10.20.08 | In Cold Blood [day5]Schedule:1. Attendance &

Questions?2. Discussion3. Immersion paper

explained.4. Brainstorming5. HW – Finish ICB for

Thursday. Bring paper ideas for tomorrow.

Goal[s]: Analyze ways in which

blurring line between fact and fiction influences experiences as well as theories of immersion.

Brainstorm areas of interest in preparation for paper writing.

Discussion

• Why do you think Capote split the narrative into three sections? Why do you think he did not describe how the murders happened and the motive for the crime until Dick and Perry were caught and gave their confessions?

• When Perry admits to the murders and gives his vivid details about killing the Clutters, how was your immersion affected, if at all? Although we all knew that inevitably the Clutters were brutally murdered, as a reader was it hard to read and still find yourself immersed in the story, or were you immediately taken out of the story and focused on the reality that an actual family was killed? See p. 244

Paper 1: Immersion

http://staff.washington.edu/twelsh/242fa08/doc/Engl242fa08_Immersion.pdf

The essentials

• Write a short paper that identifies immersive characteristics of a text we have read thus far, describes how that immersion is constituted by the text, and explains the impact the narrative as a whole

• 3 < Pages < 4 [outside this range = incomplete]• MLA formatting, complete with Works Cited.• Due

– Sunday the 27th by 11:59pm.– Via CollectIt.– Box closes at Midnight on the previous Sunday.

Possible subject matter:

• One element in One text.

• Cumulative affect of several elements in One text.

• One element as employed by several texts.

• Produces immersion.• Disrupts, interrupts,

prevents immersion. • Its complicated, some

mixture or interaction between the two.

No matter what your topic…• You must:– Identify one or more elements influencing immersion. – Describe its/their influence.– Discuss the implications for the text at hand. – Discuss the larger implications by situating your observation in a

discussion with stakes for your audience [the class].– Answer for each of your points, what you are seeing, how it

appears, why we should see it too.

• We’ll set you up for these this week:– Today: brainstorming. Tomorrow: Claims. Wednesday:

Stakes. Thursday: Outlining.

Whatever you do, do not…

• First, we are working out a concept of immersion, trying to describe what produces the experience, and even what the experience is. This is going to involve more than simply what you found interesting enough to pay attention to.

• Second, this is to be an argument that contributes to an area of academic inquiry. Your opinions do not make such a contribution; however, your well supported positions do.

Write a paper that lists things you liked/found interesting/“immersed” you in the text and why you liked them.

I have mentioned that several folks, in class and on GoPost, have used the term “immersion” to generally mean interest. Don’t fall into this trap!

Turning Interest to Topic In your notebook, make a list of

anything you have found interesting in this class so far.

• Don’t edit or explain, just list words or phrases.

• Think about all the topics related to immersion we have discussed so far.

• Think of scenes, styles, sentences that helped you think about immersion.

Texts

In Cold BloodThe Yellow WallpaperInvisible ManMrs. DallowayMadame BovaryDon Quixote

What have we talked about?

The Big Class List

Second person?

Brainstorm webbing. 1. Pick a topic, put it center

square. 2. Think about what you associate

with this topic. 1. Anything related. 2. Don’t restrain yourself, don’t edit,

try not to think, just branch. 3. Ask yourself questions to keep

going [who; what; where; why; how; so what?

3. Branch off from your center square with.

4. These branched points become new nodes. Branch from them as well.

5. After a while, you should begin to see where your interest lies, as some branches build bigger and faster.

Modes of access

Point of view

How do I hear about the story?

Can I trust my source?

Diary in Yellow Wallpaper

crazy[fictional] History in DQ

First person

Third person

Translated by Monk, recopied by narrator.

Breaks up story.

“Non-fiction” in ICB

Compiled research.

How does this relate to immersion?

Place text assumes for reader

Affects how we see the story

With your group.• Pick a topic, either on the board or otherwise. • Individually, take 5 minutes and try to web it. • Come back to group. • Elect a scribe. Get a piece of paper• As a group try to organize your individual webs into a group one. • You will want to discuss the best way to organize and structure

the relationships. – If you practice this technique, you’ll want to do the same. After an initial

scattershot web, step back, make a new one, this time with care for structure and organization. It’s a good way to start seeing relationships.

• Turn in your group web.

For tomorrow.

• Do some webbings on your own to start thinking about what you want to write about.

• Tomorrow we will be discussing and writing some claims [basically the one-two sentence statement you will attempt to support in your paper]. This will be more helpful if you can work on an actual claim.