EWRT 1A: Class 6

Me versus MyselfMe

• Me is an object pronoun, which means that it refers to the person that the action of a verb is being done to, or to which a preposition refers.

• They want me to study more.• Tell me a story.• Between you and me, he's right.• Carol wants to meet with John and

me tomorrow.• The book was written entirely by me.• Please call Hillary or me with any

questions.

Myself• Myself is a reflexive or stressed

pronoun, which means that, generally speaking, it should be used in conjunction with the subject pronoun I, not instead of the object pronoun me.

• I bought myself a car.• I myself started the company.• I did the laundry by myself.• I feel like myself again.• Tired of waiting, I just did it

myself.

I versus Me• John and me/I went to the store

• Me went to the store• I went to the store

• John and I went to the store

• Maria went to the store with Chase and I/me.• Maria went to the store with I• Maria went to the store with me.

• Maria went to the store with Chase and me.

AGENDA• In Class Writing: Indicating Significance• Presentation: Essay #2 Review and questions • Group Work/Discussion: Bragg: “Analyzing Writing

Strategies #1 p 36: Comparing• In-Class Writing:

• Similes and Metaphors• Time Transitions and Verb Tenses

• Integrating quotations MLA style• Preparing the complete draft: SMG 52-53

REFLECTING ON THE EVENT'S SIGNIFICANCE PP. 48-49

• Show that the event was important• Dramatize the event so readers can understand your

feelings about it. • Show scenes from your point of view so readers can

identify with you. • Tell us that the event was important

• Tell how you felt at the time of the experience• Tell how you feel about it now, in reflection.

The Goal: Indicate the Event’s Significance

Before the opening ceremonies, Katniss meets with her stylist, Cinna, to prepare. Cinna presses a button and a fancy meal of “Chicken and chunks of oranges cooked in a creamy sauce laid on a bed of pearly white grain, tiny green peas and onions, rolls shaped like flowers, and for dessert, a pudding the color of honey” appears (65). Katniss thinks about how difficult it would be to get a meal like this in District 12:

What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by? What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?

I look up and find Cinna’s eyes trained on mine. ‘How despicable we must seem to you,’ he says. (65)

Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement, but she agrees in her head. “He’s right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is despicable” (65). Although our world does not really consist of a Capitol and many districts, there are still some people who live more comfortably than others. For people like me who live in privilege, life is easy. Food is readily available if I want to eat. Outside of school, I don’t really have many responsibilities. I don’t have to worry about how I will survive day to day. My family has told me on many occasions to think about how lucky I am to live the way I do. In other countries, life is hard. In Africa, children starve to death as a result of famine and poverty. People my age in some countries are working more than my parents do. Katniss’s disgust for the extravagant Capitol is similar to the disgust I felt for myself when I listened to an account of one man’s visit to factories in China.

The Strategy: Recall Feelings and Thoughts

Answer these questions: 1. What were your expectations before the event?

2. What was your first reaction to the event as it was happening and right after it ended?

3. How did you show your feelings? What did you say?

4. What did you want the people involved to think of you? Why did you care what they thought of you?

5. What did you think of yourself at the time?

6. How long did these initial feelings last?

7. What were the immediate consequences of the event for you personally?

Reread what you have written then write another sentence or two about the event’s significance to you at the time it occurred.

The Strategy Continued: Explore Your Present Perspective

Answer these questions: 1. Looking back, how do you feel about this event? If you understand it differently

now than you did then, what is the difference?

2. What do your actions at the time of the event say about the kind of person you were then? How would you respond to the same event if it occurred today?

3. Can looking at the event historically or culturally help explain what happened? For example, did you upset racial, gender, or religious expectations? Did you feel torn between identities or cultures? Did you feel out of place?

4. Do you see now that there was a conflict underlying the event? For example, were you struggling with contradictory desires? Did you feel pressured by others? Were you desires and rights in conflict with someone else’s? Was the event about power or responsibility?

Pause to reflect on what you have written about your present perspective. After reflecting, write another sentence or two, commenting on the event’s significance as you look back on it.

