MIDTERM RECAP: What to work on

1. Make sure you are answering all parts of the question asked of you. In the case of the midterm, you were asked to argue your opinion—not to give an overview, summary, or analysis of the articles. Go beyond what the article says and offer your own evidence or examples, using the article as reinforcement. This means that you will use the author’s words to further your opinion, but ultimately YOUR opinion is what matters. Those who were able to relate the articles back to their own ideas and come up with their own examples did better than those who merely reiterated what McWhorter said without offering any new evidence or insight.
2. Use quotations: this means introducing quotations with a signal phrase, quoting properly, citing at the end, and explaining why you are using that piece of evidence.
   According to McWhorter, “it’s more likely the fault of an individual’s education than laziness” (McWhorter).
3. Make sure your organization relates directly back to the thesis. Body paragraphs should be organized around the specific points mentioned in the thesis, and in the same order.
4. Include a strong thesis. Almost all of you had the what, and some even had the beginning of the how, but all can continue to work on this.
   What (your stance) + how (the reasons for your stance) = thesis

An example thesis: “Because grammar is not prioritized in the school systems these days, it is therefore not an appropriate indicator of one’s intelligence or work ethic and should not be the reason why someone’s resume is discarded.”

How the thesis translates into the body of the essay:

– Body par 1: the lack of focus on grammar in schools hurts the job applicant, and they have no control over it. They should not be faulted for this.
– Body par 2: grammar is not an appropriate indicator of one’s intelligence. You could be discounting a really smart person who just never really figured out the rules of grammar.
– Body par 3: grammar may not even be relevant for the job. The skills required of the job are what should be considered—not grammar.

We also discussed How to Write Great Introductions.

INTRODUCTION TO ESSAY #3: The Research Project

Essay #3 will take us through the rest of the semester. The topic is Entertainment & Society. Your assignment is to write an argumentative, research-based essay on how some aspect of entertainment affects society—positively or negatively (You can find the assignment here.)

Be specific in your focus. Here are some examples of specific focuses:

1. Pop music: Taylor Swift’s feel good music instills a greater confidence in today’s adolescents.
2. Video Games: Violent first person shooter games like Call of Duty instill violent tendencies and behaviors in kids and teens who play them.
3. Social Media: Social media has ruined romantic relationships by removing face-to-face intimacy and offering a buffer for all communication to hide behind.

You can also argue the opposite—that Taylor Swift is ruining pop music, that shooter games actually instill positive values in kids, or that social media is helping to bring people together. (Remember, these are just examples. Your focus should be something specific that interests YOU!)

You MUST choose a side. Your point of view doesn’t have to match the view of the general public. In fact, a good persuasive essay is one in which you try to persuade your readership toward a less-accepted point of view. There are plenty of times in your life when its best to adopt a balanced perspective or consider both sides, but this isn’t one of them. Take a firm stance! You must choose a specific side and explain what you think and why you think that. Remember, you may not use “I.”

PROPOSITION STATEMENTS:

To start, create a proposition statement. This is the first step toward your thesis, and is required on your preliminary research sheet.

• Your proposition should define your argument’s scope and make a debatable claim. It should not be a fact or pure opinion.
• A statement like “social media ruins things for people” is weak because it’s a vague generalization that provides no direction for writer or reader. Think about what + how. How does it ruin things? Why does it ruin things? What are “things?” Who are the people?
• If pressed to be precise, the writer might then come up with something more particular: Social media has ruined romantic relationships by removing face-to-face intimacy and offering a buffer for all communication to hide behind.

 As you start to think about what you want to argue, you should consider a few questions:

• How many people could argue against my position?  What would they say?
• Can it be addressed with a yes or no? (Aim for a topic that requires more than a yes or no answer.)
• Can I base my argument on scholarly evidence, or am I relying on religion, cultural standards, or morality? (You MUST be able to do quality research!)
• Have I made my argument specific enough? 

HOMEWORK DUE THURSDAY 4/2

• ESSAY #2 DUE THURSDAY!!!!! Include all process work as well as peer review worksheets.
• Finish rewriting your new midterm intro in your in-class writing notebook. (Midterm readings available here)
• Post your new midterm thesis to Open Lab (category: “Midterm Thesis Rewrite”)
• Complete the Preliminary Research Sheet, due in class Thursday
• Read “Thinking Critically About Research” pt. 1 (pgs. 1-8). NOTE: you do not need to do a reading response. Print and bring to class on Thursday.

In addition to discussing the grammar packet and “The Movie that Changed My Life,” we also went over the guidelines for peer review. On Thursday, we will be doing our first peer review. You are responsible for having read these guidelines, whether or not you were in class. Also remember that peer review is mandatory and participation affects your essay grade!

