Week 10

Welcome to class. As you know, the final exam, a 350 word, three-paragraph essay is scheduled for this week. The essay must earn a grade of C or better. Any students who miss class this week must make certain to come next week to make up the essay exam, or contact me to discuss some other accommodation. Next week also offers all who take the exam today a chance to retake it, if necessary.

I'm confident all can pass this exam. If you have been applying yourself throughout the quarter, you have done by now at least half a dozen formal assignments, and numerous practice and free-write exercises. We have practiced the form of the paragraph and multi-paragraph essay each week, along with basic sentence structures–the simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentence types. We have reviewed the use of standard punctuation and grammar. We have modeled the primary modes of presenting information and organizing a paragraph or an essay–description, narration, illustration, and argument. We have discussed and practiced the necessity of having a thesis idea–the point that unifies and gives direction to the essay, the one central thing you want your essay to express. And we have practiced building paragraphs organized around a single clear topic idea, each paragraph serving, if part of a larger essay, to advance the thesis idea in one or another supporting way.

We can spend the first hour of class on review, and in preparing a checklist for the editing process to follow as you review your final draft. Thus will you have time to compose and a format to edit for the major errors that occur in grammar and punctuation.

The essay topics will be given in handout before the exam begins.

Note: Use of the Internet is not allowed during the exam.

See you in class, then.

Week 9

Good morning and afternoon class. Evening, too, why not? We want the charm to last all day!

Today is the last day before, well, before next week's class, during which you will take the final (Scary? No, not at all.) So today we'll do a bit of review and a short assignment I think you will enjoy.

See you there.

Today's Assignment: ENC0020 essay#8:

Reviews and descriptions of cultural fare– of park attractions, films, art exhibits and fairs, live music shows, restaurants, bars, and clubs old and new, sporting events, lectures, book signings and discussions, community classes and workshops­–offer people a way to learn what what’s going on about town and connect with others.
Work on the following prompt in class today. Pair with someone and plan to discuss some of the interesting features of your individual topics and why others might enjoy or otherwise benefit from your particular knowledge and perspective. Assume your audience wants something to do or see and you are going to help out. Compose an essay of some 200 words, in single paragraph form if you like, or go longer and organize the essay in 3-paragraph format, with an introductory, body, and concluding paragraph.

1. In the Mark K. Wheeler Gallery of the main building of AiFL is the 32st Annual Faculty Art Exhibit. Take a tour of the gallery, noting and copying out all pertinent information on the exhibit so that others know where it is and the kind of show to expect and include the title of the show and gallery name. Choose one or two works as representative for the central focus of the essay, the one or two that you find most appealing or successful in terms of impact and meaning. Describe the artist’s medium, particular techniques, colors, forms, etcetera. Identify the one or two pieces by title and artist in your description and discussion.

Week 7

Week 7, yes, it is week 7. I know because, for one, I spent a good part of the weekend looking at student essays, and I must say I was very pleased with the work you all have done thus far. The midterm essays were particularly strong and often memorable. If you should like clarification or any explanation of the midterm grade that appears this week, just ask and I'll be glad to help. The strength shown thus far puts us in a good position for the remaining weeks of the quarter. I'd like to finish some verb tense and agreement work, review sentence patterns and punctuation, and other uses of the parts of speech. As for assignments, as the syllabus indicates, I have in mind a film review of a recent work. To that end this week I'll have two film choices, each a biopic, one of the heavy weight fighter Mike Tyson, and the other of an eccentric animal rights activist named Timothy Treadwell. We'll take a vote as to the one we watch. Each will provide us an opportunity to write about an interesting character whose life and work have provoked the admiration and scorn of many people and who resists easy judgement.

The plan then is for the first hour or so of class to be dedicated to the summary work from last week, and the grammar and punctuation review; and the last hour or so to the film and discussion of how to proceed in writing about it.

