Reading Response Prompts
 

These prompts are meant to get you thinking about what you have read, and to help focus your thoughts for your reading responses. You can respond to any one of them, or, if you have another idea you would rather explore, you are free to write about that instead. Do not, however, attempt to answer multiple prompts for any assignment. If you choose to pursue an idea of your own or are not writing a response that day, you should still spend at least a few minutes thinking about each of the prompts in preparation for class. For more information, review the listserv assignment.
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities 6-9 (pages 83-165)

Consider any of the categories that begin after the book’s midway point (meaning categories of which the first city appears in your reading for today). These include “Cities and the Sky,” “Continuous Cities,” and “Hidden Cities.” You can also examine “Cities and the Dead,” of which we read only the first city for last class. What is the theme or unifying principle of the category you select?

As we might expect from a fable, the conclusion of Invisible Cities provides a moral. Of course, Calvino being Calvino, he expresses the moral in a highly allegorical way. What do you think the message he decides to leave us with is?

Read any of the categories of cities in order 1-5. How does reading the cities in this sequence alter your experience of the book or understanding of the category?

Like last time, you may choose any single city from the reading for today and perform a close reading of the description.
 
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