Day 29 & 30 & 31 32

Please complete THIS course eval before the last class.

Labeling your final essays:
Autobiography Name 3.pdf
Autobiography Name 2.pdf
Autobiography Name 1.pdf
Six Word Name.pdf

Where to upload: http://www.dropitto.me/mcollie
Password: EnglishRocks
Format: double-spaced, PDF, 12 pt font, no AMPERSANDS!

Read a sample from a few years back

6-Word Memoirs

Day 28: Group work & 20 Musts

The homework: Think back to a time when you looked someplace that you shouldn’t have. Maybe you looked in the medicine cabinet while babysitting? Maybe you read someone’s diary? Write about this episode and remember to reveal what  you found.

Review writing with peers:
1. What stands out?
2. How does the writer succeed?
3. Where does the writer fail?

Write: 20 moments that must appear in your memoir

Day 27: Group work & reading

In small groups, review writing with peers:
1. What stands out?
2. How does the writer succeed?
3. Where does the writer fall short?

Groups:
1. Jessie, Will Z, Harry
2. Tai, Lucas, Andreas
3. Hayaka, Sam, Matt
4. Michelle, Zac, Will G
5. Ella, Jose, Rene
6. Alex, Easweh, Brandon


A little reading fun: Bossy Pants & Don Fey

Day 26.2: More autobiography training

Discussion about Glass Castle

• In what way does Walls use of specific description enhance/detract from the narrative?
• How does Walls express her family's social status? Does she use direct or indirect description?
• How does Wall's characterize her mother and father? Do these descriptions have positive or negative connotations?
• You read three chapters, what is the purpose of each chapter? What's the thesis or each (or each small section)?
• Is there a thread, a theme to these chapters?

Writing work: Stories about you!

1. The one thing I know for sure about [           ] is ...

2. The funny thing about ...

3. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith ...

4. We sat in silence for ...

5. Every time I see ...

As time permits:

1. You've just won a free 2-day trip to Paris. There's a catch. You must leave immediately. There's no time to go home and pack. All you can bring is what you are wearing and carrying with you today. Plus, you are given 15 minutes and $25 to spend at an airport store. What do you buy, if anything?

Day 25: The final essay(s)

• What is autobiography? Your entire life. No major thematic link. You cover it all.
• Memoir? Focuses on a smaller part or a specific aspect (athletics, birthdays, major life events, etc).

Set up the goals and assignment: 3-page memoir that encompasses your entire life thus far. Start date: birth. End date: right now. Along with producing a written work, you will recording your stories.

Writing exercises: 3-minute intervals

1. I remember tormenting …
2. I remember walking …
3. I remember diving …
4. I remember begging …
5. I remember bragging …
6. I remember dividing …
7. I remember fighting …
8. I remember eating …
9. I remember sleeping …
10. I remember playing

Day 24: Who's is counting?

Peer review: Swap papers with two other people and address these questions:

1. Clear narrative drive?
2. Clear points of comparison and contrast?
3. Who is the intended audience?
4. What's the tone? Is it consistent?
5. Has the writer taken some risk in this essay?

Groups: TBD

Day 23: Peer review & writing

Before swapping papers, please respond to these questions on the back of your essay.

1. What are three items you'd like help with?
2. What are three items you feel good about?

In small groups
1. Identify the speaker, audience & subject for the rough drafts.
2. Address the areas indicated by the writer
3. Is this essay point-by-point of subject-by-subject?
4. Is there a clear narrative drive?

Day 22: small group work

First round of group work:

1. Rene, Michelle, Will G
2. Jessie, Zac, Jose
3. Brandon, Sam, Lucas
4. Harry, Alex, Will Z
5. Matt, Ella, Easweh
6. Andreas, Tai, Hayaka

Protocol (25 minutes)

1. Presenter speaks for 3 minutes on the idea(s) brought to class. What are you comparing? Point-by-point of subject-by-subject? Who is your audience? What's the point you're making? What's the narrative drive? No interrupting. No questions. Just listening from other group members.

