This morning, I will return your drafts with my notes, and you will have the remainder of the class period to begin revising your analyses on your laptops. Because next week is fall break, you will have two additional weeks to continue your revision work before you submit the assignment to Blackboard and publish it as a WordPress blog entry. The due date is Wednesday, October 14 (before class). The hard deadline is Friday, October 16 (before class).
Analysis Draft Notes
Along with my handwritten notes on your draft, today you will receive a handout of general notes to review before you begin your revision work. An additional copy of those notes is included in yesterday’s blog post.
Early editions of I, Robot (top row, l-r): 1950 1st edition hardcover by Gnome Press; 1950 dust jacket of 1st edition hardcover by Grosset & Dunlap; 1950 1st book club edition by Doubleday; 1952 1st UK edition by Grayson & Grayson; 1956 Signet cover; (bottom row, l-r): 1958 Digit Books; 1961 Signet 3rd printing; 1968 Signet 6th printing; 1970 Fawcett Crest; 1968 Panther Science Fiction.
Model Analysis in Progress
As a model for you, I am composing an analysis of Isaac Asimov’s “Runaround” that considers the story in relation to some of the early cover art for I, Robot (pictured above). Tomorrow’s blog post will include excerpts from the second draft, along with my commentary on the writing.
After fall break, we will examine “The Strange Fruit of Sosnowiec,” an earlier analysis of mine, as well as the student analysis “One Mississippi.”
The Writing Center
As you continue to revise your analysis, consider visiting the Writing Center. If you do so, you will earn five bonus points for the assignment.
To schedule an appointment, register online here, email the Writing Center’s director, Professor Justin Cook, at jcook3@highpoint.edu, or scan the QR code below. To earn bonus points for your analysis, consult with a Writing Center tutor no later than Thursday, October 15.
On Friday, October 16, Professor Cook will send me a list of the students who met with Writing Center consultants to discuss their analysis drafts. That record of Writing Center visits will provide the documentation needed for students’ bonus points.
Writing Center Consultations for Literacy Narratives
Section 1: 3 of 19 students, 15.7%
Section 8: 3 of 19 students, 15.7%
If you are one of the students who did not take advantage of the Writing Center when you were composing your literacy narrative, do not miss the opportunity to receive that guidance–and those bonus points–for your analysis, and later for your final essay and annotated bibliography.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder page, and review your journal notes and the blog posts devoted to Scrabble tips.
After Fall Break
After fall break, we will examine the student sample analysis “One Mississippi,” which I will distribute in class today. Before class on Monday, October 12, read and annotate “One Mississippi” and complete the journal exercise I will distribute along with it.
This morning, you will compose a reflective essay focusing on your experiences in English 1103 throughout the first half of the semester. Instructions for your reflective essay are included below.
Directions
Plan and compose a midterm reflective essay that documents your work in the first half of the semester, focusing on two or three assignments or aspects of the course that have contributed to your development as a writer and a student. Since you have already written a reflection devoted solely to your literacy narrative, your midterm reflection should focus primarily on other assignments or aspects of the course, including these:
Keeping a journal
Studying one or more of the class readings, including “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “The Day Language Came into My Life,” the excerpt from To Kill aMockingbird, the excerpt from “The Falling Man,” “Runaround,” or one of the supertoys stories. On first reference, identify the reading by title and the author’s first and last name.
Reading and editing sample student literacy narratives
Creating and maintaining a WordPress blog and writing for an audience beyond the classroom
Collaborating with your classmates on in-class writing assignments
Playing Scrabble and collaborating with your teammates on Wordplay Day
Writing longhand
Limiting screen time
Include in your reflective essay the following elements:
A title that offers a window into your reflection
An opening paragraph that introduces your focus and presents your thesis
Body paragraphs that offer concrete details from your work to support your thesis
One relevant quotation from Dan Rockmore’s essay “Should the Classroom Be More Like the Gym?”
A signal phrase and a parenthetical citation for the quotation
A conclusion that revisits the thesis without restating it verbatim
A work cited entry for Rockmore’s essay.
You are welcome to refer to any of your class handouts and journal notes as you write, but you are not permitted to consult any online sources or use any digital devices as you write. If you followed the preparation guidelines in yesterday’s class notes, the citation information you need is recorded in your journal.
If you choose to include an optional second quotation from another reading for the course, that quote should also be introduced with a signal phrase and followed by a parenthetical citation. You will need to include a works cited entry for that quotation also.
Kudos
Vivian Laliberte posted a blog entry about the HPU Book Fair, where she won a container of kinetic sand, picked up freebies (such as the ones pictured above), and learned about the HPU Libraries‘ resources. For her efforts, she received a bonus assignment credit.
Next Up
On Wednesday, I will return your handwritten drafts (with my notes), and you will have the class period to begin revising on your laptops. Because the first week of October is Fall Break, you have two additional weeks to revise before you submit your analysis to Blackboard and publish it on WordPress. The due date for your revised analysis is Wednesday, October, 14 (before class). The deadline is Friday, October 16 (before class).
Early editions of I, Robot (top row, l-r): 1950 1st edition hardcover by Gnome Press; 1950 dust jacket of 1st edition hardcover by Grosset & Dunlap; 1950 1st book club edition by Doubleday; 1952 1st UK edition by Grayson & Grayson; 1956 Signet cover; (bottom row, l-r): 1958 Digit Books; 1961 Signet 3rd printing; 1968 Signet 6th printing; 1970 Fawcett Crest; 1968 Panther Science Fiction.
Tomorrow in class, you will begin drafting your analysis, which will focus on Isaac Asimov‘s short story “Runaround, one or more of Brian Aldiss‘s supertoys stories, or “Runaround” in conjunction with one or more of the covers of I, Robot pictured above.
