2.23 Grades

You should have an email with your grade.  If you don't have your grade - be in touch.

Happy holidays!

12.18 Portfolios, revised work + how you will be receiving your grades

Finishing your portoflios:
Today you worked on completing your reflective essay and posting any revisions/additions to work in your portfolio.

Note:  If you have added or revised assignments for any unit, list the assignment on the first page of your portfolio.  (Directions here.)

How you will receive notice of your grades. 
I will be grading portfolios as soon as all work has been turned in.  After I have grades all of the completed portfolios, I will contact each of you by email with  a grade sheet, and  I will post a notice on the blog to let you know I have sent out the grade sheets.

After the grade sheets have been sent out, I will wait about 20-48 hours to hear back from you.  This is to give you a chance to look through the numbers and make sure that tally with your assessments of your work.  If I do not hear from you after a day or two, I will assume that you are in agreement with the grade sheet, and I will post the grades to Keanwise.

12.15 Peer review

You worked on your portfolios, and while I didn't talk to many of you, it sounded like you got some good work done.

On Thursday we will meet for our last class.  We will check through the portfolios one more time to make sure everything is where it needs to be, and I will review to process for grading/receiving your grades.

I'm hoping that we can use most of class to  have a conversation about "writing about literature" in general - and to talk in particular about whether you think the course has the right objectives, what worked and what didn't, and any suggestions you might have for the next time it is taught.

See you Thursday!

12.11 Workshop

At the beginning of class we reviewed the requirements for the reflective introduction to your portfolio.  This essay should be posted to the landing page in your portfolio.

Also - if you have re-posted or revised work, make a note on at the top of the introduction page, directing me to any documents that I need to re-consider to calculate your grade.

For next class:
On monday you will work in groups on peer review to make sure you have everything in your portfolio, in the right place, and it is your best.

Unfortunately we will be in the classroom without the computers, so bring your laptops if you can.

Have a good weekend, and see you Monday.

12.8 Revising Othello essays + Reflective writing assignment

We started class by listing some "what to work on" patterns in the feedback on Othello essays.  Here is what we came up with,  I've listed the points in the order you would want to work on them.

1. focus:
provide a statement  to set up the fous of each paragraph (topic sentence); should be connected to the thesis
review the thesis to make sure it is stated clearly and in the right place, also make sure each point in the essay refers back/connects to the thesis
deepen/strengthen the critical power of the thesie

2. organization
look at paragraphing: one point per paragraph?
present evidence before discussing/evaluating the point that evidence makes
make sure points are in the best logical order

3. Development (elaboration)
more support from the text you are analyzing
more discussion of what the text "shows" with respect to the thesis/point the paragraph develops
cut any material not needed for/relevant to the thesis/overall focus of the essay

4. Language
revise overly generalm vague claims or sentences
revise to use forms/langauge associated with academic writing

Reflective writing assignment.  Discussion of what to include in the assignment sheet for the reflective essay on writing for this course produced a general outline of the assignment as listed below.

Purpose – to show what we’ve learned = to show development as a writer

Figure out what is getting better + what to work on

Look at where you started – see development + what tools you used to get there

Description of the assignment:

Review writing for the semester – including brainstorming, drafts, and graded essays – as a way to???

Write down writing issues (both writing issues + life issues) – notice how/whether those issues change /affect the your writing

Make some correlations among life issues, writing practices and quality of writing as you move through the semester

Criteria for the assignment

Focus – identify patterns in terms of the author’s development as a writer

Content = examine development writing, drafts, revision process + final papers

Organization=> presented not as a "list" but as a readable essay that makes a series of points about your general areas of strength + weakness.  Should have an intro, body, conclusion
Development needs to include specific references to all stages of writing (brainstorming, drafting revising, polishing) as "evidence" of your claims about how your writing process has developed.

Some "gut" observations of what you learned and how you learned it.  
Getting used to getting thoughts on papers even if they don’t make sense – so you have something to work with

Writing drafts, talking about it, being able to go back and think about what to work on = developing a reflective process where you work with peers

Using a brainstorming process

Useful to attend to text

Peer review – reading out loud, peers are honest + speak in understandable language

Attention to forms expected for academic writing

Use google voice – to “hear” paper

 We decided that because, to be useful, this kind of writing needs to include evidence (specific references to particular drafts, brainstorming or finished essays) of the patterns you describem the essay should be at least 2-4 pages, depending how clearly + efficiently you write.

For next class:

Next class will be an open workshop in the computer classroom.  You will have an opportunity to work on writing of your choice.  Also, if you want to discuss assessment of the last unit, this would be the time to do it.

12.4 Revision

Strategies for working on revision:

Deciding what to work on
1. Re-read the assignment sheet
2. Assess your essay for:

genre: does the essay make a point appropriate to literary studies?  does the essay's focus meet the "so-what" test?  is the essay organized in general patterns associated with academic essays (intro-body-conclusion; they say=> I say) ?  is the language appropriate to academic style?

focus: does the essay set up its focus (clearly) near the beginning of the essay?  Does each paragraph connect to that focus in a different way?  Are there statement in each paragraph that state the connection to the focus?  At the essay's ending, does the conclusion re-state the focus in light of evidence presented in the body paragraphs?

organization: Is the focus set up at the beginning? does the essay provide adequate contextual/background information BEFORE it evaluates/assesses/builds/makes a point about that material?  do the points unfold in a logical order?  is there one well developed point (related to the focus) per paragraph?  are there transitions?

development: do the body paragraphs present specific, relevant quotes/paraphrases from the text?  are quotes presented using the "sandwich" method?  are quotes and references to "facts" cited appropriately?

