“I can’t tell what’s my name, or who I am!”

Here it is. Work well!

The following responses to the midterm exam usefully demonstrate different qualities of successful writing. I’ve written headnotes about what each one does well and highlighted one or more particular examples within the text. We’ll discuss these on Thursday; here they are for you to refer to as you write.

1. A good introductory paragraph that explicitly answers the question.
2. An answer that is directly and exclusively focused on the quotation in the question.
3. A clear and well-structured response.
4. Writing that interprets every quotation it cites.
5. A nuanced answer based on careful reading.
6. An argument that progresses from one idea to the next by fully analyzing its quotations.

The video that wasn’t working well in class is called “Where Chuck Found Whitman.”

Read Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” I’ve put the 1881 edition up on e-reserves. You may focus on sections 1-6, 12-13, 15-16, 19, 24, 33-34, 43, and 51-52.

Let’s make the last assignment a good one: How does Whitman’s poem define “myself”? You may want to think about what his self includes, what its limitations or obligations are, how it’s related to the physical body, or how it operates in relation to others. Compare his understanding of the self with that of one other writer we have studied this semester.

Selections from Specimen Days are available on e-reserves (the link says “Selections by Walt Whitman from Complete Poetry & Collected Prose”). In a later section of Specimen Days, Whitman writes, “the real war will never get in the books.” Read the short section & explain what that comment means. Does the real war get into his book, Specimen Days? How or why not?

The poem numbers below refer to those in the edition posted on e-reserves. It is mandatory that you use that version & bring it to class. We’ll discuss why on Tuesday.

For Thursday 11/12, some poems about death. Read numbers: 390, 448, 479, 591, 599, & 1037

For Tuesday 11/17, read poems 373, 620, 1476, 540 & 1300. Writing assignment: choose either poem 620 or 1476 and perform a line-by-line close reading of it. Interpret what each line means (looking up words on the Oxford English Dictionary if you unsure of them) and then give a one-paragraph explanation of your understanding of the poem as a whole.

For Thursday 11/19, read poems 583, 643, 647, 764 & 1004. I mentioned in class that these are about silence, but in reviewing the selections I see that they aren’t all & aren’t exclusively about silence.

Read about the narratives and images of slavery collected by the Library of Congress.

An introduction to the collection of narratives.

An interesting note about the use of language and how the transcriptions were approached.

Now, choose one narrative or image from the collection. Some fascinating narratives are featured in “Voices and Faces from the Collection”; if you choose one of these, make sure to click through the link “Read the rest of this narrative.” You may also view photographs of almost all of the people interviewed; the images are categorized by name.

Write the following (one paragraph for each instruction):
1. Summarize the text. What is the narrative about? Or, what does the image look like?
2. Analyze the text. How does the text use language or graphics to make a particular point?
3. How is analyzing these non-fiction texts different from writing about literature?

At the beginning of Benito Cereno, the narrator sets the scene: “Everything was mute and calm; everything gray” (35). Choose either “mute” or “gray” and explain how the adjective describes at least one other element (for example, a character, a plot detail, an event, or the writing style) in the text.

(This assignment is similar to the one we did on Thoreau’s “Wednesday,” in which you identified what in the text could be read as “unburied.”)

As per the syllabus, on Tuesday we’ll discuss the story up to the shaving scene.

In the context of Douglass’s speech, why, “at a time like this,” is “scorching irony, not convincing argument” what is needed (126)?

How does Garrison introduce and establish Douglass’s Narrative? Why do you think such a preface would have been published as part of the main text?