English 11

So there's a long weekend coming up! A few updates for you all - I am missing roughly a third of your assignments as of this morning. Some of you were very quick to submit your work after the post went up, and that's fantastic.

Many of you are making the best of a new situation. Remember to stay positive and be with the people closest to you. I have been enjoying this time with family, but I must say - my son is getting pretty bored!

So, what happens next? Here's a little checklist for you:

• Get in touch with at least one other person to make sure they are getting my emails/checking this blog. It's critical that all students are reading this blog in order to access learning resources and course work.
• Please submit your first assignment ASAP (due tomorrow). Yes I know it's a holiday :)
• Our next assignment is due on Thursday, April 16. Here it is:

You will be reading about Freudian Literary Theory. Up until about English 11 we learn about making connections to texts that are personal, between text and text, and text an world. Literary Theory is kind of like a text to text connection, but it's something we start getting into during English 11 and continue to do through university. This is an important skill to work on! Read on.

The first is to read about a theory. In our case, it will be Freud's Structure of the psyche. He explains how our mind is divided into the conscious and unconscious, as well as the id, ego, and superego. On the outside, this theory doesn't seem to have anything to do with literature - it just explains how our minds work. Our job is to connect this to our reading of Golding's Lord of the Flies. Reading this novel as a retelling of Freudian Theory is a successful application of literary theory. Here are the links for your work:

1. Read this. It is a heavily modified version of the Wikipedia document in order to be a bit more accessible. Feel free to google more information if you want to learn more.
2. Download this Microsoft Word file. Fill in the table with information that summarizes the three components of the psyche. If you don't have word, you should be able to download the tools to view it for free. You can recreate the document using another word processor instead.
3. Send me the 3 column chart by Thursday, April 16 at midnight to my email address: jrogers@sd38.bc.ca

It's important to recognize that there is a relationship between the three components of the psyche. The Id, Ego, and Superego all ultimately influence the way our mind works. Again, you are free to go online and google to your heart's content until you understand these components. If you have questions about this concept, you are always welcome to email me :)