language choices/sentence structure/style: repetitions?  fuzzy (unclear) meanings caused by overly general statements (watch of the use of pronouns or placeholder language used to stand for ideas, conclusions, inferences etc. e.g. Many characters in Othello this cause problems. ) I

3. Read the comments


How to work on:
focus
to clarify/strengthen the focus=list points in order make sure all connect to focus;read the first paragraph (thesis) and pay attention to how the rest of the essay connects to the focus set up there; read the body + conclusion and pay attention to what these paragraphs focus on & make sure that is set up in the intro
to deepen-broaden the focus = do some brainstorming/freewriting/associating/listing to deepen-broadent the focus

organization
check the points set up in the intro=> then check to see that points in the essay follow that orer
decide on an overall strategy for the organization then check to make sure the essay stays consistent with that strategy
make a reverse outline
make a list of "the best" order for your points

for internal organization of paragraphs = make sure each paragrah follows the par before it and that it connects to the focus, provides support/evidence/development and transitions to the next paragraph.

development
gather more evidence
go back to the text + develop some more analysis of the text
do more brainstorming


Where to post revision plans
Post your plan for revision on the "polished essay" page for the unit you are working on,  For example, if you are revising your short story draft, post your homework plan for revising that essay and the revised plan you worked on in class today, to the polished essay/short story page.

For next class, Dec 8: 
Post your revised essay (either poetry or short story)

Drama essays returned
Discussion of revision for Othello essay
Presentation on Reflective essay assignment

12.1 Writing about literary research

We are NOT going to be writing an essay on Mango Street.  I looked at the number of weeks left in the course and decided we simply do not have time to do in-depth work on revising without ditching an assignment - so that's that.  Below I have posted the revised schedule.

Revisions to the schedule
Dec 1: Discussion of deValdes essay

Dec 4:
workshop on revision of either the Short Story essay, or the poetry essay

Dec 8: Drama essays returned
Discussion of revision for Othello essay
Presentation on Reflective essay assignment

Dec 11
workshop = in-class conferences on essay of your choice

Dec 15  
Peer review of reflective essay + revised essays

Dec 18: Complete portfolio due at end of class


Connecting to the researh - writing about scholarly essays.
Reviewing the focus, theory, and main points for the essay. Just as when writing about literature, when writing about research essays connected to a particular work of literature, it is important to spend some time with the research essay before deciding on a focus or "taking a stand."  In general, when reading a critical essay, you will need to have a strong hand on the following.

• A clear idea of the thesis
• Background to set up the argument.
• (theory, terms defined, overivew of - how to interprt plot/character/scene)
• the list the points the author makes to develop the thesis (notice the order)
• The essay's conclusion

In our discussion of deValdes we decided the thesis centered on:
-  the creation of identity;
-  the role of an "impulse toward the world (a voice) and the persona or character or role assumed as - -  that voice is projected into/finds its place within social culture
-  presentation of a critical model of reading
-  discussion of an aesthetic process where things become metaphors of (becoming) a self

In terms of background materials, we noted that deValdes made connections to social feminism, distinctions between semantic and semiotic (voice + character/ the literal and the metaphoric)

We also noted that in her discussion she set up each discussion by referring back to the theoretical/features of her "model" that she would work with in the "reading" she used to illustrate the point.

General ideas/approaches work for writing about literary essays
- explorations of structure=> theoretical readings of how the critical essay works
- discussions of the historical context for the essay,  how it fits in with other essays about the same work, or how it connects to the larger body of theory it draws from
- agree or disagree (or agree with some parts and not others) with the essay's thesis/main points about how the literary work "works", connets to theory, or etc
-discuss how the critical essay might be extended, applied to other sections, improved, etc.

You did a great job reading this essay.  Thanks for your good work.

What to do for next class
Write:  post reflective writing on which essay you will revise, and what you plan to work on for your revisions. Consider focus, organization, development, language choices, and correctness.  Be as specific as you can about what you want to revise.

We will use the class in the computer lab both to identify WHAT to work on, and HOW to work on the most important writing issues for your essays.

11.24 Mango Street

Drama unit:  I will be reviewing the writing for the drama unit over the break.  If you have questions or difficulties - send me an email.

Mango street: overview of unit
Sandra Cisneros The House on Mango Street is generally characterized as a lyrical novel, which is a sub-genre of novel, and in many ways different from many of the novels you will be reading for your period courses as English majors.   At the same time, you are will familiar with the "moves" most "traditional" novels make - in terms of plot, setting character, and structure - from the short story course.  So, we are using the novel unit 1) to look at reading strategies for lyrical (non-traditional) novel forms, and 2) to work on reading & writing about scholarly literary essays.

Reading Valdes essay on Mango Street.  We spent the first part of class setting up the assignment for next Monday. (Posted to the right, Cisneros Essay).  This essay, written in 1992,  is a feminist  essay which draws from semiotic theory (theories about interactions between texts and readers and the ways meanings are made).  We noticed (and took apart) some of the jargony language.  I have annotated this essay (the headings and bolding were added by me) - as a way to make the overall structure (the moves the author makes) more clear.  The assignment for this unit will be an evaluation or response to what Valdes has written.  We will talk about this more (and identify topics) as we move through the unit.

Discussion of Mango Street.
We began talking about Mango street by putting up just anything that came to mind.  Here are the notes from the board:
protagonist = Mexican girl, adolescent
family = poor
Protagonist hopes for a better life - better house, doesn't want to end up like the adult women she knows
"afraid" of growing up (Monkey Garden, discovers/begins to think about sexuality + gender role
uses poetry - language = symbolic/metaphroic
uses poetry/her way of expressing herself to create herself
identity struggle
my name = personal
different (those who don't)
female identity
child/adult
seual identity
sense of belonging
holding - setting free
using language to gain "safety"

You then worked in groups to notice some of the main themes - and to note sets of chapters the themes wove through.  We only had time for three themes (listed below) - there are more, and as we noted, they are overlapping.  In addition to the themes listed below, we might have noted themes related to growing up, dealing with conflicts (opposites); belonging, female identity, (and others).

