Hello! My name is Mrs. McLaughlin, and I am so excited to be your English 2322 professor next year! I know we are going to have a great year. Below is your summer reading assignment. Read it over soon.
Start it soon. This will allow you plenty of time to clear up any questions you may have. As I am new to the district, my school email is not yet established. Please email me at mrs.sa.mclaughlin@gmail.com if you have any questions. Have a fabulous summer  Happy reading!
Assignment 1:
Read Beowulf, an epic poem originally written in Old English, and complete a dialectical journal over it.
This journal may be typed, or you may choose to complete it in a spiral notebook. Either option is great with me. If you are not familiar with how to complete a dialectical journal, see the information pages for extensive directions and a short example. You will be turning in your journal on the first day of school, and you will use it to aid in your writing about the poem the first week. Also, be prepared to take a test over Beowulf (sans journal) the first week of school.
Your Dialectical Journal Will Include:
1. Two entries that reveal a character’s development, motivation, or epiphany
2. Two entries that describe and analyze the author’s use of imagery.
3. Two entries that describe and analyze the author’s use of symbols.
4. One entry that documents and explains a significant irony found in the book.
5. At least THREE entries that build on or reveal a primary theme of the novel, entries
to be taken from the beginning, middle and end of the text.
There will be at least ten total entries in your journal. Journals are due the first day of class, so be sure you have it with you.
Grades are based on:
-- Completeness
-- Thought and insight found in your discussions
-- Following all directions concerning formatting the document
-- All work is your own.
Assignment 2:
Read Grendel. While you do not have to fully annotate the novel, you may wish to make notes/mark pages where Gardner achieves his task of sympathizing the reader to the monster. Be prepared to take a test the first week of school.
**Note**
While you do not have to read How to Read Literature Like a Professor for your summer assignment, we will be using it the first weeks of class and throughout the rest of the school year. If you are completely unfamiliar with the book, you may wish to either buy a copy or access it online and get familiar with its content. The book can be accessed online at: http://www.sparkascreen.com/files/APFiles/HowToReadLiteratureLikeAProfessor.pdf

Beowulf, Goodreads
“Composed toward the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is the classic Northern epic of a hero’s triumphs as a young warrior and his fated death as a defender of his people. The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on, physically and psychically exposed in the exhausted aftermath. It is not hard to draw parallels in this story to the historical curve of consciousness in the twentieth century, but the poem also transcends such considerations, telling us psychological and spiritual truths that are permanent and liberating.”
Grendel, Staff Pick, Powell’s Books, Portland, Oregon
“It’s easy to find oneself in the thrall of hanks of blond hair and mead-fueled heroism, but it is a more difficult task to regard, with care, the heart of a monster. The monster (but is he?) in question is Grendel, an introspective animal who loves his mother and also has a taste for Danes. Gardner’s novel is an accounting of the tale of Beowulf from Grendel’s perspective; it’s a story of a monster’s hunger, love, and grief, and also those of men. Consider the original poem Beowulf: How is it that the happy endings of men and their stories are those that are soaked in blood?”
What is a Dialectical Journal?
A dialectical journal is another name for a double-entry journal or a reader-response journal. A dialectical journal is a journal that records a dialogue, or conversation, between the ideas in the text (the words that you are reading) and the ideas of the reader (the person who is doing the reading). In your journal, have a conversation with the text and with yourself. Write down your thoughts, questions, insights, and ideas while you read. The important part is that you, the reader, are reading something and then responding to it with your feelings and ideas!
HERE IS AN EXAMPLE:
Quotation
“The line(s) from the text in quotation marks”. (citation)
“…and taking hold of my elbow literally
forced me from the car.”
(Ch. 1, p. 28)
Dialectical Journal
Example from The Great Gatsby
Lit. Element/Commentary/Questions
Your comments should be a specific analysis, understanding, and/or connection to the quote, or advance the thought of the author. It should
not repeat or restate what the author wrote.
DICTION: The word force has a violent connation. Tom doesn’t ask
Nick if he wants to accompany him. He gives Nick no choice.
The purpose of the dialectical journal is to encourage you to actively engage in a meaningful conversation with the text individually and comparatively. The journal provides you with two columns that are in dialogue with one another, not only developing a method of critical reading but also encouraging habits of reflective questioning.

Procedure:
 Draw a vertical line in the middle of a page in your journal notebook
 At the top of the left column, write the heading Quotation
 At the top of the right hand column, write the heading Literary Element/
 Commentary/Questions.
 While you read or after you read a section, record Act/Scene/line numbers of the quotation in the left column.
 In the right column, write your ideas, questions, and comments, related to the notations on the left. As you keep taking notes, you should regularly re-read your previous pages(s) of notes and comments drawing any new connections in a right-column summary before starting another page of note taking and note-making.
The journal is important because you “own” the new facts by putting them in your own words or by raising your own questions. Writing is a way to possess or own new knowledge as you attempt to do interpretative phrasing. Regular practice with the journal promotes high critical thinking and builds confidence in the individual and group participation. The journal facilitates real learning in the sense that you are discovering your own meaningful connections that do take longer but they last longer than if you just took a test on the work.
Write when:
 You see something you didn’t see before.
 You recognize a pattern-overlapping images repetitions of idea, details, colors that make a connection
 You discover that the story is about something different from what you originally thought it was about.
 Something puzzles you or confuses you
 You agree or disagree with an observation by the narrator or a character’s action
 Certain details which seem important to you
 You notice something specific about the author’s style-authentic dialogue or shifting perspective or effective poetic devices.
Make certain you are specific in your observations.
By individually completing your journal, you will learn to read carefully, to record quotes you have evaluated as pertinent, to summarize, and to do most of your thinking by making valid connections that you can easily substantiate by referring to your specific notes.