In the early stages of your work, pay attention to the details that interest you. Don’t concern yourself with developing a thesis before you begin writing. The preliminary writing itself is a step that will lead to your thesis and the textual evidence that will support that claim.
One of the details you and your classmates addressed in your writing on Monday may figure in your analysis. Review those prompts and your responses, included below. Could any of them serve as a building block for your analysis?
Below are the prompts from Monday’s class exercise, along with your responses. The groups’ statements appear in bold, followed by my notes.
Although “Supertoys When Winter Comes” and “Supertoys in Other Seasons” are sequels to “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” Aldiss’s first supertoys story was published as a stand-alone work of fiction in Harper’s Bazaar magazine in December 1969. (The second and third stories were first published in 2001, in the collection Supertoys Last All Summer Long and Other Stories of Future Time, as never-before-seen sequels to the original.) If you chose to analyze “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” as a stand-alone story, what detail would you be certain to include?
Near the end of “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” by Brian Aldiss, the image of “artificial sunlight [. . .] growing long and golden across the lawn” (10) shows evidence of more than just the child robots not being real. It also points to a trend: Everyday things taken for granted may not be real in the future. Note: If you choose to focus on Aldiss’s “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” as a stand-alone story, you might explore how that image of the virtual sunlight and other illusions contrast with the depiction of the real world of the story. How have technological advancements impacted the environment and the people in it?
Towards the middle of “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” Monica asks, “‘Why can’t we communicate?” to which Teddy responds, “‘Because David’s upstairs'” (6). That exchange captures how the relationship between Monica and David is being processed through Teddy. Note: The group’s statement does not convey why Teddy’s role as a go-between is significant. If you choose to focus solely on Aldiss’s first story, you might consider the nature of communication between Monica and the supertoys or between the two supertoys themselves.
Where and how is one or more of Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics evident in the actions of David, Teddy, or Jules, the serving-man, or where and how do the actions of one of those characters defy one of the laws?
Near the end of “Supertoys When Winter Comes,” David, in a fit of despair, “had struck the house’s control centre” (21). That led to the house disappearing, which causes a dangerous situation for Monica to be in, breaking the first of the Three Laws of Robotics. Note: David’s violation of the first law causes more than the disappearance of the virtual facade of the Swinton’s apartment, the illusion of a Georgian Mansion. Striking the house’s control centre demolishes the Swintons’ actual apartment, apparently leaving Monica Swinton, Jules, the serving-man, and Teddy in the rubble. If you address one or more of the Three Laws of Robotics in your analysis, the first mention should be followed by a quotation or paraphrase of that law with a parenthetical citation for Isaac’s Asimov’s story: (Asimov 51).
In “Runaround,” one of The Three Laws of Robotics states, “One, a robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm” (Asimov 51). David breaks that law in “Supertoys When Winter Comes” when he goes rogue, and it leads to his Mom’s passing: “David struck the house’s control centre, wrenching it from the wall in a fury of pain and despair. Everything stopped playing”(21). That allows the readers to see that nothing is left except David. Note: The group states what David’s actions allow the readers to see, but their statement doesn’t convey the implications of that action. What does his violation of the first law indicate about the laws, the robots, and/or the humans they serve?
Henry Swinton’s words about obesity and malnutrition in “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” are repeated by him, almost verbatim, in “Supertoys When Winter Comes” and the Crosswell Tape and weight gain are also mentioned in “Supertoys in Other Seasons.” How are those issues linked to technology in Aldiss’s fictional world?
In Brian Aldiss’s “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” Henry Swinton states, “Obesity’s our problem, not malnutrition” (3). That observation indicates how becoming reliant on technology leads to unique problems that are not typically faced in the modern day. Note: The group’s statement indicates a contrast between the advances in technology in Aldiss’s fictional world and real-world advancement. In both classes, however, we considered the similarities between Synthank’s Crosswell Tape–the company’s leading product–and the synthetic peptides of GLP-1 drugs.
Throughout Aldiss’s story “Supertoys When Winter Comes,” he connects the conflicts of obesity and malnourishment with technology by mentioning the “safe parasitic worm [that] enables anyone to eat up to one hundred per cent more food and still keep his or her figure” (18). Aldiss continuously references Crosswell Technology to emphasize how technology plays a role in the pursuit of unrealistic beauty standards and issues in population and malnutrition within all three stories. Note: The group’s statement essentially rephrases the prompt rather than moving from observation to analysis. The group introduces the idea of body image, but doesn’t convey how that preoccupation with appearance is linked to Henry Swinton’s Synth company or how the conflicting issues of obesity and malnutrition correlate with technological advancement.
In “Supertoys When Winter Comes,” Monica Swinton tells David he’s “only a little android” (20). Where in the story do her words or actions seem to contradict that assertion?
In “Supertoys When Winter Comes,” Monica Swinton faces terror when her android friend dies. She says, “Oh God! It’s Jules. Poor Jules! He was a friend to me” (20). That contradicts her feelings about David because Jules is an android, but Monica valued him as more than that. Note: The group does mention that Jules is the Swintons’ serving-man, an important detail because his function in the household is different from the supertoys.’ Jules’s role is to serve, but Monica thinks of him as a friend. What does that reveal about her ambivalence regarding AI?
Near the beginning of “Supertoys When Winter Comes,” Monica, says to David and Teddy, “Come in now, children. Go upstairs and play”(14), demonstrating her connection to the boy and bear, the other “little android” (20), as she mourns the loss of her human child. Note: In your analysis, if you choose to address the inconsistencies in Monica Swinton’s exchanges with the androids, you might consider how her desire for a human child in the first story and the death of that child, revealed in the second story, may affect her words and actions.
