Transactional Palaver

Okay, We’re Off And Running January 30, 2008

I sense the anxiety some of you are feeling, but I assure you that this newfangled stuff will become much easier as we go.

Once you have all arrived at an attribute, I will publish all of them here so that you can readily see what your classmates are doing. This will come in handy down the line.

Now, keep your attribute in mind as we go back and reread “Prufrock.” We will probably work a little bit with it this week again before moving on to “The Hollow Men.” You may find as we work through the Eliot (and get into a little Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and Eugene O’Neill) that your attribute is intrinsically connected to one or more other attributes that someone else is considering. Start thinking about having that discussion with each other.

Feel free to leave me questions or concerns here. I’ll likely start making the rounds to your blogs towards the end of this week to see what’s up.

Oh, and one last thing. Be sure that your level of diction is appropriate as you start to move towards academic discussion. Your intro posts can be casual and in your own idiom, as it were, but remember that this is writing that you would normally be turning in to me in MLA-formated papers.

Ms. Baz

trans•ac•tion•al pa•lav•er: January 29, 2008

Transactional (adj, chiefly psych): relating to an interaction of an individual with one or more other persons, esp. as influenced by their assumed relational roles of parent, child, or adult.

Palaver (noun): a conference or discussion; sometimes persuasive talk or idle chatter.

This is the hub, the core, the crux, the nub, the nitty-gritty thrust and pith of where it’s at in English III these days. Your blogs should be set up by now and you should be ready to start work. I will lead you through the process as you build your sites, add content, links, images, and more. So let’s get started.

Here is your charge. Using one of the handouts I gave you, “Some Attributes of Modernist Literature,” find an attribute of Modernist literature that interests you. For example, are you interested in the experimentation with narrative perspective? How about the exploration of the interior or symbolic landscape? What about the use of time? Look over the handout and find an entry point that will allow you to explore the material. This entry point is the theme, or unifying concept, around which you will build the content of your blog. We will be studying rather intensively over the next few weeks the following, which will help you in your decision making:

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “The Hollow Men,” Four Quartets: “Little Gidding (V)” and The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot.

So, first things first. Pick a unifying concept and start thinking about why that particular element interests you.

Ms. Baz