Exorcist Q's

1) Discuss the role of science in the book. Is it able to help Regan with her problem? Why or why not?

2) Discuss the role of the priests. Are they able to help with her problem? Why or why not?

3) What do we know about the demon in the story? Compare and contrast his character to that of Regan's.

TWINE CONCEPT PROPOSAL

CONCEPT FOR TWINE PROJECT

On Monday, bring with you to class your concept for your Twine end-of-term project. It should essentially be a proposal that is around 1 page, double-spaced and typed. It should have numbered responses to the following questions. The proposal should include the following:

1) What is your story about? What “horrors” will it contain? Be specific. Give us the setting (time and place), main characters, and central dilemma for the story. Make sure not to copy other people's stories. You may reference other horror you have read/watched at certain points in the story, but you will be graded on how imaginative your story is.

2) How do these horrors in your story relate to real life horrors in our world today (not in the past, but today, in 2017)? Be as specific as possible. A particular problem of our world might be a good place to start. For example, the automization of workers is a specific problem. People are and will continue to lose jobs due to robots and machines taking them over. A horror story that deals with a subject like this could be about a possessed self-driving car, for example, or a serial killer Uber driver who had his job taken from him. *Please note that this is the most important aspect of your story and I will be grading you on how well-developed it is.

3) What is the basic plot idea for your story? What will happen?

4) What is the POV of the story? Is it first person? Second person ("You walk into a bar")? Third person? Since this is a Twine story, the second person, where you address the reader directly, might make the most sense.

5) Because Twine is an interactive, narrative game, you need incorporate choice into your story in a specific way. What are some of the potential directions your story might take? What are the different choices your reader might take? How do these choices relate to the horrors in the story? For example, if you made a narrative story like The Witch you could allow your reader to choose to tell their mother why they went into the forest, or to lie or keep it a secret. Both choices have consequences—if the reader “lies” then the mother is more suspicious and more likely to see her child as a witch. If the daughter tells the truth, she may be punished or get her father, who sold the mothers cup to buy traps, into trouble (which could also get her into trouble).

6) Speaking of choice, you will need to consider possible endings to your story. What possible endings might the story have? Now, here is where you should consider the horror at the heart of the story, the horror that relates to the cultural condition that produced the horror. To that end, you may want every path in your story to lead to the same ending, or you may want different endings to be possible. This will entirely depend on the horror you are dealing with. For example, to use the self-driving car example from above—it’s generally been decided that it’s inevitable that self-driving cars are coming and will replace the jobs of truckers, etc. So, in that story, you may want all endings to be the same, because that is an inevitable situation in our world (although you can still come up with another resolution in the story if you want).

Please note that you will likely change many things after your workshop on Monday, and that is totally normal and encouraged. This project is a work in process, and will require thoughtful revision throughout.

COURSE SCHEDULE *UPDATED JAN 11

COURSE SCHEDULE 
*SUBJECT TO CHANGE

WEEK 1

TUESDAY JAN 3 CLASS INTRODUCTIONS

READING DUE WEDNESDAY JAN 4 THE EXORCIST TO PAGE 75; READ/PLAY "A VERY, VERY, VERY SCARY HOUSE"

WEDNESDAY JAN 4 EXORCIST; FILM THE VVWITCH

READING DUE THURSDAY THE EXORCIST TO PAGE 150; READ HOW TO MAKE GAMES WITH TWINE 

THURSDAY JAN 5 EXORCIST; TWINE PROJECT OVERVIEW AND PLAN

READING DUE FRIDAY THE EXORCIST TO PAGE 225; READ THIS HISTORY OF "SATANIC PANIC"

FRIDAY JAN 6 EXORCIST; FILM JENNIFER'S BODY

READING DUE MONDAY FINISH THE EXORCIST; READ/PLAY "SABBAT" ; BRING FINAL PROJECT CONCEPT TO CLASS FOR WORKSHOP (SEE GUIDELINES ON BLOG)

SATURDAY JAN 7 *JOURNAL ENTRY 1 DUE BY 11 PM

WEEK 2

MONDAY JAN 9 EXORCIST; CONCEPT WORKSHOP

READING DUE TUESDAY OUT TO PAGE 100; CYBERTEXT (THIS IS A LITTLE DRY, BUT FOCUS ON THE INTERACTIVE ELEMENT OF CYBERTEXT AND HOW IT CHANGES THE PROCESS OF "READING")

TUESDAY JAN 10; OUT; FILM THE CABIN IN THE WOODS; BEGIN CONCEPT MAPPING IN CLASS

READING DUE WEDNESDAY OUT TO PAGE 200

WEDNESDAY JAN 11 OUT

READING DUE THURSDAY OUT TO PAGE 300

THURSDAY JAN 12 PROFESSOR D MEETINGS RE. TWINE PROJECT

READING DUE FRIDAY FINISH OUT; PREPARE NARRATIVE IN PROGRESS FOR WORKSHOP (GUIDELINES ON BLOG)

