Part I of your Summer Assignment The Dialectical Journal for your chosen Novel
Complete a dialectical journal in which you discuss the author's style. What makes it work? What is it about the writing that stands out and makes the work distinctive? Your journal should reflect at least twenty-five quotations- equally spread-out through the book. Select quotations that require you to examine such elements as diction (word choice), sentence development, use of literary devices (simile, metaphor, allusion, personification, etc.), and other aspects of the writer's style that contribute to his/her theme or argument. Pay particular attention to the ways in which each author comments on his/her overall theme.
· Note the chapter's title (if the chapters HAVE titles).
· Write a brief analysis (approximately one paragraph and including all ideas listed above) in which you explain why the quotation represents the chapter and its relation to the title of the chapter.
· Be certain to properly integrate and parenthetically cite all text. You will also include a Work Cited page in which you cite your edition of the novel in proper MLA format.
1. To respond openly, thoughtfully, and personally to reading selections without fear of being “wrong” or of having your ideas publicly scorned or challenged.
2. To make sense out of what you read and, thereby, improve your comprehension and interpretation skills. The goal is to enable you to approach any work of literature, fiction or nonfiction, with the confidence of an “expert” to remove your dependence on teachers or outside sources to tell you “what it means.”
3. To provide an intellectual, private dialogue between you and your teacher (in this case, me). Hopefully, that dialogue will enhance your understanding and improve your reading strategies.
4. To help me assess your understanding literature, while providing constructive feedback, and discovering meanings and ideas I may not have thought of before.
How to Choose Quotations for Your Journal:
Just use SQUIDS: select a quotation, understand, identify, and describe its significance
Select a Quotation: Choose a quote that stands out in the text for its effect; find quotes that are significant to the theme of the work; select quotes that affect you as a reader.
Understand: Take some time to consider the quotation’s relevance to the section of the work in which it is found and the work as a whole. Think about the sentence structure and its effect.
Identify: Now begin writing; note the context of the quotation (where/when does it appear in the text?) and categorize its status as a literary device.
Describe its Significance: What makes this quote important? What makes you, the reader, take notice?
Sample of possible Format and entry for a dialectical journal (for Edith Warton’s Ethan Frome) (if you choose the read Ethan Frome, this particular entry should NOT appear in your journal):
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QUOTATION |
FITS THE STORY, RHETORICAL ASPECTS, EFFECT |
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“I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story” (3). |
Ms. Wharton wrote Ethan Frome as a framed story. Since this excerpt is the first line of the book, it is obviously impossible to know a great deal about how it fits the story other than to realize that this sentence appears to be a part of the frame. Additionally, the frame (at least) will be told by a first person omniscient narrator who may not be entirely reliable since the story was acquired “bit by bit” and “each time it was different.” The story itself likely developed from past events since, similar to rumors, it seems to have mutated in the telling. Supplemental Comments: To describe Ethan Frome as a “horrid little book” is to capture the essence of Wharton’s theme that …. (or: is to ignore the artistic integrity of Wharton’s . . . writing). (Continue with criticism) |
Sample of possible Format and entry for a dialectical journal (for John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath) (if you choose the read The Grapes of Wrath, these particular entries should NOT appear in your journal):
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Chapter I |
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“And the women came out of the houses to stand beside their men—to feel whether this time the men would break. The women studied the men’s faces secretly, for the corn could go, as long as something else remained.” Page 6 |
· Steinbeck is pointing out the family relationships here—women standing beside their men as the men decide what to do about the situation. · What is the “something else” that’s referred to in the quote? Maybe determination or pride? |
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“…the sun was as red as ripe new blood.” Page 6 |
· Interesting simile, especially for a description of the sun. |
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bemused—“men lost their bemused perplexity.” Page 6 |
· (adj.) preoccupied, stupefied |
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Chapter II |
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“A huge red transport truck stood in front of the little roadside restaurant. The vertical exhaust pipe muttered softly, and an almost invisible haze of steel-blue smoke hovered over its end. It was a new truck, shining red, and in twelve-inch letters on its side—OKLAHOMA CITY TRANSPORT COMPANY.” Page 8 |
· Why does Steinbeck give such intricate details about this truck—where it’s parked, its color, the lettering? Perhaps it’s going to show a contrast to the Dust Bowl imagery in the first chapter. · This is something new in a time when many people couldn’t afford much that was new. |