First Mandatory Task (of Three)

Your first task: read the short story. Sally Rooney’s “Unread Messages” first appeared in January 2021. It focuses on a 29-to-30-year-old woman, Eileen Lyndon, a native of County Galway, as she assesses her relationship history — as well as the state of contemporary Ireland — while maintaining a job as an editor in a publishing house in Dublin. As you work through “Unread Messages” and the short profile of Rooney that follows it, you will find your 10 Write Now homework questions embedded in the text. These questions differ from the type you generally experience in the course, and we hope that you enjoy the change of pace!

You can access Sally Rooney’s short story “Unread Messages” (2021) as a printable PDF by clicking the icon above. Alternatively, you can access it by clicking here. The text contains, as embedded units, the 10 homework questions that constitute the Write Now homework assignment associated with this literary text.

 Second Mandatory Task (of Three)

Your second task: complete and submit — via Folio, before the deadline — the single Write Now (i.e. written homework) exercise about the focal literary text. Refer to your syllabus and/or the course Folio page to check the submission deadline. No late work is accepted.

There are 10 questions, presented in reading order. In other words: the questions chronologically track the PDF that contains the assigned reading: "Sally Rooney’s 2021 short story “Unread Messages.” When attempting the questions, it’s advisable NOT to begin with Folio but instead to answer the questions, one after the other, in a Microsoft Word document, which you should save as you proceed. That way, you’ll always have proof that you completed the exercise, even if Folio goes down or otherwise doesn’t cooperate. When you have finished the entire Write Now exercise, you should review it carefully, save it again, and then submit it via Folio — either as a Microsoft Word document or a PDF — before the firm deadline. The ability to submit ceases at that time, and effort not received before the deadline earns a grade of zero. Another way of saying the above: late submission isn’t possible. Remember, please, that your grade depends not just on correct responses but also: complete sentences; good grammar; accurate spelling; and clear expression.

In the case of this exercise, you can find the ten questions either: (1) embedded in the body of the text (the best place to access them); or (2) in a discrete PDF document. For this Write Now homework, it’s probably a good idea to fast-read the entire story in full before going back and re-reading while answering the questions, one by one. For the first question, it’s sufficient to use the material about Auden (an Anglo-American poet) and The Brothers Karamazov (a Russian novel) presented at the end of your instructor’s lecture notes. Should you wish to use the secondary material that the question mentions but find that the links don’t work, here is an alternative set of links: Auden Mini-Biography; Brothers Karamazov Plot Summary.

Please be very mindful of the following statements, which appear on the course syllabus.

Do your own work. Students may not collaborate on the production of responses to Write Now quizzes (i.e. homework exercises). When grading, we pay close attention to similarities between submissions. A student found to have copied or otherwise relied on another student’s work (on even one occasion) — or found to have committed plagiarism — will receive an “F” for the entire course and, in addition, will be reported to the University for a hearing that may result in suspension or expulsion from GS.

Third Mandatory Task (of Three)

Your third task: study the instructional content. In order to render the lectures as clear as possible, your instructor has captured their essential material in written form, presented immediately below as a PDF: Written Account of Rooney Material. Consider this document your primary resource when studying the focal text. Terms that have particular importance appear in highlighted form.

EXAM WORDS

When preparing for your exam about this work of literature, ensure that you are fully up to speed with the following data (all of which receive explanation in the written accounts):

Sally Rooney: Castlebar, County Mayo; Master’s in American literature; debating circuit ••• Normal People: Marianne and Connell; housecleaner; TCD; intimacy coordinator ••• Conversations with Friends: character Frances’s mensural pain; episteme ••• Beautiful World, Where Are You: warehouse-worker Feliz; “The Lass of Aughrim”; epistolary ••• Darach; red lights ••• Robert Owen; Karl Marx; Joseph Patrick McDonnell; IWMA (or First International) ••• James Connolly; “Big Jim” Larkin; 1913 Dublin Lockout ••• Celtic Tiger and Celtic Phoenix ••• EMEA ••• important terms: argot; pulchritude ••• Eileen’s father, Pat = farm-manager; her mother = geography teacher ••• Wyndham and Birrell land-purchase acts; Moorehall (or Ballintober) Estate ••• female figures and phenomena in (or implied by) “Unread Messages”: “little wife”; Actual Death Girl; Molly Bloom; “Penelope” episode; “yes I said yes I will Yes”; meaning of Natalie; “these twenty-two-year-old Scandinavian women” ••• CCSA: Brendan Smyth; Mark Vincent Healy; St. Mary’s College; One in Four ••• Simon becomes Peter (“rock”) ••• Mary Immaculate, Refuge of Sinners ••• Catechism of the Catholic Church; conjugal love; “open to fertility” ••• “gospel of compassion”; Good Samaritan; Prodigal Son; “woe unto you that are rich”; “spent all her living upon physicians” ••• metaliterary; “normal brain haver” ••• W.H. Auden: “only one political duty … to defend one’s language from corruption” ••• phallogocentrism; Cormac McCarthy; Gertrude Stein ••• Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov ••• “thank[s] the driver”