Welcome to the Blog for Contemporary Literature (Section 1)

You'll be using this blog to "post" (create a text entry on the front page) or "comment" (respond to another student's post). For each post, you should consider significant secrets in that week's reading assignments. Over the course of the semester, you will create at least 7 entries: at least 2 posts and at least 5 comments. (You may have more posts or comments, but you should have at least one entry per week.) To make things clear, you'll need to number each post or comment as BA #x (according to the one due that week: so, for BA #1, you'll examine the secrets in McCarthy's The Road; for BA #3, you'll look at Harrower's Blackbird.)

To create a post, click on "New Post" at the top of the blog page.
To create a comment, click on "Comments" at the bottom of the blog posting to which you want to respond.

For each post, you will need to do the following, in the order given, including the numerals to designate the separate parts of the assignment.

Label the post BA#x, plus the author and title of the literary text: thus, BA#1 McCarthy's The Road, then provide the following in your post:

1. Provide a short (no more than 50 words) summary or description of the secret. Be sure to indicate who holds the secret (a character, the author, or reader) and from whom the secret is kept (a character, the author, or reader). Also indicate (by quoting and citing) where in the text you realized that there was a secret being held.
2. Compare this secret to another secret, either from the same text or from a text we’ve already read in class. (Again, no more than 50 words.) This should not be a simple observation of how this secret is "just like" another: they're both about love, they are both kept from someone they love , or they both compromise a character's aspirations. Such statements are invariably trite overgeneralizations. Maybe the secrets you're comparing are of a similar nature but the different characters have different motivations for keeping them; maybe both secrets are kept for similar reasons but they have different consequences; maybe both secrets are kept from the reader but one is eventually revealed while the other one is not. Note that each of these examples presents differences within apparent or surface similarities, an approach which generally isn't a bad way to go. You MUST support your answer with evidence that you quote and cite from the text(s).
3. Argue (no more than 50 words) whether or not understanding your chosen secret is significant to the understanding the narrative.

For your comments, you should agree or disagree with a post’s conclusions about a secret's narratorial significance (part 3) by providing and explaining NEW evidence that either supports or questions the post.