HOMEWORK FOR THURSDAY, 3/26

• Bring two printed copies of your Essay #2 to class for peer review. If you are not prepared with your copies, you will not receive credit for participating!
• Your In Class Writing Notebook must also be turned in on Thursday.

Commas and Comma Splices

There are four main uses for commas:

1. After an introductory phrase: “When she saw her grade, she was relieved. However, she still had much work if she wanted an A.”
2. To separate items in a list or series: “She studied, took practice tests, and reread the stories.”
3. Before a conjunction introducing an independent clause: “She accidently snoozed her alarm clock, but still managed to make it on time.” “She studied hard, so she felt prepared for the test.”
   1. What are the other conjunctions? And, but, so, or, for, yet, nor.
4. To set off an element, or a parenthetical phrase—these are phrases that often add some sort of description, but could be removed from the sentence without changing or confusing its meaning: “The students, which had first been indifferent, became more and more interested.” (From: The students were at first indifferent. Later, they became more interested.) “Kelly and Lisa, according to rumor, dropped the class.”

Unfortunately, many people substitute commas for other punctuation pieces. The most common form of run on is called the “comma splice,” and this is in most cases the type of run on that you are using.

• To put it simply, you should never join two independent clauses with a comma. (Remember: independent clauses are complete sentences, with a subject and a verb, expressing a complete thought.)

An example: “This is going to be the most difficult exam of your college career, you had better start studying immediately.” This is a comma splice because two independent clauses, that could very easily stand alone, are connected with a comma.

How do you fix it? Fix your comma splices by:

1. adding a conjunction after the comma
2. replacing the comma with a period and capitalizing the next word as the start of a new sentence.
3. replacing the comma with a semi-colon (only if the two sentences are inherently related).

Correct: “This is going to be the most difficult exam of your college career, so you had better start studying immediately.”

Let’s try another one: David Sedaris’s essay is entertaining, it is full of engaging ideas.

• David Sedaris’s essay is entertaining. It is full of engaging ideas.
• David Sedaris’s essay is entertaining, and full of engaging ideas.

ESSAY #2

Potential categories to consider when comparing your neighborhood to Times Square:

• Traffic: both the presence of cars and the presence of people.
• Transportation: how easy is it to get around?
• People:
  • Is your neighborhood predominately occupied by people of a certain ethnicity or is it a mix?
  • What kind of people? Business men and women? Tourist?
  • How do people handle themselves?
• Businesses that exist:
  • little bodegas and hardware stores, or national chain retailers?
  • Is it predominately residential? Is it a mix of commercial and residential? Is it completely commercial?
  • Where do you go to buy food? Are there restaurants?
• Physical structure: are the buildings tall or short buildings? Can you see the sky? What is the view?
  • What are the buildings made up of? Bricks? Cement? Glass? Are there giant electronic screens and an overabundance of advertisements, or is it subdued?
• Presence of parks and green space: trees and parks, or not?
• Entertainment: what are the entertainment options in the neighborhood?
• Expenses: how much would it cost to live in either neighborhood? How much does it cost to shop around either neighborhood?
  • Traffic: both the presence of cars and the presence of people.
  • Transportation: how easy is it to get around?
  • Presence of ethnicity:
    • Is your neighborhood predominately occupied by people of a certain ethnicity or is it a mix?
    • What kind of people? Business men and women? Tourist?
    • How do people handle themselves?
  • Businesses that exist:
    • little bodegas and hardware stores, or is it national chain retailers?
    • Is it predominately residential? Is it a mix of commercial and residential? Is it completely commercial?
    • Where do you go to buy food? Are there restaurants?
  • Physical structure: are the buildings tall or short buildings? Can you see the sky? What is the view?
    • What are the buildings made up of? Bricks? Cement? Glass? Are there giant electronic screens and an overabundance of advertisements, or is it subdued?
  • Presence of parks and green space: trees and parks, or not?
  • Entertainment: what are the entertainment options in the neighborhood?
  • Expenses: how much would it cost to live in either neighborhood? How much does it cost to shop around either neighborhood?

HOMEWORK

• Essay #2: observations and photos due on OpenLab before class Tuesday.
• Midterm on Thursday!

Hi everyone—I apologize for the overload of information today! Here is a review of everything I covered regarding summary and paraphrase. We will work on this more later in the semester, so don’t feel like you need to know it all now. This is more of an introduction so you can start working on these skills.

SUMMARY

A SUMMARY is when you condense a substantial amount of material into a much smaller amount of material: a paragraph, usually, or even a sentence. Summaries are used when you don’t want to provide too many details, just a central idea.

