1. LITERATURE HU 300

2. Before Literature  What did we learn about music?  Appreciate any new styles of music?  Learn any new groups you might continue to enjoy listening to?  Two assignments were due yesterday:  Discussion Post and responses  Project on music in your life?  How was doing this assignment compared to others?

3. What Do I do if I miss an assignment?  Catch up as soon as I can!!!  Do we grade by points or letters?  What’s worse an F that’s 29 points or an F that’s 0 points?  What can’t I catch up?  Discussion Board Responses  How much time do I have? 4 weeks  Lose one grade for each week late.

4. Reading in America  In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts put out a study called “Reading at Risk,” about the decline of reading in America. In 2007, another study showed that 1 in 4 adults read no books in 2006. (Fram, 2007)  What do you think of these findings? Do they seem accurate to what you observe?  What might a decline in reading say about a culture?

5. Update on Reading  For the first time since the NEA began surveying American reading habits in 1982 -- and less than five years after it issued its famously gloomy "Reading at Risk" report -- the percentage of American adults who report reading "novels, short stories, poems or plays" has risen instead of declining: from 46.7 percent in 2002 to 50.2 percent in 2008 (Thompson, 2009).  (Note: Nonfiction is excluded from the study)  What might explain the increase of reading in the last 6 years?

6. Which books/authors do you enjoy? Which have inspired you?

7. Poetry  In our unit we discussed poetry, which is rarely a best- seller. Why might poetry be less popular than fiction?  Where are some places that poetry does exist and thrive in our culture?

8. Why Poetry?  What are some of the unique benefits poetry can offer to the reader or listener?

9. Unit 5 Assignment  Two Discussion Questions: Let’s look at each  Question 1: First, did we like the story?  In Anzia Yezierska’s short story, “The Lost Beautifulness,” the protagonist Hanneh Hayyeh longs for something to call her own.  Does the piece give you sympathy for any of the characters? Do you dislike any of the characters? How can a writer add a "universal appeal" for their piece of literature and create a strong link to their audience?

10. Unit 5 Assignment  Choose two of the poems here for your analysis, or you may also use Poets.org http://poets.org/ to search for other poems, or review the resources in this week's Web Resources. Try to pick different poems from other students.  List the titles and authors of the two poems you chose to analyze. Research the authors to learn a bit about their lives. Discuss them one at a time.  Was the poem difficult to understand?  How did you interpret it?  What do you think is the idea of the poem beyond the descriptions?  What does the biographical information add to an understanding of the poem?