ENC0020/Week 7: Writing a film review or commentary requires you to introduce the film by title (in italic letters), release date, and director. The subject of the film or story line must be summarized briefly and your thesis, too, should appear early on or up front in the introductory paragraph. The thesis is your considered opinion, an idea that unifies the whole essay. The body paragraph(s) serve to provide the evidence and examples needed to support the thesis. The conclusion puts the finishing touch on the essay, and reminds readers of the significance of your subject and your claims.

Grizzly Man (2005), directed by Werner Herzog, is about a man named Timothy Treadwell, the “kind warrior,” who lived and died in defense, he believed, of his ideals. He strove to protect and to know familiarly the grizzly bears living in Katmai National Park, Alaska. He spent 12 summers there, living among the bears, photographing them, loving them in his way. He drew admirers and critics. For filmmaker Herzog, he appears a symbol of humanity’s conflicting feelings about nature and civilization.

Essay 6: Describe Tim Treadwell­­­--his appearance, personality, aims, desires, and work. Tell what makes him remarkable, bringing him to life in the way the film does, whether as idealistic, brave, kind, funny, strange, angry, tormented, paranoid, scary, wise or unwise. Pick a few moments from the film to illustrate the man’s character in a balanced way, including if you like some of the opinions of those who appear in the film. Title the essay. Compose 350 words at a minimum.

Or: Discuss the film Tyson (2009), directed by James Toback, in terms of its presentation of the heavyweight fighter Mike Tyson. Describe the man’s life history, his particular strengths and weaknesses and particular personal challenges. Select revealing highlights from the film to illustrate something of his fundamental nature, as you see it, and he shows it us in his words and actions, triumphs and defeats.

Three paragraphs at least, 350 words, include film title and director’s name up front in the opening paragraph. Underline your thesis idea.

Week 2

Welcome back!  It's Monday of week 2, and a pleasant, sunny, 84 degrees outside here in Ft. Lauderdale.  What will the day bring us each?  And isn't it exciting to watch the world unfold, to witness the grand parade of things that pass before the eye of consciousness, noting the details, large and small, as one image, one thought, one feeling quickly passes on to the next!  We ride the waves, sometimes on a crest, sometimes in a trough, but always we are in the sea, swimming in the primordial soup of life . . . part of the soup, indeed!  

By writing we become, I believe, more conscious of what we see, for in the theater of our mind we look at things, turn them over, bring them close, take a step back . . . in short we find angles of view that might have escaped us had we not stopped to contemplate the show.   Writing about anything, writing well that is, demands we find some perspective to put our subject in, a stance or idea to frame it.  The frame or thesis tells a reader what to make of our subject.  Say the subject–the raw material–is some event we can't shake from memory, whether from childhood, adolescence, or our adult life.  Something happened and the memory of it has been shedding a certain light on the stage (screen?) that is there in our head.  This subject (event, phenomenon, fact, instance, example, case–call it what you will) must be interpreted, its shape discovered, framed, its meaning revealed (in so far as we can grasp it).

  A composition of even a single paragraph must organize itself around an idea, stated or implied, which is the thesis or topic idea.  Here are some examples, with frame ideas in italic letters:

Everything is changing. . . . This is a prediction I can make with absolute certainty.  As human beings, we are constantly in a state of change.  Our bodies change every day.  Our attitudes are constantly evolving.  Something that we swore by five years ago is now almost impossible for us to imagine ourselves believing.  The clothes we wore a few years back now look strange to us in old photographs.  The things we take for granted as absolutes, impervious to change, are, in fact, constantly doing just that.  Granite boulders become sand in time. Beaches erode and shape new shorelines.  Our buildings become outdated and are replaced with modern structures that also will be torn down. Even those things which last thousands of years, such as the Pyramids and the Acropolis, also are changing.  This simple insight is very important to grasp if you want to be a no-limit person, and are desirous of raising no-limit children.  Everything you feel, think, see, and touch is constantly changing.

–Wayne Dyer, What Do You Really Want For Your Children?

