Review Writing - Day 1

Hey Punks,

Now that we're finished the novel, we're going to focus on a formal writing assignment: Review Writing. You are going to write a novel review of THE CURIOUS INCIDENCT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT TIME. Before you do, however, we should take a look at some other reviews. A review is not the simple act of putting your opinion on paper; There's a specific structure and style to review writing and we're going to learn it.

1. We watched the movie ZERO EFFECT in class because it deals with a lot of similar elements as the novel: It's a mystery, the detective does not fit psychological norms, the story takes a turn in tone half way through and a variety of other similarities.

Just in case you don't remember the film, here's the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSH8Y3h5j-g

2. We then read a couple of reviews of the film. One of them was positive and the other negative. However, both reviews are similar in structure in many ways.

Positive Review:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980130/REVIEWS/801300307/1023

Negative Review:

http://www.joblo.com/reviews.php?mode=joblo_movies&id=365

Next Class:

We're going to read a couple of novel reviews and do an excercise to help better understand the review writing process.

See (some of you) there.

Patterson