In this course, you’ll think about your books in informal letter-essays written to your classmates and your teacher, and we’ll write back to you about your ideas and observations. Our letter-essays and responses will become records of the reading, thinking, learning, and teaching we accomplish together throughout the year.

Each letter-essay should be at least two word-processed pages (double-spaced) and written as a personal critical response to one book – in other words, not a series of paragraphs about a series of books, but a long look at one that intrigues you.

Before writing, look over your reading record. Which book would be most enjoyable to revisit and write about? Once you’ve decided, skim through the book and select at least one passage you think is significant in terms of how you responded to the book’s theme, problem, character development, or the author’s style. Choose a chunk of text that you think shows something essential. In your letter-essay, quote the passage you chose and write about what you think it shows about the book, the author, or your responses to either.

What else might you do in a letter-essay? Tell about your experience as a reader of the book. Describe what you noticed about how the author wrote. Tell what you think the theme or "so-what" might be. Tell what surprised you. Pose your wonderings – your questions about the author, the characters, the structure, the voice, and yourself as a reader.

Date your letter-essays in the upper right corner (tab over), and use a conventional greeting (Dear ) and closing (Your friend, Sincerely,). Always cite the name of the author and the book title. Indicate the book title by underlining or italicizing it.

Prior to the beginning of class on each due date noted in your calendar, you must have initiated and completed a letter-essay exchange. (You may have received and responded to others’ letters as well.) Word-process and share your letters through the Documents portion of Gmail. Both the sender and the receiver must share their letters with the teacher as well as with each other. Senders must remember that receivers may have up to twenty-four hours to respond, so they must time delivery carefully. Senders and receivers must print both letters, trim them, and tape them into their composition notebooks. Only then is the exchange complete. Of six exchanges in the first semester, three must be completed with your teacher.

Dear Dr. Hood,

I am currently reading a book called Forever Alien by Sunny Che right now. What really appealed to me about this book is that it was a Korean memoir.

I could recognize some Korean names and names of foods that Koreans still eat these days. For example, kimchi. I really, really love kimchi. It must be my favorite Korean food. Kimchi is Chinese cabbage filled and filled with this delicious red, spicy filling filled inside each leaf of the cabbage. My mom makes it, and whenever she does, we have to run outside to get a taste of the kimchi before it is stored in the containers. Differently from the old Korean style, we have modernized containers to store our kimchi in. We store our newly made kimchi inside the refrigerator. I agree with the sentence "Kimchi is what makes a Korean Korean."

I could recognize some of the character’s names too. The main character, Pongsun Che’s name is commonly used in Korea. Pongsun is a flower’s name. The name of the flower is pongsunhwa, and people with the last name Pong sometimes will name their daughters SunHwa. I don’t know how my sister and I got named Suk Joo and Suk Young. All Korean names have meanings to them. For my name, Suk means something about treasure (I’m not really sure how to translate it into English) and Young means beautiful flower root. It might seem a little strange, but all of our names have meanings to them.

I could also relate with the character on having a hard time fitting in. I moved here, and the first day of school, everyone stared at me, goggle-eyed and incredulous. They thought it was really strange to see someone who couldn’t speak English properly. Some of my classmates ganged up on me and teased me, but I think they all did it to let me adjust to my new American environment more. Some people still tell me I have an accent in my English when I speak. (I don’t really think I have one; do you notice it?) I sometimes still can’t keep up with my friends, and I have to have them explain a lot of things to me, but my classmates have been very, very patient with me, telling me what I should do and say. I’ll always thank my classmates for helping me adjust so much here. (And my teachers too.)

You showed me the book you were reading, and it had some Korean characters in it. What book was that? Do you think it’s material that I could read? Would you recommend it to me? What’s it about?

Dear Dr. Hood,

I’ve just finished reading one of Robert Cormier’s books I just happened to spot in the library, In the Middle of the Night. By the end of the first chapter, I began noticing the "feeling" of the book and how that compared to most all of Cormier’s books in general. He has a special talent of writing in a very haunting, mesmerizing, almost seductive manner which makes the reader grip the pages of the book tighter and tighter as the story unfolds. I also think Cormier likes to play more with people’s minds and consciences rather than their acts or experiences. For example, in In the Middle of the Night, the mysterious "stalker" of the main character, Denny, toys with Denny’s mind by calling him on the phone every afternoon, drawing him into her spooky world with her words. To me, this is more effective and chilling than a kidnapping or hijack or what have you.

I also noticed the unusual plot of the book, which isn’t surprising, considering most of Cormier’s books are anything but normal! In the Middle of the Night is all about Denny’s father, who was involved in a fire at a theater he was working at, killing 22 kids. Later, Denny gets harassed by Lulu, a survivor of the incident, whose goal is to torture the father, whom she suspects guilty of what happened to her and the other children. What I would want to ask Cormier if I ever got the honor of talking to him, would be where in the world does he get these wild ideas for all his books! He must be a very interesting person in real life.

I love Cormier’s ways of writing and his use of language. I’ve noticed he uses a lot of phrases and sentences beginning with verbs, almost cutting out the beginning parts, like "Peered suspiciously through the narrow opening. Saw a middle-aged man . . . knew instantly who this was . . . Remembered his father’s command" (114). It makes the writing read and flow more naturally, as if the characters in the books were really talking to you.

Dear Jena,

I agree about these active bursts of sentences with the strong verbs. His "incorrect" grammar does more accurately reflect the way some people think. In addition, there’s an urgency, almost a mania in their rat-a-tat-tat rhythm that tells us about the character.

I’ve heard Cormier speak several times, so I have an idea where he got many ideas for writing — from the news. If he read a small article that made him curious, he might imagine expanding it into a story. I know he borrowed the idea for one of his books this way. He read about some suburban boys — privileged — who were caught trashing a house, and he used such an incident to open We All Fall Down, another dark, disturbing tale.

I think your other comments about playing with people’s consciences are also apt. His are not plot-driven action books; they are brooding and realistic psychological novels.

By the way, he died late last fall, so there will be no conversational opportunities or new novels.