Themes
Power of language
The house
Mango says good bye sometimes
My Name
Darius & the Clouds
No Speak English
and?

Poverty
The House
Rice Sandwich
Those who don't
Bums in the attic
and?

Bi-cultural identity
Hairs
My Name
Geraldo no last name
No Speak English

For next class:
Read: Valdes essay
Write: post questions, vocabulary, ideas, observations related to Valdes essay.  Do some writing to figure out what the essay means + how it works.

Have a great Thanksgiving and see you next week.

What to post for the drama unit

Here is the list of assignments from the drama unit, along with the due dates.  The final drafts + the peer review posts are due 11. 23.  I will return your work to you with the next "grade-so-far" the week after Thanksgiving.

Homework/exploratory writing:

ideas/discussion of features associated with 3 of the questions at the end of ch. 16 (11.3)

scene by scene analysis (10.10)

writing on response directed, critical analysis, and research directed topics for Othello (11.13)

thesis + points to support thesis (11.17)

rough draft (11.20)

Peer review feedback (11.23):

Final draft (11.23):

11.20 Peer review, finishing up drama unit, + reading novels

What to do for peer review of drama essays.
1.Identify roles for participants in your group.
Facilitator, is the "emcee" for the group, makes sureall the points in the protocol are covered for each participant, fields questions, keeps the group on task.

Timekeeper:  makes sure the time for discussion of each piece is allocated in a way that ensures that everyone gets equal attention.

2. Decide on the order for presentations (make sure the timekeeper knows how much time is available for each presentation). 

3. Authors then present in the decided upon order.

Protocol for feedback for an individual author:
1. Author introduces piece by stating what s/he wants feedback on.
2. Author reads his/her essay.
3. Readers should take notes and pay attention to parts of the essay which give rise to questions or comments.

Readers then:
1. Comment on strengths
2. Say back the main point (thesis/focus) + name the supporting points(ask questions if necessary)
3. Talk through the focus, organization + development for the essay
4. Answer, attend to the author's request for feedback.

Facilitator then asks if there are any further issues to talk about for the author, if not, move to the next speaker.

List of questions/points to discuss:
Focus
1.  Does the author pose a thesis that passes the "so what" test?
2.  Does the author set up a series of points to develop the thesis?
3.  Does each paragraph develop the focus in a slightly different way?
4.  Does the author make specific statements about connections between the points + the focus?

Organization
1.  Is there a clear statement of the thesis in the introduction?
2.  Does the introduction set up the points the essay will discuss?
3.  Does the author provide background information before "critquing" or discusing points based on that background?
4.  Do the points to develop the thesis follow in a logical order?
5.  Is there one point per paragraph?
6.  Are quotes set up, presented, and then related to the focus?

Development
1.  Does the author use specific references to the plot/setting/character (depending on the focus) to provide background?
2.  Does the author cite appropriate references for claims about Shakespeare, the history of the play, the audience, etc?
3.  Does the author include appropriate quotes to support a close reading of the play to support the thesis?

For next class:

Read: Mango Street

Write: Post peer reviews + final draft for Othello

Have a great weekend and see you on Monday!

11.13 Character and Drama assignment

Class discussion was based on material in the book about developing discussions of: 1) classical and modern (tragic) heroes; 2) evidence within the play related to character; 3) questions about how character drives the plot or otherwise structures the play to affect the reader/viewer.

Drama Essay.  The second part of class was focused on the assignment for writing about drama. (see assignment sheet posted to the right).  As a class, we agreed to use the "generic" assignment for the short story section, revised to focus on a play.  As we discussed how to develop a thesis for this assignment, we noted the following.

1. A thesis for a successful essay needs to pass the "so what" test.  The essay needs to make a point or show something  that BOTH connects to evidence from the play (or scholarship about the play) AND uses that evidence to make a critical observation or nontrivial point about how the play works, its relationship to the larger culture of its time (or of our time), etc.  

2. For some theses, you will need to cite sources other than the play to support your argument.  For example, if you were to discuss they way the female characters are portrayed in Othello, you would want references research about Elizabethan customs/culture/women as a way to place your comments in context. Or if you argued that Shakespeare drew from features of both classical and modern tragic heroes, you would want to ground your argument in what scholars have written on this topic.  

We have not spent much (any?) time discussing how & when to cite sources. We will work on that in some more detail in the novel unit, but if you want to write a paper that calls for some "back up" - here are some quick, easy strategies for finding what you want.

• Maybe start with Wikipedia to identify what's out there.  Then check out the scholarly references.
• 
  
• Check out Project Muse.  This is what comes up with a quick search of Othello.  You can refine your search and get much more relevant material (this has over 3000 hits).
• 
  
• Use Google.scholar a a quick way to identify/find articles.  
• 
  
• Once you identify the names of the primary journals with essays on your topic, you can search through the Kean Library Data bases by directly accessing the periodicals. Click Periodical List and enter the name of the journal you want to search.

Finishing the Drama unit.  We also took a look at the calendar and noticed that we are moving through this unit quickly and that the drama papers for peer review are due next Thursday.  

For next class:

Write: Identify your thesis.  Identify the points you want to make, and identify the sections of text you will use to support those points.  In addition to that - bring whatever writing you have developed for your essay for in-class conferencing and workshopping.

Have a good weekend and see you on Monday.

