Faculty of Arts,
Chulalongkorn University
Reading Response 4 and Presentation
Guidelines
Reading
Response 4
The last reading response (2
pp.; MLA
format) is a way for you to present your examination of a literary
text on the syllabus this semester and to bring together skills in
reading, critical thinking, and writing that we have worked on these past
few months. You will be working with two other students in close reading
and thinking about your chosen text(s), and will be presenting your
findings in a panel with them during the last week of class. See Suggested
Response and Presentation Topics below. Submit your reading response 4 in
class on Wednesday, November 25, 2020.
Response and Presentation
Instructions
Your final reading response is two pages long. (It might be your fourth,
fifth, or more, depending on how many you have submitted throughout the
semester.) This paper will be part of a group effort to study a topic or
text(s). You will present your paper in a panel with your group members in
the last week of class. Panel and paper topics are suggested below. Each
individual and group should refine the topics further, after your study and
discussion of the texts, to reflect your textual investigation results. (The
developing an argument exercise work might be useful synthesis.) You are
also welcome to propose your own topic and panel. Please make an appointment
to discuss your ideas with me
Final presentations (30 minutes per panel: 15 minutes presentation [5
minutes per speaker] + 15 minutes question and answer session) take place
on Monday, November 23 and Wednesday, November 25, 2020. Students form
four panels of three members and decide to work on one of the topics below
to present in class, with each member focusing on one aspect of a topic or
on one text. You may study and research any aspect of any work(s) in the
course packet that interests you including those suggested by the topics
given below. These are general topics that need to be narrowed and refined
into a specific argument. Discuss among your panel members what aspect of
the topic each person wants to focus and speak on, share your research and
close reading discoveries, critique each other’s work in progress, and
together present to classmates your combined effort what close reading
reveals about a text or texts. Over the weekend, once your papers take
shape more clearly, e-mail me your finalized or latest paper and panel
titles so that I can update the presentation program on our detailed
schedule.
Sign up to meet with me to discuss your ideas in
more detail in a time slot given in the schedule below, and go to the
Zoom Meeting Room at the appointed time.
Scroll down for more specific instructions on the presentation and
participants' roles.
Consultation Schedule Sign-Up Times
Thursday, November 19, 2020 (
Zoom Meeting Room)
2:00–2:15 p.m.
2:15–2:30 p.m.
2:30–2:45 p.m.
2:45–3:00 p.m.
3:00–3:15 p.m.
3:15–3:30 p.m.
3:30–3:45 p.m.
3:45–4:00 p.m.
4:00–4:15 p.m.
4:15–4:30 p.m.
Friday, November 20, 2020 (
Zoom Meeting Room)
2:00–2:15 p.m.: Chonnanart Chulalak and Titaya
2:15–2:30 p.m.
2:30–2:45 p.m.: Kawinthip, Romravin and Thamonwan
2:45–3:00 p.m.
3:00–3:15 p.m.: Amalina, Charukit and Phonphatcharin
3:15–3:30 p.m.
3:30–3:45 p.m.
3:45–4:00 p.m.
4:00–4:15 p.m.
4:15–4:30 p.m.
Suggested Response and
Presentation Topics
Below are reading response 4/final presentation topics.
1. Names and Naming
This panel will explore the use of names and naming in three literary
works. Some questions that we will discuss are:
- What varieties, types, categories or range of names do the works
present?
- Who and/or what are named or unnamed? What are they named? What is
unnamed or unnamable? Who names them or is unable to name them and why
is it significant?
- How appropriate, misleading, absurd, funny, derogatory or glorifying
are the names?
- How do names and their meanings change over time and throughout the
work? What effect or implications does this have?
- What values or functions do names have? How does it affect the
power, status, identity, and perception of the person, place or thing?