Starting about one million years ago, the fossil record shows an accelerating growth of the human brain.  It expanded at first at the rate of of one cubic inch of additional gray matter every hundred thousand years:  then the growth rate doubled;  it doubled again; and finally it doubled once more.  Five hundred thousand years ago the rate of growth hit its peak.  At that time, the brain was expanding at the phenomenal rate of ten cubic inches every hundred thousand years.  No other organ in the history of life is known to have grown as fast.

–Robert Jastrow, Until the Sun Dies

What my mother never told me was how fast time passes in adult life.  I remember, when I was little, thinking I would live to be at least as old as my grandmother, who was dynamic even at ninety-two, the age at which she died.  Now I see those ninety-two years hurtling by me.  And my mother never told me how much fun sex could be, or what a discovery it is.  Of course, I'm of an age when mothers really didn't tell you much about anything.  My mother never told me the facts of life.

–Joyce Susskind, "Surprises in a Woman's LIfe"

Some paragraphs, particularly ones descriptive or narrative, have no directly stated topic idea, but the idea is implied, the purpose of the paragraph clear.  What is the implied topic idea in the following examples?  

[Captain Robert Barclay] once went out at 5 in the morning to do a little grouse shooting.  He walked at least 30 miles while he potted away, and then after dinner set out on a walk of 60 miles that he accomplished in 11 hours without a halt.  Barclay did not sleep after this but went through the following day as if nothing had happened until the afternoon, when he walked 16 miles to a ball.  He danced all night, and then in early morning walked home and spent a day partridge shooting.  Finally he did get to bed–but only after a period of two nights and nearly three days had elapsed and he had walked 130 miles.

–John Lovesey, "A Myth Is as Good as a Mile"

After our meal we went for a stroll across the plateau.  The day was already drawing to a close as we sat down upon a ledge of rock near the lip of the western precipice.  From where we sat, as though perched high upon a cloud, we looked out into a gigantic void.  Far below, the stream we had crossed that afternoon was a pencil-thin trickle of silver barely visible in the gloaming.  Across it, on the other side, the red hill rose one upon another in gently folds, fading into the distance where the purple thumblike mountains of Adua and Yeha stretched against the sky like a twisting serpent.  As we sat, the sun sank fast, and the heavens in the western sky began to glow.  It was a coppery fire at first, the orange streaked with aquamarine; but rapidly the firmament expanded into an explosion of red and orange that burst across the sky sending tongues of flame through the feathery clouds to the very limits of the heavens.  When the flames had reached their zenith, a great quantity of storks came flying from the south.  They circled above us once, their slender bodies sleek and black against the orange sky.  Then, gathering together, they flew off into the setting sun, leaving us alone in peace to contemplate.  One of the monks who sat with us, hushed by the intensity of the moment, muttered a prayer.  The sun died beyond the hills; and the fire vanished.

–Robert Dick-Read, Sanamu:  Adventure in Search of African Art

Notice that well written paragraphs develop adequately the subject; that is, there is sufficient detail and enough examples to make a persuasive case for the idea(s) expressed.  Often, too, in descriptive and narrative writing you will notice the pattern of arrangement is either spatial (the eye moves from point A to B and on to C and D in clear, coherent direction) or chronological (time is tracked either from a beginning point on forward, or backward, or some mix of the past, present, and future). Sometimes both the spatial, as in description of a setting or scene, and the chronological, as in an account of actions in time, are at work.  Look again at the examples above.  How are they arranged?

Writing Assignment:  Construct a single-paragraph essay (no more than a page) on an experience or event that reveals something about the person you are, or have been. Use first-person voice, the familiar "I" that we use in conversations about ourselves. We may get time to finish in class, but if not you will bring it to class week 3. At the bottom of the page, state what is the thesis or topic sentence of the paragraph.

Sentence Type 1:  The simple sentence has one subject and one predicate (the base of which is always a verb or verb) phrase.  And in English, the subject usually comes up front, followed by the verb and any other predicate elements.

Jesus wept. Nuts!  (that is nuts, this is nuts, he is nuts, etc., where that, this, he are the subjects and "is" the verb, with "nuts" describing the situation or person, as an adjective or subject complement).