11.10 Othello and writing about dramatic structure; finding a thesis

Discussion of grades:
You should all have your feedback sheets + your essay with comments.  If you have questions, be in touch.
I started class with an overview of what I saw as 'needing work' in writing from the class as a whole. What follows is a list of what I saw as most important for us to work on as we wrap up the semeter.

1. Be aware that as we move through the semester, the participation credit/homework counts for less, and the quality of the writing counts for more.

2. Most frequent areas for work noted in the essays:
revise for specific language
make sure the focus passes the "so what" test
use the sandwich method to present examples from the text
make specific connections between discussion of the text and what those discussions show with respect to the overall focus of the essay

3. More time spent in brainstorming (analyzing the text you will write about, identifying a thesis, selecting sections of text that illustrate particular points relevant to the thesis) will help with focus + development

4, More time spent in revising can help with organization and language choices

Othello + Dramatic structure
During the rest of class we talked through the points raised in the textbook's chapter on dramatic structure.  We reviewed the terms set up in your book in terms of Othello:

point of attack:
exposition:
rising action
climax
falling action:
denoument

We also spent some time analyzing the central conflict in terms of the way it connected to related conflicts, order of presentation, and the relative "power" of the characters involved in the conflich. This exploration suggested a number of questions that might work for a thesis.

Finding a focus/thesis.
During the last 15 minutes of class you spent some time writing questions that might lead to a thesis for a paper on Othello in terms of the 3 caategories at the end of the chapter.  The three categories + some of my notes on your ideas are below.  It sounded to me like most of you were well on track for thinking about how to write about Othello in terms of these 3 perspectives.

Response writing: a thesis/focus which allows you to use a discussion of some aspect of the play as a basis for discussing that aspect within another context.  For example, how does the relationship between O + D values in terms of heroes + villians

If you were in Othello's position, what would you do?
what's the difference between the trust of a friend of a partner (someone you work with)

Critical analysis: questions which identify features of the play and ask questions about relationships among those features
Why didn't Othello suspect Iago?  (You might identify the different "lies" Iago told, and assess or other wise evaluate the different ways Shakespeare represents Othello as responding to them; you might also look at the exposition/backstory on Othello's character - how Shakespeare sets him up in ways that make his responses believable (or not); or you might characterize how Elizabethan v contemporary audiences might respond differently in terms of "believing" Othello's responses to Iago's lies (this is kind of a combination critical analysis /research essay and response!)

Research directed
Why was it a handkerchief?
How were "moors" thought of and treated in Elizabethan England? did the audience really believe they could do magic?
What was the role of women/Elizabethan women?  how did these beliefs about women's place & character work to "move the plot"?

Good job on this!

For next class:
Read: Chapter 18- character
Write: Post your questions for the different kinds of writing, do some thinking about what kind of paper you would write on Othello

During next class, we will talk over writing about character, and work together as a class to devise the assignment sheet for this unit (so that you have some idea how to frame a "do-able" paper when the teacher just says "write a paper about. . . (name of whatever the class has been talking about).

See you on Thursday!

11.3 Writing about Othello in terms of a general focus

1. central conflict

2. secondary conflicts, relate to central conflict

3. structure (we will do this next week)

4. main character (protagonist) => describe

5. antagonist (person, environment, social force?)

6. other characters => provide explostion? serve as foils? present parallels?

7. time/setting

8.  title

9. theme

10. tragedy? comedy?  mixture? does it matter?

11.  realistic?  theatrical devices? affect experience of the play?

You worked in groups to:1) identify any points you might make about Othello with respect to this focus, and to identify the particular scenes/sections of the play you would use as evidence to support your discussion.

We went through the reports very quickly.  Make sure to post your writing for to the Drama page for homework.

Read: Ch 17, Dramatic structure (you don’t need to read Antigone, => instead read Othello and apply the questions to that play)

Write: a scene by analysis (we will talk more about this in class)=> post to the Drama page.

11.3 Othello

Suggestions to help with taking in difficult texts. We started class by discussing strategies for reading Shakespeare.  It is simply a fact that the language is unfamiliar, and that it takes some support to "get" what a play is about, at least until you become familiar with a particular text, or with Shakespeare in general.

• There are lots of "companion" texts, and it is actually a good idea to read the plays with an accompanying "gloss" or aid to interpretation open alongside.
  
• It can also help to read essays about the plays before, during, and after your reading of an individual play.  Scholarly essays address the language, the themes, the structure - just about everything you can imagine, and can give you a heads up in terms of what to look for and how others have interpreted what they see in the play.
  
• We also discussed watching performances of the plays as an accompanyment to reading the play.  Watching a play does not allow time for the close textual analysis that is generally required for writing about a play for literature courses, but it DOES present the plays in the medium they were created for, and is an important part of the study of a play.  It can also help you "get" passages that might not make sense on the page.  It rarely works to "read along" as you watch, since performances select from the text, and oftem move too quickly to follow on the page.

Scene by scene.

We spent the rest of the class doing a kind of read along, in-person spark notes scene by scene analysis for the play.  We got through all 5 acts ( the last act - which is about all action) very quickly.  We noticed parallel themes (in terms of Iago + Othello's jealousy, the notion of heresay in affairs of the heart and affairs of the state) , dramatic irony (when players said/did things which were interpreted in multiple contradictory ways (as when Iago spoke to Cassio about Bianca and Othello interpreted it as about Desdemona), the public versus private performances of feelings and "truth: and character (in terms of what the characters say to one another and as asides to the audience, as well as what is overheard or staged)  the movement between poetry (verse) and prose (the unrhymed sections); the way Shakespeare sets up the themes/characters; the overall movement of focus as we go from scene to scene, and so on.  

