In class Final Exam on Wednesday, 4/27:

1. Bring in your portfolios.

• Two portfolio folders: each includes your best and second best essay

• Make sure you've revised and edited each essay. Make them as best you can.

• Make sure each folder has the same set of essays so that each professor is grading the same two essays.

• Example:  if folder A has Essay 2 and 4, then folder B must also have the same copy of Essay 2 and 4

2. In-class Final

• Classification essay on people in social settings/on social networks 
• Bring one page of notes, including grammar idea and other strategies 
• You may use Rules for Writers

Classifying and Defining Archetype Characters

Classification, as we started discussing last week, is a type of organizational pattern. In the simplest way of using the pattern, each body paragraph may define and/or analyze a particular thing from a larger category.  

• Roane State CC has a great writing page for simplifying the rhetoric. Let's look at their discussion of the classification pattern.

• There is also this one, which shows a simple essay on categorizing computer types.

Definition, is another type of pattern. Let's look again at Roane State's discussion of definition essays. 

• Within a definition, you may define a term (a word or phrase) based on the following types of way of defining listed on this St. Cloud State University page.

Preparing for your In-class Final Exam on Wednesday, April 27th:

• Now, your Final Essay will be for you to write a classification essay in which you will have to classify and define two to three types of people. 

• To get started, lets look below at "archetypes" for some preparation.

"In literature, an archetype is a typical character, an action or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature.

An archetype, also known as universal symbol, may be a character, a theme, a symbol or even a setting. Many literary critics are of the opinion that archetypes, which have a common and recurring representation in a particular human culture or entire human race, shape the structure and function of a literary work.

Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist, argued that the root of an archetype is in the “collective unconscious” of mankind. The phrase “collective unconscious” refers to experiences shared by a race or culture. This includes love, religion, death, birth, life, struggle, survival etc. These experiences exist in the subconscious of every individual and are recreated in literary works or in other forms of art" (Literary Devices).

-----------------------------

In psychology, these same types of ideas exist, as shown in "The Twelve Archetypes" (Jonas). 

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Here is a great breakdown of archetypes and ways of looking for them through various literary elements, brought to us from a professor at Hillsborough Community College.

This link should make a writer think about how he or she can most effectively contextualize his or her characterizations as more universal ideas. Are their similarities, for instance, in Bockarie's journey and those of the "hero's journey"? If not, do not despair. Instead, use your knowledge gained from this reading to understand how to look at Bockarie's journey as something else familiar, archetypal. 

HW for 4/25

1. Read through the blog and find the lessons that will help you edit and revise. Review and even have open as you work on newest drafts.

Use the right sidebar navigation to find lessons that we have covered that address some of the following:

Structure/basic content flow of each part of essay

• Introductions
• PRE
• Conclusions

Editing

• Run-ons
• Fragments
• Comma usage
• Subject-verb agreement
• Pronoun agreement and references
• mechanics
• parallel structure

2. E-mail me your newest draft of your best Portfolio essay by Sunday morning, 4/24, preferably, or by Monday at 11am. Label it "________'s Best Portfolio Essay" and then check your e-mail for feedback! 

• I want to give one more read through--give you a few more suggestions
• Don't count on me being the editing savior.  
• Anyone who reads this and decides to send a new version by Friday morning or afternoon will get even more feedback.

Editing: Parallel Structure

Parallel Structure (Rules for Writers, 116-119)

As the OWL website clarifies, a parallelism is when you have a list or multiple ideas that are presented in the same pattern, same basic syntactical structure.

Here are a few things to consider about your sentences that have lists (or could use a list) or that present multiple ideas:

• verb forms should match (especially in a list)
• clauses should have matching word patterns
• correlative expressions also need to be edited (check the link)

Furthermore, Towson University up in Baltimore has a great breakdown for how to identify and work on parallel structure. 

How can knowing and working on parallel structure help me out?!?

• A strong parallel made within a thesis statement can outline your entire essay body.

• Besides using the structure for thesis statements, the technique is good to use for:

• Outlining multiple reasons or examples within a body paragraph
• Reiterating in a conclusion the points made in an essay (especially if you didn't use the same structure in the introduction/thesis)

• Example 1: Being an effective boss includes keeping cool and  solving in-house problems when there are issues between employees.

