Final Announcements and Paper #4

 Just a few announcements as we end our journey in Composition 1: please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns at jgrasso@ecok.edu. 

1. Our class is technically over now (except for Paper #4--see below) so there are no more class meetings. 

2. All revisions are due no later than Friday, December 3rd (the week before finals). I won't accept any late revisions, so if you want to revise Papers 1-3, this is the time to do it.

3. Paper #4 is also due no later than Friday, December 3rd. Normal late policies will be in effect for this paper (see syllabus for details). 

FIGURING OUT YOUR GRADE

4. Since I don't post grades on Blackboard, you're more than welcome to e-mail me about your current grade. But remember, here's how to figure out your grade:

a, Papers #1-2 are worth 15 pts. On your rubric I told you how many points you got on these (so add both of them up).

b. Paper #3 is worth 10 points, so add you grade on this to the previous tally.

c. If you missed more than 4 classes, subtract 10 points from this tally.

d. In-Class and Daily Responses are worth 45 points. Add 45 to your tally.

e. BUT, If you missed more than 4 daily responses, subtract 10 points from this tally. If you missed more than 6 daily responses, subtract 15 points.

f. Right now, since we haven't turned in Paper #4, your grade is out of  85 points. So add up your tally and divide it by 85. That's your grade. 

So for example, let's say a student got 12/15 on Paper #1 and 9/15 on Paper #2, and 7/10 on Paper #3. That adds up to 28 points. The student didn't miss more than 4 classes, and didn't miss more than 4 daily responses. So their current grade is 73/85. Divide 73 into 85 and you get an 85 B (or .8588 technically). 

If you're not sure how many classes or responses you missed, feel free to e-mail me, since I keep a strict record of these. 

Good luck on Paper #4! The assignment is pasted below: 

Paper #4: The Allegory

For your fourth (and final!) paper, I want you to write a short allegory using the CENTRAL METAPHOR from the poems/songs in Paper #3. That’s why your Paper #3 was so important: I wanted you to get ‘inside’ each poem so you could see how the metaphors translated one experience in terms of another. So now you’ll do the same thing: write a story using Paper #3’s metaphor that can be read allegorically. This is NOT a poem, but a story told symbolically through figurative language and metaphors.

But here’s the catch: your allegory has to do at least ONE of the following:

• SETTING: set the story in the distant past OR the distant future
• CHARACTERS: tell the story using animals OR robots instead of people
• CONTEXT: tell the story from a different perspective: as a football game, or a chess match, or a college class, or a five-course meal at a fancy restaurant, etc.

REMEMBER, an allegory is defined as “a more or less symbolic fictional narrative that conveys a secondary meaning (or meanings) not explicitly set forth in the literal narrative.” So tell a story that starts IN THE MIDDLE, and is set in a different SETTING, or with different CHARACTERS, or through a different CONTEXT to create distance, and use METAPHORS to help us see it.

FOR EXAMPLE, we read the poem “Ithaka” (p.3) with its metaphor that “home is a journey, not a destination.” So imagine a story about cats who escape the pound looking for the garage they were all born in—but find other homes along the way. Or a story about a soccer team playing a game where they’re completely outmatched, and by not worrying about winning anymore, they play the best soccer of their lives (but still lose). Whatever you decide to do, make sure your reader can see that the story isn’t literal: it’s not really about cats or soccer matches. It’s about US and OUR LIVES, just told in a symbolic manner.

REQUIREMENTS

• 3-4 pages, double spaced
• Follows one of the 3 requirements above: Setting, Characters, Context
• Tells a story—doesn’t just summarize the meaning
• Uses metaphors in the story that hints at the CENTRAL METAPHOR for Paper #3
• DUE NO LATER THAN FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3^rd by 5pm!
• NOTE: All revisions are due on this date as well!

 

For Tuesday: Poems from "Home, Rest, and Final Voyages"

REMEMBER, Paper #3 is due next Thursday by 5pm [no class!] See the assignment sheet two posts down--and be sure to read it before you start the paper, to make sure you remember what you're being asked to respond to.

For Tuesday, read the following poems:

* McKay, "The Tropics in New York," p.49

* Lazarus, "The New Colossus," p.50

* Bronte, "Home," pp.50-51 

* Dunbar, "Anchored," p.52

* Rossetti, "Up-Hill," pp.55-56

* de la Mare, "The Listeners," pp.56-57

* Dickinson, "The Chariot," p.58-58

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: The poem, "The New Colossus" was written to accompany a pedestal on the Statue of Liberty, and refers literally to the Statue itself, which was one of the first things glimpsed by immigrants coming to the New World. What metaphors or imagery does she use in this poem to help translate the experience of America for the immigrant? What does she want them to 'see' America as (besides a statue, of course!). 

Q2: The last three poems are explicitly about the experience of death, and what this might mean to the world of the living. How do they try to translate something of the experience for the reader (discuss at least one of them). Do you find it consoling/hopeful, or dark/pessimistic? 

Q3: "Anchored" is another poem by the famous poet, Paul Dunbar, who also wrote "Sympathy" and "Ships That Pass in the Night." How does this poem also share something of the same theme as those poems? What separates the speaker from the "sweeter life afar"? 

Q4: Who are "The Listeners" in the poem of the same name? At first it seems like they're the invisible spirits of the house, who ignore the Traveler's knocking. Yet could the Traveler be the one who is dead? Any clues in the poem and the metaphors themselves?