Here’s my example for the writing assignment in the last post: Man named “Lucky” missing, possibly eaten by tiger By Frank N. Berry A former children’s TV and commercial star, known as “Lucky”, may have been abducted from his home in General Mills last Tuesday. At the crime scene in front of his home, police … Continue reading Poe’s Hoaxes, Pt. 2
In a reading group I’m in, which may have two or four members, we are beginning Hemingway’s novels. His first, Torrents of Spring, is a parody of Sherwood Anderson’s Dark Laughter and, what I would call, High Modernists like James Joyce. Not having read Anderson’s novel, I’m not qualified to comment on the parody itself. Parodies … Continue reading France was a long way off.
Along with Poe’s “Black Cat,” I hope you are reading the How to Read Literature book. Foster does a great job breaking down a lot of the basics of the type of reading that will be expected in the class. The more you understand how to read literature in this way, the better you’ll do … Continue reading Symbolism Is Simple…Sort of: “The Black Cat” Assignment
This post is part of a summer reading assignment for my AP Literature and Composition classes. In this assignment, we will focus on antithesis, a rhetorical device Poe uses in “Berenice.” By now, you should have read “Berenice” and any number of other Poe tales. Feel free to work ahead of the assignments and to … Continue reading Edgar was an odd little boy–“Berenice” Assignment
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” (Introduction to Mother Night) “All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.” (Timequake) For years, I’ve taken to reading an author’s works in chronological order. The better I get as a reader, the more this practice provides … Continue reading Kilgore Was Here
In the midst of new baby, new house, new life, and new writing projects, I decided to enter a haiku contest for the Centennial National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. Some people may smirk at haiku, but I’ve been seriously reading and writing in the form for a while. The more I learn about … Continue reading A Haiku and an Interview
Or maybe “Skeletons In the Closet.” An old bone won’t have much meat on it and if it’s too far gone, it won’t make a good base for a stock either. Going through an old notebook last night, I found a brittle femur that I’ll offer up in a second. For some reason, my grandmother … Continue reading Digging Up Bones
You can read a recent short story of mine here. The story started as a dream script that I would present to Jan Svankmajer, one of my favorite directors. In a way, my attempt was to give an interior monologue to a puppet or character in a stop-motion film. Much of Svankmajer’s work has no … Continue reading A Failure to Communicate
For part of our summer reading assignments, we are responding to a few of Poe’s short stories. After reading “The Black Cat,” I’ve asked students to respond with a story or a response about their own fears. I wish I could say I had an interesting personal fear. I’m not talking about the fear of … Continue reading One Snake, Two Snake, Red Snake, Blue Snake
Stephen McClurg 