Style has meaning.  Choices resonate.  What is the subject in each of the two preceding sentences?  Style and choices, of course.  And the verbs?  Has and resonate, of course.

And in the following?

He drove the car carefully, his shaggy hair whipped by the wind, his eyes hidden behind wraparound mirror shades, his mouth set in a grim smile, a .38 Police Special on the seat beside him, the corpse stuffed in the trunk.

They slept.–intransitive (takes no direct object of the verb)

The girl raised the flage.– transitive (the flag is the object of the verb)

Inverted order:  Lovable he isn't.    This I just don't understand.  

Tall grow the pines on the hills.

A fly is in my soup.  With expletive (which delays the subject):  There is a fly in my soup.

A compound sentence has at least two independent subject and verb combinations, each combination joined by means of some conjunction or punctuation that serves to join:

Autumn is a sad season, but I love it nonetheless.

Name the baby Huey, or I'll cut you out of my will.

The class was young, eager, and intelligent, and the teacher delighted in their presence.

The sky grew black, and the wind died; an ominous quiet hung over the whole city.

My mind is made up; however, I do want to discuss the decision with you.

Week 3

Welcome! Week three has arrived and it's–an embryonic lizard! Well, not exactly but yesterday while I was conscientiously cleaning the air conditioning unit that cools my little place, I discovered a clutch of small eggs, lined up in a row between the aluminum sidings of the inner frame. They had evidently been out of the cool air flow, as I discovered in trying to extract them from the niche where they stood (I had to use jewelry pliers to do this). One of the eggs, the very last, and the most difficult to reach, broke, and began to spill. I couldn't see well the contents and continued to lift the collapsing, gooey egg by its now shattered shell. Well, I got it out and into the light, and what a fright it gave me. Something alive there, pulsating, breathing! What had I stumbled upon? Each egg was about the size of my pinky nail, but perfectly oval and creamy, with touches of filmy grey blush. I had not imagined life was gestating inside any of them. But there it was, eyes and tiny, slippery body, not meant to be born so soon. I took it outside on a sponge, where it breathed its last. I photographed it, and then I tossed it into the bushes, went back inside, and placed the remaining eggs in a small change purse where, perhaps, they will one day hatch. Then I went to google the reproductive life of lizards. All the while, I thought of the dinosaurs, and the mysteries that spring like black flowers from the unlikeliest of places.

That's one of my weekend stories. What's yours?

Stories–narratives–we tell them endlessly. They are built into the fabric of our lives. Our very lives are the stories we tell about them. The meaning we make of existence comes clear in the stories we tell each other, and each is one of the untold gazillions accumulating over time. Each has a point or a purpose. Each involves events, actions, a conflict set in motion, consequences, perhaps the underlying motives and feelings of those involved, the lessons and insights gained through the experiences recounted.

A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb, and these six were among the survivors. They still wonder why they lived when so many others died. Each of them counts many small items of chance or volition–a step taken in time, a decision to go indoors, catching one streetcar instead of the next–that spared him. And now each knows that in the act of survival he lived a dozen lives and saw more death than he ever thought he would see. At the time, none of them knew anything.

John Hersey, Hiroshima

We imagine the action that took place in the event referenced above, but the writer does not show us the exploding bomb, the fire and smoke and devastation all around. The wails of the living, and the dying.

Narration does more than suggest, it shows action:

When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick–one never does when a shot goes home–but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to go there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly sticken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralyzed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a long time–it might have been five seconds, I dare say–he sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping. I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him. You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skywards like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay.

George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant"

Notice how Orwell works the elements of sight, sound, movement in space, and deep feeling into the account, revealing only at the last line he has been lying down, firing up at the huge animal whose final collapse reverberates in our imagination.

