Hi Class,

Thanks for all the questions today.

Make sure to follow the assignment details as you finish this essay. Make sure to revise and proofread with care and diligence.

Please arrive on time on Thursday with your printed essay, the peer review sheet, and your drafts. In a folder would be great, but at least staple everything together.

ALSO: Bring your copy of Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones to class on Thursday!

Email any questions.–Prof. Scanlan

Bonus: students often ask me about rhetoric and argument. Back in the day, rhetoric was a subject that every student studied for many semesters. Now, it seems a nearly forgotten art. But here’s my recommendation: Get at least one book on rhetoric/argument.

One of my favs: Everything’s an Argument by Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. There are many editions of this book. I’ll bet you can find a used copy for $1.

Hi Class,

For Thursday:

1. Select the poem that you want to use for Essay 2 (if you have not yet done so, print out the assignment details)
2. Use the positive/negative tool on the poem; decide what the message is and if it is positive or negative.

I will give homework points for this assignment, so please be prepared to speak about your poem.

For Tuesday: Find one example of each of these terms in our poetry book: Irony, Alliteration, Assonance.

**And print out the Essay 2 assignment sheet.

Hi Class,

Allusion: is a passing reference to a literary or historical person, place, or event.

Example:

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Denotation: A words primary signification or reference

Connotation: A word’s secondary of associated significations and feelings.

Example: “Home” denotes a house where  one lives, but connotes privacy, intimacy, and coziness; and this is why real estate agents often use the word home instead of house.

Alliteration: repetition of beginning speech sounds:

And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste…

Assonance: repetition of identical or similar vowels. Example:

Thou still unravished bride of quietness,

Thou foster child of silence and slow time…

Hi Class,

If there was one take-away from today’s class it is this: try to stick to the words in the poem as closely as possible.

For Tuesday:

1. In our book, read Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (50), Claude McKay’s three poems (70-1), Edna St. Vincent Millay’s two poems (71-2), and Langston Hughes’s six poems (75-78).
2. Read the two poems on the handout and note the rhythm.
3. Print out the lyrics of your favorite song (that has lyrics), and be prepared to talk to the class about the poetry of the lyrics (rhythm, symbols, metaphors, rhyme, etc.)

Best,

Prof. Scanlan

Hi Class,

Good work on metaphor and exploring the poems we read. For Thursday, prepare for Quiz 2, which will cover metaphor (tenor/vehicle), simile, and symbol in a selection of poems by Dickinson, Dunbar, and Frost. I will begin the class with the quiz.

Best,

Prof. Scanlan

Hi Class,

First of all, I would like to apologize for letting class out so early. Briefly, I would like to explain why I did so.

My goal for today’s class was to collect Essay 1 and then move into a new part of the semester: poetry. This fairly short section of the semester was designed to be both content rich and also fun and engaging. I had designed this handout for today:

How to read poetry-spring 2016

I thought that this handout would make poetry something approachable and knowable, not some mysterious thing beyond reach.

I also wanted us to read three poems in class. And here they are:

1. “How to Be Perfect” (an excerpt) by Ron Padgett: How to Be Perfect-Padgett

2. “Where I’m From” by Willie Perdomo:Where I’m From-Perdomo

3. “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/17315

And so when I found half the class empty, many students without Essay 1, and many students strolling in 30 minutes late, I sort of froze. Some students had done the freewrite, many had not. Some students had turned in the essay, many had not. I felt the entire lesson had slipped away from me. I felt that I had upheld my side of “contract” of the teaching of ENG 1121, but that too many students had not performed their side: be on time with the work completed.

The simplest remedy is this: in the future, please be ready at 6:00. In return, I will provide you with the writing and reading tools that I think every college student needs in order to succeed.

I will give a quiz on Thursday that begins at 6:00 and ends at 6:10. The quiz will be over the poems on pages 1-13 of 101 Great American Poems (not including Edgar Allen Poe). On this quiz I will ask three types of questions based on our “How to Read Poetry” handout:

1. How is the speaker of this poem?
2. What is the setting of this poem?
3. What happens in this poem?

I encourage students to focus, in particular, on these three poets: Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This is a reading quiz, and so if you have read the poems carefully and considered the speaker, setting, and plot of each poem written by Bradstreet, Wheatley, and Longfellow, you will do fine.

Best,

Prof. Scanlan

ps. Please bring your poetry book to class on Thursday.

Hi Class,

Here is our Thesis Handout:

Thesis-Statement-2016

For homework:

1. Join OpenLab and Join our class:

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/blog/help/openlab-help/

2. Folder preparation for Tuesday: In a paper folder, please include the final draft, the previous drafts, the assignment details, and the peer review sheet. Please proofread your work with care.

And here is the Peer Review if you want an extra one:

PeerReview-E-1-Comp2-1121-s2016

Best,

Prof. Scanlan

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Hi class,

Homework for Tuesday, Feb 16: read Franklin and Lederer (both in our book: The Signet Book of American Essays) and write Journal 2: 250 words (typed) on favorite essay so far.

Best,

Prof. Scanlan

Hi all,

Great discussion today. I wish we had more time to cover Scibona. I wanted to talk about his structure and his writing style in the second half of the piece. Also, why does he mention so many of the great (and dead) authors that he read at St. Johns? What is his purpose in listing so many of them? Let’s take a few minutes next Thursday to discuss these questions.

HOMEWORK:

1. Print out and carefully read Keller, Malcolm X, and Thiong’O (I suggest that you take margin notes and write down any questions that you have)
2. Write a 250-word journal in which you answer this question: which of these three essays is your favorite and why? Use the Standard Journal Format found in the Readings menu tab.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me.

Best,

Prof. Scanlan