Hall CRWR

Hello all!  Just a reminder that I will start grading Revision 2 on Thursday.  This means:

• If you haven’t turned it in yet, please do so by Thurs!
• If you already turned it in, but would like to make some changes, feel free to do so by Thursday!  Please make sure you make it clear which is the final revision

For information on the revision, please see the “Revisions” page of this site

Hey all, on Thursday, we’ll have some time to work on your upcoming revision (due April 16), so make sure you come to class with what you worked on.  Also, here is the comic we made in class (see the citations below!)

Citations:

“Bubbling Washer Overflowing Anime” prompt.

“Motorcycle Gang Many People Anime” prompt

“NYC People Running Earthquake Anime” prompt

“NYC Subway Train on Fire Anime” prompt

“Family in Apartment Pointing at Ceiling Anime” prompt

Canva Magic Media, 9 April  2024

For Tuesday, April 16th, your second revision is due. Please see the guidelines under the “revisions” tab.

Also, City Tech Writer is accepting submissions until next Mon (April 15). Please submit your work!! This is our school’s literary magazine, and a great opportunity to see your work in print.

Experiment 3 is due Tuesday before class. Remember that this assignment should be Creative Non-Fiction OR Fiction inspired by something true.  It will be 2-4 pages long and, as you remember, you get credit just for turning it in! When you’re finished you can post it in Perusall. 

Here are the in-class writing assignments we did throughout this unit. You can use any of these as a starting point for this assignment:

1. A story about a time you wrote an essay
2. A story about a meal you loved (or hated! Food that influenced you)
3. The KWL+ essay: you researched something you care about and used it as a starting point for a creative work
4. The story of how your parents met.
5. The moment in history that inspired or affected you the most
6. An essay or story motivated by a weird fact— if it helps you, look at Joyas Voladoras for inspiration.

If you have questions, please email me at chall@citytech.cuny.edu.  I don’t always see those Perusall messages!

I will give you at least 30 minutes of free- writing time in class to work on your 3rd experiment (due on April 2). Remember that this assignment should be Creative Non-Fiction OR Fiction inspired by something true.  It will be 2-4 pages long and, as you remember, you get credit just for turning it in! Come to class on Thursday with some idea of what you’ll be writing about!

Here are the in-class writing assignments we did throughout this unit. You can use any of these as a starting point for this assignment:

1. A story about a time you wrote an essay
2. A story about a meal you loved (or hated! Food that influenced you)
3. The KWL+ essay: you researched something you care about and used it as a starting point for a creative work
4. The story of how your parents met.
5. The moment in history that inspired or affected you the most
6. An essay or story motivated by a weird fact— if it helps you, look at Joyas Voladoras for inspiration.

Remember, this story/essay/ piece of creative work/ isn’t due until April 2, but when you’re finished you can post it in Perusall. 

Read the personal essay: “The Year I Grew Wildly, While Men looked on.” 

By the way, I will be collecting notebooks on Tuesday, just so I can give you credit for doing the in-class writing!

As a reminder, I will be meeting with the following students at the following times:

Monday, March 18:

• 11:00 Nathaniel (Zoom)

Tuesday, March 19

• 12:00  Jaylen (Namm 511)
• 12:20 Melany (Zoom)
• 12:40  Georgios (Namm 511)
• 1:00 Yoel (Namm 511)
• 1:20 Ritchy (Namm 511)

Hello everyone!  A friendly reminder that Revision 1 is due Thursday, March 14  by 10 AM.  Please submit to the Revision 1 Perusall folder.  Remember to give your work a good title–something that isn’t “Story” or “Poem 1”.

Also, I’ll be meeting with everyone one-on-one at least once this semester.  Here are the people I’ll be meeting with this week and next. If you indicated you want to meet on Zoom, I sent you a link:

Thursday, March 14:

• 11:00 Ritchy (on Zoom)
• 11:20 Naselin (Namm 511)
• 11:40 Edison (Namm 511)

Monday, March 18:

• 11:00 Nathaniel (Zoom)

Tuesday, March 19

• 12:00  Jaylen (Namm 511)
• 12:40  Georgios (Namm 511)
• 1:00 Yoel (Namm511)

Weds, March 20

• Jazmine, Time TBD.

Hi everyone! Your homework for the weekend is to keep working on Revision One (due March 14). See the “Revisions” page for details.  You can upload your assignment here. 

Remember– this is worth 10% of your grade– so please turn it in on time. I do not accept late work unless you’ve spoken with me first.

