Second Quarter Online Journal Assignments

• Journal Nine: Write a narrative piece portraying a specific event that occurred over the Thanksgiving Holiday. Use characterization, dialogue, detail, and other techniques of effective writing to make the incident as vivid as possible to your audience.
• Journal Ten:The critic L.C. Knights said of the final scenes of Macbeth,

  It is a fitting close for a play in which moral law has been made present to us not as a convention or command but as the law of life itself, as that which makes for life, and through which alone man can ground himself on, and therefore in his measure know, reality.

  In an essay of approximately 500 words, evaluate Knights' understanding of Macbeth, as shown in the quote above.

• Journal Eleven: Take a walk in the woods or some other natural setting for 30 minutes or so. Select an aspect of nature you have observed that has "meaning"--teaches a lesson or shows some universal truth. Relate your observation using good concrete descriptive detail, and then discuss it as a signifier of some higher truth. If you are unable to get outside to a natural setting, think back to an experience of nature you have had. Choose some natural phenomenon that you were able to observe--a spider's web, the behavior of a pet, the weather, etc.
• Journal Twelve: Choose a parable from Blake's "Proverbs of Hell" in your Romantic Poetry handout. Use the parable as the seed of an essay. You can take the essay in any direction you like to get to 500 words, but it should ultimately be grounded in your own experience.
• Journal Thirteen: Write a narrative piece portraying an event that occurred over the Winter Recess.
• Journal Fourteen: Write a narrative piece that relates a personal anecdote and turns it into a moral or philosophical speculation by elevating it to the level of universal metaphor. In simpler words, relate a personal experience and then draw out its universal significance.

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