Date and Instructions for the Next Meeting, Monday, July 27th (Invisible Man Chapters 1-15)

Hi Everyone:

My next post will be a quick re-cap of our meeting on July 10^th, but before I get to that I should first announce that the next meeting will have to be shifted a bit from the originally planned date.  We were originally going to meet Friday, July 24^th, but I need to change the date to Monday, July 27^th, 9:00 A.M. in room 2209.  Sorry about the change (but you get a few extra days!)

This time we will discuss chapters 1-15 of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.  The assignment for these chapters is very similar to the last assignment.  Here are the retooled directions:

Description: This assignment is a hybrid which combines the skill of responding to a passage in an exploratory and provisional way (as in the traditional quotation response journal) and something approaching the more focused and formal skill of the AP-style passage response (Question 2) on the AP Literature exam.  Use the rubric that you were given before the end of the school year to guide you through the shorter quotation responses.  The same rubric is applicable to the longer portion of the assignment, only rather than including personal connections and open-ended questions, you should maintain your focus on what is being asked of you in the directions.

Directions:

Part One:  After reading chapters 1-15 of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, respond to four passages from throughout the text.  Try to choose passages that do one of two things: 1) In preparation for the bildungsroman unit during the school year, try to choose passages that advance, complicate, or illuminate the main character's social, intellectual, or creative development.  In other words, what are the big moments of change and what do they reveal?  OR 2)  Try to select passages that contain things that seem to jump out of the narrative as highly unusual, grotesque, uncomfortable or incongruous.  Try to make some sense out of these things or make connections to the larger story.

As always, Keep in mind these fundamental questions: why does your passage matter so much, and how does your passage function on its own and in relation to the rest of the book?  Each response has a 60 word minimum.

Part Two:  Write one longer response to a passage, around 300-500 words.  You simply want to choose a passage that exemplifies one of the two threads above but seems especially important.

***For those who did not make it to the meeting last Friday, please read my description of the discussion below and write a 300-500 word contribution in the comment section.