Most of our stories are of events not so unusual; they are of events more homely, domestic, ordinary. These events are no less potentially interesting and dramatic. An important strategy is to narrow your account down to the one or several key events and not to swamp the telling by including too much or anything that does not work to make your dramatic purpose clear, flowing, and forcefully delivered. Dialogue used sparingly may heighten the sense of immediacy and reality. It should reflect real conversation, minus whatever does not move the action forward or reveal character. Simple words and short sentences work best.

Graded exercise (#2) due week 4: Write a personal narrative about an experience that you and your audience will find entertaining or interesting. You should write a short introductory paragraph and conclusion, for a total of about 350 words. The following is a list of suggestions:

*A now-I-know-better experience.

*An experience that shows something of what people are made of, or of what you are made.

*An experience that shows the power of love, anger, desire, fear, etcetera.

*An experience that brought about a significant change in you.

*An experience that reveals the kind of family you have.

*An encounter with a "stranger" you can't now forget.

Sentence Types: last week we looked at the simple and compound sentence types. To review look at the following and identify each as simple or compound:

1. Right here, right now, I would like to smoke a cigarette and take a long walk along the coast.

2. Every day the hot sun glistens on my back.

3. I am living in the moment.

4. On break I ran across the street, and in the process, Jennice called me.

5. Hannah went to the best hospital, and her friends visited her to keep her spirits up.

6. Nothing is worse than being stuck in bed, but attentive friends can make a huge difference in

such situations.

7. The lock was broken and glass lay glinting in the moonlight.

8. Come here, for I want to say something in private.

9. He appeared to listen, but I understood his mind was elsewhere.

10. The stores had all closed, so we window shopped.

A complex sentence has one independent (stand alone) clause (one subject-verb combo) and at least one dependent (can't stand alone except as a fragment) clause. Short examples follow here:

Because he could not be reached by phone, I drove to his house, anxious to see him.

Jimmi walked to work after he crashed his bike.

Unless you give me another chance, we can go no further.

John is a man who loves women more than anything in life.

Bring me the book that you have been hiding.

I cooked and cleaned as the storm raged on.

A compound-complex sentence has at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent clause:

Jimmi hated to be seen as a hypocrite, so he kept his mouth closed while the others freely confessed to backsliding.

If you are to write effectively, your sentences must be clear; words are wasted otherwise.

After the sun dropped below the horizon, and as the moon began her ascent, we set up camp, eager for a chance to relax and eat and talk; each was possessed by the sense of great adventures to come.

Week 1

Welcome to The Art Institute, and to your first writing class here at the school.  This class is designed for practice and instruction in writing short essay compositions.  In it, you will discover some of the ways in which writing can help you to develop your creative capacities and understand better your particular kinds of knowledge and experience of the world.  Writing is a process that will reveal to you what you know, and what you don't.  The simple act of putting words on paper (and screen!) will open the spring of remembered people, places, events, and ideas that you carry inside.  What is more, writing will reinforce your sense of what you can contribute to the lives of others, for all of us are seeking greater knowledge and understanding of the very large and often complicated world we live in, and all of us are in need of the perspective and experience contact with others can give us.  Each of us brings something fresh and unique and lovable to the world.  In giving expression to our thoughts, memories, dreams, desires–and in sharing them with others–we discover the many ways we have been shaped by life, and the connections we have with others.  

Getting started is easier than you might think.  The first step is to take the pressure off yourself.   Forget rules, forget rules, forget rules.  Comma?  Semi-colon?  Forget them for now. Restrictions can make anyone freeze up, and most of what anyone writes will be forgotten or lost or trashed at some point.  Suspend your inner critic.  Write for the sheer pleasure of it, the sense of discovery and surprise at how the mind works, and what you've got hidden inside. The following prompts and exercises are designed to help you get started.  There is no purpose to them beyond getting words to flow from you, and having a little fun.  You may well find something in what you write, something for keeps, something to shape and present to the class or others.  But that part of the process, which involves making decisions, making decisions about what to keep, what to toss, and how to order, shape and polish the stones if rough, all that comes later.  The start of anything is often messy.  And that is fine.  So jump in the water. And get your hair wet!