“Supertoys in Other Seasons” begins in Throwaway Town, which the narrator calls “the land of the obsolete” (24). Who besides the mechanicals becomes obsolete, and who or what leads to his demise?
In “Supertoys in Other Seasons,” there is a parallel between the mechanicals being trashed in “the land of the obsolete” and how Henry’s life values have become obsolete as well. As Henry became increasingly greedy, his work decreased. Henry gets pushed out of the company and is made obsolete by the robot he created. Henry not only loses his company, he loses his wife and his son too. Henry’s life becoming obsolete leads Henry to remember that family is the most important thing and that David is family. That is further demonstrated when Henry asks, “David? Are you David Swinton?” (31). His words show Henry still claims ownership of David and shows that while everything else was lost, David never left. Note: The group refers to Sam Savvy as a robot, but there is no indication that he/it is mobile. Sam Savvy, the Supersoftputer Mk. V. that essentially runs Worldsynth-Claws, may be a form of AI more akin to the agents of Copilot, ChatGPT, and Claude. Also, the group writes that David “never left,” but he does leave the crumbled remains of the Swinton’s apartment for Throwaway Town. Later, Henry finds him.
In “Supertoys in Other Seasons,”Henry says, “My ambition got the better of me . . . my life is a complete cock-up” (33), showing how Henry becomes obsolete and how he leads himself to his demise. Note: The group does not mention that when Henry Swinton is forced into retirement by Worldsynth-Claws, it is Sam Savvy, the Supersoftputer Mk. V.–a product of Henry Swinton’s own company–that dismisses him. It is not only the decisions Henry makes but also his unwelcome proposals (decisions he isn’t permitted to make) that lead to his downfall.
In your brainstorming exercise last Wednesday, all of your groups developed analysis prompts that featured humans’ relationships with robots and the impact of artificial intelligence. Whatever you choose as the focus of your analysis, those two ideas are ones that you will be able to address in your conclusion. There, in your final paragraphs, you can express what your observations about the story (or stories) reveal about humans’ relationships with robots and the impact of A.I.
If your analysis focuses on “Runaround” and I, Robot cover art, you are also welcome to incorporate a study of one or both of the I, Robot covers pictured in the September 14 blog post: the 2020 Del Rey cover designed by Charles Brock and the 2004 Bantam cover designed by Jamie S. Warren Youll.
Seeing Letters and Words Anew
Seeing anew–which means seeing in a different, fresh, or modified way–is an important practice when you are studying your options for Scrabble play or analysis. When you play Scrabble, don’t hold some of the tiles in your hand. Keep all seven on the rack so your teammate can see them. And rearrange them as you consider options. Leaving the letters in one order may lead you and your teammate unable to see other possibilities (such as evil, which the second team missed in the September 4 game).
On the rack above, I have spelled a word, toy, as many players will when they first recognize a word among the seven letters. But leaving a word on the rack may prevent you from seeing other possibilities: lover, over,rove, toyer, very, vet, and one that’s far more valuable. What is it? See the end of this post for the answer.
In tomorrow’s class drawing, you will have the chance to win one of the copies of Brian Aldiss’s short story collection pictured above.
Next Up
On Wednesday, we will briefly examine some additional details in Asimov’s and Aldiss’s stories. Afterward, you will begin drafting your analyses longhand. Next Wednesday, September 30, I will return your drafts, and you will have the remainder of the class period to begin revising on your laptops. Because the following week is Fall Break, you will have two additional weeks to continue revising before posting to Blackboard and WordPress. The due date for your analysis is Wednesday, October 14, before class; the hard deadline is Friday, October 16, before class.
Answer
Repeatedly rearranging the letters on your rack can lead you to discover new potential plays. Looking beyond toy and finding overtly could mean a play of more than fifty points if you were able to play all seven letters at once.
Just as rearranging the letters on your rack enables you to see them anew, rereading the story that’s the subject of your analysis and posing questions–for instance, What else might that detail indicate?–allows you to see the words and phrases anew and can lead you to more material for your analysis, details that had previously escaped your notice.
As a starting point for our study of Brian Aldiss’s supertoys stories, this morning–after your Scrabble debriefing–you and two or three classmates will address a detail from one of the stories that may figure in the analysis you will begin drafting on Wednesday.
Each group of three or four students will compose a statement of at least one complete sentence that begins with a signal phrase for a quotation from one of the stories, follows the quote with a parenthetical citation, and concludes with words that convey the detail’s significance without stating its importance explicitly but instead showing it.
Example
Near the end of “Supertoys When Winter Comes,” David spots “a sickly rose growing by a crumbling brick wall” (21), evidence of the frailty of the real world he enters after the collapse of the Swinton’s apartment.
Your group will respond to one of the prompts below. The highlighted section of your class handout designates your group’s prompt.
Although “Supertoys When Winter Comes” and “Supertoys in Other Seasons” are sequels to “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” Aldiss’s first supertoys story was published as a stand-alone work of fiction in Harper’s Bazaar magazine in December 1969. (The second and third stories were first published in 2001, in the collection Supertoys Last All Summer Long and Other Stories of Future Time, as never-before-seen sequels to the original.) If you chose to analyze “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” as a stand-alone story, what detail would you be certain to include?
Where and how is one or more of Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics evident in the actions of David, Teddy, or Jules, the serving-man, or where and how do the actions of one of those characters defy one of the laws?
Henry Swinton’s words about obesity and malnutrition in “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” are repeated by him, almost verbatim, in “Supertoys When Winter Comes” and the Crosswell Tape and weight gain are also mentioned in “Supertoys in Other Seasons.” How are those issues linked to technology in Aldiss’s fictional world?
In “Supertoys When Winter Comes,” Monica Swinton tells David he’s “only a little android” (20). Where in the story do her words or actions seem to contradict that assertion?