The object was that by the end of the class you would have a general feel for what happened, and some of the ideas that were developed.

For next class:

Read: Othello + Chapter 16.

Write: list/develop/identify features of the play as they correspond to 3 or so of the question listed at the end of Chapter 16.  The purpose of this writing is to prepare you to talk, at some length, about how Othello "works."

As I said in class, I will get started on your poetry papers, and if all goes well, they should be returned (and we can discuss them( if not by Thursday, then by the weekend.

I'm excited to hear what you have to say about Othello!

10.30 Peer review

Peer review.  In class today you did your peer reviews.  We talked about how the first time around the object was just to get used to the system - and make sure everyone was positive and supportive.  If you posted your peer review, you got full credit.  The protocol and the groups are posted on the previous blog.  

What to post for your peer reviews: This time, as you compose your peer review feedback for members of your group, continue the positive supportive tone established in the first set of peer reviews, but also work on making sure that you provide constructive feedback to support the author in writing a stronger paper.  I will be looking to see how well you respond to your authors, whether you identify the most important revisions the author needs to work on (for example, genre issues are most important = writing to the assignment; then focus, organization, and development).

The format for your peer reviews is your choice.  In general, it is useful to begin with what is working, and then moved to suggestions to strengthen the essay.  Be sure the author knows which particular section of the paper you are referring to (the introduction, a particular paragraph, the first example, etc).

From what I could here of the work in your groups - you did a great job on this!

Assignments for the poetry unit.
Here is the list of what to include in your portfolio for the poetry unit (posted 10.23).   In addition to the below list, I will look for the final draft= the essay you want me to grade.  This will include changes made after the peer review and will be posted by Nov 3.

line by line analysis (10.8)
writing about poem choice (10.20)
brainstorming for essay (10.23
rough draft (10.27)
final draft for peer review (10.30)
peer review feedback (10.30 in-lass writing, posted on peer review page)
Final draft (Nov 3)

The poetry unit writing is due Monday, Nov 3, by the beginning of class.  I will do my best to have the comments back by the following Thursday, if not then, by Monday, Nov. 10.

What we are doing for the rest of the term
The "final" calendar is posted (to the right), though we may be making changes to it as we go along, so be sure to check the blog.

For next class:
Read: Chapter 16 on reading plays, and as much of Othello as you can get through.   Plan to have the whole play read and to have spent some time thinking about it by class Thursday.   On Monday, we will talk over any problems, confusions you had reading the play, identify some key (famous) scenes/quotes, and work out the overall arc of the story.
Write: Peer reviews for your group; final revised essay for poetry unit.

Happy Halloween!

10.27 Getting ready for peer review on Thursday

We spent today reviewing the criteria for the poetry essay, outlining a list of talking points for providing peer reviews for this essay, and practicing giving feedback using the list.  We only managed to get through one essay (thanks to all who volunteered) - but I think that provides a general idea for how we will work through the essays.

For you to provide feedback to classmates in your group => you will need to read and think about the two poems they have chosen BEFORE you come to class.  The plan is that each of you will email the names and pages for the poems you have selected to your peer review group.   The groups will be the same as were established for the short story unit, and are as follows.

Peer review groups:
Jayshawn, Jeen, Melannie

Maddie, Sarah, Alycia, Melissa

Cynthia, Rute, Justin, Krysten

Julia, Zulema, Stephanie

In term of a protocol for the workshop, I suggest that you review the steps set up for the short story workshop (listed below):

Roles:
Facilitator, is the "emcee" for the group, makes sureall the points in the protocol are covered for each participant, fields questions, keeps the group on task.

Timekeeper:  makes sure the time for discussion of each piece is allocated in a way that ensures that everyone gets equal attention

Overall Protocol:
1. Facilitator and participants decide on the order.

2. Authors then present in the decided upon order.

Protocol for feedback for an individual author:
1. Author  introduces piece by stating what s/he wants feedback on.
2. Author reads his/her essay.

Readers then:
1. Comment on strengths
2. Say back the main point (thesis/focus) + name the supporting points(ask questions if necessary)
3. Talk through suggestions regarding genre (writing to the assignment); focus; organization; & development for the essay
4. Answer/ attend to the author's request for feedback.

Facilitator then asks if there are any further issues to talk about for the author, if not, move to the next speaker.

Workshop (listed below): Make sure to take notes throughout this process so that you can post complete and useful comments for each author.  Think about the kind of discussion we had in class today.  Look over today's class notes and the blog on organization to review what  kinds of comments will be most helpful in terms of genre, focus, organization, and development (points listed on the board).

Your first posts for peer review were assessed primarily in terms of going through the protocol.  For this set of peer review comments, I will be looking to see whether and what kind of constructive feedback you have provided for your peers.

Good class today, and see you on Thursday.  

For next class:

Read: Poems for classmates in your peer review group

Write: Finish Draft Poetry essay

10.27 Workshop

Bost, Jayshawn  https://sites.google.com/a/kean.edu/bost-eng2000/home

Gomes Maddie  https://sites.google.com/a/kean.edu/gomesenglish2000/

King, Melissa  https://sites.google.com/a/kean.edu/eng-2000-portfolio/

Svenson, Alycia  https://sites.google.com/a/kean.edu/svensonenglish2000/

10.23 What to include in your portfolio, and the overall organization for a comparative analysis assignment

What to include in your portfolio
line by line analysis (10.8)
writing about poem choice (10.20)
brainstorming for essay (10.23
rough draft (10.27)
final draft for peer review (10.30)
peer review feedback (10.30 in-lass writing)

Overall organization,
You did some writing to "outline" the points you would make, and after you had some of that in front of you, we talked through a general plan for writing a comparative essay.  I hope I made clear that the particular organization for your essay depends on your topic, and the approach you take to analysizing it.

