Need help on EN234 discussion homework

21 June 2020

Unit 3: Discussion

Instructions

Participation in the discussion thread is worth 20 points per unit. The assignment consists of two things—posting your first response to the prompts, and participating in the conversation by responding to at least two of your peers’ postings.

NOTE: Do not simply copy and paste from your reading journal into the discussion. You can use some of the ideas from your journal to frame your discussion post/responses, but the discussion posts must be substantially different from the reading journal.

Discussion Prompt Initial Response

The full ten points will be given to a discussion response posting that

Responds to every aspect of the discussion prompt with originality (do not just repeat what other students say – what is different that you can add to the conversation?)

Displays a familiarity with the texts and topics being discussed, using specific details or examples from the text(s)

Exceeds 250 words

At the discretion of the instructor, points will be taken off any response that does not fulfill all of these goals. Late points will be deducted according to the standard late submission policy.

Response to Peers

The full ten points will be given if you provide at least two response postings that

Interact with a classmate’s post with originality and thoroughness

Add something new to the conversation

Exceed 50 word each

At the discretion of the instructor, points will be taken off any response that does not fulfill all of these goals. Late points will be deducted according to the standard late submission policy.

You are very much encouraged to post more than twice to the postings of your peers; the two longest postings are just the ones that will be evaluated.

Unit 3 Discussion Prompt

In this discussion, you will answer one of the prompts below based on your last name. Thus, half the class will initially post about Prompt 1 and half the class will initially post about Prompt 2. Students with last names beginning A-L will answer Prompt 1. Students with last names beginning M-Z will answer Prompt 2. For your two responses to classmates, you can reply to any of the posts regardless of the initial prompt.

Prompt 1 (Answer this one if your last name begins with A-L): Choose one reading from this unit. How does the point of view affect how we understand the story and the characters? How does the narrative structure (chronological, back and forth in time) affect the story?

Arthur Conan Doyle- The Adventure of the Speckled Band

Truthfully, I have never enjoyed Sherlock Holmes stories, so I am a little uninterested going into

the stories. I’ve personally always found Watson to be an annoying character, not for any

particular reason just didn’t care for him. He always was so observant and saw all the same

things that Holmes sees but just couldn’t peace them together. The story gave the illusion that the

death could be supernatural… but in Holmes fashion there was going to be a logical reason.

Early on I suspected Dr. Roylott was the one who killed Julia and was most likely trying to kill

Hellen. Dr. Roylott character was written and described so vividly and intimidatingly, I could

really see him. Many things that I felt made the story long also were part of the story, as in the

extra knowledge of the gypsies. They had no part in the story but to mislead you in your own

detective work while reading. I did not expect it to be an exotic snake that he was using to kill

them. It was cleaver and surprising. It’s a bit ironic that what kills him is something he cherished

most, one of his Indian “pets.”

21 June 2020

William Faulkner- A Rose for Emily

This was a quite captivating read. The language was easy to follow, and I enjoyed the non-linear

timeline. Setting is post-civil war south. The house symbolizes Emily’s own decay as she aged

and began to become old. The narrator describes the home as an “eyesore among eyesores” and

town saw Emily as a woman with no purpose and unappealing due to her having no money and

her lack of a husband. I suspected that the smell was the dead Homer Barron and of course in the

end we find it was. She had been controlled by her father and kept from marriage for so long and

I feel Emily didn’t want to be alone and knew that it was seen as unacceptable for her to remain

unmarried. Homer Barron would not really be accepted in his time as a homosexual and Emily

most likely believed that Homer would have to marry her. But when he wouldn’t marry her, she

poisoned him so he couldn’t leave her alone, like her father had. and kept the body in a room that

she set for the two of them. It would normally creep me out and I am sure any other person, at

the thought of a person lying next to a dead body but just like the town people felt, I only felt

badly for Emily.

22 June 2020

Edgar Allen Poe- A Tell-Tale Heart

As most, I am very familiar with this story. I’ve read it many times through middle school and

high school. I don’t think in grade school I realized how dark this tale was. Maybe being naïve

and innocent in age masked the darkness of the story. The point of view is from the narrator who

believes himself to be so cleaver and not crazy at all. The franticness of the narrator suggests his

mental health is not well. The eye must represent an evil, something the narrator cannot shake. I

thought it odd the way he killed the old man by throwing the bed upon him and suffocating him.

Why would a sane person kill someone and then on top of that dismember the body? The

narrator could have easily put the body under the floor boards as a whole. Cutting the body up

and managing to do so in such a way that it left no blood evidence behind adds to the narrators

over powering sense that they are extremely cleaver. While talking to the police the narrator

believes he hears the heart of the old man beating below him, but it was most likely his heart

pounding like the old mans had right before his death. I think the heart represented his guilt for

the murder and drive him to confess in the end.