I have talked about things as we read and even recaptured the most meaty discussions on the class website, so if you need to check them out to help you know what to write, do so. You are smart people, and I am not going to hold your hand and tell you what you write. Tell me something interesting about what you have thought about this book so far, make yourself sound as intelligent as I think you are (among other things, that means use the spell check), and write at least 250 words.

Welcome to the world of the blog!

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• Original image: ‘Vaccum my beard‘  by: Kishore Nagarigari

The assignment, then, is to write 300 words about the text, quoting the book three times to spur you onward.

After you address your quotes, I’d like you to direct some of your thinking towards questions you may have at this point. Consider the themes that are developing and ask at least two big-picture, discussion starting questions. Explain why you think these questions are worth asking. These are part of your 300 words.

For an example, see this seemingly tiny line on page 2:

They had walked in single file down the path, and even in the open one stayed behind the other.

When I read that this time around, I stopped to consider when I have ever seen anything do that. Ducks? Military parades? But even with soldiers, it would be hard for me to imagine two guys walking along in an open field in a single file line. That’s more the kind of thing you see when a teacher or principal is leading a student down the hall for punishment. Here, though, we’ve got two best friends walking like that. One simple image, conveying so much about the relationship between George and Lennie. George in the front, Lennie walking behind like an eager puppy.

Speaking of Lennie and puppies, it is also interesting to me how Steinbeck uses images of animals to describe Lennie — in particular, big animals. Now, I have read the book before and I have noted this characteristic of Steinbeck’s writing about Lennie, but now that I am atuned to it, I see it everywhere.

Behind him walked his opposite, a huge man . . . dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws. (2)

[Lennie] drank with long gulps, snorting into the water like a horse. (3)

Lennie dabbled his big paw in the water and wiggled his fingers so the water arose in little splashes. (3)

With all that in two pages, you might be tempted to say Steinbeck overdoes it, but we can decide that later. What, though, is he trying to do? In many of my classes we discuss similes and why authors use them. Homer uses them a lot in The Odyssey, and poets use them a lot. In many of those instances, the author’s intention is to make the unfamiliar seem familiar by comparison. Here, Steinbeck makes the image familiar, but also he makes us associate the character with other things — things like large animals. If you weren’t paying attention, you might find the effect almost subconscious, I would think. It might be fun to test someone out like that — do a picture association test at the end of the book. We could say “Lennie Small” and then hold up a series of pictures and see which one the reader connects most closely with Lennie. Perhaps a bear?

That’s enough from me on this one. It’s time for me to turn to you and see what you’re saying. Obviously I have no problem writing more words about a book than the writer put originally in the book.

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• Original image: ‘Poloa Vienan‘

Stage 1: Reading 

Please use the resources available to you on the website and in your textbook (p. 1230) and spend some time researching Miller. You may also look on your own at other sites – use the links at the bottom of the Wikipedia article, for example. The main goal for stage 1: read through a lot of stuff.

Stage 2: Writing

Then I’d like you to compile your general impression of Miller in a written summary. You may put this on your blog or you may work with a partner and put it on the wiki, or you may work with a partner and put it on both your blogs. Realize that if you work with a partner, I will expect it to look like two people’s work in quantity and quality.

At the end of your Introduction to Arthur Miller, please make a list of the resources you used (that is, a works cited). Format the list properly, using Easybib to make your citations (most likely you’ll need to select “web site” from the blue drop down menu of source types).

Tips for working well:

• If you’re working with a friend, you might want to use some good collaborative tools. Google Docs allows two people to write on the same document at the same time. It’s cool.
• Zinging emails or IM’s back and forth allows one person to type a part and give it to the other person without the “recorder” being burdened with all the typing. It would also prevent a situation where one person sits there and watches the other do all the work.

We’ll work on this in class for two half blocks before we begin reading the play. How long does it have to be? As long as it takes! Make your piece so good that students elsewhere who desperately google “Who is Arthur Miller?” will be thrilled to come to your page.

I asked for you to write stories to respond to naturalism and show that you understood what it means for a writer to be called naturalist; what I didn’t expect was the quality of the stories. Not that I doubted your creativity, but creativity does not always produce great stories, and you guys have done that.

Take some time to peruse these ones, which were each read out loud in class.

Nate wrote “The Drop” and articulated well how he came up with the idea. I appreciate how he informed us how the inspiration for the story came to him. I think many of us would find writing a tad easier if we saw how writers approached the task.

Tiffany wrote her own version of the story she, Stefanie, and I concocted about a girl getting isolated and desperately using her phone to call for help. It’s called “Wrong Reception,” and I like how the cell phone acts a symbol of civilization, and when it goes haywire, her character loses control and her own life as the “inner beast” overcomes her understanding even of the true temperature. (By the way, her detail about the temperature at the end is inspired by the story of a man who froze to death in a freezer that was above freezing.)

Jake’s story, called “Death by Salvation,” gets a bit gory, but he too has a nice symbol of civilization that also leads to the character’s downfall. Interestingly, Jakes character strips off his clothing as he descends into a less human, more beast-like state – a fitting symbol of the beast-within’s triumph.

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• Original image: ‘A un gran paso‘ by: Luis

This time, however, I’d like to hear more of your personal reactions to the story. Take a reader through not only through a basic recap and your biggest insights, but your personal connections with the characters and stories as well.

This story is not easy, of course, and to get you started, I would like you to examine a couple essays on the story. They’re personal essays, one posted on a blog and one on a personal website dedicated to O’Connor, but I think they will help you connect with the higher levels of meaning in the story – places that are difficult for us to understand on our own, but when we combine our insight with those of others, we “get it” in a whole new way.

• Scroll to the bottom of this page to see the review on the story.
• This one ends a bit abruptly but I think it’s worth reading anyway.

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Image Attribution: ‘Railroad Crossing‘  by: Austin Tolin