Emphasizing the significance of your event

• Readers do not expect you to begin your narrative essay with the kind of explicit thesis statement typical of argumentative or explanatory writing. If you do decide to tell readers explicitly why the event was meaningful or significant, you will most likely do so as you tell the story, by commenting on or evaluating what happened, instead of announcing the significance at the beginning. Keep in mind that you are not obliged to tell readers the significance, but you must show it through the way you tell the story.

The Strategy

• Review what you wrote for Reflecting on the Event’s Significance, and add another two or three sentences, not necessarily summarizing what you already have written but extending your insights into the significance of the event, what it meant to you at the time, and what it means to you now.

ESSAY #2Finishing it up!

Review• Introduction/Long quotation• Transition/Thesis• Intro to event• Description of places• Description of people• Dialogue (or 2)• Climax (with sentence strategy)• Significance• Concluding strategy

USING FIGURES OF SPEECH

Metaphor: a literary figure of speech that describes a subject by asserting that it is, on some point of comparison, the same as another otherwise unrelated object.

All the world’s a stage

Simile: a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, usually by employing the words “like” or “as.”

I’ve been working like a dog

Bragg: “Analyzing Writing Strategies #1 p 36

• In your groups, review “Analyzing Writing Strategies” #1.

• Locate the comparisons in paragraphs 1, 3, 7, 9, 13, and 16.

• Discuss the strength of metaphors and similes and how you might use them in your own writing.

• Formulate 5-7 metaphors or similes appropriate to your essay.

A WELL-TOLD STORYA Sentence Strategy: Time Transitions and Verb Tenses

Writers use a variety of different ways to indicate time in a narrative. Some easy ways to indicate time are to refer to the calendar, date, season, a holiday, or to the time on a clock. Dawn, dusk, or other references to the sun or the moon are also effective. It’s especially important to use a time marker at the beginning of a new paragraph when the narrative shifts to a different point in time.

Writers often situate the event in terms of the date or time. Brandt, for example, establishes in the opening paragraph that the event occurred when she went to the mall for “a day of last-minute Christmas shopping.”

Use temporal transitions combined with appropriate verb tenses to help readers follow a sequence of actions. Temporal transitions such as after, before, in the meantime, and simultaneously help readers keep track of the sequence of actions:When I got back to the Snoopy section, I took one look at the lines. . . . (Brandt, par. 3)

In this example, when signals that one action followed another in time: Brandt did not take a look at the lines until she got back to the Snoopy section.

• Here’s another example of a simple one-thing-and-then-another time progression:• We all spread out, banged

together some regular snowballs, took aim, and, when the Buick drew nigh, fired. (Dillard, par. 7)

In this example, the word when together with a series of simple past-tense verbs indicates that a sequence of actions took place in a straightforward chronological order: they took their positions, made snowballs, aimed, the Buick came near, they threw their snowballs.

Look for a paragraph (or paragraphs) in your essay that tells a part of the story that relies on order. Add temporal words to help the reader understand when events happened.

After, afterward, before, then, once, next, last, at last, at length, first, second, etc., at first, formerly, rarely, usually, another, finally, soon, meanwhile, at the same time, for a minute, hour, day, etc., during the morning, day, week, etc., most important, later, ordinarily, to begin with, afterwards, generally, in order to, subsequently, previously, in the meantime, immediately, eventually, concurrently, simultaneously

Vocabulary Bonus Opportunity

• Select up to five of the words you got wrong or left blank on the first vocabulary test.

• Use each of these words correctly in a sentence in your narrative.

• Underline the word when you submit your final draft.

• For each word you use correctly and appropriately in your essay, you get one point back on your test.

INTEGRATING QUOTATIONSMLA STYLEmake sure you have integrated your quotations correctly

You must introduce your quotation• So, you have your long quotation, and you are all ready to

jump off of it to start your narrative portion of the essay. There is a bit of a trick here, though. You can’t just begin your essay with a quotation from the book. You have to introduce it to the reader.

• There are a number of ways to do this. One way is to briefly introduce the novel and the author. Another way is to summarize the context of quotation before you present it. Then after it, you can do a brief explanation of how it connects to your own story. Or, you can use another introduction, but you must have your own words before you insert a quotation from the novel!

• Take a moment and write a brief introduction to your quotation.

