Author: Professor Sean Scanlan (Page 4 of 4)

Hi Class,

Today’s agenda:

1–Freewrite and attendance

2–Diagnostic results

3–How to post to OpenLab

4–Homework: Read Santiago for Monday, Feb 14, and prepare for Quiz 1 which is a reading quiz over the class readings.

To prepare, make sure to know how the 5-Part Reading Tool works.

5–Salvatore Scibona: a close reading

Hi Class,

Today’s Agenda:

1–Freewrite

2–Attendance check

3–5 Part Reading Tool

4–Follow up with Asimov essay (vocab and structure)

5–Paragraph types

6–Sherman Alexi: questions and favorite paragraph

7–Diagnostic writing

HOMEWORK: Read Salvatore Scibona’s essay “Where I Learned to Read” (in Readings menu tab), and send me a formal academic email by class on Wednesday. This means that your email must:

1–use your City Tech email address

2–include a detailed subject line

3–include a greeting

4–include a body paragraph: What did you learn from reading Scibona’s essay? About fifty words is fine.

5–include a signature

Hi Class,

Today we will continue to get acquainted with the course policy and move into more writing and reading.

1–Finish Course Policy

2–Freewrite prompts (3)

3–Student Introductions

4–Asimov

5–Diagnostic writing (Monday)

6–Homework, due before Monday’s class (2/7): Read “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexi. Find this essay in the Readings menu tab. In your notebook, write down five questions that you have about this personal essay. In addition, what is your favorite paragraph of the essay and why? There is nothing to turn in, but I will call on you to read your answers on Monday. [Also, look up any vocabulary words in the Asimov essay that you didn’t know]

If you have any questions, please email me.

-Prof. Scanlan

Hello Students!

This site will grow and develop during the semester, just like you will grow and develop as critical readers and writers.

Please take a minute to get to know our OpenLab site. We will refer to it every week.

If you have any questions, please let me know via email:

sscanlan@citytech.cuny.edu

Best wishes,

Prof. Scanlan

Thoughts for Monday, January 31, 2022:

I often think, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had camps, like summer camps, that grown people could go to where they could fellowship together with books. I was talking recently about whether Oprah’s book club was beneficial and someone pointed out that those of us who are writers and academics are accustomed to a world where we have someone else to talk to about what we read. But for most people, what is so painful about reading is that you read something and you don’t have anybody to share it with. In part what the book club opens up is that people can read a book and then have someone else to talk about it with. Then they see that a book can lead to the pleasure of conversation, that the solitary act of reading can actually be a part of the path to communion and community.

—bell hooks

 

McLoed, Melvin. “‘There’s No Place to Go But Up’ — bell hooks and Maya Angelou in Conversation.” Lionsroar.com. 1 Jan. 1998.

To be changed by ideas was pure pleasure. But to learn ideas that ran counter to values and beliefs learned at home was to place oneself at risk, to enter the danger zone. Home was the place where I was forced to conform to someone else’s image of who and what I should be. School was the place where I could forget that self and, through ideas, reinvent myself. (bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 1994, 3)

HOMEWORK DUE WEDNESDAY, JAN 2, BY CLASS TIME:

1. Sign up for OpenLab and join our class
2. Fill out the Questionnaire–see below
3. Sign up for free cloud storage–if you haven’t already

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