• A summary does not need to begin with what the author first wrote.
• It will describe the overall gist of the piece followed by the major events. Summaries consist of the key points—not everything.
• Though summaries, like every piece of writing, have an intro, body, and conclusion, these sections are highly compacted. Typically, in a one paragraph summary, the first sentence is the intro AND the main argument/point of your summary. The sentences that follow each explain a key point of the book/essay.

When you are writing a summary:

• Make sure you understand the organization of the essay clearly
• Identify the thesis or purpose of the essay, topic sentences, and key points as you read.
• Ask yourself, “What is this essay about?”
• Reconstruct the argument as presented by the author as a list (sometimes, it helps do this first as a list).

*Remember: You are writing objectively about another writer’s words.

Click here to see strategies for writing a summary.
Click here to see three sample summaries for Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant”, all of which are different lengths.

PARAPHRASE

 A PARAPHRASE is like a summary in that you put the ideas of others into your own words.

• While a summary reports what a source says in significantly fewer words than the original, a paraphrase retells the information of a source in approximately the same number of words, clinging much more closely to the intent and content of a particular line or passage.
• Be careful not to follow your source’s wording too closely as this will constitute plagiarism.

Click here to see examples of paraphrase and plagiarism to help understand the difference between the two.

Both summary and paraphrase are useful. It usually depends on how much detail you want to give. Just make sure you are putting it in your own words, and not retyping the author’s words.

QUOTATIONS

Any time you copy words directly from printed material, you must put them in QUOTATIONS and give the author credit by introducing and citing. You don’t want to quote everything—that can get really tedious for both writer and reader—but using direct quotations can be one of the best way to incorporate a source.

You should quote when…

• the language of the speaker is particularly vivid.
• you need to maintain technical accuracy.
• the exact words of a speaker are important.
• the speaker holds important authority.
• when you are discussing language itself, as in poetry or literature.

The most important thing to remember when using direct quotations, besides citing, is to integrate those quotations fluidly and gracefully into your paragraphs. You never, never want to just drop a quote down without introducing it. That’s where signal phrases come in handy.

Signal phrases include words like: according to, acknowledges, adds, admits, argues, asserts, believes, claims, comments, contends, insists, notes, observes, points out that, reasons, rejects, suggests, writes…

Examples:

• Though Orwell “did not want to shoot the elephant,” he ultimately does kill the animal because he was afraid of looking foolish in front of the Burmese (Orwell 85).
• Orwell claims, “I did not want to shoot the elephant” (Orwell 85).

More information for summary, paraphrasing, and quoting is available here.

HOMEWORK DUE THURSDAY, 3/12

1. Read David Sedaris “Remembering my Childhood on the Continent of Africa (RR 172) and post your reading response to OpenLab. Don’t forget to bring the story to class.

2. In addition, write a 150-200 word summary of Sedaris’ essay and post it to OpenLab. (Category: “Remembering My Childhood” Summary)

3. Observations and photos for Essay #2 due Tuesday, 3/17.

Here are some of the sentences we corrected in class over the past week—the originals, and one or two of the many possible revisions. Sometimes, it helps to review these revisions and remind ourselves how we can make our sentences stronger, clearer, and more effective.

1. One thing that I find difficult in my writing are that I am used to writing essays in a long time given to submit.

– Extensive deadlines make essay writing difficult.
OR
– I find it difficult to finish essays in a short amount of time.

2. I felt nervous, concerned, and unsure because I did not consider myself a good writer. I never had the urge or determination to write, though I read a lot.

– Although I read a lot, I felt nervous, concerned, and unsure about my writing.

3. When class started all I saw were random letters put together like when eating a bowl of those letter noodle’s soups were random letters join to form no meaning at all.

– In class, all I saw were random letters strung together like a bowl of alphabet soup.

4. I not only see the change in my abilities but I see my siblings also begin to stay away from the origins of practice of learning that my parents stated us with originally.

 – I see changes in my learning abilities. My siblings and I no longer follow our parents’ teachings.

5. Sometimes I have great ideas to write about but my choice of words and my rhythm of writing has always been weak so my writing doesn’t always turned out to be the way I wanted to be.

– I have great ideas to write about, but my choice of words and rhythm has always been weak.

6. Writing has been always my weakest subject ever since I can remember, I missed out on a lot of opportunities academic wise, due to my poor writing abilities.

– Writing has been always my weakest subject. I missed out on a lot of opportunities due to my poor writing abilities.

In addition to working on your final draft of Essay #1 (due next Thursday, 3/5), you must also read George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” and post your reading response to OpenLab. I got caught up in questions at the end of class and forgot to remind you, but this is in your syllabus and you are all responsible for doing the reading and the response before Tuesday’s class. It’s one of the longer readings, so I suggest you start early!

