“There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion.”–Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar (1837)
I’ve always liked Emerson’s notion of “creative reading” and Hypothes.is provides a way to capture, share, and respond to each other’s creative reading experience through annotation. For this layer of annotation, I would like you to focus on recording some of the specifics of your reading experience of Pride and Prejudice. Here are several prompts you might use to formulate strong creative reading annotations:
- Record an interesting response to something in the text
- Provide your interpretation of a specific passage
- Propose a connection: to another text; to something about Austen’s contemporary culture; to something about your own culture…
- Pose an interesting or helpful question
- Identify and discuss specific formal elements of the text
- Add an image to your annotation and explain the connection to Austen’s text
- Add a link to an inter-text and explain the connection to a specific passage in the novel
- Respond to someone else’s annotation with a thought of your own
For the formal stage of the assignment, you will write up at least five (5) separate creative reading annotations each for both Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. Of these five, one (1) must be a question and one (1) must be a response to a colleague’s previously posted annotation. Feel free to contribute more than five annotations for each novel if you wish.
We will be posting these annotations under a private “Group” (as opposed to the “Public”) domain. I’ve sent an email inviting you all to join the group “ENG581 Spring 2018.” Be sure to choose this group domain for ALL of your entries in this category, and tag them “Creative Reading.”
Also, please read and follow the general guidelines for writing annotations posted as a page titled “Writing Guidelines” under the “Annotation Assignments” banner in the main menu.
DUE DATE: All creative reading annotations for Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice should be posted during the period we are focusing on each novel in class (e.g. between now and March 14).