Introduction: In general, you want to provide a set up for your essay which includes a statement of the general focus (something to answer the "why should I read this? question;  the names of the poems and authors you will be writing about, an overview of the points you will make through your comparison (what you will show through your analysis), and enough background on the poems so that the reader can understand why it makes sense to compare these two poems (the basis for comparison).

The particular order of these four moves will depend on your style, and the "flow" of your discussion.  If you are making a particularly detailed point, you will definitely want to set up your general focus FIRST, so that your reader has something to go on.  In general, you need to name the poems + poets before you begin writing about analyzing them.  Background comes next, and then you want to re-state your general focus in terms of the specific points (features of the poem you will analyze) as a transition to the body of your essay.

Body: For the body of a comparison essay, you can choose either a subject by subject comparison or a point by point discussion.

For a subject by subject comparison, you write everything about one poem, a transition, and the everything about the other, followed by a comparision of the points you discussed for each poem.

For point by point, you write a paragraph (or two) for each "point" you want to make about the two essays, and describe how they are similar and different, then transition to the next point.

We decided that Alycia's comparison of My Last Duchess and My Ex-lover might work better as a subject by subject comparison, because the second poem depends on the reader's familiarity with the first.  And we thought maybe Justin's comparison of The Moth and Billie Collins poem about literature students, might work better as a point by point, where he could discuss the following points:the similarity of focus, the similarity of the way the poem's achieved their effect (by having the addresseee go ahead in their old patterns - and leaving the reader to think about that); the differences presentation (one is dialog, one is monolog). poetic form (one is a sonnet the other is ??); and perhaps one other point?

When writing either a subject by subject or point by point comparison it is important to keep both references to poems and the order of points "in the same order".  If this is confusing - I will explain it more in class.

Good writing!

Plays. . .
Also, we talked about the plays in your textbook, and the majority of the class chose to read/write about Othello.  I will have the assignment sequence posted for you by Monday, and get started.  This should be fun!

For next class:
We will go back to the assignment sheet, make a list of what we would look for if we were evaluating this as a teacher = and then take a look at a couple of sample drafts.

Volunteers to have their drafts reviewed include: Jayshawn, Julia, Maddie, Melissa and Alycia.

Have a great weekend and see you on Monday.

10.20 Poetic structure

The book covers the language for discussing poetic structure, and we reviewed the terms used for rhythym, rhyme, line arrangements (stanzas), and syntax, and then we (briefly) considered why/how you might use these classifications in writing an essay.

I didn't write down the notes from the board, but some of the points I remember from the discussion of rhythm suggested that you might characterize the poets use of feet and line length:

• to characterize to tone or mood of the overall poem (as we did in our dicussion of cummings poem);
• to note correlations between particular meanings and rhythmic patterns and  (where the poet used a repeating rhythm to signal something = as cummings signaled the passage of time);
• to characterize/contrast the feeling/tone/meanints of different parts of a poem
• to identify connections to particular poetic genres (eg Elizabethan sonnets with their iambic bongos)
• to describe the musicality/effect of a poem

In the discussion of rhyme, we noted alliteration, consonance and assonance , and again, we noted that types of rhyme, as well as specific rhyme schemes, are often associated with a particular historical period and/or poetic genre.  We also noted that rhyme can contribute to emphasis, mood/tone, musicality, and as a result => the way the poem means.

We discussed e.e. cummings poem with hits "poetic syntax" and noted how he used just about all of the elements discussed to "remake" the way language means.

At the end of class we started to talk about choosing your two poems for your essay.  Most of you sounded like you are on the right track.  Be sure to identify your basis for comparison, check back to the assignment sheet, and start thinking about what you have to say.


For next class:
Write: Brainstorming for poetry essay.  Keep working on choosing your two poems, only this time do some writing to decide what you have to say about the two poems.  Pick out specific form features which you can compare - and think about how the different ways these features are used works to produce each poem's meanings.  Go back and re-read the assignment sheet sometime during your brainstorming process to make sure you are making the right kinds of points.

In class you will work on turing your brainstorming notes into an essay.  We will review the overall form for this kind of an essay, do some peer work, and have one-on-one conferences for those of you who request them.

Have a good week  and see you Thursday.

10.16 is Poetic language and Poetry assignment

We spent most of our time talking about August, though we took a quick run at Shall I Compare Thee?  - paying attention to the words the poets chose, the images/symbols they evoked, the personification, metaphors & similes.  All these poetic devices work together to create a connotative meaning alongside the denotative meaning; this connotative part of the poem is the place where we connect to associations, sensual experiences, cultural meanings and the endless way words mean not one thing but many at the same time.

August. Your work on August was outstanding!   You came up with at least 4 readings that could be supported by the language in the text.  As noted in class, the way teachers tend to evaluate "readings" is on the basis of how much of the poem's language/form a particular reading accounts for.  For example, A reading that August is about "ripeness" and the poet's celebration of feeling/"harvesting" the fruits of her maturity might be supported by the title and much of the first half of the first sentence. But we would be left with questions about the rest of it, the references to her body, the creeks, the happy tongue.  This language suggests a focus that perhaps includes this celebration, but is also something more, where the "more" is in the doubleness of the language  to describe her experiences.

From class discussion it looks like you are good at this!

Shall I Compare Thee.  In the quick discussion of Shall I Compare Thee, we noticed that Shakespeare used the word "this" in the closing couplet to refer to and celebrate the poem itself.  Poetry that writes about itself (as in Billie Collins sonnet included in the next chapter) is almost a genre of poetry all on its own.  Some self-references are clear and direct (as in Collins), some clear but not so extensively developed (as in Shall I Compar), and some are possible readings but not directly declared  (as in August).  In any case, this move is worth watching for.

