Lesson Plan for Week 10: General Thoughts and Notes

Major topics:

1. Thought for the day:

   And what had he learned? A philosopher would not think it much, perhaps, yet in a simple human way it was a good deal. Just by living, by making the thousand little daily choices that his whole complex of heredity, environment, conscious thought, and deep emotion had driven him to make, and by taking the consequences, he had learned that he could not eat his cake and have it, too. He had learned that in spite of his strange body, so much off scale that it had often made him think himself a creature set apart, he was still the son and brother of all men living. He had learned that he could not devour the earth, that he must know and accept his limitations. He realized that much of his torment of the years past had been self-inflicted, and an inevitable part of growing up. And, most important of all for one who had taken so long to grow up, he thought he had learned not to be the slave of his emotions.

   — Thomas Wolfe,You Can’t Go Home Again, ch. 1 (read this quote with slightly more context)

2. Administrative Issues:
   1. Remember that the final exam is on Monday, 9 June, and runs from noon to 3 p.m.
   2. There is an optional review session tomorrow from 2:00–3:30 in SH 1415. There is another Friday from 12:00–1:30, also in SH 1415. I will be at the second but not at the first. Finally, Professor Waid's own review session for English 133SO is happening right now in SH 2607.
   3. Professor Waid has extended the due date for your revised paper to noon on Tuesday, 24 hours after the final exam. Remember that it should be in my mailbox, SH 3421, no later than that.
   4. Other questions? Other matters?
   5. Evals! (at end of section.)
3. Paper-related issues:
   • Remember to cross the bright line.
     • Those who did not write four full pages on their first paper received a penalty of four-thirds of a letter grade to their paper score. If you received this penalty, you can remove it by writing an extra page on your second paper — that is, if you write at least eight full pages on your second paper (which means: if you get at least one word on the last line of the paper, without resorting to any tricks like extra paragraph spacing, extra-large margins or font, etc.), I will automatically remove the penalty from your first paper.
     • Your second paper must be at least seven full pages to avoid incurring this penalty. If you don't fairly hit the last line on the seventh page, then you will incur this penalty on your second paper, and there will be no way to remove it. Make sure your formatting is correct and that you hit that mark to avoid hurting your grade!
   • On your second paper, grammar and formatting penalties will be strictly enforced.
     • I did not strictly enforce the grammar limitation (persistent, non-trivial grammar problems on your paper limit you to a C+) or the MLA-compliance limitation (any substantial deviation from the MLA standard limits your paper grade to a B) on your first paper. On your second paper, I will be very nitpicky about this.
   • No late papers beyond the final deadline.
4. Discussion of The Ballad of the Sad Café.
5. Review session.