Exercise 1:  Write for two minutes on anything that comes to mind, no matter what it be. Pretend if you must you've been let loose in a grocery store and the more items you can pull down into your cart, the less you'll have to pay for later.

Ex. 2:  Write for five minutes a mini sketch of yourself, right here, right now. Record the five senses–what you see around you (objects, colors, lights, people), what you imagine you look like, what you are feeling (nervous, relaxed, tired, hungry, etc.) what you hear (even to the voices in your head), what you smell.

Ex. 3:  Word Prompts:  respond to one or several of the following words for two or three minutes at a stretch.

Chocolate 

cherries  

skin

 

Michael Jackson  

stones    

grass 

the sea

music

Ex.4:  Write a ten-word (or more) sentence.  Now use each word as the first word in a new sentence.

Ex. 5:  Peruse the headlines of today's LATimes.  Pick one and make-up a one-paragraph article to go along with it.  Now go back and read the real news.

Ex. 6: Imagine a conversation, a dialogue between two people, characterized by great joy, or anger, hostility, suspicion, or love and desire, whatever comes to mind.  Write it down.

For Homework:  Sort through the material you wrote today in class.  Select the best of it, here an artful or interesting sentence, and here a dramatic image or fresh thought.  Arrange these cuttings or clippings together in a single paragraph that illustrates something you learned in today's writing work, arrange them in such a way that you could present the whole paragraph to the class as a discovery about the writing process, about yourself, or whatever the discovery may chance to be.  

Bring this paragraph to class next week (saved electronically).  As a group, we'll look at some of these individual pieces and comment on what they have to tell us, or give us.

 

Week 5

Week 5! My my my, time is on the wing. Next week, that is week 6, we will have a short essay to do in class that will serve as the midterm exam. You will compose and finish the piece within class time, and you'll have a least one hour and a half to do so. Your midterm grade will appear in your online account a week or so later; the grade is only an indicator of current progress and serves to let you know where you stand as of midterm. I calculate this grade on the basis of work completed and the class essay done week 6. I expect you all to be there and to have submitted all outstanding work by that day.

Today's class will start with a freewriting aimed, ultimately, at generating material for an essay that is structured along the lines of what is called process analysis. How do bees find their way to the hive, how does photosynthesis work, how does one change a tire on a steeply ascending road, make a cheesecake or keep houseplants alive and happy? We all, to some degree, understand how things proceed, or the procedures by which things get done or made. We have followed directions and read instructions from a young age and we have learned how to do a thing or two ourselves; in fact, there are some skills we could actually teach: how to saddle a horse, how to sweep a floor, sew a hem, design an advertisement; and too there are certain experiences we could coach others through, having gone through them ourselves and learned a thing or two about healing, happiness, getting along, starting over– whatever the experience it always involves process. A few examples follow here:

Anyone can climb Kids playing in trees or on monkey bars know that climbing is a natural activity, but older people often have to relearn to trust their instincts. This isn't too hard, though. The ability to maintain self-control in difficult situations is the most important trait for a beginning climber to have. Panic is almost automatic when you run out of handholds 100 feet off the ground. The typical reaction is to freeze solid until you fall off. But with a little discipline,, rational thinking, and/or distraction tactics such as babbling to yourself, humming, or even screaming, fear can change to elation as you climb out of a tough spot.

from "Let's Get Vertical," by Beth Wald

One holds the knife as one holds the bow of a cello or a tulip– by the stem. Not palmed nor gripped nor grasped, but lightly, with the tips of the fingers. The knife is not for pressing. It is for drawing across the field of skin. Like a slender fish, it waits, yellow globules of fat. Even now, after so many times, I still marvel at its power–cold, gleaming, silent. More, I am still struck with a kind of dread that it is I in whose hand the blade travels, that my hand is its vehicle, that yet again this terrible steel-bellied thing and I have conspired for a most unnatural purpose, the laying open of the body of a human being.