Poetry assignment.  We spent the last 20 minutes of class going over the assignment for the poetry essay.  The paper requires a comparative discussion of two poems on a similar topic, which use similar forms, which evoke similar effects, or etc.  As pointed out in the assignment, you will point out the basis for comparison (the similarity) and then discuss in depth how they do this similar thing, differently.  Hopefully, this discussion will make a not trivial point about the way the poems work.  The assignment also makes clear that you are NOT to write about a pair of poems we have discussed in class.  I allowed that, with permission, you may compare one of the poems we discussed in class to a second poem of your choosing from your textbook.

Your textbook is more or less set up to facilitate this kind of assignment, as it has both paired poems, and sections which features a set of poems written on particular themes.  Also - there is an uncategorized anthology (chronologically organized) from which you can choose your own pair of poems.

Thinking about the right two poems for you.  In addition to comparing poems on a similar subect, you might choose a pair of poems with other features as your basis for comparison (the similarity).  For instance, you might choose to visual poems, two sonnets with exactly the same form but from different periods, two self-referential poems,  or two first-person narrative poems.  There are many pairs of poems that would work as discussions of the different ways poets use persona and storytelling in poetry.  Or you might choose two poems where the rhythm contrasts with the "literal" words (like My Papa's Waltz) to add an extra dimension of meaning.  Two poems that are ironic or funny could support a discussion of how the poets use humor similarly/differently with their different subjects.  We will talk about this more in class.

For next week:
Read:  Chapter 15
Write:  Start thinking about which two poems you want to choose.  (See Thinking about the right two poems for you - above) You might begin this process by jotting down some notes about what it is that most interests you about poetry.  Are you most interested in the way poetry sounds? feels? looks? means?  how it works?  What kinds of poems do you like?  What makes you like them?

In class we will go through the forms discussed in the chapter, and spend some time talking about how/what you want to choose to write about for your assignment.

Thanks for the good class today and have a great weekend!

10.8 Poetry: Persona and Tone

Feedback on Short Story Unit.  We started class with a review of what the points on your feedback sheets will mean (see previsous post).  I wanted to talk to you before I sent you the numbers.  Writing feedback ended up being a much more writing intensive task for me, and I feel like this first time around it is important to give lots of support.  So it took longer than I expected.  I'm hoping to have everything done by Friday, but it might be Saturday.  If you have any questions, be in touch.

Persona and tone.  You worked in groups to develop a short presentation on how persona and tone worked in the poems from Chapter 13.  Presentations included:

• a one or two sentence of the "literal" meaning (what the poem was about)
• a more in-depth statement of what the poem did and how/what kinds of meanings it evoked  in the reader
• the importance of tone/persona in both meanings.

Maddie, Alycia, Melissa & Sarah: My Papa's Waltz
You noted the distressing, confused, almost dangerous (not described matter of factly) content in the "literal" meaning - the smell of the father's drinking, the mother's frowning face, the beating of the belt buckle on the child clinging to the shirt = and how it contrasted to the steady, predictable rhythm in line after line=> the waltz presented by the child narrator.  As it was in the child's voice, we might take this crazy juxtaposition as one way of representing the kind of double-seeing required of children in homes with alcoholism or other difficulties.  They can see literally what is happening, and it is scary and even dangerous = but they "normalize" it (because they have to) into the regular mundane rhythms of life.

Julia, Zulema, Stephanie, and Chante: the Rose poems
This group pointed out, correctly, that this is a courtship (seduction?) poem where the speaker asks the rose to point out to his reluctant (resisting?) mistress that he things she is "sweet and fair" ; that unless she let's herself be seen that she will be "uncommended"; she needs to get out there (make herself available to the speaker); and that if she doesn't do it soon, it will all be over (she will die).

The persona in the poem is the impatient lover.  He is condescendng (tell her that's young) and even rude (tell her that wastes her time and me).  Do we imagine that he loves this woman?   How do we receive this poem in light of this bullying tone, a tone which sounds like thinly veiled anger?  Do we perhaps receive him differently than the audience in the 17th century?

After directing our attention to the male-centered interests and the speaker's authoritative tone in this poem (as if he is speaking to a child who doesn't know better),we raised the question of how a 20th century woman might respond to a poem with this tone, and wondered whether the real audience for this poem was other men (who might be similarly vexed by women who wouldn't do what they wanted?) and not the recipient of the rose?

We noted the ironic tone in Dorothy Parker's "One Perfect Rose" - and how it played off the expectations set up by the rose poem genre.


Jayshawn, Jeen, Sha'nae and Melanie (Sins of the Father) and Cynthia, Krysten, and Rute (The Ruined Maid) also made excellent (if rushed) presentations on how persona and tone shaped the "effect" of the poem (the reader's experience of it).

For sins of the father, we noted that the first person voice of the father contributed to our sympathy (unreflective forgiveness?) at his sudden realization of the consequences of his past behavior - and maybe even a failure to question the last sentence that "there was nothing I could do" (which I said I felt might be read as glib and a cop-out => yah, that is a little harsh, just raising the idea and reflecting how persona can sucker us in, get us to agree with things that in real life we might not buy in to).

For "The Ruined Maid" which we really did not take fair time for, we noted the ironic tone => presenting prostitution as superior to country labor, and, if we had spent more time analyzing it, might have discussed how this allowed Hardy to comment on the circumstances of women's lives in rural communities (even if he did clearly distort what it was like to be a prostitute).

Great class!  That was fun.