• Example 2: One's spirituality can be defined through religious beliefs, expressed through artistic views, and nurtured through daily interactions.

• Notice how the verbs match in form, and the objects have the same pattern

• Example 3: Grams' favorite arugula farro rissto can be made in three easy stages: dicing up the tomato and herbs, cooking the farro down in broth, and adding arugula and lemon mixture before serving.  (Each of these stages has steps within to cover, and each stage represents a body paragraph.)

Grammar Aside, How Does Effective Parallelism Impact My Writing?

• You can organize your main idea(s) in a sentence list that gives you directions for each paragraph to follow. Organization!!!

• You can order ideas in a list that emphasizes a certain priority to the list. Which idea is most important or strongest?

• As RR shows in Chapter 14, when you order sentences and you order parallel actions/images, that order impacts understanding. 

Editing (Portfolio Essays): Mechanics

Use the list below to edit different issues that arise in your drafts. You want to format and present your Portfolio essays nicely, with none of these easily fixable (VERY EASY) edits. Go through them individually in each of your essays.


1. Don't use "etc." and other Latin abbreviations (343) because they are tonally too casual.

2. Acronyms: only used widely-known acronyms. As RR notes, if you are using a less unfamiliar acronym you need to introduce the whole title first, with the acronym in parentheses.

• Bourdain studied at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), the premier cooking school in the USA.  [See what I did there?!?}

3. Salutations can be used with proper names, when logical. 

• Unless the character goes by "Miss Sophie," you would call her Sophie--never Ms. Sophie.  However, Mrs. Rasmussen is also Anna Rasmussen--never Missus Rasmussen.

4. With numbers, the general rule is to spell out all numbers one-hundred and below. Along with rule four, you also have rule five dealing with numbers:

5. If a number starts off a sentence, write out that number. Fourteen-hundred and seventy-five is a large number, isn't it?

6. Stay numerically consistent. If you make the minor error of stating 3 out of four dentists agree, you should really be arguing that 3 out of 4 dentists agree. 

7.  As the book notes, numbers used as part of modifying phrases can be in number form, not spelled out.

• He hired an editor to get the 500-pound monkey off his back. The editor, though, was not five-hundred pounds, nor a monkey.

8. To italicize, or not to italicize, that is A question. However, you should never have to make it THE question.

•  Longer, "complete" texts such as books, albums, TV shows, movies, plays, magazines, newspapers, and even websites should be italicized. 

• However, the Bible and the Constitution are not italicized (348). Legal document titles are never italicized. 

9. Also, do not italicize (or bold, or underline) the title of your own essay. Use capitalization rules, instead.

10. Go beyond spellcheck. Use spellcheck, but don't rely on it. Spellcheck doesn't catch homonyms (there, their, there're | it it's | to two too | here hear!)

11.  Plurals versus (not verses) Possessives.  The apostrophe (') is used for ownership. You cannot tack on an -s or -es to a word to make that word own the next word. 

• What do I do with Jerry's throw [rug]? Do all Jerrys throw left-handed?

12. Capitalize proper nouns, like character names. Real people names. Business names. Titles of sources.

• There is a difference between giving Johnny cash and giving Johnny Cash away.

13. Commonly misspelled words: look for them versus assuming you have tight verses. Check 356-57 in RR, but also go to a dictionary for words you are unsure of.

14. Hyphens are not dashes. Hyphens are used with compound words, between prefixes and suffixes (360). 

15. Hyphens are also important to use when you are formatting your essay. If there is too much white space at the end of a line and you have long word, try to split that word up at a natural syllabic break to avoid the empty, or too short, line.

Simple Rule: Word Choice

Specific language rules over vague choices

• pronouns
• nouns
• verbs

When you are revising work on a "word choice" level, look for a words connotations and for its precision.  You want to choose the best words for the clearest understanding.

• Check all your nouns in one read through...
• Check all your pronouns...switch some out
• Check all verbs, making sure you have the most active verbs

Below is a lesson from February 17, 2016, two months ago:

A Word Means In Two Basic Ways

1. Denotation: the dictionary meaning a word holds; its surface meaning.

2. Connotation: extra meaning a word carries, or “suggests”; the meaning may be cultural, thematically related to rest of poem’s content. Also, a word or phrase may depend on a reader understanding alternate meanings in dictionary, sound-relations to other words (insure/ensure), context of usage, & other credible connections of the words to the rest of the text.

