Thursday, March 27, 2008

Writing a Thesis Statement for Essay #2, English 102

Your thesis for this paper, a textual analysis paper focusing on HOW the text is written, follows this general pattern:

[Author] uses [add some literary devices] to [add a verb and then the specific message you want to focus on].

Of course, this is just a pattern and I don't want you to necessarily follow it to the letter. But, you need to include some literary devices and a specific message.

Taking the Jason Sheenan essay, "Mama's House" as our chosen text, here's a sample thesis:

In the adventure narrative "Mama's House" Jason Sheehan uses cultural details, analogies, colloquial language, and dialog to capture the urgency of finding an underground Ghanaian home restaurant.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Who wants a tasty Quote Sandwich?

The Quote sandwich is a valuable tool to use when you're integrating source material into your writing.

The first slice of "bread" is your introduction to the quote, which can take 3 different forms:

1. phrase + comma:

According to Sheehan, "The restaurant experience is an essentially isolating one" (202).

2. sentence + colon:

Sheehan compares his experience searching for food to his former drug use: "It suddenly occurs to me that I've had a lot of nights like this one. Nights spent looking not for goat bones, but for girls or The Man. The messages that Mark leaves have that same edgy expectancy I remember from nights spent hunting for eight-balls or trying to run down the weed guy on a Friday night" (195).

3. Integrated into your sentence:

Sheehan argues that "the restaurant experience is an essentially isolating one," even though diners are out in a public place (202).


The filling is the quote itself and the citation (don't forget that or you'll be in plagiarism trouble!)

see above examples for properly formatted and cited "filling."

The last slice of bread is your follow-up to the quote.
This is where you tell us why you included the quote in the first place. For essay #2 in English 102, this is where you do a detailed analysis of HOW the quote is written.

For example, let's take a look at example #2 from above:

In our intro to the quote, we mentioned a comparison between searching for food to drugs. Now, we need to identify what in the quote makes the comparison.

Drug lingo like "The Man," "eight-balls," and "the weed guy" are important, as is the "edgy expectancy" of trying to find the right people.

Now, let's put it all together:

Sheehan compares his experience searching for food to his former drug use: "It suddenly occurs to me that I've had a lot of nights like this one. Nights spent looking not for goat bones, but for girls or The Man. The messages that Mark leaves have that same edgy expectancy I remember from nights spent hunting for eight-balls or trying to run down the weed guy on a Friday night" (195). By using the drug lingo "The Man," "eight-balls," and "the weed guy" Sheehan provides concrete examples of what he used to search for on the street, and suggests that the need to find "goat bones" and Mama is similar to a druggie in need of a fix. He further emphasizes this comparison by describing Mark's phone messages as having an "edgy expectancy," a phrase that signals the desperate anticipation the two men feel.

You'll notice that I didn't include citations when I used the phrases from the quote. That's because I just quoted and cited the whole section directly before so it's clear where these words and phrases are coming from.

MLA Citation: Essay #2, English 102

For this essay, the MLA citation is simple.

Remember that MLA Citation has two parts:
1. In-text parenthetical citations
2. Works Cited list at the end of the essay

These two parts work together to provide readers with all the information they need about your source.

In-text Parenthetical Citations
Your in-text citations should look like this:

1. If you name the author in the same sentence with your quote:
According to Sheehan, "The restaurant experience is an essentially isolating one" (202).

2. If you don't name the author in the same sentence as your quote:
The Restaurant dining experience is, after all, "an essentially isolating one" (Sheehan 202).

Notice that the period comes after the parenthetical citation.

Now, what happens if the quote comes in the middle of your sentence? Where should you put the parenthetical citation? At the end, like this:

Sheehan argues that "the restaurant experience is an essentially isolating one," even though diners are out in a public place (202).

Works Cited List
Each kind of text has its own "formula" for the works cited entry. You can find these "formulas" listed in your writing handbook and at many good websites, including http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/ (which has awesome information on MLA citation in general).

For this paper, we're using the formula of a "work in an anthology or collection," since our articles are part of a larger book. Here's an example:

Works Cited

Sheehan, Jason. "Mama's House." The Best Food Writing 2006. Ed. Holly Hughes. NY: Marlowe and Company, 2006. 192-198.

Note: the formatting is not showing up, but you should do reverse indentation, so every line after the first one is indented.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

esfy conference a success!

My presentation went well on Saturday despite a few technical glitches, but luckily my super savvy colleagues at our other campuses were there to save the day. We had a fun and insightful conversation about blogging in the college classroom, the comment problem (why, oh why don't people post comments on our lovely entries), and the possibilities of podcasting. And, I had a chance to chat with some of my English Dept. colleagues at other campuses and discover a simpatico spirit.

The ride was long-ish but flew by as my colleague and good friend Becky and I brainstormed "scathingly brilliant" ideas the whole way, watched for amusing signage ("bacons" and brett favre's #4 steakhouse among the delights), and stopped for delicious "exotic" foods.

One of the sessions covered multigenre writing, something I hadn't been exposed to before but am intrigued by the possibilities. Imagine writing a lit response paper in multiple genres, obeying the dictates of each genre yet making everything achieve that elusive state of "flow." Well, that will be an adventure for sure.

Friday, March 7, 2008

esfy conference presentation

I'm giving a presentation at the UW-Colleges ESFY conference tomorrow, March 8. My topic is how to use Blogs in English composition classes, and I'll also be talking about this personal/professional blog...so, I thought I would use the blog space to share my presentation with those who will be in attendance, and other readers who may be interested.

Creating a Community of Writers: Blogging in English 102

Why Blog?
* started personal blog in 2005: public, “self published,” semi-formal, diversity of topics. cf to creative writing, scholarly writing, personal journal
* new job, new ideas
* popular culture, american dreams, consumption themes
* create a space for students to connect outside of the class, to write in a semi-formal style, experience navigating “digital writing environment,” expose students to new media

Blog Results from Fall 2007
* most positive response from eng 102 sections
* non-trad students seemed to especially take to the form--a kind of achievement in navigating the blogosphere, and an entrance to the online world that many traditional age students are already familiar with
* encourage traditional age students to write more substantial prose online than they otherwise do at social networking sites where brevity and visual imagery is more prevalent
* model entries
* give students basic introduction/tools, and let them experiment--quite successful. students play with font color, photos, videos, weblinks, etc.
* grade entries following posted rubric--focus primarily on details, development, creativity, voice
* at least one student created his own personal blog to share some of the writing he had previously done for our class and, I think, to serve as a creative outlet

Revise/refine the assignment for Spring 2008
* only use blogs in english 102 to allow me to focus more on the assignment
* due dates and general topics included in syllabus
* take a more laissez faire approach--don’t model the assignments to students, keep my blog presence minimal
* create my own professional blog as an alternative to a website, and to make my work more transparent and visible to students and colleagues

Concerns
* privacy--closed blog because of personal information, but would like to open it up for others to see
* increased conversation--limited, because of too many entries? would blogging groups be more likely to generate conversation?


Share Current English 102 Blog
* note creativity and personalization in responses
* blogging identities
* community via comments

Brainstorm/Discussion
* other possibilities for the technology
* ideas, questions, concerns