For next class:
Read: Chapter 14, Writing about Poetic Language.  Pay special attention to Mary Oliver's poem, Shakespeare's sonnet, and Donald Hall's "My Son the Executioner".

Feedback on Writing about Short Stories

This is what is posted in your syllabus for the distribution of points for yoru grade:

Grades (we may re-negotiate point assignments as we work through the term)

1.  Contributions to group brainstorming, conferencing, and peer review 150  points

2.  Drafts & exploratory writing for essays on: short story, poetry, drama & novel 150  points
3.  2 polished essays [resulting from extensive revisions to 2 drafts] 200  points

4.  Portfolio  [reflective intro, 2&3 above, writing from group work & peer reviews] 350 points

5.  Contributions to class discussions, 150 points

Total points for course 1000 points

My grading scale is a little different from the University's suggested scale. I use:
Above 90=A, 90=A-; Above 80=B; 80=B-, and so on.

The breakdown for time spent on each unit is as follows:
Short story: 10 classes
Poetry: 7 classes
Drama: 6 classes
Novel and finishing portfolio 7 classes.

Below is the scoring used for the feedback.

Participation credit (50):

Exploratory writing (50 points total):

• brainstorming precis (9.8):
• realization essay brainstorming (9.11):
• notes on Say Yes (9.15):
• brainstorming/notes setting (9.18):
• brainstorming/notes structure (9.22):
• brainstorming draft (9.25):
• draft (9.29):

Draft (50 points):

Peer review/group work (Uncle Rock or Boys & Girls 9.22) (40):

Total “grade so far”:  /190

10.6 Poetry - getting the "literal" meaning

Finishing the short story unit:   You posted your finished drafts for your short story. I will be reading through them the next couple of days, and hopefully I will have them (and your homework) back to you with comments by next class or shortly after.

Poetry.  We started class with some observations about how reading poetry correlates with reading fiction.  The idea here was that you could think about which of the strategies we worked with in the short story unit you might be able to bring to this unit on poetry.  You noted the following features of poetry.

uses stanza & lines/form is important

uses images

more interpretation is required

more metaphor/symbolic

language can have special meanings

sound of the language more of a focus

can have  empahsis on emotional/felt response

shorter=>meaning more condensed

So poetry seems like it is more intense/condensed in its meaning making, more connected to the sound/music of language, and more likely to work at multiple levels of meaning making. At the same time, when we took a close look at short stories - the form and language were absolutely important to the story's effect.

How poems mean.  The poem I was trying to remember about how poems "mean" was by Archibald Macleish - and here it is - with the punchline being "a poem should not mean but be."  Which raises questions about why we spent most of class practicing/thinking about strategies for finding the "literal meaning" of a poem as a starting place for creating an interpretation/exploration of its possibilities.   In defense of the suggestion offered by your text book - and our current approach - we aren't really finding a literal meaning, but doing a line by line analysis of the possibilities raised by the sounds, language, allusions and associations the poem brings to us as we read it.  After this close reading we are able to talk about what the poem does and says in a way that will allow us to think about it as a whole.  

We spent most of class talking about The Second Coming. Some of the strategies we used as we read line by line were as follows.

• Paying attention to the title (which persents a preview/overview of the poem)
• Listening to assonance or repetitions - which can make connections between words, syllables and phrases (falcon=> falconer); or create emphasis (turning and turning)
• Listening to the rhythm of the words- phrases that went slowly word by word ('things fall apart' or 'what rough beast') add emphasis and draw attention to themselves
• Associating to particular words/phrases for cultural significance 
• Thinking about the poet's larger body of work/beliefs/the time when s/he wrote
• Wondering why the poet chose particular words or phrases ("troubles my sight," "pitiless," "stony sleep" "vexed to nightmare")
• Wondering about meanings and connections  ("blood-dimmed tide" =>"ceremony of innocence is drowned")
• Connections to larger cultural beliefs, religion, interpretations of history (the concept of the Second Coming from Chritianity, the Book of Revelations, the idea of the Anti-Christ. . .)

We then worked on coming up with a sentence or two (or several different sets of sentences!) to give us a starting place for what we thought the poem was "about" => keeping in mind that it was about MANY things, and that if we could reduce it simply to one sentence we were probably missing something.

We took about 2 minutes at the end of a class to analyze a poem which on the surface seems to report more concrete events.  Hanging Fire  seemed to be a description of a series of events which always ended with the phrase referring to the narrator's mother in the bedroom.  But - like the short stories - it has an urgent aboutness created through the repetition of the question about dying coupled with the mother behind the door of the bedroom and the idea of "hanging fire" that the structure and language and feel  of the poem creates, and this meaning is more than the words.  (And clearlyone thing we needed to do was look up "hanging fire"!)

So - for next class you will be reading about persona and tone, and each of your peer groups is going to take a poem from the "sample" poems in the chapter so you can be the "expert" on the possible meanings.  

Poems by group are as follows.

Jayshawn, Jeen, Melannie, Krystal: Sins of the Father

Maddie, Sarah, Alycia, Melissa: My Fathers Waltz

Cynthia, Rute, Justin, Krysten: The Ruined Maid

Julia,  Chante, Zulema, Stephanie: The Rose poems at the end

We decided you would each write up a line by line analysis, similar to what we did in class for The Second Coming, and post it, and that we would take a minute at the beginning of class for you to pull together what you would say about your poem.  You are not responsible for the analysis of persona and tone and how it shapes the reader's response.  We will talk about that in class.

For next class:
Read:  Chapter 13: Writing about Persona & Tone, 492. 

Write: do a line by line analysis to establish the "literal" meaning for your group’s poem

In class we will begin with the group explorations of the poems - and then talk specifically about how persona and tone contribut to the way the poem evokes a response from the reader.