Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Essential Elements of Effective Writing

Your essays are failing to show a purpose or plan for how you are expressing your ideas. Most of you are essentially arguing, but your arguments are simply a string of statements—thus not effective.

A pan must fulfill these concerns:

(1) How can you OPEN the piece to engage your reader and establish your FOCUS?

(2) How can you organize your support CLAIMS that reinforce your focus?

(3) What evidence do you provide for EACH MAJOR CLAIM?

(4) Do you provide the needed ELABORATIONS that help your reader connect the evidence to the claim and the claim to your focus?

I will continue to push you on FOCUS, CLAIMS, EVIDENCE, and ELABORATIONS. . .and you need to push me on what those are, how they can be more effective, and whatever you need to sharpen your understanding of organizing and developing a written argument.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Grades?

You will eventually receive grades on your essays as follows:

Content and Organization (C/O): 10 pts
Diction and Style (D/): 5 pts
Grammar and Mechanics (G/M): 5 pts
________________________________________

20 pts

20 A+
19 A
18 A-

17 B+
16 B
15 B-

14 C+
13 C
12 C-

11 D+
10 D
9 D-

8 below F

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Drafting, rewriting, revising. . .what to do. . .?

After submitting your first draft in our FYW, you may be wondering what to do next. Here are some tips about revising and rewriting your work:

• Look over your draft and all of the comments I have offered to get an initial feel for the big picture—what are the strengths of your draft, what are the weaknesses?

• Rarely should you simply take that draft and "correct" what has been marked. Many times, you will be better starting on blank paper (or screen) to rewrite your essay. I believe after the first draft, a rewrite is often needed; then you are probably ready to take the second or third draft and revise that version.

• Do some additional brainstorming after the first draft. . .create an outline or diagram of what your draft accomplished. What is your focus? Your main points? Your evidence? What is your organizational pattern? What gives your essay life?

• Talke about your essay with someone and have other people read your work. Ask them what you have said. . .ask them for strengths and weaknesses.

• Focus your rewriting and revision on content and style until you achieve a draft you are sure is close to complete; then begin to edit, worrying about grammar and mechanics when you are ready to declare the work finished. There is no need to polish something that isn't valuable to begin with. . .

Friday, September 18, 2009

Batman

Here are some resources for looking at the history of the Batman character from DC Comics:

Outline of the Batman character

Batman Fan Site

Batman wiki from DC

Is Batman religious?

Religion in Batman: Year One


Discussion of The Dark Knight movie in salon.com

New artist for Detective Comics, J. H. Williams III

Conferences Week of 9/21/09

Monday (9/21) @ 2—Matt Solomon
Monday (9/21) @ 3—Alanna Gillis
Monday (9/21) @ 4—Kyle Sanders

Tuesday (9/22) @ 9—Rashaun Phillips
Tuesday (9/22) @ 9:30—Alex Lea
Tuesday (9/22) @ 10—Ada Bennett
Tuesday (9/22) @ 10:30—Eric Eaton
Tuesday (9/22) @ 1:30—Nikki Moss
Tuesday (9/22) @ 2:30—Patrick Farah
Tuesday (9/22) @ 3:30—Ben Mayberry

Wednesday (9/23) @ 2:30—Rhett Wallace

Thursday (9/24) @ 10:30—Mary-Pat Bradshaw

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Feedback after Essay One

When you revise, first, take more care with having a plan for your discussion. What is your main idea/focus and how do you plan to make that case? Next, create an opening that works, that has specific details, that captures your reader's mind and interest.

Also, you all need to get off the "it" and "thing" train. . .your words are far too often vague. Again, write with PURPOSE and CARE. Too many of these drafts were careless. . .

• Start noticing the conventions of APA. Your sources are included AS PART OF YOUR ESSAY (last page after a page break) and labeled as "References," not "Works Cited" (that is MLA).

• Title page? Name and information?

• Effective writing must have an organizational plan.

• Be specific and clear, always.

• Statements mean little without evidence; evidence means little without elaboration.

• Take care with WORD CHOICE and avoiding VAGUE language.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Writing Ideas and Techniques

"Letter from Birmingham City Jail," Martin Luther King Jr. (16 April 1963)

Allusion—making a brief reference to historical, literary, or religious ideas or events or people in order to reinforce a rhetorical point.

ex. "We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights."

Parallelism—constructing a sentence or series of sentences with repeated grammatical structures in order to emphasize points.

ex. "But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: 'Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?'; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading 'white' and 'colored'; when your first name becomes 'nigger,' your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes 'John,' and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness'—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait."

Authority—referring to a quote or idea expressed by some authority in the area of the point being made by the writer.

ex. "To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law."

Rhetorical question—posing a question to prompt the reader to consider the ideas in the question, not necessarily to answer the question directly.

ex. "Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?"

Aphorism—crafting brief memorable statements in order to emphasize a key point, often incorporating rhyme, repetition, or some other technique to achieve the effect desired.

ex. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Repetition—repeating words or similar forms of words for effect.

ex. "Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."

Figurative language—incorporating metaphorical language in nonfiction writing—metaphors, similes, personification.

ex. "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." and "Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty."