English 129 Journal Questions Fall 2005

August 22 nd Describe your experiences in writing classes. Who was your teacher? What did you learn? What was the most useful activity or type of writing you have done? What didn’t you learn that you wish you had learned? What do you want to know more about that you began to explore in some writing class but couldn’t follow through with? If you could take any writing class over again, would you do anything differently? What motivated you to perform well (or not) in your classes? How are you expecting this class to be different from other writing classes? What are your strengths as a writer? Weaknesses? If you could leave this class with one skill or one piece of new knowledge, what would you like it to be? What do you need to motivate you as a writer? Describe the teacher from your past who was the best motivator.

August 24 th What Shakespeare have you read before? What do you like about reading Shakespeare? What do you hate about reading Shakespeare? Pick one line from Act I that you think is “real poetry” and tell me why you like it. How do you make the text make sense to you? What would you rather read? Why?

August 26 th How does the film augment or distract from your understanding of the text? What are some basic differences between the two film versions? If you were the director, what would you do differently and why?

August 29 th When have you written summaries before? What’s easy about them? What’s difficult? After today’s lecture on summarizing, what questions do you still have? When/What should a summary quote? For what purpose are summaries useful? Where/when in your life do you summarize things for people? How do you know when someone who is summarizing something for you is doing a bad or a good job?