from "The Knife," by Richard Seltzer

When a farmer calls in a cheetah capture, it is CCF's job to retrieve the animal from a field trap, gather biological information, and then relocate or release it. Normally the work is done in the field and not in a farmer's kitchen. Until last night, there had not been a call in a month–proof that that farmers are learning to co-exist with cheetahs rather than to shoot first and ask questions later.

from "Blur: Cheetahs. Ranchers. Hope.," by Susan Zimmerman

Wear loose and comfortable clothing when working out. Because a warmed muscle is believed to be more flexible and pliant, you will often see people wearing sweat suits and woolen socks. You should also be sure to position yourself as comfortably as possible to reduce the tension and make the stretching more enjoyable.

from The Science of Stretching, by Michael Alter

Freewrite: Make a list of all the things you can do. Free associate. Imagine the times and places and people these things you do have involved. Choose one or two as a possible subject of description inprocess mode.

Assignment #4: In a step-by-step or stage-by stage description show the means

by which some thing or another happens or gets done, made, or developed. Write 350 words,

using an introductory, body, and concluding paragraphs. Title the essay. Double space the lines.

Grammar Practice: Review verb work and introduce pronoun use guidelines for practice.

Week 4

Welcome back!  Good to see you all, all fine (I hope) and filled with the eagerness to get on that makes school a place where people feel hopeful and excited, that life is happening and that we all belong . . .  because in that peculiar, challenging process of doing whatever it is life is whispering we do, feeling connected and in place makes all the difference.  Remember the lyrics I feel the earth move under my feet, I feel the sky tumbling down, I feel my heart start to trembling, whenever you're around . . .  I know, I know, that's an old love song by Carole King but our emotions color our experience and so whether we are or were in love, thrilled or terrified, the places we remember and imagine from out of the past, see right before us, or view from the perspective of one looking into the future, the real and imagined landscapes of our journeys, these are our subject today.  What was it like to be there?  What did we see?  hear? touch?  smell?  taste?  Were we in a mansion, on a mountain, walking a boulevard or navigating city streets?  Was our neighborhood a place where kids played in the street and dogs barked excitedly, where sometimes the flood waters rose to knee height and frogs and snakes made wild companions? Did folks sit on the porch, or did they live behind privacy gates and drive fancy cars?  Can you describe your home of homes?  And how does it compare to other homes, other places?  What makes it distinct precisely?  What gives it character?  What kinds of life, what kinds of people and things and what jobs does one find there?  and what would a map reveal?

Writing Assignment (#3):  Writing about place means bringing to a reader's mind the particular aspects that define the essence of your subject place or setting.  We stand on whatever ground, sit on whatever chair, stroll whatever paths or sidewalks, swim the river or climb that tree, eat those berries, smell those blossoms, marvel at the moon, swelter in the heat and the dust of late summer, or shiver in the icy blasts that make street corners formidable.  In 350 words, conjure a precise and compelling portrait of a place you know well.  Underline your thesis idea if it is stated, or type it out at the bottom of the page if it is implicit (clearly suggested but nowhere actually stated).

Title the essay.  Double space the lines and tab indent for each paragraph.

Class exercise:  we'll read the handouts on paragraph types, and then write some practice examples.

Grammar Work:  Verb conjugations, tense forms and usage.

Week 6

Hello, hello, and how are you? Very well, I hope. Delighted we've come this far, halfway through the quarter now, and without a hitch, methinks. Still, we've got a ways to go before the party's over (not that the party is really ever over, heaven forbid!). Yes, yes–that most positive, affirmative of words–yes, the party moves on always and we with it, and yet we've still more exercises in basic composition, grammar use and proper punctuation to do.

The following URL will provide content for a short exercise in using direct quotation from a written text: http://.

