Journals, Commonplace Books, and Email Discussion List--English 105, Summer 2005
In order to encourage you to reflect on the reading we’ll be doing this semester and in order to encourage communication and discussion between class meetings, I am asking that you do some informal writing on a fairly regular basis. Since writing is a primary tool for thinking, this informal writing should allow you both the motive and the opportunity to think about our reading outside of class as well as in class.
Reading Journal: Many of you have probably kept reading journals in other classes--and this assignment probably resembles in many ways what you have done elsewhere. I will be grading the assignment on the basis of consistent quantity: an average of three substantial entries per week as of each collection date will earn you a 4.0; two per week will earn you a 2.8; one per week a 1.8. I am defining a “substantial entry” as a writing of at least one paragraph or about 150 words which expresses some original thought while also demonstrating an attentive reading of some of the week’s material. You need not write on everything you read in the course of the week--and you probably shouldn’t; instead, you should choose a scene, a character, a relationship, a plot development, a theme, a soliloquy, a dialogue, or a bit of the previous class discussion that you would particularly like to spend a bit more time reflecting on. Journal collection dates are included on the syllabus; when I average your journal grade for the semester, I will weight the grades according to the number of weeks between collections.
Please keep your journal on loose paper; submit the journal in a folder, not in a ring-binder or spiral notebook.
Email Discussion List (BritLit): If you wish, you may keep your writing to yourself, submitting the collection of entries at each due date for grading. I urge you, however, to make use instead of the e-mail discussion list that has been set up for this course. By posting your thoughts to the list, you will allow all of us more opportunities to think about and discuss the reading. You will also receive feedback on your ideas much more quickly.
The discussion list would be a good place to offer your personal reactions to a reading (with an explanation of the source, in the text, of that reaction), to attempt a character analysis, to formulate a thesis about the theme of a work, to criticize an author, or to continue discussion of a topic raised in a previous class meeting.
Whether you’re writing for yourself in the journal or sharing your ideas on the discussion list, consider this writing as exploratory. (This should be kept in mind by people reading the discussion list as well: we should all be grateful to those who are willing to share their thoughts rather than being hyper-critical of any lapses in acuity that any of us should exhibit in our offerings.) This writing is an attempt to begin to think things through. You might think of both the journal and the discussion list as appropriate places for half-baked ideas.
If you use the discussion list, please make a hard copy of the posts to the list that you want counted towards your journal grade and turn them in with the rest of your journal on the journal collection dates.
The discussion list is also an appropriate space in which to ask questions (substantive or logistical) or to relay information to me or to your fellows. I am asking that all students sign on to the list initially, whether you intend to keep your journal privately or not. To sign on, point your web browser to http://lists.oakland.edu/mailman/listinfo/britlit; fill in the email address to which you want BritLit mail sent in the box under “Subscribing to BritLit” and click the “Subscribe” button. You will receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription request. After you have confirmed the request, you will receive notification that you have been added to the list. If you have any difficulties, e-mail me at connery@oakland.edu.
To send messages to the list, address your email to britlit@lists.oakland.edu. Your message will be automatically re-sent to everybody in the class who is on the discussion list. Only those who are subscribed to the list may send messages to the list.
Commonplace Book: Keeping a commonplace book was widely practiced from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century and remains a common practice among writers. A commonplace book is a book into which one copies passages from one’s reading that one would like to keep on hand for reference, passages that are striking for their insight, their style, their beauty, or their embodiment of something significant within the larger text. I am asking you to keep a commonplace book this semester. I think you’ll find that copying the words of Shakespeare gives you a particular intimacy with it and makes it more comprehensible and memorable. If you keep your commonplace book in something durable, you’ll also find that you have produced, by semester’s end, a collection of writing that is both particularly meaningful to you and offers a good record of your dabbling in Shakespeare for six weeks. A commonplace book can also come in handy when you’re doing your own writing and looking for a good line from elsewhere to add humor, erudition, sophistication, or wisdom. Many students have also found it an invaluable study aid.
Like the journal, your commonplace book will be graded upon consistent quantity. An average of thirty lines per week will earn you a 4.0; twenty lines, a 2.0; ten lines a 1.2. (You may choose to transcribe 30 one-line passages or one 30-line passage, or any combination in between.) As you transcribe, be sure to reproduce the passage exactly, including spelling and punctuation. Be particularly careful to distinguish between verse and prose: when transcribing verse, you should preserve the line breaks in the original. Close each transcription with the name of the character, the title of the play, and act, scene, and line numbers, to allow you to find your original source if you need to.
You may keep your commonplace book on looseleaf in a folder or in a blank book.