Focus 1: Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
Focus 2: Stephen Karam, Sons of the Prophet
Focus 3: Ali Smith, Girl Meets Boy
2. Setting
This panel will explore the significance of and interplay between place
and time in imaginative writing. Issues to investigate:
- What locations are used or mentioned in the works? How and how
frequently are they mentioned?
- What kinds of time or how many different times are there in the
work? What quality does each time or kind of time have? What
distinction does the work make between a particular time and
timelessness?
- How does time move in the work? Does it have a pattern? What is its
speed? Is it constant? How does the structure and dynamism of time
shape the work?
- How does place affect time and vice versa?
- Which places are literal and which figurative? Which are real, which
mythical? Which are physical, which mental?
- Is literature a place? How do various genres use space?
- What value does place have for different characters?
- How do characters use space and time differently?
Focus 1: Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
Focus 2: Sarah Gailey, "A Lady's Maid"
Focus 3: Brad Aiken, "Done That, Never Been There"
Focus 4: Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
Focus 5: Stephen Karam, Sons of the Prophet
Focus 6: Ali Smith, Girl Meets Boy
3. Symbols and Symbolism
This panel will investigate the function of symbols and symbolism in
literary texts. Ideas to pursue:
- How do texts symbolize things or ideas?
- What is the relationship between the concrete and the abstract in
symbolism?
- What layers of meaning does a symbol in a work have?
- What extra or special work, if any, do authors demonstrate when
reassigning symbolic meaning? How is unique signification done? How do
writers give their own meaning to common words and images?
- What role do symbols have in the work? How does it influence the
shape, sound, tone, mood, imagery and meaning of the work?
Focus 1: Christina Rossetti, "What is pink? a rose is pink"
Focus 2: William Blake, "My Pretty Rose Tree"
Focus 3: Emily Brontë, "How still, how happy! These are words"
Focus 4: William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
Focus 5: Edward Field, "Icarus"
Focus 6: W. H. Auden, "Lullaby"
4. Variations on Repetition
Repetition is a deceptive technique. On the face of it, repetition is
sameness, similarity. In actual use, a repeated sound, word, phrase,
sense, structure, action, or image is hardly ever monotonous or static.
This panel will scrutinize the use of repetition in Tennessee Williams's The
Glass Menagerie where this feature is distinctive, follow the
recurring element(s), explain how it varies with each occurrence and how
it affects other aspects of the play, and evaluating the focus results
together. Some questions that will be examined:
- What can repetition do?
- What is a suitable way to characterize its function in the play?
- Who repeats what?
- What objects, melody, behavior, expression, sentence type, imagery,
irony, or quality recur throughout the play? How does it change in
each instance?
- How is each character defined and redefined by repetitions?
- In what ways is repetition misleading?
- Where do repeated patterns break? What is the consequence and
significance of such a rupture?
- What is regular and what is irregular in the play? How does
regularity introduce or include newness? In what instances does
irregularity reveal sameness or, paradoxically, a pattern?
Focus 1: Laura
Focus 2: Amanda
Focus 3: Tom
5. Variations on Perspective
How is perspective established in a literary work? How are different
perspectives created? How does perspective change? How do characters,
dialogue, diction, or syntax form perspective? How is perspective related
to gender, ethnicity, beliefs, values or religion, economic and social
status, psychology, familial relations, culture, occupation, sexuality,
personality, age, physical appearance, diction, voice, tone, time, scope,
scale, development, and idea? This panel aims to inspect this framing
device or lens at play in Stephen Karam's Sons of the Prophet and
explain how it shapes the play. How does it comment on the theme? What
argument does it propose? Taking into consideration all the findings of
our close reading, we would like to be able to conclude on:
- What we find compelling about perspective
- Why it matters from what view a story or situation is seen or told
- Theatrical and literary devices Karam employs to illuminate
different points of view
Focus 1: Joseph
Focus 2: Gloria
Focus 3: Charles
Focus 4: Bill
Focus 5: Vin
6. Conflict and Resolution
Creative writing is an exciting space for exploration; issues that are
very challenging to solve may be experimentally tested within the
possibilities of imaginative art. This panel will examine conflict(s) in
Ali Smith's Girl Meets Boy and their resolutions. Some issues we
will explore:
- What conflicts or kinds of conflicts are explored in the works? What
is incongruous, ironic, paradoxical or in opposition?
