Frost, ''Mending Wall'' and ''After Apple-Picking'' (1915)

Read these short poems, then print them out and mark them up.

Leave a brief comment here (or on your SHU weblog, if you're feeling up to it) in which you present a thought that only occurred to you after you spent some tme with these short works..

Mending Wall
After Apple-Picking

Close Reading Workshop

Close Reading

A close reading is a careful, thorough, sustained examination of the words that make up a text.

In a close reading, a literary work is not so much a window to look through, nor is it a mirror to reflect yourself. Instead, you look closely at the language the author chose, in order to analyze what the author has accomplished.

Note: Close reading is always re-reading.

RRRR (Read, React, Respond, Reflect)

A four-step process that helps you prepare for a productive class discussion using the SHU weblog system.

We will start out slowly at first, only completing a part of the RRRR process, so that the whole class has the chance to adjust to it. Once we start the full process, for each item or group of items marked as "Text" on the course outline, Read the assignment, react by posting an "agenda item" about 24 hours before the class discussion (see glossary), respond to 2-4 items posted by your peers, and reflect on the experience in a half-page essay (100-200 words -- see "reflection paper" in the glossary).

Agenda Item

A short homework assignment, comprising a brief quotation from the assigned text,, a non-obvious question or observation, and a contribution to the class discussion (if called on).

Intro to Weblogs

Peer Blogging

Recent activity on the blogs of all students in this course. This page will update regularly, though it won't always show the most recent entries. To force an update, post a comment anywhere on this website or the NMJ website.