For the next several weeks, you will use your time in English class to meet with your book club. This club will consist of three to five students who are all reading and discussing the same play. You may choose either The Flies or Dirty Hands. Both of these can be found in No Exit and Three Other Plays.
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Each club must keep a work journal of its daily activities. For each day you meet, you must keep track of the following:
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Group members who are present
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What you accomplished during the meeting
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Your goals for the next meeting
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Additionally, it is recommended that you rotate the role of recording secretary.
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Each day, you will read and discuss your play. Take special note of how the author draws attention to what is significant.
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You will find several assignment topics below. You will complete two of the assignments.
1.
Choose a symbol from your play (an object, a place, an idea) and analyze it. Do not choose a symbol referenced on Sparknotes or any other online cheating site.
2.
Choose a short passage—no more than a page long—from your play and perform a close reading of it. Analyze its connection to the novel’s themes.
3.
Write an essay in which you discuss how the title relates to the play as a whole—or to a section of the play.
4.
Explain how you would create a live performance of the play. How would you design the set? What kinds of costumes would you use? What themes would you emphasize and how?
5.
Trace the use of a particular word in a section of the play. In what contexts does it appear? How does it relate to a theme of the play?
6.
Choose six quotations from your play and analyze each one.
7.
Compare the play to No Exit or The Stranger.
8.
Choose your own topic.
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Here are some important dates:
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May 11th: Assignment #1 due
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May 22nd will be the last day you meet in your clubs. On that day, please hand in your club’s reading journal and Assignment #2.
ALSO
Here are the No Exit quotations
Identify the significance of each of the following quotations from No Exit. How does each contribute to your understanding of the character who speaks it and to the meaning of the play as a whole?
1. Garcin: “Ah, I see; it’s life without a break.” (5)
2. Estelle: “When I can’t see myself I begin to wonder if I really and truly exist. I pat myself just to make sure, but it doesn’t help much.”
Inez: “You’re lucky. I’m always conscious of myself—in my mind. Painfully conscious.” (19)
3. Inez: “Suppose I try to be your glass.” (19)
4. Estelle: “I’m a coward. A coward!” (28)
5. Garcin: “If there’s someone, just one person, to say quite positively I did not run away, that I’m not the sort who runs away, that I’m brave and decent and the rest of it—well, that one person’s faith would save me.” (39)
6. Inez: “You are—your life, and nothing else.” (43)
