Snow Day Update!

1) Christmas in Denmark to be held the first day back in January.

2) Bonus points will go to those who did MC items (Passages 9 and 12) for homework as assigned Monday night. All others, no credit for or against you.

3) Please do the remaining MC items on your own and check your answers on your own time when school resumes - I'll copy the answers and explanations and make them available. Then submit your score to me for credit. Points TBA.

4) Terms cards due the 2nd day class resumes in January. Please make it a New Year's card instead of Christmas!

5) Don't forget the blog assigned last Friday - Trace Hamlet's philosophical / spiritual development from the beginning of the play to the end, quoting him as you go.

6) MOR not due till Feb. 1, but keep in mind that we'll be reading R&G Are Dead in January, so you might want to get your independent reading out of the way.

7) I had intended to return your most recent timed writes before break, but... snow! Your writing abilities are looking pretty good, but many of you forgot that in order to make a case for TONE, you must analyze those "voice indicators" -- diction, detail, imagery, language (and syntax, which we'll study in February). Many of you simply explained the meaning of the text, without analyzing the words in the text. We will do another timed write the first week back.

8) Over the holidays extra credit: View a secular Christmas movie and write a paper analyzing its worldview. 1st paragraph - intro/summary. 2nd para - power in the universe and nature of man. 3rd para - conflict and hope. 4th para - values and reality. 5th para - conclude as to film's worldview. As you conclude you may use words/phrases such as Judeo-Christian, traditional, compatible with Christian values, humanist, etc. Remember that "humanist" is not necessarily exclusive of God, but "secular humanist" is atheist. I can't think of a truly postmodern Christmas film, but if you can find one, I'd be interested! We haven't studied postmodernism much, but indicators of postmodern literature include metafiction, questionable nature of reality, relativity of values, meaninglessness of language, and the individual struggling for meaning in a technological world. Good luck! I hope some of you will take me up on this! Leave comments if you have questions and I will check back periodically to offer replies.