"Special Post" #1 (Character-Based Short Story), February 8

The post due for class on February 8 will be our first special post-- a character-based short story. Instructions for writing this story are as follows:

• By "character based,"  I mean that the "point" of the story should mostly be about revealing and developing a nuanced or multi-layered or complex character.
• The story needs to be fiction, but the character can be loosely based on someone you know.
• This story can be as long as you like. At a minimum, it should be at least 1000 words.
• You can use as a model any of the stories we've read so far: "My Tea with Madame Descartes" by David St. John would serve particularly well.
• It should make use of all of the aspects of "characterization" discussed in class: what the character looks like (or sounds like, smells like, etc.); what the character does; what the character says (or thinks, if you decide to give us a view of his or her thoughts); and what other characters say or think about him or her (if you have other characters).
• It should have one or more characters, as many as you want, though in general one ought to be the main character.
• Concerning plot, the story should have a beginning, middle, and end. It may have one or more scenes. 
• The story should be written and revised through at least two drafts. I don't need to see the drafts, but the quality of the story ought to demonstrate that it is not a first draft.
• The final draft of the story should be posted as the entry due before class on February 8, though you should begin working on it much sooner than then. In addition to posting your story, make sure to bring a printed copy of it to class.

Tuscana Ristorante Field Trip, January 27

During class time on Thursday, January 27, we will be meeting at Tuscana Ristorante. Students must arrive to the dining hall by 10:40 AM. Students without meal plans will need to buy lunch. The element of "food" is an important part of making this "fieldtrip" work.

The purpose of this fieldtrip is to highlight--and practice--the social aspect of literature. By social, I don't mean "socializing" as a "social butterfly" might do. I mean simply, normal human interactions between people. In "real life," when literature is discussed, it is most often discussed around dinner tables or at lunch time. Literature is about life and the doing and happening of literature takes place, in addition to in classrooms, in the arenas of real life.

The guidelines are as follows:

1. You need to sit with members of the class. You should sit with the small group you've been meeting with in class; however, if there are less than three members in your group, you may join with another group. No group, though, should have more than five or more than can fit around a small table.
2. You should get some food and drink.
3. Discuss the three readings for today. If you managed to bring a text of your own, contribute one or two points about it to the discussion. Talk about literature and the relationship between literature and life.
4. You will have to stay "on topic" from after you get your food and make sure you know each other's names, until the end of the class period. However, you can decide what constitues being "on topic." You can decide what is relevant to discuss about literature and life. This will be hard work, especially if you are not used to having meaningful discussiong about literature. But since I am taking this risk of having this fieldtrip, please give it a long, solid try.
5. Make sure to continually "return to the texts," weaving the actual words of the literature throughout the whole discussion. Make sure during the course of the discussion to read aloud short passages to each other.

Film Night, Monday, January 24

On Monday, Monday, January 24, we will be meeting for our film night at 7:00 PM in A121 to watch Babett's Feast.

Babett's Feast won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1987. It is also listed as number three in The Arts & Faith Top 100 Films by Image, a journal of religion and the arts.

We will watch the film as a piece of literature--which it is--and as a way of illustrating something about literature: that artistic literature is like fine food. 

If you've prearranged with me to not attend this film night (for a legitimate reason), then you can make up the participation credit by watching the film on your own, getting notes from someone who watched it with the group, and then writing an extra blog post responding to the film and answering the following questions: How is artistic literature like fine food? And what does that mean for how it should be read?

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog and website for this course.

Throughout the semester, I will post things here related to the course: announcements, descriptions of assignments, and supplementary material. I suggest that you “bookmark” it in your browser. Here are some links on how to bookmark a page: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome. If you do that, it should only take you a few seconds to check the website.

I look forward to the discussions we'll have over the course of this semester!

Professor Corrigan

How to Set Up Your Blog

You will need to have your blog set up and running by the end of the first week of class. In general, excuses for technological difficulties will be allowed through the second week of class. We will use Google’s blogger.com as the blogging technology for this class. As a Web 2.0 application, Blogger.com is designed to be especially easy to use even if you do not have much experience with internet technology. More or less, the process is self-explanatory. However, there are a few specific things that you need to make sure that you do while setting up your blog for the purposes of this class. Select "read more" for further instructions.

Leave Your Blog URL Here

Once you've set up your own blog, leave a comment on this post with your name and the URL to your blog. This is so that I will be able to have access to your blogs and also so that I can build a list of links so that everyone in the class will be able to access each other's blogs.

Note: It leaves your name automatically when you leave a comment, but I'm asking for your name just in case you didn't use your actual name as your display name. If that's you, go to your settings and change your display name so I'll know who you are.

Professor Corrigan Bio

Here is a brief academic bio about myself along with a picture of my family.

I teach writing, literature, and humanities at Southeastern University. My wife Christine and I have two young daughters, Elea and Sara. We live in Lakeland.

I have an MA degree in Literature from North Carolina State University, and I am working on a PhD in the same thing at the University of South Florida. I have also done graduate studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My scholarly research focuses on Christian spirituality, literature, and pedagogy.

I have presented scholarly papers at the Conference on Christianity and Literature, the College Theology Society, the North Carolina Symposium on Teaching Writing, and the American Academy of Religion in Montreal, among others. I have written peer-reviewed articles published in the journal Literature and Belief, Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice, and in God, Grace, and Creation: The Annual Volume of the College Theology Society and have written short articles on teaching published or forthcoming in The Teaching Professor and Pedagogy.

Left to right:  Mrs. Corrigan, Elea, me, Sara