Day 7
Fri. Apr. 17
“Once; now”
Observations on Sheng Keyi
Reading by Meixuan
Intro to character essay and “Proverbs of Hell”
Homework
➤ Write a “postcard from the past”
Write a “literary postcard” (about 4-6 sentences long) about a place you know well, in the form of “once…; now…” Upload it to our Box folder.
➤ Read the instructions for Essay 3
If you’re interesting in completing this assignment as journalism (a character profile), please message me now and tell me. If you want to do a journalisic character profile but don’t know who you want to write about or how to find someone to write about, we can talk about it, and perhaps I can help you.
➤ Read “Uncle Pat is the Law”
Make sure to check out my annotations in the electronic version of the article! (VPN required.)
Please come to class ready to share one sentence that you feel really characterizes either Uncle Pat or the town of Jean Lafitte. (In other words, a sentence that answers the question: What kind of person is this? or, What kind of place is this?)
➤ Read “The Proverbs of Hell”
Read over the proverbs. (You don’t need to “understand” all of them—in fact, many of them can’t really be “understood.”) Pick one you like or find intriguing, and come ready to tell us: What kind of person do you think would believe this?
➤ (If you have time) start reading “Mazie” or “The Man Who Eats”
For Friday of next week I’ll be asking you to choose one of two longer essays about characters — “Mazie” by Joseph Mitchell and “The Man Who Eats” by Yiyun Li — and read in full whichever one you like most. If you have extra time this weekend you might want to get started on that, since the essays are on the longer side.