2. Listeners ask questions for 2 minutes. No answers from presenter.

3. Presenter responds to questions for 3 minutes. Asks further questions if necessary.

4. Repeat with each group member.

Writing for 20 minutes

Take what you'e learned from your group and grow some of your ideas. Focus, elaborate, refine. No need to narrow it down to one thing if you're still interested in a few topics.

Second round of group work:

1. Rene, Sam, Ella
2. Michelle, Brandon, Matt
3. Will G, Lucas, Hayaka
4. Jessie, Harry, Andreas
5. Zac, Will Z, Easweh
6. Jose, Alex, Tai

Protocol (25 minutes)

1. Presenter speaks for 3 minutes on the idea(s) brought to class. What are you comparing? Point-by-point of subject-by-subject? Who is your audience? What's the point you're making? What's the narrative drive? No interrupting. No questions. Just listening from other group members.

2. Listeners ask questions for 2 minutes. No answers from presenter.

3. Presenter responds to questions for 3 minutes. Asks further questions if necessary.

4. Repeat with each group member.

Day 21: Writing, Discussing, the essay topic

1. Walt & Ray: was this an effective comparison? essay? what can we take away from this piece?

2. Some speed writing

3. The essay topic: FOOD!

Day 20: writing then discussing

Writing Options

1. Write about a way in which you've felt you've had a foot in two different worlds. Your experience can pertain to race and affluence, social class, religion, or some other characteristic. Write about balancing these two worlds. Are there ways in which you appreciate having dual membership, or is it only a burden? What have you learned (the so what)?

2. Write about the demands of two different college applications. Your experience can focus on the writing, the required tests, the specific elements required from each institution. For this topic, try your hand at satire. Make me laugh. Mock the application process a bit.

3. Write about two different years in high school. Now that you've got 3 1/4 years under your belt, reflect, remember, revisit the good times and the bad. Has your perspective on the school changed? Has your perspective on yourself changed?

4. Write about family. Who doesn't love to write about that? You can write about vacations. You can write about siblings or cousins or crazy aunts and uncles. You can write about crazy escape plans you and your brother devised when you were little kids and were convinced a new map was needed each and every night. Go wild!

Discussion questions ... maybe

• Size 6: What purpose does the lengthy narrative serve?
• Everyday Use: In what way does the conclusion of the story echo the beginning? What is the effect of the story's opening and closing in this way?

Compare and Contrast ....

Why we use comparison and contrast
1. To explain the similarities and differences between subjects so as to make either or both of them clear.
2. To evaluate  subjects so as to establish their advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses.

How to structure
1. Subject-by-subject: Victor's ambition versus Macbeth's ambition
2. Point-by-point: Going against the laws of nature, repercussions for actions, lack of personal responsibility

When is #1 more appropriate? When is #2?

Discussion

The Middle-class Black's Burden

• General responses?
• This was written in 1980. Could it have been published and accepted today? Has much changed?
• Let's get back to SAS: On your own, please identify each element of SAS
• Is McClain point-by-point or subject-by-subject?
• Review of homework questions

Fatso

• General responses?
• How do these two essays show us that discrimination is timeless?
• SAS (again!)
• M&S 2: where does Peck's comparison begin? How does she transition to this part of the essay?
• Is her style effective?

Writing
McClain says she has "a foot in each world." Write about a way in which you feel the same. Your experience can pertain to race and affluence, social class, religion, or some other characteristic. Write about balancing these two worlds. Are thee ways in which you appreciate having dual membership, or is it only a burden? What have you learned (the so what)?

The College Essay: The most important essay of your life (not!)

The college essay assignment!


Where to begin? How about here.

Connecticut College

Johns Hopkins

What did college presidents writer about?

Tips from Carleton College

Opening lines from Stanford essays: Stanford


Assignment for today: thinking about the essay prompts you have to choose from for this essay, let's do some brainstorming!

What makes writing great: the day of exclamation points!

Some reading groups: In group of 4-5 rotate around the room and read and discuss the following pieces.

