Reading the Cliffsnotes to the Brothers Karamazov...

....is like going to a banquet and eating nothing but macaroni.

So on Monday, Professor Sexson talked about some assignments that we have coming up. The first, our group project, will be a 20-minute presentation, the theme of which should be aligned with what we've talked about in class this semester. The second is our term paper, which should be at least three pages long. The topic, of course, is everyone's favorite book—the Brothers Karamazov. Our thesis statement for this paper is due by April 9th, so we still have a bit of time to think it over, but that should be at least in the back of everyone's minds. I also told the class I would post a copy of the notes for our next exam. It's just a list of terms that we talked about from prosody, that is, the technical discussion of poetry. The list is as follows.

alliteration: several words that start with the same letter, ex. “big beautiful blue bubbles”
onomatopoeia: words created from the sounds they replicate, ex. “click, babble, gargle”
assonance: similarity or repetition of a vowel sound in two or more words, ex. “last clash”
consonance: similarity or repetition of a consonant sound in two or more words, ex. "pitter patter"
refrain: repetition of one or more phrases, ex. “quoth the raven”
simile: comparison using like or as, ex. “he could swim like a fish”
metaphor: an equivalent claim, ex. “he was a fish”
personification: giving of human characteristics to inanimate objects, ideas or animals, ex. “the cat grinned”
synecdoche: substitution of a part for a whole, ex. “lend me your ears”
hyperbole: exaggeration for the sake of emphasis, ex. “if I've told you once I've told you a thousand times...”
antithesis: the comparison of one thing to the opposite, ex. “many are called, but few are chosen”
apostrophe: the addressing of a person who's not there as if they were, ex. “Alas, poor Yorick”

Also, just as a reminder to Group II, pick your favorite story from the anthology and which part you think is the best.