Stranger Journals

Reading for Monday:  Finish part 1
Journal 3:  Discuss Meursault's routines/habits and changes in habits, values, and work ethic.  What type of responses do we have when and where?

You will also return to your groups to discuss your quotations and develop your assertion.  Try to move beyond acknowledging that a pattern is present to asserting an opinion about the pattern and connecting the pattern to other ideas.

Ex:  Pointing out the pattern (which is a great starting place):  Hurston depicts the porch sitters as grotesque.  Asserting an opinion:  Depicting the porch sitters' laughter as grotesque develops a disapproving tone for the porch sitters' attempts to acquire Janie's attention.   The attempts are superficial and less about Janie than developing the porch sitters own since of importance.   Hurston further critiques characters attempts to out do each other when the men discuss their cruel actions toward women, starting with slaps and ending in hyperbole's.  Although Hurston critiques both genders' attempts to assert their dominance, she suggests the genders acquire their since of importance from different directions: women preferring to be approved of by others and men wanting subservience of others.








Reading for Tuesday:  Chapters 1 and 2 of Part 2


Journal 4: Pre-interactive oral cultural reflection:  Write a short paragraph for each:  What do you think about the trial?  What do you think about the Arabs?  What do you think about Meursault?  What do you think about Camus view of life, death, religion.

Interactive Oral in class

No Reading for Wednesday:  Journal 4 continued: Finish the RD of the cultural reflection: 250-300 words
Journal 5:  Prepare the following topics for discussion: Religion, Morality, Authority, Arabs

Reading for Thursday: Chapters 3 and 4
Journal 6: Change: How does Meursault change?  How do you know?  What causes the change?  What is Meursault's response to change?  Structure:  Identify structural elements of the text and discuss their effect.  Hint:  Where are the part 1 scenes similar to part 2 scenes?  How do chapters start and end?  We already mentioned the deaths -definitely think about them, but don't stop there.  Consider some of the repeating lines we've seen.

Reading for Friday: Chapter 5
Journal 7:  What conclusions does Meursault come to at the end of the novel?  Also, see what you can find in the following sentence - how can you use different parts of this quotation to develop different themes?

"It was then that I noticed a row of faces in front of me.  They were all looking at me: I realized that they were the jury.  But I can't say what distinguished one from another.  I had just one impression: I was sitting across from a row of seats on a streetcar and all these anonymous passengers were looking over the new arrival to see if they could find something funny about him.  I knew it was sill idea since it wasn't anything funny they were after but a crime.  There isn't much difference, though - in any case that was the idea that came to me" (83).

Weekend reading: Existentialism articles and translations
Journal 7:  Annotate the articles:  what are the existential tenets? what are the connections to The Stranger?  Examine the excerpts what are the effects of their differences?  Also consider the following titles for the book:  The Outsider, The Stranger and The Foreigner.  Which do you find is the most apt title?  Why?