Thursday, December 6, 2007
- Reading discussion
- Essay drafts returned
- Exam review
- Course evaluations
Reading
- Pam Houston, “A Blizzard Under Blue Sky” (184–188)
- Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man” (188-189)
- James Wright, “A Blessing” (65–66)
Notes
The final draft of the essay is due at the time of the exam.
Please email me with any questions or struggles or if you were unable to pick up your essay draft. You have three options for your essay:
- If you are happy with your draft grade, you may inform me that you want that same grade applied to your final essay version.
- Revise your essay, according to the requirements in the original assignment
- Write a “process essay.”
What is a “process essay”?
Write about three pages on how you would revise your draft. You can discuss research that you would perform, arguments that you would develop, or radical changes that you would make. Write clearly and with purpose; feel free to discuss the process that you use to write papers generally, if you wish. Above all, make sure to critically evaluate your own writing. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are your paper’s gaps? What would you like to have accomplished? In addition, if you feel that your paper had a weak thesis statement, please revise it and include it as the first paragraph of your process essay.
The humors
One thing that has come up a few times is the “humors,” (pre- and pseudo-scientific) bodily fluids associated with our emotions:footnote 1
- Yellow Bile
- “choleric”
- hot / dry
- associated with fire, violence, and vengeance
- Blood
- “sanguine”
- hot / moist
- associated with air, love, happiness, and generosity
- Black Bile
- “melancholic”
- cold / dry
- associated with earth, gluttony, laziness, and sentimentality
- Phlegm
- “phlegmatic”
- cold / moist
- associated with water, dullness, paleness, and cowardice