Assignments will be minimal. Sustained silent reading time will be allotted each day, but in the event of absence, you can always go ahead and read in A Thousand Splendid Suns, or the book of your choice you will use for the Final Exhibition. For each one third of A Thousand Splendid Suns, you will need to write a summary. Instructions for that follow:
Rule of 1/3
Instructions: For each approximately 1/3 of the book, complete the following, with special attention to 3 items: relevance, personal connection, and relationships among the characters.
Write a 1-3 paragraph summary of the section, commenting on the above.
List 10-13 words you are not familiar with in this section. Look them up, and write these definitions.
Select 3 meaningful passages from the section (of at least 3 lines). Write them down, with page number, and tell why you selected them in 1-3 sentences
List 1-3 questions you would like to investigate in our seminar-discussion.
E.Q. Focus: Why is this particular section of the book easy or difficult to read? 1-3 sentences should suffice.
Benefit: If you complete the above for each third of the book, you will have prepared yourself well for the seminar. Be sure to print one copy to turn in, and save the assignment on disk.
Other homework will involve components of voice (diction, detail, metaphor, simile, imagery, syntax, and tone), and will be distributed in class.
Also, in the event of absence, you will need to make up any journal entries/reading log entries you may have missed:
Although this is a reading class, reading and writing do work together. On most days (Fridays will be reserved for free-writing), we will begin class by writing on these topics, which will be on the board. Put the date and topic at the top of the page. Then, write a little about what you think the quotation means, or what its connection to you might be. After you have done this, write about whatever you wish for the next few minutes. Your entry should be about a page in length.
“The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.”
If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”
“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.”
I’ve never known any trouble that an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.”
“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience; there is the ideal life.”
“When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than was there before.”
“Tell me what you read and I’ll tell you who you are is true enough, but I’d know you better if you told me what you reread.”
“To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.”
“Never judge a book by its movie.”
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”
“No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.”
“I would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it.”
“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”