I would love your feedback on the following questions so your classmates have some ideas and guidance as they choose their spring ALIS books. Please answer the questions below in a short paragraph.
1. Name and title of work.
2. To whom would you recommend this book and why?
3. What material, if any, might one find objectionable about this text?
4. To what extent did this novel selection help you experience ALIS success?
The fall ALIs book that I read was the Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger. I would recommend this book to anyone that likes first person novels, novels that are open to interpretation, and novels that really make you think about what the book is saying. The way Salinger writes the book is incredibly vague and this is why the book is open to interpretation and makes the reader really think about what is going on in the book. However, this book contains language and adult content such as sex and drugs which readers might find objectionable in this text. Because of this novel's strong vague language, it helped me to almost bend the book's message to suit almost every criticism that we talked about this year. If you are having trouble with choosing a book, or don't really care about what you want to read, I would choose this book because its wide generalizations and vague language make it a little easier to write your essay.
ReplyDeleteFor my Fall ALIS book, I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I would probably recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys a book with a strong feminist point of view. This novel also uses a lot of histroical refrences to wars within Afganistan, and it is also told from two different women's point of view which adds persepective to the novel. There a few objectionable things in the novel, including sexual refrences, abusive spouses, and a brief part on suicide. This novel helped me a lot for ALIS success. A Thousand Splendid Suns is very full of good quotes to expand upon with syntax, theme, or word choice. Also, the theme and main idea is very cleary definded throughout the novel so it makes it easier to figure out which theory you want to use when writing your ALIS essay. This novel was an extremely good pick for ALIS and will make it a lot easier to write your ALIS essay.
ReplyDeleteI read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and I would pretty much recommend it to anyone who likes syfy or adventure. The series continues to be one of my very favorites because of how well the carecters are outlined and the way philosophical ideas flow seamlessly with the story. As far as content goes, it is relatively clean besides cussing, a bit of nudity, and violence. This novel was great for alis. It provided a plethora of ideas and literary elements to choose from.
ReplyDeleteI chose to read The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros for my fall ALIS book. Although the language was rich and intriguing, I found the chapters to be in random order with new characters each time. It was basically a collection of the author's thoughts as she grew up in a small, close-knit neighborhood. Having that said, I would recommend this book to anyone who becomes bored after reading a book with common elements such as environment and characters. This is a good book for the person that likes to shake things up a bit and read about a variety of distressed characters. The only thing I found objectionable came from the first few pages of the introduction. The author's father expresses derogatory views on some Hispanic males living in the apartment his daughter just moved into. Oh, and if you are a feminist, you might find some female character's situations to be disheartening. This novel selection was a wonderful choice when it came to actually writing my ALIS essay because there were several events in the novel that I could analyze and compare and contrast. I was able to pull from the author's experiences and connect them to my own to give my readers a deeper perspective on the world in which we live in.
ReplyDeleteThe fall ALIS book that I chose to read was The Bell Jar by Silvia Plath. This book is written in a way where the author almost is writing an autobiography about herself, yet she uses different names for the people. I would recommend this book to a person who likes somewhat of an easy level book. However there were some references to suicide and topics close to this so it is not a cheerful book all of the time, therefore you have to be pretty open to the idea that it is just a book, and you can’t get too tied up in the characters. Another person who would most likely enjoy this book is someone who liked to read The Glass Castle because these two books were very similar. I think that there weren’t too many objectionable parts in this text, maybe there was some sexual content, although there was definitely references to suicide. Then as well I think that this book was pretty good at helping me with ALIS success, however it was sometimes difficult to use like syntax and word descriptions because the book is so straight forward that there was not a whole ton that you could dig into. However this sometimes helped with finding quotes to back up information because they were so plain and simple, I guess it just depended on what kind of quotes I was looking for.
ReplyDeleteThe Fall ALIS book I read was "This Side of Paradise" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys very classic and eloquent literature. It is definitely not the easiest text,and is not for someone who wants excitement. it depicts real life, and that is saying nothing outrageous happens. I don't think that any of the material was objectionable, but some of the ideas behind the main character are definitely challenged on a political and moral standpoint. This novel was perfect for ALIS success. It contained every literary theory, but they all had to be searched for with the exception of a few obvious theories. It also would provide great success in discussing literature as it is a very rich text. Overall. I would recommend this to someone who wants to take on sophisticated literature.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I would not recommend my fall ALIS book to any sane person, this summer, I enjoyed Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle." I would recommend this book to anyone, but especially ones who are questioning the legitimacy of religion in relationship to scientific findings. This novel reads as a warning to everyone, explaining how the "truths" of science can destroy the world. Also, Vonnegut talks about how religion, despite its "lies," is much safer than science. In result, reading this novel directed my thinking towards questioning humans' well-being. Questions raised were: To what extent can people know the truth? How do lies shape our society? Finally, this is an action-filled, syfy, End of the World story without Tom Cruise, so why wouldn't you read it?
