in class today

Some people will have seen the production of The Hostage; others will have seen Unidentified Human Remains. We'll exchange some experiences of the first, and then see what people have to say about the second (we'll start by looking, as we did last time, at the writing people have done about reading the script). If you've seen either production, it's time to post your (thoughtful) reflection on the experience on the appropriate Forum. Get it there quickly, before the experience fades in your memory and you can't call up the specific examples that actually make your writing and thinking meaningful to others.

We'll finish a bit early, I expect, and take some time to assist people who haven't yet created and started using their engl2223 Web site -- and start everybody on the process of keeping a learning journal.  This is a file, called learnlog.htm, kept in the same folder as your report1.htm, but this is one which you'll add to every week. We went through how to set up a Web site for this course and save your report1.htm to it last Friday; if you weren't there, and don't know how to do this from other contexts, you should find someone in the class who was, or does, and ask for some help.  the instruction sheet for doing it yourself is on the course Web site.

What you should do today is create that file -- whether you have anything to put in it or not -- and make sure it's saved correctly. You should check to see that you've done all this right by going to the course Web site, finding the table with links to learning logs, and clicking on your name. If the file shows up, you've done it correctly: now the question is, what do you put in it? I've created a separate file with some elaboration on that.

(If you're still having a problem with the Forum, now is the time to make sure you've solved it. Under normal circumstances, postings about reading either play would not be acceptable at this point, but because these aren't normal circumstances, I'm stretching things a bit.)

For next Wednesday

Go back through your script of The Hostage, and select one section -- more than a few lines, less than a couple of pages -- that you think worth looking at, from the point of view of how it was translated from what you knew by reading the play to what you saw on stage. Identify it by page number, and write a short explanation of why you think it would be worth talking about.  Save your explanation as hostage.htm in your engl2223 folder, and bring a printed copy to class.