Final Exam on 12/9: 2-4pm & example organizational sentences

***PLEASE fill out THE STUDENT OPINION FORM for all of your classes, found through MyAACC portal. Check your e-mail for the announcement and directions for doing it***

• You are required to cite at least four (4) of Frost's poems as evidence
• Your topic is to address one of the main theme's of Frost's work…but the essay structure won't be given until the exam

• discuss how he uses a literary element such as personification, or similar (you describe/define) imagery, or his use of forms, or similar speaker personas, etc.

• may involve comparing and/or contrasting of how Frost uses techniques

• "Open book" on Robert Frost's poems  (annotate your poems in the Frost packet)
• One page of typed notes, to be handed in with exam

• Do NOT pre-write essay paragraphs, or else you will receive an automatic 0 on the exam.
• Do outline thematic ideas
• Do write down key lines, images, with line numbers
• Do categorize poems based on thematic statement or some motifs

Reviewing How to Write Thesis and Subtopics for Such an Essay as our Author Study


Thesis Statements:

• Include your author subject(s) in the statement
• Include the topic you are writing on (the specific theme, for example)
• Include your view/argument about the two...

Examples (neither of these completely answers our actual prompt, but does demonstrate the part that includes outlining a common thematic statement in many of his poems): 

• In the poems X, Y, and Z, Frost's speakers reflect upon their own smallness as part of the larger natural world.

• Frost consistently explores how man negatively separates himself from his fellow man, leaving him lost in the natural world.

Topic Sentences:

• Further the thesis by specifically addressing some point that you find "comes out of" the thesis.

• For instance, if your thesis says something about a specific theme, then your topic sentences should go into more specific ideas about how the works demonstrate or emphasize that theme.

• Specify the subjects that you are exploring in the body paragraph (use parallel structures!)

• When comparing 2 or more texts, specifically name those texts analyzed in this specific paragraph.

• Again, make it your priority to start each body paragraph with a point that expands on the thesis

Examples (make sure at least one of your own topic sentences for the final pursues an idea not evident within these models):  

• X and Z both explore man's smallness through personification of inanimate objects.

• In all three poems, man's loneliness is represented by speakers whose diction is very rural. 

Conference Times and Study Guide for Final Exam

Wednesday, 12/2 (One on One Conferences)

• Each of you will only need to come for your conference slot
• Each of you will bring:
• Essay 3 complete draft, due for a grade (and a quick read)
• Questions about the Final Exam--one of the poems, etc.
• Questions about essay writing that you want me to address

Times:

2pm-2:12: Ashley

2:13-2:24: Cristina

2:25-2:36: Tytyonna

2:37-2:48: Anthony

3pm-3:12: Jay

3:13-3:24: Alejandra

3:25-3:36: John

3:37-3:48: Lisa

4pm: Genevieve

4:13-4:24: Max

4:25-4:36: Colby

4:37-4:48: Vu

Some Thematic and Craft Principles of Robert Frost:

•  Plain speech/language that belies a poem’s ideas and normally ambiguous endings that leave the reader to interpret the speaker’s “silence”
•  The use of nature to explore man’s place in the world, including religious beliefs and man’s true worth
• Personification of nature to make commentary of humanity
• Civil responsibility in a modern world versus attention to individual life 
•  “Lawrence Thompson has explained that, according to Frost, "the self-imposed restrictions of meter in form and of coherence in content" work to a poet's advantage; they liberate him from the experimentalist's burden—the perpetual search for new forms and alternative structures” (Poetry Foundation).
•  “Critics frequently point out that Frost complicated his problem and enriched his style by setting traditional meters against the natural rhythms of speech. Drawing his language primarily from the vernacular, he avoided artificial poetic diction by employing the accent of a soft-spoken New Englander” (Poetry Foundation).

Preparing for In-class Finals

1. Organize your notes, including, use of the 3-column note

·      Recognize patterns in the subject text, including:

o   actions that get repeated (implied or overt)

o   images & events

o   …other language…

·      Recognize key examples that you can cite in your own essay.

o   What is important about the example? What does the scene/line support? Make sure to put the page number (and line number for poems) down so that you can easily cite in your essay.

·      Pose questions about the meaning a reader can get out of the text, its actions and its conclusions. An effective strategy for a writer is to “predict” what he or she will be writing on based on multiple factors:

o   Teacher’s stressing ideas, certain pages, etc.

o   Reviewing your Active Reading notes and matching up what you’ve noted with class lectures and your teacher’s stresses.

2. Create a Vocabulary for the essay topic à Word Bank of language that goes with the subject you will be writing on.

·      Key words from the subject text: character names, place, larger thematic ideas

4. Draft an outline of your ideas, and supporting examples (w/ page and lines) under each point.

5a. Organize the steps you will take once you get to class.

·      What pre-writing steps will you take?

