- Read one of the following novels and complete the assignment.
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
- The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
- Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
- Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler
- White Noise by Don Delillo
- The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
- Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- NW by Zadie smith
- While you are reading, construct Double-Sided Journal Notes, following the format below. 15 entries are required. These can be digital or physical.
- Be prepared for an evaluation (incorporating these notes) of your reading of the book which will also count as a portion of your grade.
**You may choose to handwrite them on notebook paper (rough draft) as you read and then type them in a document so that you may send them to me electronically (final draft). The typed version should be 12 point, Times New Roman and should follow the specifications below. These will be due the first day of school. In addition, your work will be checked for plagiarism.
To create the journal:
- Make a vertical line down the center of a piece of paper/new document.
- At the top of the left column, write “Something from the Text.”
- At the top of the right column, write “Something from the Reader.”
Process:
Top of first page: Identify the novel and the author.
Left Column: As you read, when you come across something that you feel is important; write it in the left column. This should be a direct quotation or copied exactly as it appears in the text. Include the page number, and highlight it in your text (if you own the book). Otherwise, mark the page with a sticky note for later reference in discussion.
Right Column: After copying down that you believe is significant, respond to it in the right column. You should describe why you believe it is important. Responses should be no less than one paragraph (4-5 complete sentences) and should be grammatically correct. You should also include any questions you have in your response.
**Number the entries on both sides, and line up the quote with your response so that it will be easy to match quotes with responses (see example below.)
Write When:
- You see something you didn’t see before.
- You recognize a pattern (repetitions of ideas, details that make connections).
- You discover something different from what you originally thought.
- Something puzzles or confuses you.
- You agree or disagree with an observation by the narrator.
- Certain details seem important to you.
- Circumstances or issues are especially relevant to your life or to the lives of others.
- You notice something specific about the author’s style – shifting perspective or effective use of stylistic or literary devices.
Your journal should have a minimum of 15 entries. For some of you, it may be suitable to complete an entry per chapter; for others, you may want to record your thoughts every 10 pages or so. However you approach it, it is important that your entries represent responses to the entire book, not just one or two sections of it.
Example:
Something From the Text
- “Mr. Finch, taking the one man who’s done you and this town a great servie an’ draggin’ him with his shy ways into the limelight – to me that’s a sin" (Tate 276).
- This observation by Heck Tate sums up the title of the book. Boo Radley is being compared to a mockingbird here. Earlier, Atticus said that killing a mockingbird is a sin because they have nothing but provide joy for everyone. Here, Heck shows that bringing Book into the public eye by making him into a hero would be like killing a mockingbird. It would be wrong because he has only done good for Atticus and his family.