This is an in class assignment on Byron's autobiographical poem.  It involves a close reading of the last five stanzas (included) - has students look at the first two stanzas by themselves, then find a partner for the next two - and finally find anothr set of partners (to form a group of four) for the last stanza as well as for an overview.

This handout is the result of 19 years of looking at note cards.  I used to have two check-ins for notecards (40 and 40) - with fewer days we now have one check-in, and this handout is the result of my interactions with students.  There is a lot of information here - much of it going over earlier handouts, but the most important part tries to get students to see how a good research paper is organic - the outline is based on the notecards - the sources should change

One of my favorite things to do when I teach this novel is to expose students to all of the -isms that John Gardner sprinkles throughout his novel. The students, however, struggle with these philosophical theories, so I find that breaking these theories down using this assignment helps them understand and follow Grendel's philosophical journey as he constantly debates what is "true" in his world.

This is a lesson on the sermon, "Sinners In The Hands of An Angry God," by Jonathan Edwards. I use this sermon to teach a text of Puritan literature as well an example of persuasive writing. I have the students close-read the text and then compare Obama's speech to the sermon studied providing a short essay on which text is most persuasive.

This assignment asks students to create a word cloud for several chapters of HOMS and then analyze the word cloud. Depending on time, we've done as many as five chapters or as few as two; I think this version of the assignment requires three. I'd love to have feedback about how to "beef up" the analysis part of the assignment without being too directive.