Response to "Consider the Lobster"

Once again, you can respond in any substantive and non-qualitative fashion you wish to the piece. (Again, this is not the place to say whether you "liked it" or not; nor should you feel inclined to put in your two-cents about what you'd cut if you were the editor.)

You might want to consider thinking about the ways in which this piece is about the Maine Lobster Festival, and also much more. What kind of work is Wallace, as the narrative perspective of the piece, doing? What could be a different way of approaching this subject, and what might be gained or lost from those alternative approaches?

Remember to write a minimum of 250 words to receive credit and to respond to one of your peers' posts as well.

Response to "Being James Brown"

Once again, you can respond in any substantive and non-qualitative fashion you wish to the piece. (This is not the place to say whether you "liked it" or not; nor should you feel inclined to put in your two-cents about what you'd cut if you were the editor--you do not work for Rolling Stone, and are not the editor, and that sort of response is not fruitful for conversation or real inquiry.)

You might want to consider thinking about what work Lethem had to put into the piece: what difficulties did you sense he faced in the pre-writing process? Who do you think are some of the people he talked to and why?

On Thursday we talked about the writing strategy of having "the thing and the other thing." The short film we watched, in those terms, would have both Huntington's disease and Marianna Palka. The Alice Munro story had the suicides and the narrator's personal growth as a writer. What might be the thing and the other thing for this piece? What might have been the central theme?

Remember to write a minimum of 250 words to receive credit and to respond to one of your peers' posts as well.

In case you lost the link, here it is again:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/being-james-brown-rolling-stones-2006-cover-story-20101224

Response To "The Photographer" by Alice Munro

Feel free to respond in whatever (substantive) fashion you wish to the Alice Munro story! If you're at a loss, some things you might want to think about are how the story deals with the act of storytelling, the line between fact and fiction, and agency between characters and landscape.

Once again, avoid trite comments such as whether you liked the piece or not. As opposed to speculating whether you would or would not have cut something from the story, address the piece entirely on it's own terms--everything here is here for a reason. If you miss something's significance, it is definitely worthwhile thinking about why that didn't resonate with you.

Response to "The Largesse of the Sea Maiden" by Denis Johnson

Please post your blog response to the story here. You can feel free to respond in any substantive way you choose (that means going beyond superficiality: likes, dislikes, summary, et cetera), but some starting points to consider are the structure of the story, the way in which it uses vignettes, connective threads between vignettes, the effect and themes of the story, the language and craft, et cetera.

Anything less than 250 words will not receive credit.

Posts are to be done before midnight, tonight, so that you have time to respond to one of your peers' posts, which should be done by classtime tomorrow. Responses to peers' posts should at least be a few sentences and engage in some sort of dialogue--do more than just agree, or disagree!

Introductory Post

Please post three film recommendations, three book recommendations and three musician/artist recommendations.

(Post by commenting on this post.)

(Include your full name in your reply.)

(You do not have to, but you certainly can reply to your peers posts as well; you will be required to do so for reading-based blog prompts.)