Hi folks – by next Monday, September 8th, you should have finished reading Beloved. In preparation for your first essay assignment, rather than answer any questions I might have (for this week’s blog), I’d like for you to each come up with at least three really good questions of your own. If it helps, imagine yourself as the teacher posing thoughtful blog questions for your students, questions that you believe would generate much discussion. Thus, setting up the question and/or asking it in two or more parts would potentially be useful, as in the following example from last week’s blog assignment, in which I asked the following:
Many have suggested that Beloved focuses most strongly on themes of memory and history; find a passage or two that exemplifies the ways in which these memories and/or history are embodied. In other words, how do memories and/or histories surface, not just through thought, but on or through the body itself? How does the body become a sort of script or narrative that carries with it (and becomes the storyteller of) certain memories or histories?
Asking questions is often harder than answering them, but is also the best way to lead you into the essay writing process. Be sure to ask thought-provoking, intelligent, and interesting questions, as one of them could become the basis for your first essay (you would then conduct research and close-reading of the text in an effort to answer one of those questions).
