Thursday, October 18, 2007

Reading

• Meridel LeSueur, “Harvest” (381–389)
• Wendell Berry, “Stay Home” (222–223)

Notes

Important: If you are dissatisfied with the grade of one of your response papers from the first half of the semester, you have the option of writing a third response for the second half of the semester (or a fifth response paper, overall). If you do this, the last response paper that you turn in will count as 75% of the grade for the response paper with the lower grade (from the first half of the semester). The original response paper will count as the remaining 25% of that grade. Note that if your fifth (overall) response paper has a lower grade than your original response paper, it won’t lower that grade. (This is a no-risk opportunity for you to improve your course grade!)

I’ll be returning your exams and handing out your mid-semester grades. There will be no scheduled office hours today.

About “literature”: The question, “What is literature?” is an important one. An aspect about the course reading assignments that I didn’t address this morning (but should have!) is this: If you don’t consider essays like Berry’s “A Good Scythe” to be “literature,” at least think of them as “supplemental” literature, that is, material that can help us frame some of the issues & ideas that come up in the “real” literature of the course.

For the curious among you, the average midterm exam grade was B+. Have a great weekend!