The idea of the exercise is simple: You want to report summarily on the contents of the article by Michael Pollan titled “Six Rules For Eating Wisely,”and provide at least one direct quotation from the article to illustrate and provide evidence of the accuracy of your summary description. You will introduce the piece by title and author and post date in a sentence that also leads into the subject matter. To summarize means to restate in condensed form the original contents. The length of a summary varies. For our purposes, between 170-200 words is sufficient. We'll go over the article together to make sure we understand what it says, and then proceed to restate in short form and in our own words the main ideas of the article. Analyze the article in terms of its major idea and supporting points and include these, as well as how the author starts develops, and finishes the piece. I don't want you to respond with an opinion in this exercise; just the facts, mam, as they say. Don't use "I" at all. Use third person: In an article appearing in the LATimes titled . . . David Sarno reports that . . . . In this way,y briefly describe what the article has to say. Save your document for my commentary or review.

Directions: Summarize in 200 words or so Michael Pollan’s article “Six Rules For Eating Wisely.” Use two to three quotations to illustrate and support your summary claims. Do not include your opinions of the material or his ideas. Access the article at michaelpollan.com under Writings; from there scroll down to the Time 2006 article. See handout for outline.

The second half of the class period is to be spent in composing a one-paragraph essay of about 200 words. The main idea or topic sentence should be clear. If it is stated directly in the essay I want you to underline it. If it is implicit (i.e. not stated anywhere but clearly implied from all you've written), I want you to write the topic sentence of the composition below the finished essay. The bulk of the paragraph should develop the topic idea by means of description, specific details and examples, brief narration, commentary and observation (your thoughts on the matter), and so on. The opening sentence should provide a smooth lead-in and/or statement of the essay's central idea (topic idea). The final sentences should be winding up the discussion to provide some sense of finish or conclusion.

Title the essay.

Here are the prompts for the essay, with the final one open to your own inclinations. Again, you will have one major point to make, follow one point, building the essay around this point (topic or thesis).

1. Walking Home–description and narration.

2. An unwelcome guest–description and narration.

3. A challenging moment–description and narration.

4. A healthy diet–what that means.

5. Going out on limb–the risks and rewards.

6. The beach or the mountains or . . . you fill in with the subject of your choice.

7. An inspiring person or idea.

8. Any topic you would like to explore in this one-paragraph essay.

I will collect the papers at the end of the class. Do not use the Internet for content in this essay.

Week 7

Week 8

Good morning, good day, and good evening! How was your weekend? Anything in the nature of an argument arise? Or an important moral or ethical matter to consider? I got in to a doozy of a spat, went on for hours and hours and hours, with angry words and shouting and accusations, the whole ugliness of it will not bear repeating. And do you know what it involved, at least on the surface? The way politicians sometimes use religion to influence the voting public! And I'm not even religious or particularly interested in politics at this point. That said, being able to state issues clearly and the reasons why we do or perhaps do not feel one way or another about them is a skill and an art even, when it comes to oral and written communication. Convincing others of our "rightness" is not necessarily the best tactic, but being able to lay out side by side some of the conflicting claims, whether of fact or analysis, and the arguments being put forward by the media and authorities on the subject is a primary way of simply looking at the matter from various angles, before coming to any decision or judgment on the issue. Our personal experience is also a source of rational and emotional appeal, as are the stories of others that may be representative of a general or particular truth. Staying calm, and appearing fair-minded and decent is a means of keeping an audience's attention and respect. Anger and vitriol, personal attacks and irrelevant digressions, appeals to emotion that obscure the issue, and illogical analyses and conclusions we want to avoid.

We'll spend some time today exploring the issues meaningful to you all and getting class responses. We'll look at the work of cartoonists that serve to highlight some of the issues being discussed in the news. Then we'll work on putting together an essay that defines an issue and one possible stance towards it.

Essay #7: Introduce the subject you intend to address in the opening paragraph of a short essay and proceed to show why you feel the way you do as regards the ethical or moral concerns the subject raises. What is at stake? What are the human costs and consequences associated with the matter at hand? Why is one's sense of injustice and indignation aroused? Whatever personal story, facts, or authoritative opinions you want to include to support your position belong somewhere in the body paragraph(s). Write a 350-word essay, three paragraph minimum, and title the piece.

Links

http://www.bartelby.com/

http://www.grammarbook.com

http://www.slate.com/

http://www.latimes.com/