HOMEWORK FOR TUESDAY, 3/3

1. Read Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” and post your reading response to OpenLab.
2. Finish rewriting the sentences from today’s class in your writing notebook if you have not already.
3. Work on your final draft of Essay #1, due Thursday, 3/5.
4. Submissions for the literary arts competition are due Monday!

I’d also appreciate it you could comment below to let me know that you saw this message. Thanks, and have a great weekend!

The first draft of your essay was due in class today. This will be returned to you on Thursday, and you will have a week before the final draft is due.

Final draft of Essay #1 is due Thursday, March 5th (3/5).

Homework due for Thursday is the second grammar packet, distributed in class. If you were absent, please contact me to receive the homework. It will be due at the beginning of class on Thursday.

I also wanted to say again that you all did an amazing job with your “Snake & Fox” stories. They were funny and sad and sometimes morbid, but really great regardless! Here are our morals, for reference (and to remind us to think deeper about what an author is saying–don’t forget to ask “why?” and see if you can push your critical thinking just a little bit further!):

Violence begets violence.
Hate is a product of ignorance.
Respect thy neighbor (in the Bronx).
Don’t cast blame.
Seize every moment, even with those you encounter.
Don’t underestimate the weak.
Accept unlikely help from an unlikely source.
God has your back.
Crises bring people together.
Don’t underestimate yourself.
Courage can appear when you least expect.
Don’t wish bad luck upon others, because it may happen to you.
Enjoy every moment.
Take a hint!
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Be aware of your surroundings.
Deception is a fool’s tool, and wisdom is prosperous.
Trust others (sometimes).

“And don’t forget that punctuation always goes inside of the quotation marks,” said Professor Ostiz (unless, of course, you are citing a source, which we will discuss more later in the semester).

Just a few quick reminders for the essay #1 first draft due Tuesday:

PLEASE REVIEW THE ASSIGNMENT! Review the prompt and assignment details before handing the essay in. I have written you all individual feedback on your prewriting sheets, as well as pointed your attention over and over to the assignment, which we did discuss in class. Everything you need to know is there.

Meaning: this is a narrative essay about your history as a reader/writer. That is the topic. You must stick to it to complete the assignment. No exceptions.

Also remember: all narratives have a conflict and a resolution. What’s your conflict? How did it resolve, and what have you learned from the experience? Use your senses, paint a scene—make the reader feel like he or she was there! Review my other announcement posts for more details here.

And, finally, you must turn in a complete two page essay, printed and stapled, on Tuesday. I will not accept an electronic copy.

Comment with questions, and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

NOTES FROM CLASS 2/19/15

The key features of a literacy narrative:

1. A well-told story:

• As with most narratives, those about literacy often set up some sort of situation that needs to be resolved. In other words, they contain a conflict. That need for resolution makes readers want to keep reading.
• You’ll need to describe what happens.
  • A good story dramatizes action by using active and specific verbs to describe what happens as vividly as possible.

2. Vivid detail:

• Details can bring a narrative to life for readers by giving vivid mental images of the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures of the world in which your story takes place. Details can help your reader picture places, people, and events.
  • Use your five senses!
  • Also think about the key people in your story. Make a list of each person present in your narrative: how do they look, what do they sound like, how do they interact with you?
    • Maybe you’ll even want to include some dialogue to let readers hear these people, rather than just hear about them.

Remember: you are the main character in your story. We want to hear about the other characters, but you are the most important aspect of your story. You are the character the reader wants to know and understand.

3. Some indication of the narrative’s significance:

• By definition, a literacy narrative tells something the writer remembers about learning to read or write. But, the writer also needs to make clear why the incident matters to him or her.
  • The trick is to avoid tacking onto the end a statement about your narrative’s significance as if it were a kind of moral of the story.
• Make clear the ways in which any event you are writing about is significant for you now. How did this event change or otherwise affect you? What aspects of your life now can you trace to that event? How might your life have been different if this event had not happened or had turned out differently?

Some other things to keep in mind:

• A good narrative grabs readers’ attention right from the start. There are many ways to do this, including:
  • Jump right into the action.
  • Describe the context, providing background info.
  • Start with setting, especially if it’s an important element in your narrative.
• The opening hook is very important, but often times, it does not come to the writer first.  As you draft, keep in mind that you don’t need to start at the introduction and work toward the end. Sometimes, it’s easier to start writing in the middle, and once you’ve got the body of the essay down, go back to the beginning.

The most important thing to remember: your goal is to tell the story as clearly and vividly as you can, and to convey the meaning the incident has for you today.

HOMEWORK DUE THURSDAY, 2/24:

Essay #1 first draft due! You must bring a hard copy to class. The essay MUST BE COMPLETE—that is, the full two pages.