21L.000J | Fall 2015 | Undergraduate

Writing About Literature: Writing About Love

Assignments

Beloved

This writing assignment, like the others, is a short and focused exercise in close reading. Only 250 words are required; however, this is enough for you to work on a small piece of text in Beloved and in detail. I am not selecting a passage for you; instead, you’ll be responsible for selecting a passage you deem is significant. Then, examine it and analyze it just as you had with a single panel in Fun Home. Stay focused. And, like your previous close reading for Fun Home, craft one paragraph that follows the thinking provided in our last few class sessions on developing a body paragraph. The objective at this point is for you to more fully develop a sustained textual analysis with a primary text, but also, for me to see your progress: are your writing skills improving or perhaps you are not yet understanding the importance of rewriting – that is, spending 2-3 days, one day drafting, the second day returning to the draft to rewrite it and possibly a third day to polish it. Some of you are showing progress, while others are struggling to catch up.

Possible writing ideas:

  • 124 Bluestone Road, Sethe, Baby Suggs, Beloved, Denver, Paul D, etc.
  • Animals
  • Sycamore, trees, plants
  • 1873
  • The Mother
  • Hauntings
  • Rememory
  • Red
  • Lover
  • Daughter

Course Info

Instructor
Departments
As Taught In
Fall 2015
Learning Resource Types
Written Assignments