FRIDAY JAN 13 OUT; WORKSHOP FOR NARRATIVE IN PROGRESS; DUMPLINGS

READING DUE MONDAY LET ME IN TO PAGE 150; BRING COMPUTERS FOR SESSION WITH DIG LIB ARTS LAB

SATURDAY JAN 14 *JOURNAL ENTRY 2 DUE BY 11 PM

WEEK 3

MONDAY JAN 16 LET ME IN; DIG LIB ARTS SESSION; HORROR VIDEO GAMES

READING DUE TUESDAY LET ME IN TO PAGE 250

TUESDAY JAN 17 LET ME IN; FILM TBA

READING DUE THURSDAY FINISH LET ME IN

WEDNESDAY NO CLASS

THURSDAY JAN 19 LET ME IN; FILM PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

READING DUE FRIDAY AMERICAN PSYCHO TO PAGE 100

FRIDAY JAN 20 AMERICAN PSYCHO; PRESENT TWINE PROJECTS

READING DUE MONDAY AMERICAN PSYCHO TO PAGE 300

SATURDAY JAN 21 JOURNAL ENTRY 3 DUE BY 11 PM

(PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY FINISHED ALL OF YOUR JOURNAL ENTRIES BY THIS POINT-IF SO, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO UPDATE A THIRD ONE)

WEEK 4

MONDAY JAN 23 AMERICAN PSYCHO; PRESENT TWINE PROJECTS

READING DUE TUESDAY FINISH AMERICAN PSCYHO

TUESDAY JAN 24 AMERICAN PSYCHO; PRESENT TWINE PROJECTS; CLASS PARTY; JOURNAL ENTRY 4 DUE BY 11 PM

(PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY FINISHED ALL OF YOUR JOURNAL ENTRIES BY THIS POINT-IF SO, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO UPDATE A FOURTH ONE)

THE VVITCH DISCUSSION

GROUP DISCUSSION

1) WHAT CULTURAL CONDITIONS LEAD TO THE HORROR AT THE HEART OF THE FILM? 

2) HOW DOES BLAME AND SCAPEGOATING OPERATE IN THE FILM? WHAT ABOUT THE CONNECTION OF BLAME TO SHAME?

4) HOW IS THOMASIN’S BODY A “THREAT”?

5) IN YOUR OPINION, WHAT IS THE TRUE HORROR IN THE FILM?

6) HOW DO BELIEFS CREATE THE HORRORS IN THE FILM AND HOW DO THE HORRORS CREATE THE BELIEFS?

THE EXORCIST DISCUSSION 1

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR EXORCIST:

1) CHARACTERIZE REGAN. WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT HER? WHAT IS SHE LIKE? WHAT DO WE NOT KNOW ABOUT HER?

2) WHAT DO WE NOT KNOW ABOUT REGAN? HOW IS SHE AN “EMPTY VESSEL”?

3) WHAT “SYMPTOMS” HAVE WE SEEN OF REGAN’S SO FAR? WHAT MAKES THESE SYMPTOMS “THREATENING” TO THE STATUS QUO, OR TO THE IDEA OF WHAT A LITTLE GIRL SHOULD BE LIKE?

Journal Entry Guidelines

When grading your journal entries, I will be looking for the following:

1) Did you follow the page count requirements? Do you have at least three full pages, typed and double spaced, per entry? Did you include a Works Cited page, as a fourth page?

2) Did you discuss the real life horrors that the book, film, game/electronic literature piece might deal with, in detail? Do you connect these to the time and place the book/film/game was created? Are they specific enough--for example, if you are writing about American Psycho, you could discuss how the novel unpacks 1980's Wall Street and shows how yuppie culture, and unchecked capitalist greed, leads to horror. To give another example, you could discuss how The VVwitch deals with the Puritan's belief system in the supernatural and their fear of the unknown in a new land, where their lives were very harsh (because it is a modern film, it is presented in a feminist way--arguably in favor of the witch).

3) Do you provide lots of examples from the work you are looking at? (You should include plenty, and cite them properly).

4) Did you make any connections to other books, novels, and horror media we are discussing in the class, or that you've seen elsewhere? This is not required for every entry, but I want to see it in a good number of them.

5) Is your thinking original? Or are you just re-hashing what we discussed in class? You can use our discussions as a jumping off point, but please don't simply regurgitate what we covered in class entirely.

As a reminder, feel free to combine two subjects into a longer entry of 6 pages. For example, you might want to write about The Exorcist and Jennifer's Body in one longer piece, since we will be discussing the ways in which these two narratives intersect in the ways they deal with teen girls bodies and possession.

*Please note that you do not want to simply summarize the book/film. You need to be making socio-political connections beyond simply describing what happens in the book or film.

Update to journal entries

Hi everyone,

A quick note to let you know I eliminated one of the journal entries for the course. You can see the updates on the syllabus.

I'm going to post more detailed grading criteria for them in a minute.