“Supertoys in Other Seasons” begins in Throwaway Town, which the narrator calls “the land of the obsolete” (24). Who besides the mechanicals becomes obsolete, and who or what leads to his demise?
English author, artist, and editor Brian Aldiss (1925-2017) was best known for his science-fiction novels and short stories. Along with writing sci-fi, he wrote Billion Year Spree (1973), a history of the genre, which he revised and expanded as Trillion Year Spree (1986), coauthored with David Wingrove.
Aldiss’s short story “Supertoys Last all Summer Long” was published in 1969, in the December issue of Harper’s Bazaar. It was later used as the basis for the first part of the film A.I. (2001), directed by Stephen Spielberg. In the year of the film’s release, the short story was republished as the title story in Aldiss’s collection Supertoys Last All Summer Long and Other Stories of Future Time.
Harper’s Bazaar. December 1969.
Scrabble Debriefing, continued
I have asked you to consider the similarities between the composing processes of writing for class and playing Scrabble. And last Friday, I mentioned that in both your writing and your Scrabble games, you should practice moving from observation to analysis. As you examine the images of the game boards and the commentary that follows, note how and where making that move to analysis more often would have benefited the players.
From Observation to Analysis
In the game below, the first team played lounges, using blanks for the g and the e. Even though playing both blanks and one u in a single turn could be a bad move, it was a good choice in this particular game. Why?
In the game above, playing both blanks and one u in a single turn was a worthwhile expenditure because the team played all seven of its tiles, which earned them an additional fifty points. So instead of scoring fourteen points for el and lounges, the team scored sixty-four points.
Though playing lounges (and el) was a smart move, playing vent in front of the s wasn’t. (See the board below.) There are two reasons that vets would have been a better choice. What are those two reasons?
First, vents places the e on the double-letter square for a score of nine. Playing vets instead would have placed the v on the double-letter square for a score of eleven. More importantly, playing vents sets up the opponents to score a vertical triple-word play.
As their answer to vents, the second team played live, with the i on a double-letter square, for eight points. By playing there, the second team set up their opponents to earn a score much higher than eight with a double triple-word play with a horizontal word with a d, n, or s on the triple-word square.
For their next play, the first team did not have d, n, or s, but they did have a z and an e, which earned them thirty-two points (with the z on a triple-letter square), four times the number of points the second team earned for live.
In their next play, the first team, which had drawn an s, was able to score a double-triple play with lives and spite for a total of forty-eight points. That means that the second team’s decision to play live for eight points netted the first team eighty points, ten times the points the second team scored with live.
Note that the last of the five pictures above is from the actual game played on September 4. I staged the previous four pictures to take you through some of the steps that led to live and its consequences. But the story doesn’t end there. Look back at the letters l, i, and e and ask yourself how the second team could have played those same three letters but scored a triple-word play.
By playing the e above the v and the i and l below it, the second team would have scored a twenty-four-point triple-word play, three times their score for live, and they would have prevented their opponents’ eighty-point gain.
The board pictured above includes one unplayable word: a misspelling of quills with one l.
Bonus Assignment
When you were growing up, did you look forward to browsing the shelves at the Scholastic Book Fair? Do you like to play classic video games? Do you like freebies? If you answered yes to one or more of those questions, drop by HPU’s Third Annual Book Fair on Wednesday, September 23, which runs from 1-3 p.m. on the outdoor basketball courts at Slane. In addition to books and video games, there will be zine-making, a food truck, and more.
If you complete the steps below, you will earn a bonus assignment credit.
Directions
Attend HPU’s Book Fair any time between 1 and 3 p.m. on Wednesday, September 23.
Compose a short blog post about the fair (one paragraph, minimum) that includes one or more pictures you took at the fair–it’s a chance to show off your freebies–and an embedded link to a relevant website. Your link may be the official site for an author whose book you received at the fair, or it may be one of the fair’s sponsors: HPU Libraries and the Writing Center.
Edit your post to eliminate errors, such as misspellings and sentence fragments, and publish it.
After you publish your post, notify me by email that it’s viewable on your blog so I can credit you for the assignment. I must receive your email no later than 7:30 a.m. on Friday, September 25.
Enjoy the Book Fair!
Next Up
In class on Wednesday, you will begin drafting your analysis longhand. Tomorrow’s blog post will offer guidance on preparing for your draft work. The post will include the prompts for your group exercise from today, along with your responses. Because the five groups in each class will respond to a different prompt, tomorrow’s class notes will provide you with five points to consider as you determine your topic.
Also, tomorrow’s post will provide you with images of eight covers from early editions of Asimov’s I, Robot. If you are interested in analyzing “Runaround” in conjunction with one or more of the covers, tomorrow’s post will give you eight options to choose from.
Yesterday in class, after you wrote your individual observations about the paperbacks from the Asimov Collection, you developed talking points for our discussions of “Runaround” and “Supertoys Last All Summer Long.”
Today’s blog post includes the talking points you generated, along with pictures of your observation work.
If you would like to revisit the cover art that you examined yesterday, remember that all the paperbacks are included in the images in yesterday’s blog post. Because there is a glare on the cover of I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay, that book figures prominently in the photo above. Notice that my copy has a slightly different cover from the one in the Asimov Collection. My edition has the same cover art by Mark Zug, but the image is framed by a black border with words of the Three Laws of Robotics in gray.
Foreground (L-R): Claire Jahnke, Ryder Pitek, Hayden Porter; Background (L-R): Michael McNamara, Kel Wadley, Brenna Murphy, Bridgette Murphy, Gavin Godfrey-Ryan, Madison Haugk, Nicole Halucka, Grace Duffy, Oliver Henderson
Talking Points
“A common theme of forced space exploration. Why do authors use this topic?”
“All very technologically centered, and show humans’ relationships with technology.”