• Writers use figures of speech to create connotations
• Metaphors
• Similes
• Allusions
• Hyperbole
• Idioms and regionalisms
• & many more

A Writer Must Understand the Difference Between Precision and Accuracy

1. Accuracy: the word choice has correct denotative meaning
2. Precision: the word choice has connotations that meet the action/situation, including tone.

• Examples of precision: The scalpel slices. The ax hacks.
• Examples of imprecision:  The scalpel hacks!

• If a word/phrase doesn’t seem to fit the situation in a published piece, reflect upon why the author may have used an imprecise word/phrase.

Different Kinds of Examples

Your example depends on:

• the point being made in a body paragraph
• the type of essay
• the length of paragraph

Kinds of general examples:

• general scenario  (more specific action that represents a behavior/term)
• a list of specific things
• a personal anecdote 
• a societal anecdote
• outside source/text

This list is generic, of course, but I still wanted to give you a reminding thought for revising your paragraphs if you have gotten comments about "needing to illustrate" or "provide examples."

• Use descriptive, sensory language
• Provide specific details
• Use transitions to set up examples (words that "categorize" may help, too)
• One example
• There was one time,
• A solid representation of...
• For example,
• For instance,
• In one case,

HW for 4/20: Portfolio Essays and Lecture: "It" Does Matter

1. Bring in your top three essays for the Portfolio. You will only need two of them revised to the best of your ability, but we are still in the selection mode.

• E-mail or USB copies
• Printed copies are fine, but you want to use our lab time to work on essays
• Also, bring in the handouts from Blackboard that you are using to help pace yourself in improving your essay.

***The Portfolio Folder is due on Wednesday, 4/27. On this day, you will also take the in-class Final 

2. Read the lecture below on revising "It" out of essays. This is another lesson on syntax and word choice.

"It" Does Matter

Have you ever seen the movie It?





Or, less creepy, the eBay commercials circa the Iron Age of the Internet?




What do either of these it clips have to do with learning to write more effectively? (Or, what pet peeve of Professor A. does he want me to avoid by my second or third draft of an essay?)

One Writer/Reader's Issues with It as Subject of Sentences

• Broad language use
• Derails linked sentences
• Casual, assumptive tone
• Wordiness
• Poor agreement (typically, two its in one sentence or paragraph refer to two different things)

How many times have you heard, said, written, or read the following?

What is it?

It is what it is.  

It has to be that way. 

It makes me very angry when people act like it doesn't matter.

As writers, we do not have the luxury of non-verbal cues or of absolutely understanding what our audience knows.  It {Those two factors} make us have to look at our use of its in our sentences. 

• Revise for concision:

It makes me mad when people judge without knowing the facts.

• Revise for clarity,  pronoun/subject agreement

Stereotyping somebody because of his or her weight is as bad as being prejudice against a person because of him or her being gay. Both involve judging a person because he or she is different from normal. 

Editing: Don't Be So Shifty

1. When do you use "you" appropriately?

2. How do you keep time?

3.  Stay indicative in mood.  (Same subject-verb structure from sentence to sentence)

4. Stay active in tense (s-v-o structure) in each sentence.

5. Stay within the same syntax when quoting or questioning within a combined/linked sentences.

• one editing consideration: read the shared part of a sentence with the multiple actions

Editing: Pronoun Agreement

PRO AGR=when the pronoun does not agree in number with the noun or pronoun, called the antecedent, it references.

• Circle all pronouns
• Draw an arrow back to the word it is replacing

1. Indefinite pronouns (each, nobody, everybody, something, nothing) are singular (208).

2. Generic nouns (209) are singular.

3. Collective nouns are singular unless the action and result (verb and object) clearly shows plural.

4. Compounds=plural

5. The either/or | neither/nor rule= agree with the antecedent closest (the second one/one on right).

Rubric: Treasure Hunt Answers

To really understand the comments and critiques you will get back on your essays, you have to know the "coding system" used on rubric and what each comment means. Those things checked in the "Unsatisfactory" are the things you need to work most on (either revising or editing) in order to have the essay meet college-wide standards for credit-level essay skills.