·      How much time will you spend on pre-writing?

·      How will you manage your time?

·      How much time do you need to edit your work, and how will you accomplish this?

o   Which weaknesses in my writing must I focus my editing on?

5b. Organize your materials prior to class:

·      Are you allowed to use your book? Yes, then an effective strategy to use is to create Post-it tabs in your book so that you can easily find pages you will cite.

·      Are you allowed to use notes? Clarify with your professors in advance, and start drafting notes whenever you have time.

o   Re-write your notes, and put ideas in an order of importance.

o   Example: I would put all vocab words together, if a teacher gave vocab terms in a class. I would put all of the theories together, if my teachers gave me all kinds of theories to review. I would note down the main ways (3-4 similarities) the multiple texts have in one place in my notes.

7. Write your own essay questions. Then, set a half hour aside and take a practice exam where you follow through on your pre-writing strategies, etc.! 

·      There is nothing like trying to visualize and mimic how you think the process is going to go down. Believe me, taking an in-class exam is stressful for every student, even the most prepared. Part of your studying for the exam is not simply to review individual ideas, but to try and practice writing the essay so that you can see how each of your ideas goes together. I would see a practice exam as a rough draft.

HW for 11/30

1. Finish reading the Frost poem packet. Do your Co-leading poem, and be ready to present your ideas in front of the class.

2. Continue to work on Essay 3, which is due Wednesday, December 2, 2015.

HW for 11/25

1. Read and annotate the Robert Frost poems, especially the one you will co-lead (see #2) next Monday, 11/30.

2. Each student will be required to be a Co-leader in teaching to the class everything they can about a particular poem:

• "Out, Out--"
• Max
• Tityonna
• Anthony

• "Acquainted With The Night"
• Jay
• Genevieve
• Daijah
• Alejandra

• "Mending Wall"
• John
• Cristina
• Colby

• "Stopping By The Woods On a Snowy Evening"
• Ashley
• Lisa
• Vu

What Does Co-Leading Entail?

• Use the University of Illinois' Modern American Poetry database to help you with your reading of the poem.
• Also, read the Academy of American Poets links on Robert Frost for help.

1. Posing a question about what you think the poem's basic situation is and then being able to answer and support your answer.
2. Posting a question about the poem's largest thematic statement, and being able to answer and support your answer.
3. Discussing at least two poetic techniques that Frost uses in the poem, and providing examples.
4. Discussing the structure of the poem, including any formal qualities of the poem (in addition to #3), and providing examples of each quality.

HW for 11/23

1. Write your thesis, topic sentences, and conclusion in a Word document; then, post that to Canvas under "Peer Review 3."  We will workshop the conclusions on Monday.

2. Also, to help you out, read the blog posts:

• Paragraph Unity: Linking Strategies
• Editing Transitions
• Conclusions Like A Manifesto of Human Nature's Relationship With Mother Nature
• and the last one, which we reviewed in class: Another Way to Look At Writing Conclusions

Another Way to Look At Writing Conclusions

The last paragraph (or sometimes paragraphs, when writing much longer essays ) should reflect upon the thesis statement and its subtopics that you have addressed in your essay. 

There are other ways to view your conclusions, and viewing a conclusion in these different ways will help guide you in what else you can say beyond being repetitive. You may not address each question below each time, but here are some general ideas you may explore in your conclusion rather than simply "restating the thesis":

• What is important to the general audience/larger world about what you have argued/analyzed/defined. etc.? What knowledge do you provide us, and why is that important? 

• What is the impact of this knowledge I provide ? Who is affected, how? 

• Where does my idea fit in the larger discussion of the subject addressed in the essay? (compare or contrast with socially common views, stereotypes, and/or subjects)

• What recommendations can I make, and why, based on my thesis and other points made in the essay?

• If I were to continue discussing the topic, what are some points that I did not make that are worth exploring, and that are related to what I've already pointed out? 

• What would I like others to consider that I did not have 'time' to in this essay? (Pose questions that you haven't addressed that are relevant to what you have already written. Pose questions that are within the context of your essay--further questions that relate to your ideas.)

Another way of looking at just conclusions and the above general conclusion strategies when dealing with literary analysis:

• Here is how it is put by the University of Iowa's Writing center: "The conclusion is a good place to not only sum up the points made in the paper but to suggest the further implications of your argument.  You do not want to simply reiterate the points you have made in your introduction, thesis, or body paragraphs.  Instead, use the analyses that you have already presented to ask questions, or suggest the possible next logical step in the argument.  You can use the conclusion to draw connections between your chosen text and its genre and historical or cultural contexts.  You want to make sure that the claims you make in the conclusion are not too far-fetched or wildly out of step with the rest of your paper.  The conclusion should be the final step in the progression of your argument."

• Ask questions based on your essay points!