“We discussed that the covers all convey a sense of danger.”
“The covers all also represent exploration, adventures, and discovering the unknown.”
“The covers convey a negative effect on humanity through artwork.”
(L-R): Ryder Pitek, Seb Olander, Kai Jarvis, Claire Jahnke, Michael McNamara, Brenna Murphy
“These books relate to the excerpts [sic] by showing the long-lasting detrimental affect [sic] technology has on humans.”
“One talking point is why do you think these authors/illustrators depict a sense of eerie loneliness when taling [sic] about the future?”
“How technology affects how society (high and lower class people) interact/ daily life/ and beliefs.”
“How sci-fi books influence technological development and our view of technology today.”
(L-R): Baylee Shattenberg, Madi Stone, Kel Wadley, Bridgette Murphy, and Oliver Henderson
“Very future orientated with robots and space.”
“The one group of books focused more on aging and time rather than space and technology.”
“The covers from the books we looked at today connect with ‘Runaround’ and ‘Supertoys Last All Summer Long’ by projecting and predicting visions of space and the possible future.”
“The covers of the books also connect to the short stories by visualizing adventure & possible danger.”
“How do humans view their relationships with technology in these novels?”
(Background to Foreground): Lance Morgan, Cole Wilhelmsen, Layla Rothberg
“Why do authors depict AI taking over society?”
“Most covers displayed a very optimistic view of the future through technology that allowed them to accomplish feats, even in space.”
“Some covers conveyed that the relationship between AI and humans was not good and might have caused conflict.”
“Supertoys Last All Summer Long”
Because our class time yesterday focused on the science fiction book covers in the Asimov Collection, we didn’t discuss Brian Aldiss’s short story. We will, however, examine it on Monday, along with his other two Supertoys stories: “Supertoys When Winter Comes” and “Supertoys in Other Seasons.”
As you prepare for Monday’s discussion of “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” consider these questions:
Unlike Isaac Asimov’s method of presentation in “Runaround,” which maintains the focus on Mike Donovan and Gregory Powell, Aldiss employs cross-cutting: the technique of shifting back and forth between two locations: the Swintons’ apartment and the banquet hall where Henry Swinton, Managing Director of Synthank, delivers his speech. Why might Aldiss have chosen that technique? What does it achieve?
Near the end of the story, Aldiss reveals that Teddy is not the only robot in the Swinton household. What words reveal that fact?
What details foreshadow the story’s revelation?
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder page, and review your journal notes and the blog posts with Scrabble tips.
Coming Soon
For Monday’s class, you will read and annotate Brian Aldiss’s short stories “Supertoys When Winter Comes” and “Supertoys in Other Seasons,” which I distributed in class yesterday. If you were absent or misplaced your copies, print ones from Blackboard.
Top row: (l-r) Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot; Harlan Ellison and Asimov’s I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay Bottom row: (l-r) Philip K. Dick’s We Can Build You, The Simulacra, The Variable Man, and Ubik
Today’s class will meet on the lower level of Smith Library, where we will examine some of the science fiction novels and short story collections in the Asimov Collection, donated to the library by Dr. John L. Hubisz, a retired physics professor who taught at North Carolina State University. In your perusal of the novels’ covers, you will explore how artists have depicted science fiction in their cover illustrations and what those images reveal not only about the stories themselves but also about readers’ perceptions and marketing.
The books will be organized into four groups at four separate stations for your viewing and note-taking. For any students who are absent from class today, and for you to look back at later, I am including images of the books, along with the questions that you will address in your responses to the cover art.
Directions
Closely examine the paperbacks at one of the four stations.
Ask yourself which features are the most prominent. Do any details in the covers bring to mind characters or scenes in Isaac Asimov’s “Runaround” or Brian Aldiss’s “Supertoys Last All Summer Long”? What patterns do you notice? What do the covers convey about humans’ relationship to technology?
Compose a short response, a minimum of one complete sentence, that addresses some of the questions in item two.
Repeat steps one, two, and three with the paperbacks at the other stations
I, Robot; I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay; We Can Build You; The Simulacra; The Variable Man and Other Stories; Ubik: Along with the questions in item two, consider how the covers make artificial life appear. (How do color, composition, bodies, machines, and typography shape the readers’ expectations about AI or artificial life?)
(l-r): Brian Aldiss’s Starship, Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, and Starswarm
Starship; Galaxies Like Grains of Sand; Starswarm: Along with the questions in item two, consider how the covers indicate that the author’s science fiction interests span a variety of subgenres. What kind of sci-fi story does the cover seem to promise? (Is it one of adventure, exploration, danger, social speculation, or cosmic wonder?)
Top row: (l-r) Larry Niven’s Ringworld and Protector ; Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End Bottom row: Arthur C. Clarke’s Reach for Tomorrow and The City and the Stars
Ringworld; Protector; Childhood’s End; Reach for Tomorrow; The City and the Stars: Along with the questions in item two, what impression of the future does each cover convey? (Does the future feel large, strange, and/or technologically advanced?)
(l-r): John Haldeman’s The Forever War; Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination; John Wyndham’s The Trouble with Lichen
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder page, and review your journal notes and the blog posts with Scrabble tips.
Coming Soon
For Monday’s class, you will read and annotate Brian Aldiss’s short stories “Supertoys When Winter Comes” and “Supertoys in Other Seasons,” which I will distribute in class today. If you were absent or misplaced your copies, print ones from Blackboard.
Astronauts Mike Donovan and Gregory Powell, as depicted by artist Mark Zug in I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay by Harlan Ellison and Isaac Asimov Ellison, Harlan, and Isaac Asimov. I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay, Illustrated by Mark Zug, 1987. ibooks/Simon & Schuster, 1994, pp. 106, 107.
