WEEK FIFTEEN: UPDATE

This week we completed our analysis of The Great Gatsby. The Unit Test is on Monday and attendance is extremely important as we are coming to the end of the semester.

Today (Friday), students continued the writing process by making improvements on their rough drafts – ISU essay.

Understanding the Purpose of Revising and Editing 

Revising and editing allow you to examine two important aspects of your writing separately, so that you can give each task your undivided attention.

• When you revise, you take a second look at your ideas. You might add, cut, move, or change information in order to make your ideas clearer, more accurate, more interesting, or more convincing.
• When you edit, you take a second look at how you expressed your ideas. You add or change words. You fix any problems in grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. You improve your writing style. You make your essay into a polished, mature piece of writing, the end product of your best efforts.

Reading Aloud (Very important!)

Reading your writing aloud will often help you find problems with unity and coherence. Listen for the clarity and flow of your ideas. Identify places where you find yourself confused, and write a note to yourself about possible fixes.

Next Week:

• Monday: The Great Gatsby Unit Test
• Tuesday – Thursday: Group work (seminar presentations)
• Friday: P.A. Day 🙂

The submission window for the ISU essay opens on Tuesday and closes on Thursday. All essays must be submitted before the end of day Thursday, May 30th.

TWO submissions are required:  

1. PRINTED, polished copy with all reading and writing process work, with a completed Achievement Chart (printed from D2L)
2. UPLOADED file to the D2L Assignments Dropbox (word file please)

WEEK FOURTEEN: UPDATE

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, describes three levels of reading. For many, inspectional reading is all that is required; however, in an academic setting, further reading is necessary.

As a class, we have completed the inspectional level with the accompanying comprehension quizzes (Chapter 1-3, 4-6, 7-9).

Next week, we will complete an analytical reading of the text 🙂

For the seminar presentations, students are required to complete all three levels of reading. The individual mind map for their thematic concept is due on Tuesday.

NOTE: A typed, PRINTED copy of their ISU essay is due next Friday for peer editing. This due date MUST be respected. Thank you.

WEEK THIRTEEN: UPDATE

We have completed reading six of the nine chapters of The Great Gatsby with the accompanying KU tests. This puzzle of a storyline is slowly being deciphered.

On Friday I returned the Macbeth in-class essay. Students are able to keep these essays and apply the feedback to their ISU essay.  The feedback is posted below.

Areas that require the most attention 🙂

• Context: “framing” the topic
• Thesis: clear and concise claim
• Direction: strong support for your claim
• Topic Sentences: reflect the claim and the support
• Explanation: demonstrate that the example or evidence proves/supports your claim
• Communication (writer’s style): literary present, formal tone, do NOT use idioms, slang, colloquialisms, contractions, or phrasal verbs (find out = discover, give up = surrender)
• Note: If you are struggling to express your thoughts, do not default to expressions

We also read through an exemplar for the ISU essay. Students should now type a working, rough draft in preparation for self and peer editing.

IN-CLASS ESSAY FEEDBACK

GENERAL REMINDERS

TITLES – Creative: Content (the creative title should be innovative and engaging: the content title is a reflection of your thesis).

THE INTRODUCTION

• Lead – A segue from your creative title (do not refer to the primary source – the lead/hook is broader in scope – outside the primary text)
• TAG – Title: Macbeth of The Tragedy of Macbeth, Author: William Shakespeare, Genre: tragedy or drama (not a poem, sonnet, dramatic monologue)
• Context – You are framing an approach to your topic that necessarily eliminates other approaches. Thus, when you determine your context, you simultaneously narrow your topic and take a big step toward focusing your essay. Supplying the necessary information to orient your readers may be as simple as answering the questions of who, what, where, when, how, and why. It may mean providing a brief overview of events or a summary of the text you’ll be analyzing. If the text is well known, your summary, for most audiences, won’t need to be more than an identifying phrase or two.
• Thesis and Direction (one or two sentences) – an effective thesis has a definable, arguable claim. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should “telegraph” how you plan to argue—that is, what particular support for your claim is going where in your essay. A strong thesis is written as a complex sentence (Dependent clause is the concession; the dependent clause is the claim).
• Example 1: While an argument could be made that the driving force behind Macbeth’s actions are internal, it is several external forces that ultimately motivate his behaviour. These forces include the words and actions of the three weird sisters, Lady Macbeth, and the two thanes, Banquo and Macduff.
• Example 2: Although it may be suggested that Macbeth was powerless to prevent his demise, it is clear that he is the architect of his own destruction as seen by him foolishly trusting the witches, being easily persuaded by Lady Macbeth, and committing heinous acts to satisfy his own ambition.

BODY PARAGRAPHS

• Topic Sentence: MUST reflect the thesis and direction of your essay
• Point: is a specific argument
• Evidence: is the information you provide that supports the argument 
• Explanation: links the point and the evidence – How are you going to demonstrate that the example or evidence proves / supports your point? ALWAYS go back to your CLAIM (thesis). Do NOT simply summarize your evidence
• Concluding Sentence: Effective statement – What is the key take-away? Do NOT repeat the topic sentence.

CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH

• Reminder: Do not simply restate your thesis statement, as that would be redundant – rephrase the thesis statement with fresh and deeper understanding
• Synthesize: Include a brief summary of the paper’s main points, but do not simply repeat things that were in your paper. Instead, show your reader how the points you made and the support and examples you used fit together. Pull it all together.
• Timely: Point to broader implications (link to Lead – book-ends).

COMMUNICATION

• Write in the literary present
• Correct words (diction)
• Wealth of words (vocabulary)
• Do NOT use contractions
• Do NOT use an informal tone (i.e “finally snaps”)
• Do NOT use idioms- expressions (i.e “does not stay down for long”)