A Little More Wisdom, Goodness, and Sanity
This project uses the word prescribed, not assigned, to describe your reading choice, which echoes this metaphor:
We should learn to treat [literature] as doctors treat their medicine, something we prescribe in response to a range of ailments and classify according to the problems it might be best suited to addressing. Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others: because it’s a tool to help us live and die with a little more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.
This quotation also appears in our makerspace’s reading guide, where the key word is tool, as in a tool for our makerspace. Literature is a way to solve problems and create meaning. Reading is perhaps the best tool we have for learning in a Humanities makerspace.
For this project, you must choose a work of literary merit to read, and then you must create a project based on that work. You should individualize both the reading and creative work as much as possible.
The text you choose should have the prestige defined in our governing quotation — that is, it must be capable of providing you measurable wisdom, knowledge, life experience, etc. It can be fiction or nonfiction. Books are absolutely the best choice, but it is possible that a collection of poetry or essays would work. Read on for other possibilities.
The project is an opportunity to be more creative about how to respond to what we read. You could write an essay, as mentioned below; you might also try to create a new kind of book report, organize a podcast, or build a website. You could develop a photo essay, give an Ignite presentation, or explore schools of literary criticism. There’s no initial restriction on what you create.
Be sure to follow all in-class and online instructions on how to submit evidence of your process and final product. As you get started, you may want to peruse your peers’ or predecessors’ literature choices:
- Student Texts and Projects: 22–23 | tinyurl.com/23-litmer-ex
- Student Texts and Projects: 20–21 | tinyurl.com/2020-spb-01
- Student Texts and Projects: 19–20 | tinyurl.com/2019-spb-01
You can also read details about student proposals in 2023 here: https://tinyurl.com/23-litmer-ex.
Next, you will want these posts bookmarked:
You must choose a work of literary merit that meets the criteria established in those posts. You can also guide your choice more explicitly and directly through these instructions:
Document how you know your choice meets the criteria. Keep notes, ask questions, etc. Use Goodreads and other online reviews; talk to other readers; research the book in other ways. You will need your choice approved before you start reading. Again, books are the intended focus, but there are other possibilities.
Note, too, that Brewster High School now has a deep set of resources related to this project available through its iLC website:
This gives you access to the library’s collection, including ebooks, and even lets you request books to be ordered. It has much, much more that you’ll be able to use over the next few months. You’ll see it reposted as a resource more than once.
The next steps, once you’ve selected a book to read, are outlined here:
As soon as possible, you want to finish the first part of your chosen text, report back, then decide to continue or not. The better your initial decision-making process, the more likely you are to continue. If you need to start the selection process again, however, that is fine.
As you finish reading, you must begin planning a project. You are invited to think as divergently as you can about how to do that. What different ways can a book be explored in a space like this? How can you share your understanding or experience with others?
Default Project: A Reader’s Response
The best way to respond to literature is to write an essay using the same universal guide that directs all effective writing. You follow the guide, answers its questions, workshop the results — and you find the river.
The reader-response essay guide is there to simplify this writing process. It also practices several styles of writing and the art of blending them: exposition, analysis, argument. This can lead to insight and authenticity, although it is not as flexible or intuitive as the universal method.
Still, the goal of all writing is to say something meaningful and truthful. This guide can absolutely help you to do this, if you have invested in the reading process beforehand. The default essay format is, therefore, a reader’s response:
The reader-response essay guide mentions that any text, from short stories to video games, can be subjected to this four-part structure. Again, almost any text-driven, storytelling medium can be used, as long as it acts as “a tool to help us live and die with a little more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.” For example, here is an outstanding reader-response essay on a manga, Dorohedoro, which contributes that very strange thumbnail to the reader’s response post:
This emerges from a real-world writer’s reaction to a work of literary merit. It is nuanced, personal, and detailed. It does not matter that it is an atypical text; it matters only that it is effective. There are more such examples in the instructional post.
Use the comment space here to ask questions about alternative options, or begin a discussion in class or over email.
Remember that you can look outside of traditional/canonical choices for this project. Here is a list of some of the best comic books from the last decade, as determined by the AV Club:
https://aux.avclub.com/the-25-best-comics-of-the-2010s-1839672515