Course Recap for Thursday September 29, 2016

Revision

We did peer review today in class.  You received feedback from two students on one paper, and one student on the other.  I will also be giving you feedback over the weekend.  You should receive feedback from me by Monday night.

Your task now is to revise your two papers using both the feedback you received and your own intuition as a writer.  There is always some aspect of our piece that can be improved.  Revision is more than just going in and correcting grammatical mistakes.  It means re(en)visioning certain aspects of your piece to shed new light on the topic and improve the quality of the piece.  Rewriting a short passage for clarity or adding details to a description, adding a section of dialogue to better illustrate a scene, these are examples of revision.  Taking away from a piece can also count as revision.  Maybe you have too much information in some places.  If your original draft is 750 words, I will not mind if your final draft is a bit shorter if the sections you eliminate help to improve your narrative.

Some technical aspects you want to make sure you don't forget:

• Make your changes directly in the original Google document you shared with me.  This will allow me to track your changes and see just how much (or how little) you have revised.  
• Make sure you are formatted correctly, double-spaced, 12 point font, MLA Header, with MLA running head.
• Give your piece an actual title (not just personal narrative).
• Make sure you have five lines of standard dialogue in both narratives.  Please review Hills Like White Elephants if you need a refresher on how dialogue should be formatted.

Homework

• Work on revising your Narratives.  Final Drafts are due Thursday, October 6 (at the beginning of class)  Any papers submitted after 4:15 will be considered late.

Course Recap for Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Review and Revision

Today we went over tips for reviewing the works of our classmates and we went over creating a revision plan.  I went over the feedback that you all received from your classmates in ELI and pointed out ways everyone can improve when providing commentary on our classmates's pieces.  Here are the highlights:

• Be specific.  Explain why you feel something does or does not work.  This sort of information gives the writer something to work with.  If you let them know that you like a passage because of the level of detail, they know they need to continue using details throughout their piece.  If you say you don't like a passage because it's lacking detail, they know they need to add detail to the piece.
• Provide constructive criticism even to the pieces you like.  If you're having a hard time finding something they could improve upon, start asking yourself what do I want to see more of.  Maybe they introduced an interesting character and you'd like to see more of him or you'd like to see a specific event.  It's not that the piece is lacking information about these topics.  It's that these topics are the ones you found the most interesting, and therefore, could be places where added detail would enhance the story.
• Cite specific moments and passages as often as you can.  Giving them examples of sentences you found clunky, or diction you found inspiring, or characters that were interesting, or places where there is no conflict are more helpful than general comments.  There's a difference between saying your language is generic and pointing out specific phrases you found cliche.  When you do this you help to make sure that you and the writer are working with the same vocabulary and that you're looking at the same thing.  That's why the highlight function (when available) is so useful in ELI.

Homework

• Complete Revision Plan of One Page Description of Person/Place (due tonight 11:45pm) in ELI
• Extra Credit: Complete Revision Plan of Dialogue (due tonight 11:45pm) in ELI
• First Drafts of both Narratives (due Thursday 9/29 in class) Print 2 copies of each and also submit to instructor via Google Docs. 

Course Recap for Thursday, September 22, 2016

Theme/Thesis

What do you want to say to the world with your story? That is the thesis of your piece and should be your guide as you write.  Try and answer this question: If people do nothing else they should come away from my piece thinking/feeling/believing/wanting....what?

Stories can help us illuminate the things we find important in life.  We can increase the empathy people have for one another.  We can use that empathy to change minds and behaviors.  We can make others feel less alone.  I know that the narrative assignment can sometimes feel like a fluff piece for some, but being able to tell a story that teaches a lesson, or reveals an important part of your identity,  is an important skill to have.

In "Mother Tongue" Amy Tan aims to change the way we think about "broken" English and those who speak it.  There is so much importance placed on "proper" English that we fail to understand the things we can learn from other ways of speaking English.  She actually uses storytelling to start a conversation about a bigger issue.