Also– please email me (chall@citytech.cuny.edu) to let me know if you’d like to meet one-on-one on Zoom  to talk about your revision or the course in general. Everyone will have to do it at least once this semester. These meetings are about 15 mins and help you answer questions about your own writing or writing in general. I am free Friday and Monday.  You’ll need to make the appointment at least 6 hours in advance!

Hi everyone– we don’t have class on Tuesday, March 5. This is JUST FOR THIS CLASS. We will meet again on Thursday, March 7.

For March 7:

• Read “Car Crash While Hitchhiking”
• On March 7, please bring in a printed copy of the piece you will be revising. You will get feedback from one or two classmates (of your choice). See details about the revision assignment here. 
• Keep working on your revision, due March 12. Remember what Tanya said: focus on one or two aspects for revision (making the scenes more vivid, cutting out fluff, just FINISHING the thing, etc). Don’t try to make the whole thing perfect

By the way, here is a website for help with procrastination. You don’t have to look at it, I just thought you might find it interesting, since it came up today!

If you haven’t finished Zoraida, READ IT!!  Remember that Tanya Rey will be zooming into our class on Thursday.

With this in mind, come to class with at least 2 questions (written  down!) for Tanya– they can be about Zoraida, her writing process, or whatever you want. Remember that we’ll be doing revisions soon, so if you want to ask her about that, go ahead!

If you haven’t submitted your short story yet, please do (details below).

Also, here is the webpage on character arcs, if you find it useful.

Another way of thinking about plot:

• the writer teaches readers what to expect
• something unexpected happens
• the character reacts
• something (usually the character) changes from beginning to end.

Remember that you have a revision (graded assignment due on March 12.) This will be 4-6 pages of work.  Keep working on it!

Read “Zoraida” by Tanya Rey. Try reading with a pen in your hand– what do you like/ not like– SPECIFICALLY about it. Mark places you get confused/ intrigued/ annoyed. why? Also, take note: how is Rey using language? What about it is surprising/ interesting/ confusing?

Trigger warning; there is some homophobia and racism mentioned here.

Tanya will be visiting our class (on Zoom) on Feb 29 to talk about this story!

For Feb 15, your homework is to read “Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff.  We’ll discuss the story in class on Thursday. (If that link doesn’t work, try this one. You only have to read pages 1-5 if you use this link)

I will be collecting your notebooks on Thursday so I can give you credit for your in-class writing– including the work we did today. Feel free to add to today’s assignment if you felt like you were on a roll!!

Stay warm and safe!

Hi everyone– it turns out CUNY has moved all classes tomorrow due to the upcoming snowstorm (!!). We’ll be meeting on Zoom at our regular class time (2:30 PM). I’ve sent you the Zoom link via email and text and I’ll put it on Blackboard too.  I can’t post it here because this site is public and we don’t want Zoom bombers!! If you have a problem finding the link, email me at: chall@citytech.cuny.edu

Also remember your two poems are due tomorrow. Details below. 

Please read all the poems in the poetry packet before Thursday’s class. Be sure to bring this packet with you when we meet again! Remember that homework is 30% of your grade.  See the page “course readings” for digital copies of the poems, if you prefer to read online.

Look for examples of Concrete, Significant Detail (CSD) .  Be prepared to discuss: What poem did you like the best (and why?) and any questions you might have about the poems or poetry itself! 

I also strongly suggest you join this website as a member– that way, you’ll get emails when I’ve posted announcements or assignments

To Join this class:

Login to your OpenLab account and follow these instructions to join this course.

If you’re new to the OpenLab, follow these instructions to create an account and then join the course.

Also, if you haven’t yet joined Perusall– please do it now. That’s a requirement of this class! (Info on joining is below!)

By the way, here’s a zoomable image of The Garden of Earthly Delights, the painting we wrote about in Tuesday’s class

Day One HW: 

First,  join our Perusall site This is very important, as, after today, this is where you’ll be submitting all of your writing!  Basically, you just need to go to Perusall.com using this link:  https://app.perusall.com/join/hall-jw42d If you still have questions, this page has more info 

You may be asked to provide our course code. It is: HALL-JW42D

Second, re-watch “(un)Learning my Name” by Mohamed Hassan 

Third, click “comments” above, and in your comment, introduce yourself to us and your name.

You can do this however you want– you can write a poem, a brief story, or just a conversational paragraph . You can even add a link to a video. Or record an audio file and link to it. Or draw something and upload the image. Whatever you want. Remember: we’re all about composing in the 21st century, so feel free to do what you think would be interesting for us to see/hear/learn about. You can use the work you did in class as a starting point.