Week 3 – Jane Eyre Passage
Discussion Board Prompt: there is a picture of the book in the file need to be cited from the book Jane Eyre
Part 1: This part of the prompt will give you some freedom to explore your chosen passage. While you are given some freedom, I want to see critical consideration of your passage.
Did you choose your passage because of a particular idea? Is there something about the language or the way the quote is phrased? Did some aspect surprise you—or did if feel surprisingly familiar? How does the passage make you feel? What does it help you to understand about how the story works? Lots of quotations lend themselves to this kind of assignment. If you’re not sure which ones, see the course video “Strategies for reading and close reading in Jane Eyre.”
It’s also possible that you have particular questions about what you’re reading.
Or, alternately, perhaps based on the reading, you have an idea or point that you want to make. If so, you can begin with your own idea rather than a quotation or passage, but then make sure to incorporate a specific quotation or passage from the reading to support or exemplify the point that you’ve trying to make.
Part 2: For the second portion, choose another quotation (different than for the first part of the prompt) from our Jane Eyre text. This time, though, I’m being more specific in what I expect. Don’t just pick any passage that jumps out at you. Instead, find a passage that makes reading Jane Eyre a different experience for you than reading fairy tales. Then, answer the following questions:
- Why do you think the novel works this way, as opposed to how fairy tales work?
- And what are the advantages, or possibly disadvantages to the different form?
You can use Philip Pullman’s evaluation here once again: Where do you see specific contrast against “conventional stock figures,” particularly through Jane’s character, personality, and inner psychology? Where and how does Jane Eyre, unlike the fairy tale, deliberately resist, rather than employ, alacrity? Where and how do descriptions appear and function in Jane Eyre in ways that contrast the kinds of descriptions found in fairy tales? Or anything else you think of.
As you’ve practiced before for Discussion 1.1, you should quote (that is, copy) your particular passages that stood out. (By “passage,” I mean something as short as a single sentence to as long as a paragraph.)
For replies, Respond to at least three of your peers. Since the first topic is open-ended, obviously you’ll tailor your reply to fit what your classmate has written, or you can respond to their video reading. Use the Discussion Board Golden Rule: Reply to others in the way you would want them to reply to you. If you’re responding to the second topic, write any follow-up thoughts or questions you have. If you agree, explain, and see if you can develop the point further or find another example. If you disagree, explain why.
Keep in mind that you should respond to your peers over at least two days. This means that all four of your peer responses should not be posted on the same day. Take your time to respond! Come back and take a second look at the conversation. This is your opportunity to learn from, engage with, and enjoy conversation with your peers.
Guidelines:
To view the discussion board rubric, click the gear icon in the upper right corner and select “Show Rubric.”
As you’re reading, be sure to have a pencil in your hand so that you can underline passages that you might want to post about, and then also be sure to write a note to yourself in the page’s margin so you remember what it is that stood out for you. You’ve done this before. Then, after introducing the quotation—making sure to enclose it in “quotation marks” and ending with its page number in (parentheses) so everyone knows where to look for it, students should explain why they chose it. (Since students may be using different editions than the one I ordered, including unpaginated electronic copies, please also include the chapter number.)
As I’ve said previously, when I say “question,” I don’t mean something that you can look up yourself—for example, there are some uncommon and archaic word choices, all of which you should look up if you’re not sure of the meaning. I’ll also add that there is one convention used in the novel that has fallen out of favor, which is using a dash (“—“) over some names and most dates. At the time, the goal was to make novel seem more realistic by obscuring what could be revealing or historical details, as though the story were true. Think of modern disclaimers on some TV shows or movies, along the lines of Dragnet’s famous opening, “The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.”