Lesson Plan for Week 3: General Thoughts and Notes

Patrick Mooney, TA
Eng 193, Prof. Newfield
16 October 2012

1. Thought for the day:

   A crime in a detective story must never turn out to be an accident or a suicide. To end an odyssey of sleuthing with such an anti-climax is to hoodwink the trusting and kind-hearted reader. -#18 of S.S. Van Dine's "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories." (To read the other 19 rules, see this tweet.)

2. Administrative issues & miscellaneous observations/thoughts:
   • Thank you for participating in such an engaged (and engaging!) manner during today's lecture!
   • Two important things from today's lecture that you may have missed if you came in late:
     • Our first quiz for English 193 will be on Tuesday, 23 October, during lecture. Be sure to be on time!
     • The assignment for paper one was discussed today in lecture and can be seen in Professor Newfield's lecture notes (available from the section website). See me if you have any questions!
   • Section assignment for next week: You need to bring page one of your paper to get feedback from your Writing/Research Group (or at least the introductory paragraph for your paper, or — at a bare minimum — a few sentences that say, in essence, This is what I'm writing about, and this is how I will be discussing it). If you come to section next week without some version of this assignment, you will not receive any attendance or participation points for the week.
   • Professor Newfield's lecture notes are now available from the section website. You should know several things about these lecture notes:
     • In accordance with Professor Newfield's explicitly expressed wishes, each lecture note file is only available for one week. If you are using these lecture notes, you need to keep up with downloading them as they become available. I will not provide you with lecture notes after they have ceased to be available on the section website.
     • There is more going on in lecture than is indicated on the slides. Looking at the lecture note summaries is not a substitute for coming to class (but I hope that it is helpful to you for review purposes).
     • I will post the notes as rapidly as I can when Professor Newfield sends them to me.
     • If you want to be notified when a new lecture note is available, you can follow the section Twitter stream, or can import the Twitter stream into your desktop or online feed reader/aggregator by using this link.
   • Reminder: Tomorrow (17 October) is the last day to add courses.
   • This week is the last week to register to vote in California (final deadline: Mon 22 October). http://www.registertovote.ca.gov
     • Even if you're not concerned with presidential/congressional races, please consider registering so you can vote in favor of Proposition 30, which:
       • Stops another $6 billion in cuts to our schools this year.
       • Prevents steep tuition hikes for college students and their families.
   • Distribute and discuss grading rubric.
   • Other registration/administrative issues?
3. Questions for discussion:

   Consider the following quotes:

   • Terry Lennox's letter to Marlowe: They say lust keeps a man old, but keeps a woman young. They say a lot of nonsense. (84; ch. 12)
   • Eileen Wade: I am very fond of Howard but he is the managing type, wants to take charge of everything. He thinks he is very executive. (103; ch. 14)
   • Simpson W. "Simp" Edelweiss: Lies I got no use for. It's not a divorce matter. I just want Mabel back again. But she don't come back until I find her. Maybe it's a ind of game with her." (156; ch. 21) And, later: "But twenty-four years old and me almost fifty. How could it be different? She'll settle down after a while. Trouble is, no kids. She can't have kids. A Jew likes to have a family. So Mabel knows that. She's humiliated. (157)
   • Linda Loring, on Sylvia Lennox: Some women are like that. They can't help it. (163; ch. 22) And again: If she had to die, it was the best possible time for her to die. In another ten years she would have been a sex-ridden hag like some of these frightful women you see at Hollywood parties, or used to a few years back. The dregs of the international set. (165)
   • Roger Wade: I'm not the first loving husband who has been an adulterer. (212; ch. 29)
   • Harlan Potter: I am a family man in an age when it means almost nothing. One of my daughters married a Bostonian prig and the other made a number of foolish marriages, the last being with a complaisant pauper who allowed her to live a worthless and immoral life until he suddenly and for no good reason lost his self-control and murdered her. (232; ch. 32)

   What views of masculinity and femininity are constructed by the characters speaking here? What views of male and female sexuality are being articulated in these quotes?