Sherman Alexie does the same with his narrative.  He uses his life experiences to show how people stereotype him because he is Indian and the effects of those stereotypes.  He explores what it's like to be a member of both worlds, Indian and American, and how Indian life is American life, just an aspect of it that is rarely explored in literature and other forms of media.

What bigger issues do some of your life experiences speak to?  How have your experiences shaped the way you see the world? The way you see yourselves? The way your fictional characters see themselves?

As you write, please be mindful about stereotypes and assumptions.  Don't assume that everyone is going to see the world through the same lense that you see it.  Help them to understand where you and your characters are coming from.  BE SPECIFIC.  SHOW DON'T TELL.

Here is a video about the dangers of stereotyping and a "single story."

Make sure you don't depend on generalizations to carry your story.  All college students do this.  All girls do that.  Specificity is what makes our stories interesting.  

Homework

• Character/Setting Description Review via ELI Review (due Friday 9/23 at 11:45pm)
• Read one of the student essays between pages 64-88 in Readings for Writers.  Write down what you like about the essay and things you would improve. (due Tuesday 9/27 in class)
• First Drafts of Narratives (due Thursday 9/29 in class) Please review the Narrative Assignment Sheet for requirements.

Course Recap for Tuesday, September 20, 2016

The Power of Dialogue

Today we looked at Hills Like White Elephants and looked at the different ways we can convey different information via dialogue. Dialogue is a great way to practice showing and not telling and a great way to start a specific scene in your narrative.  Presenting the words that people actually say allows us to provide our narrative with a higher level of specificity.  We can reveal things like character, setting, the conflict, the relationship between two characters, the mood of the piece, time period, background, etc.  

Conflict

A story isn't a story without conflict.  A character overcoming an obstacle is what drives a story.  Again think about our activity in class as you write.  Remember how you had to use different tactics to attempt to get what you want.  Remember that you weren't given what you wanted easily. You want to show your character working hard for what they want.  Also if it's another person preventing you (or your main character) from getting what you want, try and provide them with a reason while they're doing so (remember how your classmate always denied you for a reason).  This keeps us from having flat stereotypical villains.  

Homework

• One Page Dialogue via ELI Review (due Thursday 9/22 at 11:45pm) You can use your dialogue to either further your personal narrative that you started over the weekend or you can use it to start your fictional narrative.
• Read "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan, pg. 8 Readings for Writer (due Thursday 9/22 in class)
• Review The Unauthorized Autobiography of Me by Sherman Alexie for discussion in class.  To get a jump start on our discussion, review the story and be prepared to tell me what theme connects the various different events that Alexie talks about in his piece. (due Thursday 9/22)
• Do the Review Task- Character/Setting Description Review via ELI Review (due Friday 9/23 at 11:45pm)

Course Recap for Thursday, September 15, 2016

Setting

We looked at setting in Face by Alice Munro and the techniques she uses to establish the setting of the piece.  She doesn't directly tell us it's a mostly white, upper-class town with traditional values, but we can gain that from her descriptions of the people there and their customs.  She shows us the difference between the cottage and the main house not only through physical description but also by describing the various activities that occur in each place and the feelings that are present in the characters when they are in each dwelling. I also wanted us to see how a place that may seem ordinary to others (the old shed that used to be a cottage in a backyard) but can have great significance for others and the story of how that place became significant to you could be a great jumping off point for your narrative.

The main lesson of this week is SHOW not tell.  How can you show what's it like for you (or your character) to grow up in your neighborhood?  How can you show how great or how awful of a person a character is?  What moments can you provide us that illustrate your point so you can keep your readers engaged in your story?

Homework

• One Page Description of a Person or Place that has been very Influential to You (Due Tuesday 9/20) via ELI Review (if you missed today please email me for the class code so you can get setup in ELI)
• Read Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway underneath Class Documents (Due Tuesday 9/20)
• Read The Unauthorized Autobiography of Me by Sherman Alexie underneath Class Documents (Due Tuesday 9/20)
• If you missed today, you want to read over the Narrative Assignment Sheet.  There you will see the requirements for your first major papers.

