Read Sherman Alexie's Novel

Read Sherman Alexie's novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, for Wednesday, Dec. 3rd.

Plan for Next Week

Today and tomorrow (Nov. 24th and 25th) we have a special two-day activity before the long holiday weekend.

For today, you have chosen another CQ Researcher article. As a follow-up to the response paper that you wrote last week (the pro/con exercise), write a focused piece of argumentation for the response paper due on Monday, Dec. 1st. For this piece of writing, choose a standpoint and offer your most effective rhetoric to support that standpoint (the topic should be the CQ Researcher report that you choose--it might or might not be the same topic as your pro/con response paper). The second response paper will be very similar to the writings in the pro/con sections of the CQ Researcher reports. You can use those as models or examples (in class we looked at the gay marriage and myspace pro/con sections).

You will have the choice of expanding the writings from the CQ Researcher unit into a formal essay for your portfolio.

Special Two Day Activity

Come to class on Monday and Tuesday next week and earn an extra 25 points! But you must attend both days!

Another blog

Here's another blog:

http://skeltonc.blogspot.com

Our Class Blogs

Here is the list of our class blogs:
mandetoryenglishblog.blogspot.com
katherinemb.blogspot.com
apilat.blogspot.com
agalliardstale.blogspot.com
ggwtrf.blogspot.com
david1231231.blogspot.com
richardisawesome.blogspot.com
howstheviewfromdownthere.blogspot.com
matthewpisano.blogspot.com
zuha28.blogspot.com
pubblemere.blogspot.com
amandakauppila.blogspot.com
connerreeves.blogspot.com
unpredictablemaverick.blogspot.com
atrandomlines.blogspot.com
kevinbaxter.blogspot.com
aburrell10.blogpost.com
eltrich.blogspot.com
westsblogger.blogspot.com
hodossaursrex.blogspot.com

Let me know if you don't see your blog on this list, and I will add it. Enjoy browsing!

New Prompt for Formal Essay 2

Over the long weekend, read Griffin's essay, "Our Secret."

For Wednesday the 12th, be prepared for a reading quiz, but there will be no response paper due that day.

Instead, you can prepare for the first draft of the "Autobiographical Explorations" essay due on Thursday the 13th.

Here is the new prompt for that essay:

So far in this unit, we have engaged in various kinds of writing, including storytelling, reflecting, composing prose poetry, and other kinds of writing in-between. For this second formal essay, bring together the various pieces you have written into a "segmented" essay. Read the Griffin essay for an example of this. The various segments of Griffin's essay involve different kinds of writing: historical writing, storytelling, personal reflection. You can model your essay after Griffin's example.

You want your essay to include different alternating segments (a segment might be a series of paragraphs, a long paragraph, or even a prose poem). Like all good writing, there should be some kind of thread tying it all together. This thread will probably be you: your identity, your experiences.

Like Griffin and other writings from this unit, you will also want to explore a subject of great interest to you (like Assignment 3). For these exploratory segments, you will want to include quotations. I would recommend finding a few sources through Proquest, which we will go over in class today.

To sum up, Formal Essay 2 should be an experimental essay with various segments, each segment involves a different kind of writing (options include storytelling, reflecting, poetry, writing about a picture, exploring an important subject, even making an argument), but all the segments should include a thread that ties the entire project together.

Draft is due on Thursday, Nov. 13th.

New Deadlines on the Schedule

The class schedule has been revised again.

Please click on the "syllabus."