1. Ground Zero: look for sentence patterns. They are amazing in this piece! Read. Learn. Be amazed. Copy at will.

2. Missing the nuance: let's get specific and serious about words.

3. Phantonyms: beware! Be scared.

4. Goodness this is awesome (!) writing.

For each piece, I'd like you answer the following questions:

1. Who is the speaker? Audience? Subject?

2. What is the take-away for your essay writing?

3. What sentence pattern or device did the writer employ that you'd like to steal for your own work?

4. How did the writer engage you in the subject? How did the writer bore you?

5. Discuss anything else you deem necessary before you move on to the next piece.

Your group will spend 15 minutes with each piece and then we'll rotate.

Peer Review of Drafts

You must have your essay read by two classmates! Have each reader fill out the accompanying peer review sheet.

Any questions, comments, concerns, complaints, let me know.

To make you smile/inspire you

How to be a great novelist

Day 7

Shooting Dad

• Vowell employs stereotypes. What are they? How are they helpful? Hurtful?
• In what way is Vowell's voice defined by her sarcasm?
• In what way do form and content complement each other?
• How would you describe her writing style? (think sentences and syntax)

Arm Wrestling with my Father

• Manning employs stereotypes. What are they? How are they helpful? Hurtful?
• Manning's affection toward his father changes over the course of the essay. Where in the essay is that change present? (find the sentence/paragraph)
• What is the purpose of this essay?

Some thoughts from Sara Vowell

1. What was the process behind writing Shooting Dad? Was this essay part of another story or project?
It was originally a radio documentary.  My father and I went up into the mountains and shot off his cannon.  You can probably find it on the This American Life web site on the show called "Guns."  I think the process was: we were doing an hour on the theme of guns and when we were discussing that in the weekly editorial meeting I told everyone my dad had just made his own cannon and so I was dispatched to Montana with a tape recorder.  There really wasn't too much thought behind it--it was more of a hunch.  Seemed like a natural for radio, just because of how loud a cannon is.

2. What did your father think of the essay? Your twin?
I think my dad liked the story but I never asked him.  My family and I don't talk about my work too much.  I think it probably carries over from my family never being too interested in the boring stuff I was obsessed with as a kid, mostly classical music.  Like, I was really into Debussy.  And I'm pretty sure Debussy's parents weren't very interested in Debussy so I can't really blame mine.

3. We're often asked by colleges, "What makes you tick?" What makes you tick?
Colleges ask this?  What makes you tick?  This is not a question that comes up very often in adulthood, unless I am attending the wrong sort of parties.  If the question is what propels my work, I would suppose it's a combination of needing to pay the bills and curiosity about certain topics.  Writing nonfiction, I just latch onto something--one Puritan sermon, a road trip the Marquis de Lafayette made in 1824, the story behind a Hawaiian quilt, etc.--and I just light out from there because I have to know more.  Or, if we're getting more basic, I think the thing that propels nonfiction writers is a love for/fascination with/horror of the world as it is in general and other people in particular.  Or, maybe more to the point, the thing that keeps egging me on is learning.  I'm happy when I'm learning something but I'm happier still when I figure something out after processing something I've learned.

4. How often do you write? And what are you working on now?
How often I write depends on how close I am to a deadline.  If I am within three months of a book deadline, I'm writing writing up to eighteen hours a day seven days a week.  If I've just started researching a book, I can go months before I'm ready to write a single word.  As for right now, I'm trying to decide what my next book will be so I've been researching a couple of ideas.

5. How has your writing voice changed over the course of your career?
I don't think my writing voice has changed all that much.  I might have simplified my style a bit and become a tad less colloquial.  And there's a definite shift from the first person to the third, not that I'll ever completely give up on the first.  I take it from these questions, this class read that essay about my father's cannon.  I bet I haven't written a piece like that for at least ten years--something personal and in the first person.  Right after I made that radio documentary about the cannon I made another documentary about the Cherokee Trail of Tears and fell in love with writing about American history, which is pretty much all I do anymore.  The older I get the less interested I am in myself  I'm also much more guarded about my private life.  That comes from meeting readers and listeners who know things about me from my work.  When I first started telling personal stories on the radio, I was just sitting in a studio by myself and speaking into a microphone.  I never really thought about other people listening.  Mainly though, a huge reason I stopped writing personal essays and started writing books about history is that after I became a writer and finally had control over my life, dramatic things stopped happening to me.  Once I got the congenial, pleasant life I wanted, nothing much happened to me worth writing about so I needed to find drama elsewhere.  Luckily, American history is full of the murder and mayhem sorely lacking in my own life.

