Hebdomadal 11

(This is the second-to-last set of hebdomadal topics.)

A quick note: I'm noticing a drop-off in the word count of recent hebdomadals. The 300-word minimum is strict: this semester I have given full credit to only one hebdomadal that fell short of 300 words.

The word count is code, in a way, for "I'm looking for a reasonably-sophisticated argument that cannot be sufficiently grounded or analyzed in fewer than 300 words": this means a bit of close reading, a bit of analysis, a bit of connection to larger course themes, and a bit of creativity. (Hint: if you are regularly falling short of the minimum word count, I respond extremely well to hebdomadals that actually talk me through your process of reading a text -- these hebdomadals are, because of their nature, slightly chattier and hence wordier.)

Topic 1: Pre-writing

Tender 300 words that point toward your second essay. Introduce these 300 words so I know what I am looking at, but you can use them to develop the question you would like your essay to answer, you can use them to craft your thesis and outline, or you might simply spend these 300 words processing the text you expect to place at the center of your argument. In other words, I am looking for some structured, articulate brainstorming.

You might look to the two examples of strong hebdomadals I just posted to get a sense of how you might organize this introductory interrogation or thesis-making or interpretation.

Topic 2: Comparing themes, comparing poetics

One of the broad goals of any introductory literature course is to train you to see and analyze the major themes that authors treat generation after generation. Comparing a poem by Eavan Boland to a poem by either Yeats or Heaney identify a single theme (examples: nature; violence; class; women; art) that both poems have in common and identify how the authors' differing treatment of this theme suggests larger differences between the authors' poetic philosophies.

If you want, feel free to write this hebdomadal in the form of notes for a five-minute lecture for the class.