Yesterday in class, in groups, you and two or three of your classmates began your examination of Isaac Asimov’s “Runaround” by identifying the central conflict in the short story and composing a short piece of writing that stated the conflict in your own words. In your statement, you included (1) the first and last name of the author, (2) the title of the short story, and (3) the first and last names of the characters. If you mentioned the malfunctioning robot, you named him as well.
Here is my version of that exercise:
In Isaac Asimov’s short story “Runaround,” astronauts Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan, stationed on Mercury, find their lives in jeopardy when the photo-cell banks on their life support shields begin to fail. To repair the shields, their robot, Speedy, must retrieve selenium from the Sunside of the planet, a place humans cannot withstand. But rather than completing his mission, Speedy circles the selenium pool, leaving Powell and Donovan in danger of burning alive.
Along with composing a statement that outlined the central conflict in Asimov’s story, you developed talking points for our discussion, including these:
The differences between Powell and Donovan
The differences between the treatment of the older robots from the first expedition in 2005 and Speedy, the new robot, the 2015 SPD 13
How did the older robots from the first expedition still work?
Why were the older robots left behind after the first expedition?
The need for Powell and Donovan to ride the old robots like horses
The status of robots in the hierarchy of work
Speedy’s malfunction–something akin to drunkenness–due to the conflicts between Laws Two and Three
The Three Laws of Robotics
What aspects of “Runaround” led it to be considered an influential work of science fiction?
At the end of the story, why did Asimov employ dark humor about the freezing cold when the robot couldn’t understand it?
Speedy, the SPD 13 robot, as depicted by artist Mark Zug Ellison, Harlan, and Isaac Asimov. I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay, Illustrated by Mark Zug, 1987. ibooks/Simon & Schuster, 1994, p. 109.
The illustrations in today’s blog post were drawn by Mark Zug for I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay, by Harlan Ellison and Isaac Asimov. The screenplay was never produced as a film, but it was serialized in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine in 1987. In 1994, it appeared in book form under the title I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay. That book is one of the paperbacks you will examine when we visit Smith Library on Wednesday.
Though the film I, Robot (2004), starring Will Smith, shares its name with Asimov’s short story collection, it isn’t an adaptation of the book. It includes elements of Asimov’s story “Little Lost Robot,” some of Asimov’s character names, and the Three Laws figure in the film as well, but the similarities end there.
For Wednesday’s class, you will read and annotate Brian Aldiss’s short story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” which I distributed in class yesterday. If you were absent or misplaced your copy, print one from Blackboard.
Wednesday, we will meet on the lower level of Smith Library, where we will examine some of the science fiction books in the Asimov Collection, donated to the library by Dr. John L. Hubisz, a retired physics professor who taught at North Carolina State University. In your perusal of the novels’ and short story collections’ covers, you will explore how artists have depicted science fiction in their cover illustrations and what those images reveal not only about the stories themselves but also about readers’ perceptions and marketing.
Isaac Asimov’s “Runaround” was first published in the March 1942 issue of Science Fiction magazine.
Isaac Asimov’s short story “Runaround” introduces his Three Laws of Robotics, the fictional rules that figure prominently in his short stories exploring the relationships between humans and robots. For Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan, the astronauts in “Runaround,” reexamining their application of those three laws–in a sense, tinkering with them as they would a machine–enables them to resolve the central conflict in the story.
Identifying that central conflict and expressing it in your own words will be the focus of your group exercise in the first half of today’s class. In groups, you will also develop talking points for the full-class discussion that will follow in the second half of class.
Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics as the epigraph for I, Robot (1950)
Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics appear both in the stories collected in his book I, Robot (1950) and as the book’s epigraph: a short quotation at the beginning of a book intended to suggest its theme.
What do the Three Laws of Robotics indicate about Asimov’s vision of humans’ relationships to artificial intelligence?
As a model for your own ethical use of generative AI for English 1103, the August 25 blog post featured screenshots of a conversation in which I developed ideas for my literacy narrative with the help of ChatGPT. After you read my literacy narrative, it should have been apparent that despite the AI assistant’s wealth of information, one of its answers revealed a lack of knowledge about the comic strip Henry. What did the AI assistant not know? (What did it say about Henry that was false?)
The September 7 class notes included a bonus assignment for correctly answering the question above. What is the answer?
Panels of Henry by Carl Thomas Anderson
Henry, created by Carl Thomas Anderson in 1932, is a comic strip in which the title character communicates through pantomime. The AI’s observation that I could “‘read’ the strip even though [I] could not yet read its words” reveals the agent’s lack of knowledge about the comic; it did not know that Henry is wordless.
Kudos to Claire Jahnke and Devyn Jones for correctly identifying that error in ChatGPT’s response. For their efforts, they received a bonus assignment credit.
Today’s class marks the beginning of our study of science fiction exploring the nature of artificial intelligence: Isaac Asimov’s “Runaround,” followed by Brian Aldiss’s “Supertoys” stories and Ted Chiang’s “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” in Exhalation.
In a drawing in the second half of today’s class, you will have the chance to win a copy of the book pictured above: Isaac Asimov’s short story collection I, Robot, which includes “Runaround.”
As we continue our study of science fiction, consider how Asimov, Aldis, and Chiang use their imaginations as testing grounds for questions about humanity and the future.
Next Up
For Wednesday’s class, you will read Brian Aldiss’s short story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” which I will distribute in class today. If you are absent or misplace your copy, print one from Blackboard.
Wednesday, we will meet on the lower level of Smith Library, where we will examine some of the science fiction novels in the Asimov Collection, donated to the library by Dr. John L. Hubisz, a retired physics professor who taught at North Carolina State University. In your perusal of the novels’ and short story collections’ covers, you will explore how artists have depicted science fiction in their cover illustrations and what those images reveal not only about the stories themselves but also about readers’ perceptions and marketing.
