Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Schedule Adjustment!

We will be dropping The Great Gatsby from our schedule this semester.  Oh, stop your whining!  We will take the timed write tomorrow and then you'll have the remainder of the period to help each other prepare for the memorization.  Memorization presentations will be Thursday and Friday.  Then we will be broadening our scope by looking at a range of 20th Century Literature via the short stories of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Hurston, O'Connor, Cisneros, and Alexie.  These stories, intead of Gatsby, will appear on the Final.
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4 comments:

  1. EmmaMay 27, 2008 at 11:21 AM

    sooooooo tomorrow is wednesday and the poems and memorization is not due to be read tomorrow? Just making sure that is clear...AND we are dropping the Great Gatsby???? Mr. Giddings i think the summer growing nearer is getting to you! Have no fear i am not complaining. THANK YOU!

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  2. StaceyMay 27, 2008 at 12:47 PM

    OMGSH!!! Thank you mr. giddings!!! Why are we not reading it? Just wondering and definitely NOT complaining.

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  3. GiddingsMay 27, 2008 at 12:50 PM

    ;) Maybe. Tomorrow is Wednesday and your selection of literature is not due to be recited until Thursday.

    I dropped Gatsby for several reasons. 1) I think you'll get a better sense of 20th Century American Literature through the short stories than you would through one novel (as much as I like that novel). 2) If only about half of each class was able to finish F451 in 8 days (three of them being a 3-day weekend), I think less would have been able to keep up with the reading schedule for Gatsby and thus would not have gotten as much out of it. 3) given the high probability of #2, I would have ended up lecturing a lot and I'd rather have more discussion.

    So educationally I thought it was a more fruitful plan given the amount of time we have left. If we had another week, we would have done Gatsby, but only so much can fit into a semester. I would still recommend it as summer reading, though it would be easier to understand in the context of a class.

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  4. AndreaMay 27, 2008 at 12:50 PM

    XD Good thing I already read Gatsby earlier this year. Looking forward to the short stories, too.

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