• Suggest next possible step in the argument!

• Draw connections between your essay subject text and other texts in the genre or same time period or cultural perspective 

• Do you know of any novel or other literature that does similar things to the novel you wrote about? Explain connections, if so.

• Do you know of texts outside literature that your novel may connect to? What are they and how do they relate? What does it say that similar things are done outside of literature?

• Culturally, does your text seem to say something about some the time period the author is writing about? Does the novel relate to some historical event outside of the book?  

• Does the text (or, do the texts) do something special within the genre that relates to your essay argument?  (For instance, our book has some differences between it an a normal novel, right? What could be said about those differences?)

Conclusions Like A Manifesto of Human Nature's Relationship With Mother Nature

First, let's take a quick look at one famous manifesto--the Unabomber's Manifesto!

What are five larger ideas about man's views towards nature that are expressed by each author? Write these out as five commandments.  (i.e.  London's Laws; O'Brien's Laws)

• To inspire you, here are some questions that may provide you with those five commandments:

• What problem with man or with nature does each speaker or narrator seem to have?

• What type of culture is each author fighting against or with?  

• How does each speaker or narrator personify nature?

• What does each story or poem seem to value most about the world, based on what--or shown through what or who?

Editing Transitions: What to think about; what to edit?

Sentences should logically follow one another, but often the writer will need to create the right relationship between words through transitional phrases.

Within a paragraph, sentence to sentence:

• Any place you shift time
• Any place you shift from point to reason
• Any place you shift from reason to example
• Any place you want to subordinate a sentence's point to another
• Any place you want to coordinate a sentence's point to another
• Any place you are leading in to an example
• Any place you are leading out of an example
• At the end of every paragraph and/or...
• At the start of every paragraph

Paragraph to Paragraph:

• Do you need a "hinge" or a "bridge"?

• Are you shifting to a new point on the same subject (same character, same author, same element, ...)

• Are you shifting to a new subject of sentences (new character, new author, new element)

• How did you set up your idea in the introduction?

How to edit:

• Read each sentence in pairs to test clarity or relationship, and write the relationship (time, example, contrast, etc.) in the gap above each pair.

• Read sentence one and sentence two...do they have a clear logical connection stated?

• Then, read sentence two and sentence three...do they have a clear logical connection?

• Paragraph to paragraph: read the end and start back to back paragraphs...

Paragraph Unity: Linking Strategies

Techniques to String Sentences Together...

• Have a topic sentence, of course! (In all college essays, this will be a duh! strategy)
• Here are 2 ways to create greater sentence-to-sentence clarity by repeating or restating key words & word groups:

• Subject: ______?
• Object: ______?

1.      Maintain the same subject in the next sentence.  

• Klein writes that, “The cost of youth unemployment is not only financial, but also emotional” (A25). Klein’s argument may not expand on the kind of emotional tolls not having a job can cause, but … 

2.      Turn the object of the previous sentence into the subject of the next sentence. 

• Example: Klein writes that, “The cost of youth unemployment is not only financial, but also emotional” (A25). The emotional cost of unemployment that Klein references could include the creation of a high number of severely depressed citizens who devalue of education.  The high number of depression is a likely outcome for those largely taught that things such as one’s job define individual worth. If one has no job for which to define their worth …

Other Linking Strategies

•  Avoid standalone pronouns (especially weak to start sentences): “This, That, These, Those, It”

• Only use if you attach these pronouns to modifiers, such as “these pronouns” or “These phrases…”, or “This belief…,” or “Those reasons for…”  The extra, more specific word or phrase can clarify what the “these” or “this” or “those” or “that” is referring to from the last sentence!

• Avoid “It” altogether. It=Ebay!!!  Besides harming coherence of a paragraph, careless writers often do the following without being critical of his or her language:

• the word "it" as subject often causes a writer to digress from original subject in the sentences that follow

• the word "it" is used in one sentence to mean two different things (very confusing--writer is lazy and implying meaning with such language)

• the word "it" is used in one paragraph to mean two more more things (subjects).

• "it" can refer to either the subject OR the object of the previous sentence, which is bad, bad, bad. All of us as writers need pronouns to have a clear reference (a clear antecedent).

• Use Transitional Devices (Seagull, 23-25):  words and phrases whose specific function in the sentence is to link one sentence (or independent clause/complete thought) to the last, or to the next one.  Such words give the reader “location” or “position” of how to read a sentence. Study the list on Purdue’s OWL site and use these transitional devices every time you write. 

