Sunday, September 20, 2009

Welcome to our class blog!

Modernists struggled to comprehend and to render a rapidly changing world. A world gassed, torched, deconstructed, abstracted, rebuilt, democratized, capitalized, jazzed, mechanized, motored beyond recognition.

How to make it recognizable?

This is one of the central questions we'll explore this year. How do writers use language to render their world recognizable? What kind of world is it that they construct? How is our own world connected, as by a spider's thread, to theirs?

I thought it would be interesting to carry out part of this literary/linguistic/socio/personal exploration on a technological "advancement" that has radically changed the art of writing in our own generation. Many a blogger has, with varying degrees of eloquence, used this medium in a 21st-century attempt to make more sense of his/her world. The project, then, is not so far removed from that of our Modernists.

So here's the idea: Every week I will pose a question based on our reading, or a class discussion, or an ancillary text. In responding to the questions and to each other, this blog will hopefully become a space to make the texts we explore more recognizable - even, dare I say, more interesting, more intimately woven into our own existence.

Here's the nitty-gritty:
* Once a week, you're required to write your own response to my blog question. You may skip 1 of these responses per trimester.

* In addition, you are required to compose 3 separate responses per trimester to something your classmates have written.

* Your grade will be based on thoughtfulness, originality, and use of texts. Each response should be a minimum of 3 sentences. Feel free to use casual language and abbreviations, and to engage in debates with one another (even with me!) - just keep it respectful.

* You can receive bonus credit for participating frequently in the blog.

Any questions, post here or email me:


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  2. Hello Mrs.Higgins.
    Do we have to write the page of our quotation in our essay ?
    Thank you. Have fun in London! :)