Reading Times 10/29

I forgot to put these on my other post so here they are for this week.

"Hills Like White Elephants": 45 mins. 10/24    "Dracula's Guest": 50 mins. 10/26    

Lorien Legacies: 1 hr 30 mins 10/28 

Short Stories

        On my own I read "The Sniper", "Hills Like White Elephants", and "Dracula's Guest". I found the second two stories a little bit hard to follow. "Hills Like White Elephants"had me thoroughly confused as to what was actually happening. It is apparently very hard to write a story through basically a rambling conversation about life. I did find some points that could make up a meaningful thesis, but I would probably need to understand the story a lot better in order to make it worth any thought. "Dracula's Guest" was a good story and characterization and setting could make for a great paper. I am leaning towards this idea.
        Of course my favorite story, "The Sniper", didn't have any great things working in it and was really just a heart-breaking, action-filled scene that speaks to why civil wars are the worst thing that can happen to a country. It made me feel sick when the main character turned over the body of his prey and saw his brother. I can't imagine it. Overall, I think I read three viable options for my thesis that will all have to be looked into in more detail before I really begin crafting the thesis.

Reading Times

Lorien Legacies  2 hrs   121 pgs.       Free Short Story+annotations    30 mins.

"To Build A Fire"

         In "To Build A Fire", by Jack London, the man's travels and his ultimate death are pretty much all a result of his stubbornness and cool calculations (that were wrong). London uses great characterization throughout the story and even comes straight out and tells you when he says, "The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, and not in the significances." He goes on to explain how he doesn't care how cold it is and this is the main reason that he dies in the end.
        He thought that he could make it to the camp even though it was nearly 80 degrees below because he was ignorant and very, very stubborn. I also think that London uses good characterization when talking about the dog versus the man. He shows a theme through description of the dog and man of instinct against the man's stubbornness. Characterization is a major part of this story




Short Stories:   1 hr. 30 mins.

Lorien Legacies: 1 hr.     63 pgs.  

First Quarter Review

         I think that as a class we have done pretty well with coming to class prepared and following procedures. We could probably do better at not packing up early (especially me). It's hard to prevent yourself from just going when it's getting near the end of class. I think that i have also done a pretty good job of bringing my materials even though I forgot my free reading book a couple of days. I think I payed attention most days and took good notes as well. Every once in a while you're just out of it and that's really the only time that I slipped a little bit in class.
        As far as group work goes I think that I did a pretty good job. I stayed on topic and normally didn't allow my classmates to lead the group down the wrong discussion path. I have liked the group work so far this quarter and think that it was definitely beneficial to the class topic. Something that I should probably improve on in group work is taking the conversation deeper than just the assignment and make it more meaningful. I don't really have any suggestions for the class. It's about as good as an english class can be.

Reading Log

10/5   60 mins     10/7   1 hr 30 mins     10/8   30 mins             200 pgs.