Today in class, before you begin your Scrabble games, we will examine the opening of Tom Junod‘s article “The Falling Man,” published in Esquire magazine two years after 9-11. One of the elements that we will consider is the unusually long first paragraph.
The authors of Writing Analytically recommend that “[i]f you find a paragraph growing longer than half a page–particularly if it is your opening or second paragraph–find a place to make a paragraph break” (Rosenwasser and Stephen 308). Junod does not follow that advice. He opts instead to open his article with a paragraph of more than four hundred words.
If Junod had chosen to divide the first paragraph, where might he have divided it?
Work Cited
Rosenwasser, David, and Jill Stephen. “The Idea of the Paragraph.”Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 307-313.
If you would like to read more of Junod’s article than the first paragraph, you won’t be able to do so on Esquire‘s website because the magazine’s paywall will deny you access to the full text, unless you are a subscriber. However, students and faculty at HPU can access the full text of articles published in any of the magazines and newspapers included in the libraries’ databases. To access “The Falling Man” through the HPU Library site, follow these steps:
Directions for Accessing “The Falling Man” (Full Text)
Under the heading Search HPU Libraries . . . , click on the Articles tab.
Under the Articles tab, type Tom Junod “Falling Man” Esquire in the search box and click search.
On the next screen, you will see a brief summary of the article. Click View full text to see the complete article.
On the next screen, click View full text beside one of the database options.
Literacy Narrative Blog Response Assignment
Directions
After this morning’s hard deadline for the literacy narrative,10:40, go to the class page, and click on the link for the blog of the classmate whose name follows yours. If you are last on the list, go to the blog of the student whose name is first.
If your designated classmate’s blog is not linked to the page, or his or her literacy narrative is not published, choose another classmate’s blog.
Read the classmate’s literacy narrative.
Compose a one- or two-paragraph response (75 words, minimum) that includes both the classmate’s name and the title of his or her literacy narrative. In your comment, address one or more of these elements: the title, vivid details, scene, dialogue, the image documenting part of the writing process away from the screen, the embedded link to a relevant website. Note that you will mention the classmate by name, but you will not refer to him or her in third person. In other words, you will not write, John’s description made me feel as if I were with him in his fourth-grade classroom. Instead, you will write, John, your description made me feel as if I were with you in your fourth-grade classroom.
Recommended (not required): Draft your comment longhand in your journal.
Type your response as a comment. You should see a leave comment/reply option at the top or bottom of the post. If you do not see that option, click the title of the post and scroll down. You should then see leave comment/reply.
Before you click leave comment/reply, copy your comment (on a PC, copy with control + c; on a Mac, copy with command + c).
After you submit your comment on your classmate’s literacy narrative, return to this blog post, and paste your comment as a reply (on a PC, paste with control + v; on a Mac, paste with command + v). This step is critical because your classmate may not approve your comment, which means it will not be visible on his or her blog. To receive credit for the assignment, you must post your duplicate comment as a reply to this post, ENG 1103: “The Falling Man” . . . . To submit your comment, click the title of the post, then scroll down to the bottom. There you will see the image of an airmail envelope with a box for your comment. Type your comment in the box and click Comment. Post your comment by 7:30 a.m. on Monday, September 14. I will make your comments visible after the deadline.
You are not required to read other classmates’ literacy narratives, but I encourage you to browse their blogs and read the posts that pique your interest.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder page, and review your journal notes and the blog posts with Scrabble tips, including this one
Coming Soon
For Monday’s class, you will read and annotate Isaac Asimov’s short story “Runaround,” which I distributed in class on Wednesday. If you were absent or misplaced your copy, print one from Blackboard.
Also, before Monday morning’s 7:30 deadline, remember to post your peer blog response as a comment on today’s post.
Today’s blog entry begins with step-by-step instructions for posting your literacy narrative to Blackboard and WordPress.
Posting to Blackboard
Log in to Blackboard and select the course site for ENG 1108.03, then scroll down to Literacy Narrative Submission Site.
Click LiteracyNarrative Submission Site. On the next page, click the black rectangle on the lower right, labeled View instructions.
The next page is where you will submit your literacy narrative file as an MS Word document or PDF. Click on the paperclip icon, and attach your file as you would an email attachment.
An important posting note: Be sure to click the gray rectangle labeled Submit, on the lower right. If you click Save and Close, your file will be saved to Blackboard, but it will not be submitted and will not be accessible to me. To submit your file, you must click Submit.
If you follow the steps above, voila! You have submitted your literacy narrative to Blackboard.
Posting to WordPress
Log in to WordPress, and you will see a home page similar to the one below. Hover over +New in the upper left of the screen, and click Post. You can also add a post by scrolling down the left menu to Posts (beside the pushpin icon) and selecting Add Post.
On the next page, type your literacy narrative title in the Add title line and hit return. Then copy and paste the text of your narrative from your MS Word file into the space below the title. On a PC, copy and paste with control + c, control + v; on a Mac, copy and paste with command + c, command + v.
After you have pasted the text, it will appear as single-spaced, block-style paragraphs. Do not indent. Your file posted to Blackboard should follow MLA formatting guidelines, including paragraph indentations, but WordPress posts are easier to manage if you keep the default paragraph settings. To add your required image between the title and the first paragraph, hover below the title, and a + will appear.
Click the +, and a menu will pop up with various options for add-ins. If Image is not among them, click Browse all.
Scroll down, and under the heading Media, click Image.
After you select Image, click Upload to add your picture. Do not post an AI-generated image or a stock photo from the Web. The image in your blog post should be a picture you took yourself that documents part of your writing process away from the screen. Note that the blog image you see below, and in Monday’s post, is a collage that includes snippets of my handwritten draft. Your image may be of your writing alone, or it may include other elements, as mine does.