- Why are the conflicts challenging or impossible to unravel or
settle?
- Who and what are involved?
- How does the novel deal with the conflict?
- In what way does the text resolve the problem, contradiction or
resistance? In what way does the text not provide an answer,
solution, or way out of the conflict?
- What are the effects of establishing conflict and engaging with it?
Focus 1: The personal
Focus 2: The local
Focus 3: The transnational or global
Section 3
Final Presentation Schedule
Monday, November 23, 2020
Panel 1: Title
9:30–10:00 a.m.
Presiding: Student name
Speakers:
1. “Paper Title,” Student name
2. “,”
3. “,”
Respondents:
1.
2.
3.
Panel 2: Title
10:10–10:40 a.m.
Presiding:
Speakers:
1. “,”
2. “,”
3. “,”
Respondents:
1.
2.
3.
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Panel 3: Title
8:00–8:30 a.m.
Presiding:
Speakers:
1. “,”
2. “,”
3. “,”
Respondents:
1.
2.
3.
Panel 4: Title
8:40–9:10 a.m.
Presiding:
Speakers:
1. “,”
2. “,”
3. “,”
Respondents:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Revision
Rewrite
to fix problems regarding the idea, support, prose, organization,
mechanics, and style to make your paper more effective. Some things to
keep in mind as you proofread and edit your work:
-
Does my title show that I have a point to make?
-
Is my point sound, clear, and interesting?
-
Have I supported my point with compelling evidence?
-
Is the organization of my paper logical and appropriate
to the points I am making?
-
Is my language clear, consistent, and suited to the
subject matter?
-
Do each of my paragraphs have a clear point and
coherence?
- Have I incorporated quotations smoothly into my own prose?
- Do I provide balanced discussions of the quotes I cite?
-
Are my sentences varied, interesting, and effective?
-
Do my verbs agree with their subjects? Pronouns with
their nouns?
-
Is my paper free of spelling mistakes?
-
Have I cited my sources properly?
Final Presentation
Presentation of your panel's literary examination is in week
16 of class: Monday, November 23 and Wednesday, November 25, 2020. Each
panel of three speakers will have fifteen minutes to present their close
study of texts we have read in this course. This will be followed by a
fifteen-minute question and answer session. A moderator will be presiding
over the presentations and discussion session of each panel, introducing
the speakers, mediating the questions and responses, and making sure
things stay on schedule.
Practice reading your presentation aloud with visual aid if
you have any, and edit for speakability, clarity, and time.
Respondents give constructive comments on the panelists'
talk, indicating illuminating and effective points made, pointing out
problems to fix ex. content, logic, substantiation, organization,
clarification, delivery, and giving further commentary and opinions on the
issues being discussed. Respondents assigned to a panel are responsible
for giving feedback to any and all of the speakers on that panel but are
free to comment on papers of different panels as well. Students who are
not designated respondents of the panel are also welcome to ask questions
and give comments if any of the presentations stimulates or perplexes you.
You will be graded both for your performance in giving your talk and in
responding to your classmates' presentations, how you present your own
ideas and how you show that you know how to listen to, think about, and
discuss ideas that others propose.
A program of the final presentation schedule will be posted
on our detailed
schedule page once panel and response titles, speakers and
moderators are finalized. You are responsible for e-mailing me any
revisions to your presentation title by noon Sunday, November 22, 2020.
Please inform me of any special equipment needs, otherwise
our in-class computer (which uses Microsoft Office 2013) and LCD projector
is provided.
Links
Home
| Introduction
to the Study of English Literature
Last updated November 20, 2020