Posted in English 1103, Reading, Teaching

ENG 1103: “Strawberry Spring” Follow-Up . . .

Posted on by janemlucas

Tomorrow morning, before you begin work on your final essay and annotated bibliography, we will revisit Stephen King‘s “Strawberry Spring” and discuss the answers to your collaborative exercise on the story.

For that exercise, I asked you to determine whether you could identify any details that indicate why the narrator may have murdered any of his victims. Although there is no indication that the narrator knew Gale Cermann, Adelle Parkins, or Marsha Curran, he did know Ann Bray, which he reveals after he tells the readers that she was editor of the school newspaper: “In the hot, fierce bubblings of my freshman youth I had submitted a column idea to the paper and asked for a date–turned down on both counts” (275).

I also asked you to identify words and phrases that illustrate how the story is not only a horror story but also a commentary on war, the Vietnam War in particular, and the Vietnam era. I offered these examples as models:

  • King’s description of the snow sculpture “caricature of Lyndon Johnson” (269) signifies the derisive responses to the President’s Vietnam War policy.
  • The description of the snow sculpture “caricature of Lyndon Johnson” (King 269) signifies the derisive responses to the President’s Vietnam War policy.

Some of the words and phrases you may have identified include these:

  • Civil War cannons (269, 275, 282)
  • the dove “lost its frozen feathers” (269)
  • the fog (269, 270, 272, 277, 279, 280)
  • “who had been drafted” (273)
  • SDS (276), Students for a Democratic Society
  • quagmire (277)
  • “a series of draft protests and a sit-in” (281)
  • “well-known napalm manufacturer . . . holding interviews” (281)

In addition to those questions on your assignment sheet, I asked you to try to identify the two literary allusions in King’s story. The first is an allusion to J.R.R. Tolkein‘s The Lord of the Rings trilogy: “You half expected to see Gollum or Frodo or Sam go hurrying past” (269). The second is an allusion to a poem by Carl Sandburg, titled–perhaps unsurprisingly–“The Fog” (272).

Noteworthy Blog Images and Embedded Links

Kudos to the twelve students who took the initiative to respond to Thursday’s blog post and detail their selections for the most effective images and embedded links in the analyses. For their efforts, those students, whose names are listed below, have been credited with a bonus assignment.

Blog Images

Reese Danback’s image featured in the blog post of her analysis, “Seventy-Four Classroom Pets Later”

These students’ blog images in their analysis posts were identified by their peers as stand-outs:

The image featured above, from Reese Danback’s post of her analysis, “Seventy-Four Classroom Pets Later,” does not include a page of her handwritten draft or her journal notes. However, the act of writing the names of the tombstone can be construed as part of her writing process–and it may have inspired her to craft a title that emphasizes the multitude of deaths that Edgar and his students experience.

Embedded Links

These students’ embedded links in their analysis posts were mentioned by their peers as particularly effective choices:

When you add a link to your blog post, be sure to embed it in a word that is part of the sentence; otherwise, the link name will create a faulty line of prose.

The link in Chloe Freeman’s analysis, “Fingers to Freedom,” a page devoted to Helen Keller on the website for the eye research foundation named for her, is a model I recommend. The link is embedded in Keller’s name in its first appearance in the analysis.

Next Up

At the beginning of tomorrow’s class, we will continue our discussion of “Strawberry Spring.” Afterward, you will have the remainder of the period to devote to your preliminary work for your final essay and annotated bibliography. Details TBA.

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