Review: Writing Analysis & Integrating Sources

•       Arguable Thesis – make a claim that goes beyond “facts” or summary of what happens

o   Verb choice=transformative

o   Look at something that is not explicitly stated

o   In literature, you often argue something about: 

§  The piece’s larger themes (how the text is an example of the larger, real world; for example, how the plot resolution may show a common result of a certain type of relationship) 

§  Or about an idea one of the literary elements (such as plot or characterization or imagery’s symbolization)

o   Put the story into a larger context! Try to discuss the piece “as an example of ….” 

o   Be analytical, not evaluative:  your emotional judgment or your own beliefs don’t matter; your intellect does.  Think: every character detail or action may symbolize something deeper than just in the individual moment for that character. 

§  Example: Perhaps a story’s main character is a stoner with a bad job. Rather than just summarizing how you feel about stoners with blue-collar jobs, you need to recognize what that character represents about, say, societal pressures and their impact on relationships. 

o   Writing Style: academic essays are not casual or informal, and therefore the language and the structure of your arguments/points are not to be either. You cannot just say what you want and think your opinion is your opinion! 

§  In academics, logical support and logical examples need to be provided.

§  Also, you need to write in a consistent point of view. 

·       For analysis essays, write in the 3^rd person

§  Write in present tense for the primary tense. Use past tense to put historical ideas into context. 

·       Example: Segregation still existed in the 1950s, so when Sonny says, “….”  (pg. #).

Work Cited Pages

•       Alphabetize by last name à which last name comes first depends on the type of source. For our stories in an anthology…always the writer of the story or poem, then the editors, etc.

In-text Citation (

•       Make sure that the source citing is named (in the introduction, preferably) first!

o   If citing multiple sources, this becomes imperative, and how much you put in the ( ) becomes a question of logic.

•       Quoting lines of poetry:  

o   Linebreaks:   use the “/” symbol where a line breaks

o   If you are quoting two lines that are separated by a stanza break, then use “//”

o   If you are quoting two lines that have lines between them, then “line /…/line” (lines 1, 3)

o   ***Logic: no matter the format, whenever a poem is reprinted the lines maintain their same line.  Line 5 is always line 5, unlike in reprinted editions of fiction and non-fiction! 

Introductions & Thesis Statements for Literary Analysis

Vital Context (background information needed to understand subject)

•       ALWAYS name the author’s complete name and the text you are analyzing in the essay.

•       Introduction to larger topic (such as stating what the specific family relationship is that you are analyzing in the essay, and perhaps some common, specific points of view held on that topic)

•       The hook of your essay – that first sentence – begins to narrow down the larger topic into a clear context.  Generally, the more specific your hook is, the more specific and developed your thesis can be. 

o   If you start too generically, too distant in view, your essay will likely be average to below average in its development of content and organization.

Vital Argument/Purpose of Essay

•       Thesis claim/argumentative points (statement now seems too misleading for many):  What are you focusing on proving in the essay?  

o   Make sure to name your subject

o   Name a literary element that gives lens (see below)

o   “…because…” (see just below)

•       Subtopic claims: what are some claims or points that develop from thesis (these are repeated in body as topic sentences, right?!?)

o   What are “becauses” that stem from your argument.

o   Show your hand: Show your points in introduction; an essay is not a game of poker.

•       Literary element focus:  each literary element is like a camera lens that dictates/filters how you are dissecting the subject

HW for 11/18

1. Look over chapter S-9 in Seagull.


2. Here is yet another website I've used in the past that demonstrates the type of sentences we are after: SALT.  They focus one using the subject slot in SVO to put concrete details from the subject and your "commentary" in the object slot. 

Mini-Quiz

Choose the most effective in-text citation evidence sentence:

• In line 9, the fork becomes "large, bald, beakless, and blind."
• By the last line, the fork transforms into a man's fist, "...bald, beakless, and blind," which signifies man's powerlessness (9).
• In the final line, the fork becomes a man's fist, signifying the tone in the image of him being "large, bald, beakless, and blind" (9).

Choose the most effective thematic statement sentence:

• The poem is about man's connection with nature.
• "Fork" symbolizes man's ineptitude through images.
• "Fork" symbolizes humanity's own limits of power through images that mock it. 

Choose the most effective reasoning sentence:

• There are several transformations that get more and more absurd as the poem continues.
• There are images in the poem that give the reader the poet's tone and theme.
• The poet includes many images that illustrate how the fork transforms into a fist. 

Discussion Questions for short stories

“To Build A Fire”  | Theme-driven questions

1. Define in one concise sentence the moral of the story that the man learns too late.

2. What specific ways would you contrast the man and the dog? Again, state this in one specific sentence.

3. How is nature portrayed by London in this story?

4. What is the thematic significance of London calling the main character “the man”?

“The Things They Carried”

1. Can you make an argument than man is part of nature, and if so, what role does man play in nature in this story?

2. What does the soldiers’ discussion of a “moral” symbolize about the actions of man in war?

3. How do the men show respect for nature in the way they operate, on a general level?

4. In what way would you compare the soldiers in Vietnam to London’s Yukon-trekking man? What can you say each character symbolizes about man?