Course Recap for March 27

Chuppa-Cornell's "When Fact Is Stranger than Fiction: Hair in American Girl Stories and Dolls"
Today at the beginning of class instead of taking a quiz, I asked you to break into small groups to work on a list of discussion questions related to your reading for the day. You can access that document HERE. We then worked through the questions as a class and talked about our responses to Chuppa-Cornell's article. Next, I handed our another article by Jan Susina comparing American Girl Dolls to Barbie Dolls. You can access that document HERE. I asked you to work in pairs to read and summarize a few paragraphs of the article; groups then presented their section to the class. Finally, we used the remaining time in class to return to your responses to Meet Addy that you worked on during class on Tuesday.

Final Paper
At the end of class I talked a bit about your final paper and individual conferences. You can access the final paper instructional guide HERE and the individual conference schedule HERE.

Homework

• Read Barrows' Ivy and Bean (book 1)

Blog Post Drop Box: Annie Barrows' _Ivy and Bean_ (book 1)

Click on the "comment" button below to leave your blog post. I suggest you type your response first in a word document, and then copy and paste it into the comment box. Your blog post should be at least 500 words of original prose (do not duplicate anything other bloggers have already said here) in which you engage with the text for the week critically AND pose an original discussion question. Be sure to write your full name and word count at the bottom of your post. The cut-off time for this blog post is Monday, March 31 at midnight.

Discussion Leaders: Allison, Chelcie, Amanda W., Molly, Shaina, Derek

Course Recap for March 25

Porter's Meet Addy
Today at the beginning of class, you took a short reading quiz. I then asked you to discuss some of your initial impressions regarding Meet Addy and we looked a bit at the American Girl Doll website. Next, you broke into small groups to work on an writing exercise in which you focused on a significant passage from the text. You can access that exercised HERE. I asked a few volunteers to share their work. After you shared your writing, we moved into a large group discussion. I handed around the colored cards with your discussion prompt and asked you to spend 10 minutes doing some writing about your topic. We then worked our way around the group and you shared your comments.

Homework

• Read Kim Chuppa-Cornell's "When Fact Is Stranger than Fiction: Hair in American Girl Stories and Dolls"

Blog Post Drop Box: Connie Porter's _Meet Addy_

Click on the "comment" button below to leave your blog post. I suggest you type your response first in a word document, and then copy and paste it into the comment box. Your blog post should be at least 500 words of original prose (do not duplicate anything other bloggers have already said here) in which you engage with the text for the week critically AND pose an original discussion question. Be sure to write your full name and word count at the bottom of your post. The cut-off time for this blog post is Monday, March 24 at midnight.

Discussion Leaders: Kaitlyn, Travis, Molly, Shaina, Andrea, Alyssa

Course Recap for March 20

Gaiman's The Wolves in the Walls and Panaou & Michaelides' "Dave McKean's Art: Transcending Limitations of the Graphic Novel Genre"
Today at the beginning of class, you took a short quiz over Panaou & Michaelides' article. I then asked you to do a bit of writing to prepare for class discussion. I projected this week's bloggers' discussion questions and asked you to work with a partner to choose a question and a page from Gaiman's text to respond to in your writing. Each pair was asked to jot down some notes in response to their set of questions and then to examine both text and image in a page from Gaiman's text. We then came together as a group for discussion.
At the end of class, I handed out a final paper practice question and comparison chart. Think about this as a sample question for part two of your final paper. You might use this document as something to help you outline your writing for your final paper. You can access that document HERE.

Homework

• Read Porter's Meet Addy
• Feel free to bring any American Girl Doll products or dolls that you own! We will be talking about marketing and consumer culture in relation to American Girl Dolls. You might spend some time on the website HERE or on Addy's activity website HERE. 

