Short Stories
1. Refine Theme Statement (6 Point Checklist).
2. In-Class Writing Assignment (due at the end of class):
Contrast the ways in which Charlie of "Reunion" and Seymour of "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" come to the nihilistic realization that life is essentially futile.
Criteria:
- theme statement - textual evidence (3-4 quotations properly introduced, integrated, cited) - transitions
- objective and inferential writing
*Tomorrow: Feedback on today's writing assignment;
and Disillusionment and its influence on the arts!
Psychology 11
Chapter 2
1. Review 2-2, p. 17-26
2. Homework:
*Read/make notes p. 26-33;
*Define the following words (for central tendency),
- mean: sum of the responses divided by the total responses. The mean (average) is perhaps the most useful measure of central tendency but can be skewed by extremely high or low lumbers in the data set
- median: the number that falls in the exact middle of a group of numbers arranged in numerical order. Note that the median of a group of even numbers is calculated by taking the average (mean) of the two numbers in the middle. The median in a number set that is balanced can reflect what the typical piece of data looks like
- mode: the number that occurs most often in the number set. The mode shows the most frequent response, which is sometimes a more accurate representation of the results than the mean.
- variance: the difference between the highest and the lowest numbers in a set. The variance shows how different the two most extreme scores are.
- standard deviation: the standard deviation shows how much each piece of data differences from the others. The higher the standard deviation, the more different the data are. Larger data sets typically yield lower deviations.
*Know the 8 Steps for Developing/Carrying out Experiments (p.30);
*Watch the news, read the newspaper, or 'Google' some famous experiments - come to Wednesday's class prepared to discuss!
Some longitudinal studies of interest:
- The Perry Preschool Field Experiment/Trial
- The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study
- The Grant Study
- The Terman Study of Genius
Short Stories
1. Review short story elements.
2. Characterization
3. Plot Graphs
4. "The Possibility of Evil" by Shirley Jackson (Read to bottom of p. 168)
- characteristics
- theme: Appearance vs. Reality...?
