this classroom?")
Thurs 10/17 (Block E) or Fri 10/18 (Block D) L: Coates, pp. 26-47 (19 pages, to "Where should I begin?")
brief writing assignment... canceled!
Week Ten
Mon 10/21: No school
Tues 10/22: No school
Weds 10/23 (Block E) or Thurs 10/24 (Block D) L:
Read Coates, pp. 47-67 (19 pages, to "I must survive for you.")
Brief writing assignment here on Canvas:
Please select one reference or allusion Coates makes in Between the World and Me.
Write the reference or allusion at the top of your post.
Provide some context.
Provide a page number.
Explain what Coates is referring/alluding to here.
If it's helpful--and you have it--you can provide a link to an outside source.
You could also embed an image if that would be helpful.
Or an audio file, etc.
Try to choose a reference or allusion that hasn't been discussed yet. Read over what other people have posted before you research and post your own.
By "reference" or "allusion," I mean any outside source, place, person or organization Coates discusses. It could be a neighborhood in Baltimore, a song, a book, an author, etc.
100 words of your own writing (but you can write more if you wish)
Fri 10/25 (S): Coates, pp. 67-88 (19 pages, to section break)
Week Eleven:
Mon 10/28 (S): assignment to be announced (Dr. A. Underwood will teach the class)
Weds 10/30 (Blocks D and E) L: Coates, pp. 88-108 (19 pages, to section break)
brief writing assignment t.b.a.--canceled!
Thurs 10/31 (Block E) or Fri 11/1 (Block D) L: Coates, pp. 108-129 (20 pages, to section break)
brief writing assignment here
Week Twelve:
Mon 11/4 (S): Coates, pp. 129-end, pp. 152 (20 pages)
brief writing assignment (essay prep) here
Tu 11/5 (S): Review Between the World and Me
Weds 11/6 (Block F) or Thurs 11/7 (Block D): In-class essay on Coates (please note in-class essay has been pushed back 2 days)
Brief assignment on Canvas