Journal Questions – ENGL 232 – Spring 2007

Choose one or more of these to reflect on in your journals.

Journal minimum 500 words. Typed.

Grade is based on depth of reflection, creativity of response, perceived earnestness of purpose (this includes attention to grammar, spelling and syntax), and employment of critical/analytical skills.

1. How does this book allow us to escape our own culture?
2. How does this book help us to realize something we already knew but didn’t know we knew?
3. What was this author’s purpose?
4. How does the author inject or reflect his or her own inward emotions into the writing?
5. Is this ‘great’ literature?
6. What or where is “the center” of this text?
7. What influences have caused the writer to share her/his point of view?
8. Did the writer’s lifestyle preferences affect the work?
9. What real life emotions/views/fears/etc. are presented through the work?
10. What is the link between the writer and the world that has been created?
11. What biases are evident in the writing?
12. What cultural influences are evident in the writing?
13. Who is the writer’s audience?
14. Do you find any personal relevance in this story?
15. Is there a moment of enlightenment for you in the text?
16. Is this text more Western? Or non-Western?
17. How apparent is the history of the subject to the author within the story being portrayed to the reader? I think this means “Is this story based on history?” Or, Is this story historically accurate?”
18. For what “other” is the writer telling this story?
19. Is this writer “authentic?”
20. What basic human and/or collective fears does this writer address?
21. How has this writer made a world and/or a time I didn’t know come alive for me?