Unit Four Reading Journal Checklist/Rubric

20 pt. Major Grade due start of class Thor’s Day, March 13

STAPLE ENTRIES TO RUBRIC WHEN YOU SUBMIT!! You need:

  • At least ONE – Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism(remember that in class you wrote fifty words each on TWO – that would count as only ONE unless you elaborate/add)
  • At least FOUR– Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
  • At least TWO – Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal
  • At least THREE from any of the following:
  • SørenKierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death
  • Psalm 19:14
  • Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (“The hypocrite’s crime…”)
  • Jaron Lanier, You Are Not A Gadget (“Digital Neoteny” “monstrous designs”)
  • G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy(on Jesus and laughter)
  • Jonathan Swift, “A Defense Of Mr. Gay” (lecture quotes on the job of satire)
  • Francesco Goya, The Sleep of Reason
  1. Quotation and 100 wd. Reflection from Pope, Essay onCriticism:
  2. Quotation and 100 wd. Reflection from Swift, Gulliver’s Travels:
  3. Quotation and 100 wd. Reflection from Swift, Gulliver’s Travels:
  4. Quotation and 100 wd. Reflection from Swift, Gulliver’s Travels:
  5. Quotation and 100 wd. Reflection from Swift, Gulliver’s Travels:
  6. Quotation and 100 wd. Reflection from Swift, A Modest Proposal:
  7. Quotation and 100 wd. Reflection from Swift, A Modest Proposal:
  8. Quotation and 100 wd. Reflection from ______:
  9. Quotation and 100 wd. Reflection from ______:
  10. Quotation and 100 wd. Reflection from ______:

Reading Journals

Keeping a journal of words and thoughts is something writers and scholars have done forever; it helps to grab information and ideas passing through your ears and eyes, and helps you to file them in your mind. For Unit Two, you will submit a Reading Journal consisting of twelve (12) quotations and reflections drawn from Unit Reading. This counts for a 25 point Major Grade.

Your journal will take the form of a double-entry journal:

  • On the left side or at the top of each entry, quote word for word from the work you are considering, and cite according to MLA Rules. Number each entry.
  • On the right side or at the bottom of each entry, write a reflection, at least 100 words, on the passage you quoted. Explain what the passage is “about,” why that passage matters, and “reflect” on it – i.e., give an opinion, or explain how it relates to you. This is graded for thinking, not grammar; don’t just fill up 100 words’ worth of space.

# / Examples: Quotation/Citation / Examples: 100 word reflection
1 / She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow ….
–William Shakespeare,
Macbeth V v 20-23 / Here Macbeth has just found out that his wife is dead, and he doesn’t seem to care. Basically he is saying that she was going to die anyway, so why should he care? And it also says she should have died later because he doesn’t have time to deal with it right now. This is especially sad since the couple started out so happy, sharing everything, and now Macbeth has no feeling at all. It reminds me of one time when my little brother wanted to play and I was too busy and told him to go away and he asked me why I didn’t love him anymore.. That was a sad day.
2 / Of course I cannot break through the wall by battering my head against it if I really have not the strength to knock it down, but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because it is a stone wall and I have not the strength.
–Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From Underground. New York: Dover
Thrift Editions, 1992, p. 8. / Like Dostoyevsky’s narrator I have a hard time accepting limits. This guy is in prison and will not accept the reasons for it. I have a hard time accepting the reasons for anything that stands between me and what I want, even when I realize that wishes are impossible. I was never quite able to dunk a basketball. I know now that that is unlikely, but I haven’t given up, though realism says I should do so and find a more attainable goal.