Snow Update!!

Well, I guess your prayers are answered -- no school and a postponed essay due-date! Here's what you need to be prepared for in January:

1) Please finish the analysis of John on your own. All four analysis sheets, COMPLETED on every line, legible and thoughtful, are due on your first day back. This means you will have to activate your brainsto make some good connections between John's style and his audience/purpose. See note on John below.

2) Take the extended essay deadline as an opportunity to perfect your editing: NO spelling errors, NO apostrophe errors, and NO run-ons. Also, make sure your analysis is ARTISTIC, drawing interpretations out of the text WITH LIT TERMS. Theological and personal musings are allowed, but the ARTISTIC ones are required.

NOTE REGARDING ANALYSIS OF JOHN: I had time to mention this to 6th period, but not 5th. The word "Word" in the first paragraph of this gospel is translated from the Greek Logos. Yes, you should know what that means. I also want you to connect this word to the beliefs of the Stoics, whom we've studied in class and whom you've probably studied for Coffey. Stoicism is rather pantheistic, and the Logos is the rational, orderly "divine" principle of the Stoic universe. What John is doing in the opening of his book is to address the Stoics, the most popular Hellenistic philosophers of the day, and tell them that the Logos is a PERSON. Carry this idea through your re-reading of the text and see how John addresses the Greek thinkers of his day. Also, the use of the word "Word" here does double duty in addressing the Jews, for they would associate the Creator with a Word. Thus, John's audience is Jews and Greeks.

Intro to the Gospels

"Gospel" means "good news." Christianity is the only religion with gospels in its scripture. In class, we discussed the following five issues that may be raised when studying the gospels:

1) What is a gospel? How do I read it? Is it more like a biography or a myth?

2) Why are there only 4 gospels in the Bible? Why can't I read the Gospel of Thomas alongside Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?

3) Where did the gospel information come from? Did the synoptic writers just copy one another? Were they eyewitnesses? Were they second-hand reporters?

4) Is our current copy of the gospels accurate to the original manuscripts? How does manuscript evidence for the gospels stack up to other ancient texts? (lower criticism)

5) Is the gospel material authentic and inspired? What do the "higher critics" speculate? How might a Christian respond?

Three (and only three) Ways to Quote

1. The SAYS Type

Mrs. Kirk said, "You had better study your vocabulary words!"
Note the speaker, the speaker's verb, the speaker's breath (the comma), and the speaker's capitalized sentence.

2. The COLON Type

Mrs. Kirk gave our class some excellent advice: "Proofread and run spell check!"
You stand and make a complete statement and then throw your hands out in a big "ta-da." Your two hands are like the two dots of the colon. Then you present your quote.

3. The FLOWING Type

My teacher insisted that we do "slow reading with oral paraphrasing" in order to improve our comprehension.
Note how one quoted phrase has been inserted into my sentence, and if I remove the quotation marks, my sentence still looks normal.

Special Note: The SAYS type can be converted into a FLOWING type by inserting the word "that" --

Mrs. Kirk said that "you had better study your vocabulary words."
See? No comma or capitalization. More flowing.

Critical Essays

"Critical" refers to judgment, and in the case of essays, we are talking about judging art. An art critic judges the quality of art. He answers the questions "Is it good?" and "What makes it good?" We will be more concerned with the latter question, because the works I've selected for us to analyze ARE UNQUESTIONABLY GOOD!

Critical essays in modern culture include movie and music reviews. Notice that these critics are experts in their field of art and they pay attention to specific artistic considerations: Music critics talk about instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, motifs, and dynamics. Movie critics talk about acting, camera work, special effects, themes, and scripting. Art critics talk about color, balance, detail, texture, rhythm, and symbolism. As literature critics, we will talk about theme, figurative language, tone, imagery, rhythm, etc. Art critics also talk about the artistic impact a piece has on its audience, which is a more subjective but equally valid type of commentary.

The best way to approach this task is to alternate between concrete details from the work and your own original, artistic commentary on those details. And, of course, you must package each paragraph with topical and concluding sentences. You will use a similar pattern in each body paragraph:

TS - CD/CM/CM - CD/CM/CM - (opt)CD/CM/CM - CS.

Also, each body paragraph will be devoted to a single artistic consideration, for instance one paragraph analyzing theme, one on imagery, and one on figurative language. Hopefully, this formula will help you write the best critique possible. As a novice critic, it is helpful to have a "recipe" like this on hand to help you organize your thoughts. I will not grade you on perfection of the formula, only on the resulting quality of writing. But trust me - the formula will be helpful.

TIPS FOR WRITING GOOD COMMENTARY:
1. Don't just re-state the CD
2. Use artistic terms like imagery, mood, theme, symbol, metaphor, simile...
3. Be artistic and interpretive. Go deep. Read some good critical pieces for inspiration, such as Sister Wendy's art critiques, other artistic analyses of Biblical texts, or just good literary essays.
4. Don't tell me the passage is good or marvelous or wonderful. Just tell me what makes it good.

Here are your topic options:
Matthew 5:1-16 (The Beatitudes)
Luke 1:39-56 (Mary's Song)
John 1:1-18 (In the beginning was the Word...)
I Corinthians 13:1-13 (Love is patient...)

Things I am allowing you to do on this essay:
1. Select your own paragraph topics. Any relevant literary concern.
2. Do one extra short "single-chunk" paragraph if necessary. Or, you can skip one paragraph for a total of 4 instead of 5. I am not as concerned with quantity of writing as I am with quality of writing. But there is a difference between concise writing and slack/skimpy writing!
3. Combine personal writing with critical writing. This means that you may refer to yourself in the first person and you may also use the commentary sentences to relate the verses to something personal.

EXTENDED DUE DATE: Wednesday 12/17