According to the St. Martin's Guide, there are three main ways to set up a signaling phrase:

1. With a complete sentence followed by a colon. • The effects of Auld's prohibition against teaching Douglass to read were

quite profound for Douglass: "It was a new and special revelation" (29).

2. With an incomplete sentence, followed by a comma.

• Douglass argues that Auld's prohibition against literacy for him was a profound experience, saying, "It was a new and special revelation" (29).

3. With a statement that ends in that. • The importance of Auld's prohibition to Douglass is clear when he states

that "It was a new and special revelation" (29).

Using Signal Phrases: • One common error a lot of people make when they include a

quotation is that they tend to put the quotation in a sentence by itself. Unfortunately, we cannot do this. We need to use what Diana Hacker calls a signal phrase to introduce the quote and give our readers a context for the quote that explains why we are taking the time to include it in our paper.

Take, for example, this section from a student paper:

Incorrect: Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement, but she agrees in her head. “He’s right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is despicable” (65).

Correct: Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement, but she agrees in her head: “He’s right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is despicable” (65).OrCorrect: Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement. However, she thinks, “He’s right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is despicable” (65).

Long quotations

• For quotations that are more than four lines of prose, place quotations in a free-standing block of text and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, with the entire quote indented one inch from the left margin; maintain double-spacing. Only indent the first line of the quotation by an additional quarter inch if you are citing multiple paragraphs. Your parenthetical citation should come after the closing punctuation mark. When quoting verse, maintain original line breaks. (You should maintain double-spacing throughout your essay.)

Period goes here

The classroom was noisy as the MUN students filed in[. . .] Mr. Mustard began in the middle of the program, and the room quieted down as we strained to hear the narrator’s voice:

I look up at the buildings, these immense buildings They are so enormous. And along the edges of each enormous building are the nets. Because right at the time that I am making this visit, there has been an epidemic of suicides at the Foxconn plant. Week after week, worker after worker has been climbing all the way up to the tops of these enormous buildings, and then throwing themselves off, killing themselves in a brutal and public manner, not thinking very much about just how bad this makes Foxconn look. Foxconn's response to month after month of suicides has been to put up these nets. (Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory)

For example, when citing more than four lines of prose, use the following example:

Paragraph

indent: 5

spaces

Hanging indent for long quotation: 10 spaces

Indent

5 sp

aces

When citing two or more paragraphs, use block quotation format, even if the passage is fewer than four lines. Indent the first line of each quoted paragraph an extra quarter inch.

Katniss thinks about how difficult it would be to get a meal like this in District 12: What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by? What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment? I look up and find Cinna’s eyes trained on mine. ‘How despicable we must seem to you,’ he says. (65)

Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement, but she agrees in her head: “He’s right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is despicable” (65). Although our world does not really…..

Indent 12.5

Indent 12.5

SMG 52-53

Preparing the complete draft

The Essay: The Beginning • Do I have my quotation?• Have I introduced my quotation?• Have I explained it?• Do I have a transition to my own story?• Have I aroused readers’ curiosity?• Can my readers identify with me? Should I tell them a few things about myself?

• Should I do something unusual, such as beginning in the middle of the action or with a funny bit of dialogue?

The Story• Should I follow strict chronological order? Or would flashback or flashforward make the narrative more interesting?

• Do I have narrative action and dialogue that intensify the drama?

• Can I add description to detail or dramatize the story?

• Do I have a climax that builds appropriately?

The Ending• In my effort to conclude with some reflections on meaning,

have I tagged on a moral? Do I sound too sentimental?• If I want readers to think well of me, should I conclude

with a philosophical statement, as Wolff does? Should I end with a paradoxical statement like Dillard? Should I be self-critical to avoid seeming smug?

• Have I emphasized the events continuing significance in my life? Have I contrasted my remembered and current feelings?

• Have I framed the essay by echoing back to my long quotation? Do I give readers a sense of closure?

HOMEWORK

• Read: Catch up on HG (You should be through chapter 12). • Write: Revise your draft of Essay #2, including:

• Endeavor to format it MLA style • Make a works cited page for your essay.

• Blog Prompt #6: Post two versions of your conclusion: one that shows the significance of the event and one that tells the reader directly.

• Study: Vocabulary (1-7)• Bring: Two clean, complete copies of your draft; SMG