Course Recap for March 18

Gaiman's The Wolves in the Walls

At the beginning of class you took a short reading quiz. Next I asked for some of your initial impressions about the text. I then gave a short presentation of the Gothic in children's literature. You can access that presentation HERE. Next, I asked you to work in pairs to read an excerpt from Karen Coats' article and to answer a series of questions about Gaiman's text. You can access that article HERE and the questions HERE. We then talked through each question as a large group.

Homework

• Read Petros Panaou and Fixos Michaelides' "Dave McKean's Art: Transcending Limitations of the Graphic Novel Genre"

Blog Post Drop Box: Neil Gaiman's _The Wolves in the Walls_

Click on the "comment" button below to leave your blog post. I suggest you type your response first in a word document, and then copy and paste it into the comment box. Your blog post should be at least 500 words of original prose (do not duplicate anything other bloggers have already said here) in which you engage with the text for the week critically AND pose an original discussion question. Be sure to write your full name and word count at the bottom of your post. The cut-off time for this blog post is Monday, March 17 at midnight.

Discussion Leaders: Alyssa, Rainy, Chelcie, Kaitlyn, Amanda W., Travis, Derek, Liz

Course Recap for March 13

Nuzum's "The Monster's Sacrifice--Historic Time: The Uses of Mythic and Liminal Time in Monster Literature" and Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are
Today at the beginning of class you took an open article reading quiz. After the quiz, we spent some time discussing Nuzum's article. I asked you to work with a small group to break down Nuzum's article; you: wrote a summary of the article and identified the thesis, located definitions of important terms and scholars, and traced the argument Nuzum makes using Sendak's text. Each group then presented their findings. You can access the group document HERE.
I then projected a list of the discussion questions our bloggers put forth and passed around the colored discussion cards I talked about last class. I gave you a few minutes to write out notes or find page numbers, and then we discussed Sendak's text.

Homework

• Read Gaiman's The Wolves in the Walls

Course Recap for March 11

Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are
Today at the beginning of class, you took a short reading quiz and then you gave some of your initial impressions about Sendak's picture book. I then gave a presentation on Maurice Sendak. You can access that presentation HERE. After the presentation I asked you to break into small groups to work on a conflict chart. You can access that document HERE. We then made a list on the board of various conflicts present in the text. We also talked a bit about the film adaption of the text and Maurice Sendak's thoughts on it. You can access an article about that HERE.

Midterm Exam Back
At the end of class, I handed back your graded midterm exams. You all did an excellent job on these exams!  I went over the midterm exam answer commentary with you, and you can access that document HERE. In the upper right hand corner of your exam grading rubric there is a box containing (first) your midterm grade and (second) your current course grade. Additionally, below this box I have noted your current number of absences in the class. Your current course grade consists of the following: mini-exam (100 pts), midterm exam (200 pts), paper 1 (100 pts), 13 quizzes (65-15=50 pts), attendance (52 pts), and blog posts (30-120 pts). As you see, I have dropped/included as extra credit three of your quiz scores. Depending upon how many blog posts you have completed, as of the midterm exam, your total points possible will be between 532 and 622 points. If you have questions about how this grade is calculated, feel free to see me during office hours.

Next Class: Discussion
Next class period, we are going to shake things up a bit for our large group discussion. Before class, please prepare to talk about some element of each of the following topics:

• Navy: history, material considerations, or context
• Yellow: narration or characterization
• Orange: story, plot, or conflict
• Pink: setting, theme, or tone
• Purple: response to blog discussion question
• Light Blue: response to critical article for this week

During class on Thursday, I will randomly hand out different colored cards to each person. We will then work our way around the group and each person will comment on whatever their card designates. You will then pass your card to the right and we will work our way around the circle again. I suggest you revisit the "Strategies for a Meaningful Study Experience" Handout to see questions related to these topics. You can access that document HERE. Be prepared to talk about any of the above topics on Thursday.

Homework

• Read K. A. Nuzum's "The Monster's Sacrifice--Historic Time: The uses of Mythic and Liminal Time in Monster Literature" (pages 207-213 only)