Becoming a Person

    Interpretive Journal
    Chapter 9, “Becoming a Person”


    Instructions:  The Interpretive Journal is designed to give you practice in analyzing literature by giving you an opportunity to respond to directed inquiries about the works of literature we will read this semester.  You will make 4 entries in your journal for this chapter, one of which will receive a formal grade, selected by random drawing.  This drawing will be held on the day all four of the responses are due.  

    To get full credit for the formally-graded response, you must adhere to the following rubric:

    You will hand in the first three entries of each journal to get date-stamped on the day we will be discussing the works in class.

    All of the journal entries for the works in this chapter must be handed in on time according to the date listed in the syllabus.

    All parts of each question must be answered.  

    Appropriate support for your answers must be provided in the form of short quotations and/or appropriate paraphrases from the text.

    All supporting evidence, whether quoted or paraphrased, must be documented according to the MLA standards of documentation.  This includes preparing a Works Cited List.

    All evidence provided must be introduced with an appropriate phrase or statement. 

    Questions from “Becoming a Person” 

    Individual Response, “Salvation”

    (Your Individual Response is due on the date listed in your syllabus.  More than one Response may be due on the same day.  Write the date(s) here:____________)

    In a response of at least one, and no more than 2 double-spaced 12 pt pages, discuss the following prompt:
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    Langston Hughes, in his autobiographical excerpt, “Salvation,” talks about a time when he tells us, “I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen.  But not really saved.” (87)  What do you think he means by this? Do you think he is better off at the end of the episode than he was at the beginning?  To what extent?  Use short quotes from the excerpt to support your position, and finish by stating what lesson about life and living he learned from the experience.  Be sure to consider how Hughes interprets what his Auntie Reed tells him about being saved; the difference between what he was waiting for and what the minister was asking him to do; the pressure put on him while he is sitting on the mourner’s bench, both by the people praying for him and Westley’s lie; his understanding that he has lied; and what happens to his faith in Jesus.

    Individual Response, “A&P”

    (Your Individual Response is due on the date listed in your syllabus.  More than one Response may be due on the same day.  Write the date(s) here:____________)

    In a response of at least one, and no more than 2 double-spaced 12 pt pages, discuss the following prompt:

    The girl Sammy calls Queenie in the story, “A&P,” appears to be the catalyst that causes Sammy to quit his job.  Explain why he does so, and what that shows about his character, by considering all of his reactions to Queenie during the course of the story.  Be sure to consider how he describes her, his physical responses to those descriptions, what he recognizes when he hears her voice, and two other pieces of evidence—why he doesn’t think the story has a “sad part” (Updike 106), even though he tells us “my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.” (108) 

    Individual Response, “Boys and Girls”

    (Your Individual Response is due on the date listed in your syllabus.  More than one Response may be due on the same day.  Write the date(s) here:____________)

    In a response of at least one, and no more than 2 double-spaced 12 pt pages, discuss the following prompt:

    How do the narrator’s stories she tells herself at night change during the course of the story, “Boys and Girls?” What do you think these changes show about her character?  Look at and discuss the specific details of the stories and link them to the actions she takes during the story—look for how she works with her father, her responses to her grandmother’s instructions about how a girl is supposed to act, what she does when her father and Henry shoot Mack, and her decision to hold the gate open for Flora.  Use all of this information to explain why the girl cries without opposing her father’s judgment of her at the end of the story.

    Individual Response, “Araby”
    (Your Individual Response is due as part of your completed journal)

    In a response of at least one, and no more than 2 double-spaced 12 pt pages, discuss the following prompt:

    At the end of the story, “Araby,” the boy has an epiphany and judges himself.  He tells us, “I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity, and my eyes burned with anguish and anger” (Joyce 93).  What change in the boy’s character does this judgment reveal?  Look at the following details to help you establish what this change is:  the boy’s comment about why he likes The Memoirs of Vidocq (a sexually suggestive novel); his responses to Mangan’s sister and her reactions to him; the boy’s problems with concentrating in school and what he attributes them to; and what the shopkeeper and the two men do at the bazaar and what they are talking about.
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