You and Akakii, Paying for the Snow Day

In order to provide you with your money's worth of educational experiences in College Writing II, I will be providing you with two options for deeper discussion of Nikolai Gogol's classic story "The Overcoat."

Option A: Answer two discussion questions about "The Overcoat" (which will be posted on the blog) using the Comments link, and then respond to one of the comments that someone else has left to one of the discussion questions.

Option B: Use the write a "Five Minute Paper" and respond to a classmate's 5 Minute Paper.

Whichever option you choose, please complete your initial response by midnight on Saturday, December 15th, and and reply to a classmate's response by noon on Monday, December 17th.

Discussion Question 1 (of 2)

Do you believe that Akakii Akakievich is made a better man by the experience of saving for and finally acquiring his new overcoat, or is he made worse by it?

Please respond with a reply of three or four sentences, explaining in what way he is made better or worse, and support your answer with evidence from the book.

Click on the Comments link below (next to "Posted by Tracy Mendham at 8:29 AM") to answer.

5 Minute Paper

Please click on the Comments link below, and spend five minutes writing your response to the following question: What does "The Overcoat show us about the world as it really exists?" Write in roughly the form of an introduction paragraph for an essay you could write about the topic. Write the best answer you can in five minutes, and submit your answer.
Then, read your classmates' responses to the exercise, and complete a three minute peer review of one of their five minute papers, borrowing from any of the styles of peer review we have used in class.
[This was originally going to be a chatroom, but the chat tool seemed to be losing the responses, learned after the tragic loss of a five-minute paper. I'll make another post with the chatroom in case anyone wants to experiment.]

"5 Minute Paper" Chatroom UNDER CONSTRUCTION

This is the chatroom that doesn't seem to be working correctly, but I'll leave this post up in case it's only my own computer that's hinky and not the Meebo Chatroom service. Use at your own risk!
Please click in the chatroom box below, and spend five minutes writing your response to the following question: What does "The Overcoat show us about the world as it really exists?" Write in roughly the form of an introduction paragraph for an essay you could write about the topic. Write the best answer you can in five minutes, and then hit the Enter key to submit your answer.
Then, read your classmates' responses to the exercise, and complete a three minute peer review of one of their five minute papers, borrowing from any of the styles of peer review we have used in class.

The Namesake at Audible

Hi, College Writing II students. I checked to see if the audiobook download service, Audible.com was running a free offer. They're not, but they are running a special where you can subscribe to get one book a month for $7.49 a month for the first 3 months (after which it goes up to $14.95 a month).
They sell both Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake and Nikolai Gogol's "The Overcoat."