ESSAY TOPIC #1
Using the narrative and/or descriptive style of writing, write an essay about the legacy of an object or possession given to you.

Be prepared to identify the elements of the SAS triangle (speaker, audience, subject) and defend your narrative structure. We'll be workshopping these essays in class.

Some inspiration:

"How objects are handed on is all about story-telling. I am giving you this because I love you. Or because it was given to me. Because I bought it somewhere special. Because you will care for it. Because it will complicate your life. Because it will make someone else envious. There is no easy story in legacy. What is remembered and what is forgotten? There can be a chain of forgetting, the rubbing away of previous ownership as much as the slow accretions of stories" (The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss, Edmund de Waal — location unknown because it's from a Kindle sample).

Day 6

Writing
Some basics: The point of the narrative — the idea the read is to take away — then determines the selection of events, the amount of detail devoted to them, and their arrangement. (Compact Reader, 82) Also check out the list on p. 85

• straight chronological order
• final event first
• summarized and then examined
• flashbacks
• en media res

Some free-writing: story cubes and one-sentence narratives. Helps us focus on opening lines.

Discussion
The Chase

• In what ways does Dillard balance the youthful tone with adult reflection? What would happen to the essay if the balance wasn't maintained?
• What purpose does the man serve? Is he a placeholder, something against which to expose a personal truth?
• What's the so what of this essay?

Salvation

• How does Hughes get the reader invested in this essay?
• What's the so what of this essay?
• How is Hughes' tone reflective yet his style adolescent?
• Is Hughes sad that he didn't have a realization or that he let those around him down or that he lied?

Day 5

1. Fabulous line from your work: share in groups of three and then posted to Socrative (if we can make it work)
2. Read essay on the bucket. Discuss.
3. Narration terms: chronological, en media res, flashbacks.
4. Other important elements of narration (remember ... it's not enough to describe, we must have a purpose, a narrative drive, behind each essay)
5. Let's write some more! Turning one of your paragraphs into a narrative piece.

Day 4

Champion of the World & Desert Dance

Discussion

• COTW:
• Favorite sentence. What effect does it have?
• How does the Angelou draw in her audience?
• How does she alienate her audience?
• Angelou is a master at pacing. How does she accomplish this from paragraph to paragraph? Give specific examples.
• At times, Angelou capitalizes Store and Black. What effect does this have on the narrative? 
• Look at her verbs!
• DD:
• Thesis?
• Structure of the last line/paragraph. Does this sentence work with or against the content and mood of the paragraph? (classic content and form question)
• Paragraph #3. Effect of the sentence patterns?

Writing: Write a paragraph describing one subject from each category

• Person (sight): friend, musician, politician
• Place (smell): bedroom, vacation spot, vacation spot
• Thing (touch): photograph, foggy day, childhood toy

Day 3

Homework: Love Dropbox. Can you please upload RTF or PDF files. Makes life easier.

Review: objective description, subjective description, dominant impression.

Discussion: My Landlady's Yard & The Santa Ana

• SAS -- you love it
• Questions from homewor

Writing: Start on either topic

• something in or around your home that holds emotional significance for you. Describe the object or space to reveal both its physical attributes and its significance to you.
• write about something that annoys, frightens or even crazes you and others. Use examples from your own experience

For homework: Champion of the World

For procrastination reading: The Deadly Choices at Memorial

Day 2!

1. A little writing fun. Finish these four starts:

• I can't believe I was afraid of ...
• I can't believe I was intimidated by ...
• I can't believe she never told me ...
• I can't believe how many years it's been since ...

2. Best lines on the board! Another version of Why I Write.

3. Speaker -- Audience -- Subject! Triangle of awesome.

4. Finding your own voice. What makes your own voice your own?

5. Descriptive Essay Terms: objective description, subjective description, dominant impression

Day 1

1. Class intro
2. What is good writing? Podcast!
3. How do you see yourself as a writer? How would you like to see yourself as a writer?
4. Why I write, by Joan Didion