FOR WEEK 15, April 24:

FINAL ESSAY: Post your final essay. The instructions are here.  

NOTE: ESSAY DUE DATE EXTENDED TO FRIDAY, APRIL 27, NOON.

BLOG: All late blog posts are also due Friday, April 27.

 

FOR WEEK 14, April 17:

 

READING: Read McCarthy's The Road

BLOG: Post about The Road.

FOR WEEK 13, April 10:

 

READING: Read Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways: read parts 1 – 3 (pp. 3 - 127); skim parts 4 - 8, but read pp. 181-190; read parts 9, 10, and afterword (pp. 341-421).

Also, review Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

BLOG: Post about Blue Highways.

FOR WEEK 12, April 3:

 

MIDTERM: Post by class time. (Instructions are here.)

READING: Review Beauvoir's America Day by Day.

FOR WEEK 11, March 27:

READING: Sullivan's Cross Country, second half.

BLOG: Find an image and post a comment with it, something to do with Sullivan's book, and prepare a couple of questions for our guest speaker, Robert Sullivan.

MIDTERM: Get started on the midterm project, due April 3.

FOR WEEK 10, March 20:

READING: Sullivan's Cross Country, first half.

BLOG: Find an image and post a comment with it, something to do with Sullivan's book.

FOR WEEK 9, March 13:

Spring break, no class.

FOR WEEK 8, March 6:

READING: Steinbeck's Travels with Charle.

BLOG: Find an image and post a comment with it, something to do with Travels with Charley. You might take a look at the links on the website in About the Readings.

FOR WEEK 7, Feb. 27:

 

READING: Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, second half.

BLOG: Find an image and post a comment with it, something to do with Kesey and/or The Acid Test. You might take a look at the links on the website in About the Readings.

FOR WEEK 6, Feb. 20:

READING: Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, first half.

BLOG: Find an image and post a comment with it, something to do with Kesey and/or The Acid Test. You might take a look at the links on the website in About the Readings.

COMMENT: Post a comment on one or two of your classmates'posts, or refer to them in your own blog post. If you do it in your own post, include a text link to the other person's post—just click on the title of someone's post and you'll go its specific page and find its URL.

FOR WEEK 5, Feb. 13:

READING: Kerouac's On the Road, second half.

BLOG: Find an image and post a comment with it, something to do with Kerouac and/or On the Road. You might take a look at the links on the website in About the Readings, and read over what your classmates have already posted—some of these links may lead you to others.

COMMENT: Post a comment on one or two of your classmates' Kerouac posts, or refer to them in your own blog post. If you do it in your own post, include a text link to the other person's post—just click on the title of someone's post and you'll go its specific page and find its URL.

FOR WEEK 4, Feb. 6:

READING: Kerouac's On the Road, parts 1 and 2 (the first half of the book). (We will circle back to Simone de Beauvoir later in the semester when I return.)

BLOG: Find an image and post a comment with it, something to do with Kerouac and/or On the Road. It doesn't have to be your personal response or a literary interpretation. You could just draw our attention to some other websites you've discovered, with a short comment about what's on these sites and links to them. To start surfing around, check out (1) the Kerouac links in "About the Readings"; (2) the various road trip links in "For further study"; (3) the recent road trip aritcles in the "Periodicals Room," and (4) the road trip blogs in the Blog Lounge > more blogs. You don't have to write a lot; just say something that will make us want to read more at the websites you're linking us to. I did something like this in my blog on New Orleans.

Also, when you post your image, remember to make a link to the source. The instructions are in the How to Post page and there's a note about in the forums > website tech page.

 

FOR WEEK 3, JAN. 30:

READING: America Day by Day, pages 3-176, 231-248, 303-9, 327-337, 381-390

BLOG: Find an image and post a comment with it, something to do with Beauvoir’s America Day by Day. It could be something about her life or books, about Sartre, about the places she visits on her trip, about the people (or the kind of people) she meets, etc.—something, in any case, to help “illustrate” the book. Keep in mind the year she visits America—1947.

If you’d like some help finding images, go to the website > A-V Center > Finding Images on the net. If it makes sense, copy a passage from the book that goes with the picture. Write a short comment (200 words) about the relevant part of the book and what the image might add to the context. Or perhaps there’s something going on in the news right now that relates to something in the book, and maybe the image and comment will be about this connection.

You can read about how to post images in the Blog Lounge. Don’t forget to make a link to the source of the picture.

 

FOR WEEK 2, JAN. 23:

 

1. CREATE YOUR BLOG: First, create an account by going to Classes > Getting Started and following the instructions. Once you have an account, go to the “Blog Lounge > How to Post Blogs and Images” and read the instructions for Creating Blog Entries and Suggestions for Blog Writing. Don’t worry about the rest of the instruction page for now (but go right ahead if you like).

2. BLOG: For the 23rd, write a story about a road trip. About 200 words. Fiction or nonfiction. First or third person (or second if you want). Don’t try to tell the story of a whole trip. Think about the key moments in the typical road trip that we talked about it class—the decision to travel, departure, breakdown, return, etc.—and just focus on that one moment.

3: READING: Mark Twain’s Roughing It, chapters chpts. 1 – 24 (skip 16), 31 – 34. Also, take a look at the excerpts from Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and Turner’s “Frontier” article posted in Classes > American Road Trip > About the Reading > Democracy in America> Tocqueville, On the American Character and > The Frontier In American History > Turner, The Significance of the Frontier.