Macbeth

It is impossible to discuss a literary text without each person having their own copy. Therefore, the price of admission for next week's class is your own copy of Macbeth. Nobody gets in without showing their text. You should set about purchasing The Tortilla Curtain for the following month so that you won't be caught without a book when the time comes.

Over the next three weeks, I may give in class a passage chosen at random from the text that I ask you to "translate" and comment upon. You will need to know the text very well to do this. Since you're only reading two acts in a whole week, that should not be a problem.

Example:

DUNCAN

There's no art
To find the mind's construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.
Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSS, and ANGUS

Answer

In this scene, Duncan is responding to news of a traitor. He comments that there's no way to tell what a person is like by just looking at the face, and expresses disappointment at the breach of trust. This idea of treachery runs through the whole play. It's ironic that Macbeth walks in just at this moment, since Duncan trusts Macbeth and will have that trust betrayed soon as well.

During the week of Mar 23-27 we discussed Flannery O'Connor in the Tuesday class and various poems in the Thursday class.

Please see the previous post for important changes to the Essay 3 deadlines.

Essay 3 Due Dates are Changed

We are changing the due dates for Essay 3.

The First Draft of Essay 3 will be due two weeks later than stated in the syllabus. That's April 14 for the Tuesday class and April 16 for the Thursday class.

The Final Draft of Essay 3 will be due one week later than stated in the syllabus. That's April 28 for the Tuesday class and April 30 for the Thursday class.

All other due dates remain as in the syllabus. Final Draft of Essay 2 is still due Mar 31 for Tuesday class and April 2 for Thursday class. Exam 2 and Essay 4 keep the same due dates as in the syllabus.

Grade Check and upcoming Readings

For those who didn't submit the Essay 2 draft on time, we will try to review them at the end of the next class (after Spring Break). That may be the only opportunity, and I may or may not get to all of them as they are numerous.

The next full class meeting is the week of March 23 - April 27).

By the way, you can view your individual scores on www.turnitin.com, but you must ignore the total and percentage it gives you as far as your overall grade. That's because turnitin isn't smart enough to drop the lowest of the four scores. If you received credit for all four quizzes, you must subtract out your lowest score. If you missed or failed one or more quizzes, then your score is accurate, however.

IF YOUR TURNITIN ACCOUNT ISN'T PROPERLY SET UP BECAUSE YOU JOINED THE 1A SECTION RATHER THAN 1B, YOU WILL NOT HAVE ACCESS TO ALL YOUR SCORES AND CANNOT ASSESS YOUR GRADE. IN THIS CASE, PLEASE LOG INTO YOUR TURNITIN ACCOUNT AND "ENROLL IN A CLASS" USING Class ID 9518792 and password spring. Until you do so, you cannot know your grade in this class.

There are 500 points graded so far (three quizzes, half the participation grade, Essay 1, and Jane Eyre exam), which leaves 500 to go. This means that if you have,

Fewer than 200 points = mathematically impossible to pass
200-230 points = highly unlikely to pass
231-260 points = currently passing, but at risk for not passing
over 261 points = currently passing
*** BUT REMEMBER, ONLY THE TOP THREE QUIZ SCORES COUNT***
CHECK YOUR TURNITIN ACCOUNT TO BE SURE YOU ARE LISTED AS IN ENGLISH 1B. "B" AS IN BEST. NOT "A" AS IN ABOMINABLE.

My promise to comment online on all Tuesday-class essays did not come to fulfillment. As a result, the deadline for Essay 1's final draft will be pushed seven days further for ONLY the Tuesday-night students who didn't conference with me already (that's a new deadline of March 17). Everybody else is expected to submit the final version of Essay 1 at the originally scheduled deadline.

Again, for those Tuesday-night students who didn't conference with me earlier, we will do so this coming week following the exam on Jane Eyre.

All other deadlines, including that for Essay #2's first draft, remain as before. Directions for Essay #2 are in the syllabus.

Please see a previous post (scroll down) for reminders about the Jane Eyre exam during this coming week.

This message is directed at the Tuesday evening class regarding my absence on March 3, 2015. If you are in the Thursday evening class, you should expect that class WILL be held as usual unless something to the contrary is posted here.

TUESDAY EVENING CLASS

Simply put, I'm sick.

For anyone who I haven't yet conferenced with, I will review your essay on turnitin.com over the next 48 hours and leave detailed commentary there. That will take the place of our in-class conference. To review this commentary, log into turnitin.com and access the essay that you submitted. It will contain notes at the end and throughout the text. Also, look for a microphone icon. Clicking it will let you listen to an audio commentary -- but if I don't stop coughing, there won't be an audio commentary.

For everyone, Essay 2 draft version will still be due in class next week. Read the syllabus to get the prompts for Essay 2. If you lost your syllabus, it's available on the right side of this page. Submit the Essay 2 draft the same way you did for Essay 1 (grading rubric, essay, turnitin receipt, staple). The final version of Essay 1 will consist of everything you turned in with the draft PLUS the final version with all revisions marked. There's no need to resubmit Essay 1 to turnitin a second time.

Bring a scantron 882-E and pencil to class next week for the Jane Eyre exam and see the post previous to this for remarks about the exam.

Again, no deadlines are being changed for either final Essay 1 or draft Essay 2.

We'll discuss later what will become of the O'Connor short stories, but we definitely won't discuss them next week.

See you next week.