Hi everyone,

I have you reader’s journals marked so I will give those back and speak in general terms about what I’d like to see from you next time.

1. If you’re not prepared, you don’t participate. It’s not fair to your group members. And you certainly don’t use your literature circle meeting as an opportunity to finish your work. If I see you doing that, you will receive a zero for the meeting.
2. Please ensure you’re clearly delineating between your summary of plot events and your THINKING about the novel. Questions, and analysis should go on the right. If you’re just jotting down something that happened in the book, it goes on the left.
3. Dig deeper. Avoid the obvious. Don’t just identify something as a symbol or make not of interesting word choice. Try to draw conclusions about the author’s choice.

Next I want to talk about some words and phrases I’d like you to avoid putting in your writing. This is something I made last year, so it’s not a reflection on anything I’ve read from any of you so far:

Now I’d like to return to Postcolonial literary criticism. I know there were some internet issues yesterday due to the black out so I’m not sure how much Mr. Flumerfelt was able to cover.

Any time left over will be for your analysis of Transients in Arcadia. This must be submitted digitally before the March Break. I will show you how to do that today.