1 Reading Journals

Reading journals are designed to help you connect the ideas we are studying to the analysis of literary works.

For each reading journal, choose whichever text in the “Library” that interests you and read it thoroughly.

Next, come up with an analysis question about the text you read. The analysis question must relate to the the topic you are learning about each week. For example, if you read Ethan Frome during the week we discuss literary periods, your question about the text should relate to literary periods. You might write something like,

“Are the characters in Ethan Frome typical of literature written during the periods of Realism and Naturalism?”

Finally, write a 350+ word response that uses information from the week’s focus to answer the question you posed. Each response must contain at least two quotations from the text. Try to be creative, have fun, and make sure you connect the weekly topics to the texts you read. There will be prompts for each week that help guide you to connect the week’s topic to the reading.