ENGL 102H, Spring, 2014
Dr. Harnett
MW Week 3 Class Notes, page 1
Monday, March 3, 2014
Announcements:
1. Scholars General Assembly has been changed to next Monday, 3-10-2014.
2. Exam 1 (Short Fiction) will be next time. We will meet in AD 238 to
write it. The topic will be your development of a theme that you interpret
in one of the stories we have read. I will select it and announce it on the
MW page of the website at http://mharnett.weebly.com/, and you will
receive the prompt when you arrive next time.
3. SI is up and running! There will be one on Mondays (note the change;
they will not be held on General Assembly days—3/10, 4/7, 5/5), and one
on Thursday, 12:30-1:30 PM in SR 324. SI Leaders are James Ryu
(Mondays) and Naeiri Hakopian (Thursdays).
4. Tartuffe Performance at A Noise Within Theatre: Friday, May 2, 8:00
PM. This is not a required event, but I strongly recommend that you go to
be able to have the best experience of the play as it is meant to be seen:
live! Feel free to invite others to attend with you as well. I need to tell the
theatre ASAP how many people are going: Signup sheet distributed. I will
collect money for tickets and purchase them for everyone; we get a group
rate (the regular ticket price is $42-48).
5. Books: Be sure to have all of the books by the time you need to read them!
I strongly recommend that you buy and/or order them all now.
6. Scholars Potluck is this Friday, 3/7, 2:00-5:00 PM in Verdugo Park.
Signup Sheet is outside of my office at LB 211.
7. Scholars Journal: Submit your excellent essays, and also fiction, poetry,
art, and photography, by the deadline of March 14. Please spread the word
about this publishing and scholarship opportunity. It’s open to all GCC
students. Email: gccscholarsjournal@gmail.com
8. Other? Basketball Fridays 7:30 AM in the gym. Let’s arrange a hike! The
course will include nature poems, so you could write about a hike vis-à-vis
a poem. Also possible with me: Running, Golf, Tennis,…
 Bulfinch (trans), “Meleager and Atalanta” at
http://www.bartleby.com/181/181.html
1. Why does the goddess Diana send a giant, wild boar that terrorizes the
countryside of Calydon?
2. What’s the “trophy” that Meleager gives Atalanta? What happens to it
immediately after that? What does he do to the two people involved with
that?
3. What prevents Meleager from being with his love, Atalanta, by the end of
that section of the story? How does it happen?
4. An oracle has prophesied to Atalanta that ______________.
5. Hippomenes changes his role in the races from _______ to ________.
6. Hippomenes gets help from ____________, who provides him with
________.
7. ________________ wins the race because________________.
ENGL 102H, Spring, 2014
Dr. Harnett

MW Week 3 Class Notes, page 2
8. This victory means that ________.
9. But because they do not _________, this happens to them:________.
10.
A theme, which may or may not encompass a moral, or this story,
is:__________________________________________.
Quotation Development Exercise: Support your interpretations, one at a
time, of two themes of this story:
1. the way love seems to be a product of fate and effort
2. how irreverence or ingratitude for finding love in improbable
circumstances leads to suffering
 First, introduce the topic very briefly and then state the thesis as an insight
that you will be developing. Is there a key point at the foundation of the
thesis? For example, theme 1. could be said to involve the concept of free
will, or something else.
 Then, support the thesis. Select one representative quotation that supports
the theme. Make a statement that the quote demonstrates, and integrate
the quotation smoothly, as you would within an essay: Set it up and
introduce the idea you are presenting, incorporate the quotation in your
context, and provide some kind of way of explaining and ending the train
of thought that includes and features the quote. Punctuate each miniparagraph correctly, and cite the source parenthetically according to MLA
format.

Now find another quotation and incorporate it into the
paragraph. Review the whole paragraph and consider its logic, and also the
critical issue of Depth vs. mere length. What is needed in order to make a
point convincingly?
 Finish the paragraph: Sum up the point you have made and supported.
Make a final statement that shows what the theme means or implies about
human life, or another idea to end the train of thought of the paragraph.
Aspects of essay-writing to consider:
 Thesis Development: logic and focus
 Support in depth
 Citation formats
 Essay Planning, writing, revising in the timed-writing situation.
Remember that we will meet in AD 238 on Wednesday for the exam.
1. As time permits, watch a film adaptation (1962) of the story that
was shown on the television series The Twilight Zone (1964),
hosted by the incomparable Rod Serling, who wrote most of the
episodes (except for this one!).
 (allow about 30 minutes to watch the film. If we don’t finish it in class, watch
it on your own this week at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DocXCkobmU
a. What does the film help clarify about the story?
b. What aspect(s) of the story are emphasized most in the film?
c. What change(s) does the film make from the original, and what effects do
these changes have on your perspectives of the story?
ENGL 102H, Spring, 2014
Dr. Harnett
MW Week 3 Class Notes, page 3
 A theme of “An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge”: the
imagination and its effects for better or worse on characters.
State the theme as an argumentative claim. Then support your claim with
a well-reasoned explanation, including at least one example from the
stories.
Analysis/Writing Exercise: What do your observations about characters and
their imaginations tell you about human motivation, such as the incentive to
avoid something unpleasant? Why do the characters imagine things as they do,
and what does that imply about what they want?
Next Time: Exam 1! The topic will be one of the stories from our readings in short
fiction so far. Check the MW main page for announcements.