Here is a helpful link for those of you who may need help getting setup on ELI or who are having trouble submitting your one page description on ELI.  Also remember I am always available via email. http://elireview.com/learn/tutorials/students/

Course Recap for Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Characterization and Voice

In class we looked at two different stories and explored how the writers created and developed interesting characters.  In "Me Talk Pretty One Day" specifically we looked at how the narrator revealed aspects of his personality through the voice he uses to tell the story (a very light-hearted, sarcastic tone).  The same thing happens in "The Lesson." Sylvia's tone of voice is very hard, aggressive, full of bravado, a voice, we as readers realize she is using as a front to hide her feelings of shame and vulnerability.  Also in both The Lesson and Me Talk Pretty One Day, we are able to learn things about the narrators based on how they interact with others.  Because we see David cower underneath his teachers scrutiny, we know he is sensitive to criticism but we also know he doesn't give up easily because he continues to work even though the teacher makes him feel so insecure.  We know Sylvia is a bully not because she tells us so but because of the way she interacts with her cousin Sugar.  Also keep in mind the ways that Bambara is able to quickly introduce and characterize a huge cast of characters in The Lesson, through what they do and what they say.

We did an exercise today where I had you write all of the things in your bedroom and then had your classmates try and guess things about you based on the contents.  The point of this exercise is for us to practice showing who a person is instead of just telling the reader who they are.


Homework

• Write a paragraph (7 sentences minimum)  describing a person (real or fictional) through an object they love. Think about things you love or about the things we learned about each other from a description of their rooms. Ex.  Kelly's stuffed rabbit has a special place on the shelf in her room. Her mom gave it to her when rabbits were her favorite animals.  It's missing an arm from when her big brother cut it off after she got him in trouble for smoking. She doesn't like to admit that she still sleeps with him when she's afraid.....
• Read Face by Alice Munro underneath Class Documents (to the right).

Here is a video of David Sedaris reading another essay from his book, Me Talk Pretty One Day, titled "Jesus Shaves."

Course Recap for Thursday, September 8, 2016

Rhetorical Situations

Today we discussed the elements of rhetorical situations.  A rhetorical situation is any set of circumstances that involves at least one person attempting to communicate information with another person  (including a future self).  Every rhetorical situation involves the following elements:

• Purpose
• Audience
• Medium
• Design
• Context

For more information, check out The Norton Field Guide's take on Rhetorical Situations.   These elements help us determine the rules for how we should communicate our message in any given situation.

We then examined these elements in the communications we frequently share on a regular basis in groups. For every piece you write in this class (or every piece you write ever truthfully), you will have to take into consideration the above elements. We examined these elements in blogs on our favorite subjects, which should give us some ideas on how we want to write our own blogs for this class.

Homework

• Write your first blog post.  Since it is your first post, you might want to introduce yourself and let your readers know what they can expect from your blog. Check the Blog Assignment Sheet for more information.  Due Friday, Sept. 10 by midnight. (Don't worry about commenting on others blogs.  We will discuss it more in Tuesday's class.)
• Read "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris (page 14) and "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara (page 28) from Readings for Writers. Due Tuesday Sept. 13 in class
• Heads Up: Read Face by Alice Munro (posted underneath Class Documents) for Thursday Sept. 15 in class (it's a bit longer than the other two pieces, so you might want to get a head start).

Welcome to Thought and Writing

Hello I'm Mickey Moses, and I am your instructor for ENGL 1050.  Welcome to the class, and welcome to our blog.  This blog is our class's central hub.  Here you can find class recaps, homework assignments, readings, and helpful links.

Our class syllabus is located to the right of this post underneath Class Documents.  It lists the rules and expectations for this course.  We will read through the entire document in class, but some of the major points you want to remember are....

1. Come to class everyday.  Attendance is important and necessary in order for you to pass this class.
   
2. Complete all your assignments.  You cannot get points for work you do not complete.
   
3. Be respectful of me and your classmates. 
   
4. Don't cheat. 
   
5. Ask questions and participate in class discussions.   

How you should be in class.





I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you.