ReplyDeleteFor the Fall American Literature Independent Study book, I read "The Accidental Time Machine" by Joe Haldeman. This novel is perfect for anyone with a bit of an imagination and who has any interest in the unreal and unbelievable. The characters go through a wild and erratic story bringing them around globe and exponentially increasing increments of time. In this novel, there are two controversial topics mentioned. The first being that the characters do engage in sex during the novel and the second is a large use of drugs. The main character is addicted and this throws the novel for another twist. This novel helped my ALIS experience because the ideas and concepts were not written out for you. Instead you had to draw off syntax and other important reading skill to build concrete ideas, however these are the most important and often most successful ideas because they required deeper, more concrete thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath that is on the ALIS reading list. People who enjoy reading books about dark topics such as depression, suicide, and how the mind works after being put in certain situations then this book is perfect.It is clear from the beginning that there are some objectionable topics in this story. Suicide is a main key to the books plot and is a part of the main character's thoughts. With the attempts at suicide she tries overdosing on medication give to her to cure her insomnia and eventually has to be placed into a treatment center. Another controversial topic in this book could be the idea of sex. It is not brought up too often but it is an idea that is used. Overall this book did not turn out as what I thought it would be. It was confusing as parts, switching back and forth between present and past tense in the main character's life. I don't think this book really shows too much about American Literature because it can easily be confused with Plath's autobiography. The plot mostly focus's on the main character's thoughts but does sometimes show how her settings affect her.
ReplyDeleteI read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as my fall ALIS book. This book did a great job of flipping scenarios on their side and making me rethink things that are often assumed to be true. For example, the story takes place in a mental hospital, but the "insane" people end up being the rational, level-headed thinkers, and the staff are not. I would recommend this book to people who are interested in psychoanalytic criticism or anything to do with the brain. While I liked the book, there was a lot of objectionable content that didn't add much to the story in most cases. In particular, the book glorifies the crude and sex-driven character McMurphy and has some cussing. Overall, the book provided a lot of food for thought, which made writing my essay easy, but some unnecessary content kept it from being a great book.
ReplyDeleteFor my Fall ALIS, I read Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy historical fiction as well as science fiction, as the book's premise is based around an historian who time travels back into the 1300s, and much of its central conflict revolves around disease. It was also a rather lengthy book, so I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who doesn't mind spending a lot of time on a novel. The only possibly objectionable material in the book was the description of the symptoms of the plague, as it went rather in-depth, and to a somewhat gruesome level. I actually found this book rather difficult to write an essay about, possibly because it's a more modern book and I felt that much more detail was put into the plot and the historical accuracy than the craft of the sentences themselves. It was certainly an interesting book, and I enjoyed reading it, but I wouldn't say that it's an easy book to work with regarding literary analysis.
ReplyDeleteFor my fall ALIS book, I read Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger. I would reccomend this book to basically anyone who has gone through hardships because in the book Holden is suffering through his hardship. I didn't really find any offensive material in the book but there were a few curse words and there was some sex in the book. This book was very easy to write a psychoanalytic essay on and quotes were easy to pick out because there were a lot of "meaty" quotes to dig into, with a lot of symbolism. Also the book is a very short read and it goes very fast.
ReplyDeleteFor my fall ALIS book I read The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger. I would recomend this book to anyone who has been experiencing tough times and is okay with a novel that rambles about the awful things in life for hundreds of pages. However the book is very controversial because of the language and references to sex. This book was difficult for me to write an essay on because it seems to very unclear about things and leaves it open to many things. Which is good and bad but I found it difficult to work with.
ReplyDeleteI chose to read The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson last semester. I would recommend it to anyone interested in any kind of terror novel. I'm a thrill seeker myself, so naturally I picked up the book that sounded spooky enough - it wasn't completely send-chills-down-your-spine, but it definitely had some moments. It was very suspenseful rather than eventful (which you may like very much). It is a "scary" book, and has some graphic detail (such as blood and whatnot) so if you're uneasy with that, it's not a good pick. I was actually quite pleased with how my ALIS experience turned out. I usually find it difficult to write about horror pieces but there was more than enough in this short book to explore and learn from. Plus, it wasn't exceedingly long, and I could finish it with time to spare, so if that's a worry for you keep it in mind. So in short, it wasn't my favorite book of all time, but it was interesting and worked very well for my purposes.