Your image should now be centered on the page. If it isn’t, you can use the Align feature (shown above) to center it. If you would like the picture to be rounded, click on the picture, then click the half-black, half-white circle on the right (shown below). Then select the Rounded option.
Optional: To make the first letter of the first word of your literacy narrative a drop cap (or monogram), place the cursor on the first paragraph, and click Topography in the menu on the right (see the image below).
In the pull-down menu, click Drop cap, and a toggle switch will appear (see below). Click the toggle switch, and you will have a drop cap at the beginning of your narrative.
To add the required embedded link, open a new tab and go to the page you want to link to your post. Copy the address and return to the draft of your blog post. Highlight the word or phrase where you want to embed the link, and a link option will appear (see below).
Click the link icon, and a box will appear (see below).
Paste the address into the box, hit enter, or return, and the link will be embedded.
Save your draft (by clicking Save draft in blue in the upper right). Once you have finalized your post, click Publish. After you have published a post, you can still make changes. To do that, simply return to your dashboard, scroll down to Posts, click All Posts, then click edit under the post you want to edit (see below).
Preparing for Your In-Class Reflection
Directions
To comply with the requirements for your reflection assignment, you will need to complete the planning exercise that follows. In class, you will not be permitted to refer to this blog post or any other online resources. You will need to have all the necessary citation information written longhand in your journal.
Review the pieces of writing we have examined in class, and choose a phrase or sentence from one that is pertinent to your own literacy narrative. The passage you choose may be one that reminded you of your experience with reading, writing, or learning a second language, or it may be a turn of phrase that inspired you to use a similar rhetorical device.
After you have chosen a passage, compose a signal phrase in your journal to introduce the quotation. (See the examples below.) Many academic writing assignments, including most that follow MLA style, require a signal phrase. A quotation that lacks one is considered a dropped quotation.
Follow your signal phrase with the quotation, and follow the quote with an MLA-style parenthetical citation. (See the examples below.)
Below your sentence, write the MLA-style works cited entry for the reading you quoted. (See the examples below.)
Sample Quotations with Signal Phrases and Parenthetical Citations
David Sedaris’s hyperbolic description of his classmate’s “front teeth the size of tombstones” (168) led me to seek moments when figurative language would enliven my own narrative.
Helen Keller’s observation that she did “not remember” (par. 8) all the words she learned that day reminded me that gaps in my memory could figure in my story.
The author’s hyperbolic description of his classmate’s “front teeth the size of tombstones” (Sedaris 168) led me to seek moments when figurative language would enliven my own narrative.
Her observation that she did “not remember” (Keller, par. 8) all the words she learned that day reminded me that gaps in my memory could figure in my story.
The third and fourth examples include the author’s last name in the parenthetical citation because the author is not named in the sentence. Note that no comma is included before a page number in an MLA parenthetical citation, but a comma does precede the abbreviation for paragraph (par.).
If you quote “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” cite it as if you are quoting a page in a book because your handout is a photographic image of the essay from David Sedaris’s collection Me Talk Pretty One Day. (See the examples above.)
If you quote a line from any class handout other than “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” include the paragraph number in the parenthetical citation. For your works cited entry, use the MLA format for a course handout. (See the examples below.)
Sample Works Cited Entries
Keller, Helen. “The Day Language Came into My Life” by Helen Keller. ENG 1103.01 (or 08), High Point University, Received 24 August 2026. Course handout.
Lucas, Jane. Sample Literacy Narrative: “A Bridge to Words.” ENG 1103.01 (or 08), High Point University, Received 4 September 2026. Course handout.
Lucas, Jane. Sample Literacy Narrative: “Creativity is key [sic].” ENG 1103.01 (or 08), High Point University, Received 28 August 2026. Course handout.
Lucas, Jane. Sample Literacy Narrative: “The Journey of the Greatest Story.” ENG 1103.01 (or 08), High Point University, Received 31 August 2026. Course handout.
Lucas, Jane. “Summary, Scene, and Dialogue”: An Excerpt from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. ENG 1103.01 (or 08), High Point University, Received 26 August 2026. Course handout.
Sedaris, David. “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Me Talk Pretty One Day. Little, Brown, 2000, pp. 166-73.
Your own works cited entry will not be a bullet point but will have a hanging indent (the first line will be flush left and the second line and any additional lines will be indented five spaces or one-half inch.
You will not include a section number in parentheses. You will simply include your section number. See the examples below.
The word sic, Latin for “thus,” appears in brackets above to indicate the preceding error. Key should be capitalized.
Quiz Follow-Up
Rather than listing the answers to the questions on Monday’s quiz, I have followed each question below with a note regarding where to find the answer. By finding the answers yourself, you will learn more than you would from simply reading them in a list.
What is the term for the kind of narrator the writer employs in “A Bridge to Words”? If you cannot remember the term, describe the nature of the narration. See the September 2 class handout and the September 3 class notes.
Record one concrete detail you recall from “A Bridge to Words.” (What did you see or hear in your mind as you read the words on the page?) See “A Bridge to Words,” paragraphs one through eight.
Record a second concrete detail you remember from “A Bridge to Words.” See “A Bridge to Words,” paragraphs one through eight.
Your quiz also included a bonus opportunity. Possible answers for that bonus are found in the class notes for September 4.
Next Up
In class on Wednesday, you will compose your reflective essay focusing on the process of planning, drafting, and revising your literacy narrative. If you are still in the process of completing your essay on Wednesday (since you have until Friday morning’s hard deadline to post it without a late penalty), your reflection will address your work in progress. Follow the guidelines included above to ensure you will be prepared to complete all requirements for your reflection.
