Tenth Blog Post

One of my favorite lines in this novel is when Ginnie Hempstock tells the narrator, "You don't pass or fail at being a person" (Gaiman 175). Do you agree with Ginnie's statement? What makes you a person? What do you think someone might do to "pass or fail at being a person"? How do people make other people not feel like a person - i.e. take away their humanity?  Why do people do this? Do other people have an obligation to call others out when they are making another person feel as if they are failing? Be VERY detailed in explaining your responses to these questions, provide examples to help support your answers. 

Ninth Blog Post

Conflict is an indispensable quality of fiction because it is what creates plot. The conflicts  encountered most frequently in literature are person vs. person, person vs. nature, person vs. society, or person vs. self. One of the main sources of conflict in The Oceans at the End of the Lane is the tension between the adult world and the world of children. . How does Neil Gaiman develop this tension/conflict throughout his story and how does this tension between these two worlds connect to our course theme of borders? Is the tension/conflict ever resolved in the novel?  Cite specific evidence from the novel to support your analysis. 

Eighth Blog Post

In Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the three Hempstock women (Lettie, Ginnie and Old Mrs. Hempstock) share common characteristics with the triple goddesses: the Maiden, Mother, and Crone archetypes. Research triple goddesses and analyze the characters of the three Hempstock women in light of these archetypes.

Seventh Blog Post

There are moments in each of our lives when we realize that something we believed to be true is not. In Gaiman’s novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane,the narrator describes this moment on page 18: “At home, my father ate all the most burnt pieces of toast…When I was much older he confessed to me that he had not ever liked burnt toast, and had only eaten it to prevent it from going to waste, and, for a fraction of a moment, my entire childhood felt like a lie: it was as if one of the pillars of belief that my world had been built on had crumbled into dry sand.” Compose a narrative paragraph about your own experience finding out that something you believed was a lie. How did it impact your relationship with the person you had believed?

Sixth Blog Prompt

Fairy Tales are generally seen as a children's story that has imaginary characters, fantasy settings, and magical events. However, originally fairy tales were meant for every age to enjoy.  They were oral stories, they were often scary and more violent than the modern retellings, and they were handed down from generation to generation.  Sometimes, they were shared by traveling professional story tellers, which allowed for new stories to be introduced into communities. Nonetheless, when the printing press came along, these oral stories started to be written down and eventually became relegated to the world of children's literature.  I would like you to think about your favorite fairy tale (Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, The Three Pigs, etc.) and rewrite it for this blog post. Give it a new ending or make it modern/contemporary. 

Fifth Blog Prompt

You were to read chapters 3 & 4 of The Transition to  College Writing, for today's class. I would like you to define what a predatory reader is according to Hjortshoj. What are some predatory reading strategies and why it is important to develop predatory reading strategies for success in college?  I would also like you to identify and explain the five categories of the writing process that Hjortshoj examines in chapter 4.  When might it be acceptable to complete writing in one draft (hint Hjortshoj identifies three circumstances)? However, these circumstances do not characterize most of the kinds of writing you will asked to do in college.  What are the costs to the one draft and done model?