Leila Clesca

I feel like the authentic language should be kept in the interest of the historical context and characterization. As a person of color myself. I feel as though America has watered down the racism and all instances of it from back in the days so i think it really should stay and not be blocked off as just a common bad word but people, us reader, we should be reminded of the offence and origins of such a slur especially fora story like this one, because if you’re not familiar it’ll be very difficult to get how subtle some of the phrases are and can easily fly over our heads even in todays perspective where there’s a lot of micro aggression. Simply censoring the words is not enough; we should be reminded of America’s history, especially in the context of “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, where the granny really can’t see anything wrong with her way of thinking, because that is the reality of America.

After reading the first two poems from week 6, I was a bit confused about how to interpret them, but when reading “The Last Duchess” in class, it became much easier to tell the underlying meaning in the words. In other words, I learned to read between the lines. It wasn’t just about what was being said, like the direct meaning, but what could be said. I think these experiences have helped me read between the lines and look for more context clues while reading “Oedipus the King”. As mentioned, “The Last Duchess” helped me immensely in regarding understanding and interpreting other poems and the play. It showed me how much can be said of a person through the narration and what they say, for example how the duke talked of his wife helped us understand he’s very arrogant self centered man and in contrast how Oedipus speaks of the plague and how it troubles him or how he must find the killer for it will benefit him in many ways (saving his skin, solving the plague and protecting the previous kings family and bringing justice as he see’s him as his father) shows how he is honest and righteous in his ways.

The week 1 prewriting activity is to read “The Handsomest Drowned Man” and Dean Rader’s overview and evaluate a student sample essay using the supporting materials (activities 5-8), including the instruction for the student sample essay.