J155 Spring 2012 Assignments & Tests

Phrasing

When does this happen?

Once for each author, on the second session—it is due as soon as you enter the room on the second session. It can, in principle, be submitted electronically to me. Please use this option only if you will not be in class, obviously. I really don't want to juggle a variety of types of submissions.

What to do

Locate inside the text assigned for the second day the passage to be used.

Print the page (or write out the passage) and draw bold red (or other color that is easy to see and contrasts with black) lines between the phrases that equal the number of red lines requested. Do NOT put red lines at the very beginning or very ending of the passage — those are assumed and don't count towards the correct number.

Explanation of how to mark the breaks: Sentences sometimes have major breaks (such as, but not only, at a て although not all て indicate a strong break). They also sometimes (usually) have minor breaks, around clauses. Major breaks make more sense to pause at when reading aloud. Minor breaks might not sound natural if a pause were included—they are less sound breaks than grammar units. I might ask for few red lines, in which case I am looking for major breaks only. If I ask for a lot of red lines, I want to see minor breaks as well. In other words, you can't just find any breaks,  you need to somehow understand the hierarchy of major and minor breaks, or places where the text might pause for dramatic reasons or other reading aloud reasons and where it might break for grammatical reasons. Periods count so, yes, there really should be a major break after a sentence.

How to submit

This is to be entirely your own work, and that is very important. If you cannot identify breaks in a sentence you cannot parse its meaning and you cannot get very far in thinking of the musicality of the text, our main topic. So this must absolutely be your own work. Put your submission on the desk as you enter the room (remember to put your name, date and author in question on it!) and never consult with others, especially at the beginning of class. Even if you and the person you are talking to have put your sheets on the table the person sitting behind you might not yet have done so and can hear your conversation — it is just so-o-o easy to complete this assignment a little bit illegitimately so please be careful :-)