ReplyDeleteI read The Road by Cormac McCarthy for my fall ALIS book. I would recommend it to those who like adventure/thriller books. The book is writtten with stream of conciousness dialogue, creating an interesting thought enviroment for the reader. The book is set in a post apocolyptic world, so there are many vivid descriptions of unpleasant things. This book is not something I recommend for those wo like a clear ending. The book made for a great ALIS base, as there is so much to write about. I had mny possible topics for my paper, allowing me to pick the one that I liked best. If you want a challenging book to read deeply, this one won't disappoint.
ReplyDeleteI chose Catcher In the Rye by JD Salinger for my Fall ALIS book. I found this to be a very interesting book and would recommend it to anyone needing to write an essay, but would not recommend it as a book to just read. This is due to the fact that there is a very minimal plotline, but has a lot of good quotes and a strong message. The only controversial content I found about this text was its language and some refrences to sex. This novel helped me experience ALIS success because it has a lot of good deep quotes that one can choose and heavily analyze. Also the theme can be taken many ways allowing for a wide choice of topic.
ReplyDeleteFor my fall ALIS book, I read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I would recommend this book to anyone of the age of thirteen. There is a lot of violence, language, racism and a part containing rape. However, the language, prejudice and violence all should belong in the story because they make up a good amount of the story. The scene of rape could be removed, however it does add to the theme of hate in the book. In writing an essay or something of that sort, I found it fairly easy to find good quotes to support my essay about historical criticism. It is also easily able to be taken in many directions for a theme. There are many present which provides the reader with a lot to think about. Overall, I really enjoyed the book and I would recommend it to anyone our age or maybe a bit younger.
ReplyDeleteI read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini for my fall ALIS novel. The Kite runner is a compelling story of a relationship between two Afghani boys. One of the boys is a servant and the other lives a privileged lifestyle in one of the biggest houses in the area. It is a book heavily entangled in the cultural and historical issues of the Middle East. For those who enjoy historical fiction, this book is a must read. The book contains many themes like redemption, forgiveness, loyalty, friendship, betrayal, cultural norms and expectations, and there is plenty to psychoanalyze. I liked this book very much because of the accuracy and descriptions. For most of the book it is not a "Feel Good" book, but towards the end gets a little happier. It does deal with the subjects of rape, extreme poverty, racism, and human trafficking so if you are uncomfortable with any of those topics, I would not recommend it. But it is a good book to read for ALIS because it can be fairly easily analyzed from every school of theory discussed in class, and is also a book to read for fun because of its high value in cultural education.
ReplyDeleteFor my fall ALIS book, I read Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. I would recommend this book to those who like a said "classic" book. Themes can vary, but feministic views were prominent with several themes. As it is a widely known book and you can find lots of outside sources to help you get started. The syntax itself, is that of poor speaking southerners, which may throw some people off. The book was a very quick and short read, and in my opinion quite dull. There were metaphors, but not all of them were straightforward, as you may have to push some things to make a worthy essay. There are good quotes to look through, but not fantastic. Controversial topics are small, between vague sexual references and the main character being in some form, mentally incapable.
ReplyDeleteFor my fall ALIS novel I chose All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. This book is about four African American soldiers in WWII. I recomend this book to anybody that likes descriptive war battles and settings. Racism, horrors of war, and miracles are all encountered throughout this novel plus many more. Anybody that doesn't like descriptive scenes with alot of imagery and dark scenes that include gunshots, explosions, and death would dislike this book. It was well written with many explanation words that describe characters, settings, and tactics. There were many options to write about in this book for ALIS and it is descriptive so the reader gets the true impact of the novel. The brutality of war explains blood, gore, and death which are objectionable aspects of this book.
ReplyDeleteI read The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway, I would suggest this book to people intersted in the effects of WWI, or people who are looking for a in depth book full of symbolism. This book discusses sexual relationships and drinking, however it does not ever hit expilicit content. This book was really helpful because it is so well written, and there is so much to learn and interpret from it.
ReplyDeleteFor my ALIS book last fall I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes reading from many different point of views and times. Also you have to be able to connect all of the different stories together to understand how the past plays into the future. I would also recommend this book if you are interested in reading about how a particular family may have been affected by 9/11. This book does mention sex and language but both are very frequent and not to explicit. Also this book contains some graphic violence related to 9/11 and the bombing in Dresden. This book provided a unique text for me to study for my ALIS because it is not like a traditional book with the style and literary elements.
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