Getting Started with the Golding Letter

1. Sharing questions and passages.

In the comment box below please post your essential question, character, four significant passages (brief description of passages and page numbers), visual motif, and four more significant passages (brief description of passages and page numbers). This a way to help each other out.

2.Golding expository letter assignment.

Imagine that you are William Golding. From his point of view write a letter to the students of Gloucester High School explaining how a character (or set of characters) and a visual motif contribute to the meaning of the novel*. You will write a single letter explaining the significance of both the character and the motif.
 

Support your explanation of the character’s and the motif’s significance by citing places in the novel where you, as Golding the author, use the character to develop the novel’s meaning and specific places where you, as Golding, use the motif to develop the novel’s meaning*. Make sure you thoroughly and insightfully explain how the parts -- the particular uses of the character(s) & object(s) -- contribute to the meaning of the novel as a whole*.

[*Think of "meaning of the novel," "novel's meaning," and "meaning of the novel as a whole" as shorter ways of saying "how the novel enacts a response to an essential question--or set of essential questions." What that means is that in the letter you're going to become Golding in order to explain how a character and a visual motif contribute to the development of a response to an essential question.]

 

Special considerations because you're writing as Golding...

Consider what Golding has said about his mankind and his novel.

When thinking about Golding’s point of view and Golding’s purpose in constructing the novel, consider some statements Golding has made about the novel.

“I believe that man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature.”

“The theme (of Lord of the Flies) is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of society must depend on the ethical mature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable.”

For more of Golding's views you'll find his Nobel Lecture at nobelprize.org.

 
Consider Golding's life.
The following is an excerpt from the Nobel Prize website. (Golding won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983.)

"Taught at Bishop Wordsworth's School, Salisbury. Joined the Royal Navy in 1940 and spent six years afloat, except for seven months in New York and six months helping Lord Cherwell at the Naval Research Establishment. He saw action against battleships (at the sinking of the Bismarck), submarines and aircraft. Finished as Lieutenant in command of a rocket ship. He was present off the French coast for the D-Day invasion, and later at the island of Walcheren. After the war he returned to teaching [until 1962], and began to write again. Lord of the Flies, his first novel, was published in 1954."



Consider Golding's writing style, particularly his syntax and diction. 


3. Here's a way to get started with the writing...


Thesis

Step 1.

Start with an essential question.

________________________________________________________________________

Step 2. Overall meaning of the novel

Now write a clear, bold, insightful, nuanced sentence (or two) that conveys how Lord of the Flies addresses the essential question.This response to the question will be a statement of the novel's meaning and/or of Golding's purpose. This response will be your thesis. (You can write the sentence from Golding's point of view now, or you could switch it to his point of view when you write a draft of the letter.)

Step 3. Overview of how the character contributes to the meaning

Next write a clear, bold, nuanced statement about how Golding’s development of the character contributes to the meaning of the novel. (You can write the sentence from Golding's point of view now, or you could switch it to his point of view when you write a draft of the letter.)

Step 4. Overview of how the visual motif contributes to the meaning

Next write a clear, bold, nuanced statement about how Golding’s development of the visual motif contributes to the meaning of the novel. (You can write the sentence from Golding's point of view now, or you could switch it to his point of view when you write a draft of the letter.)

Now you have your the main points you will need to develop and support in your letter.

 

Step 5.

Create a plan.
Use the statements above and the evidence you have gathered for the class discussions (plus other relevant evidence) to create an informal outline (or a bulleted sequence) of the ideas and supporting evidence you will need to include in your essay in order to develop and support the main idea(s). 

Step 6.
A draft will be due Friday, January 11.
You will self and peer assess the draft in class on Friday.

Step 7.
A final draft will be due Monday, January 14.