Additionally, the you can see on the rubric what your essay strengths are.

Below are the shorthand comment found on our rubrics, but I have added the definitions/word that each represents. These editing symbols are part of Category 3: Grammar, Usage, Mechanics, and Punctuation:

MAJOR ERRORS  (these errors show a lack in clear sentence structure, so they make for very unclear thoughts)

INCO=incoherent (something in the sentence just doesn't make sense, due to poor sentence structure, word choice, poor logic, or a mix of multiple errors that makes the sentence not able to be understood)

FRAG=a fragment (incomplete thought/sentence)

SS (I usually use "Syntax")=faulty sentence structure, such as too many verbs, or parts of speech out of normal order, among other things.

RO=R-O= run on sentence, meaning you have two sentences that you have combined together without either punctuation between the two or the wrong punctuation.

CS= comma splice, which a run on in which the two sentences are combined (wrongly, of course) using a comma!

VF=incorrect verb form

VT=verb tense shift, meaning you have used shifted the "when" of action by changing from one tense to another, within the same sentence or within a few sentences in which that action was all supposed to happen at the same time!!!   We acted like we love the class! (half is past, half is present=VT)

S/V AGR=  subject-verb agreement issues. The thing doing something (the subject) and the doing something (verb) must match up in number (singular, plural) and tense (past/present/future).


Minor errors (don't confuse the reader as much)

WW=wrong word  (perhaps it was a homonym, like one and won!)

WC=word choice is not effective (many possibilities)

WF=word form is wrong, meaning you made the noun into an adjective or the adjective into a verb or something along those lines!

WO=word order, meaning that you switched a set of words around, such as putting an adjective after its noun instead of before it...

PAR=paragraph needs to be formatted/start a paragraph where marked

PRO AGR= pronoun agreement error, meaning the antecedent (noun the pronoun is supposed to refer to) and pronoun aren't in the same number (singular or plural). For instance, if you have a singular noun such as "Johnny," then your pronoun must be the singular third person. Gender and case are also important, here. Johnny is a guy, so he/him/his is the right set of pronouns to use...

PRO REF=unclear who or what the pronoun is referencing.

PRO CASE=you are using the wrong case of pronouns (subjective, objective, possessive)

MODIFIERS=using the wrong type of modifier, or you are in need of one... (I rarely use this one)

SP=you misspelled a word, fix it!

MECH/MECHANICS=wrong use of italics, quote marks, underlining...wrong capitalization or lack of capitalization...this one occurs with citing sources, titles of things, addresses/locations, proper v. common nouns....

MINOR PUNCT= you used the wrong punctuation for the end of a sentence...

ART=need an article, or don't have the right one...

Prescribed Academic Manuscript Form=your essay doesn't look how it's supposed to look !!!!!

HW for 4/18 & Editing: S/V AGR Editing: S/V AGR

1. Read both Rules for Writes  chapter 21 (subject-verb agreement) and the post below that outlines that grammar lesson.

2. Read through your Essays 1, 2, 3 and Midterm for S/V AGR errors. We will do this in class on Monday, too, but we would also like to introduce another editing lesson.

3.  Order your essays from strongest essay (represents the best of your writing) and weakest (essay needs the most work), and be ready to discuss why you believe what you do. You need to start focusing your attention over the next five days to the 2-3 essays that you feel will best represent you as a writer.

• Which ones will show your best depth of writing, best skills with structure/organization, best vocabulary, and widest range of topics and other skills? 

4. ***Again, bring in new, clean drafts of the newest version of each essay. We are very close to Portfolios, so we have to keep having new drafts.

Editing: S/V AGR

One of the bigger grammatical issues to edit out draft to draft is subject-verb agreement (S/V AGR), which means that the subject and its verb have to match in number (singular or plural) and person (first, second, third).

Identify, then Fix

1. Underline the subject


• If the subject is a noun phrase, reduce the subject down to its proper pronoun so that you can better match it with the verb.


• The amazingly bright Johnny = He
• Johnny and Tom=They
• The sisters and I=We
• My favorite lamp=It


2. Circle the verb(s) that the subject 'acts on'


3. Ignore every other word in sentence to test for agreement! 

• Use chart on 198 for a visual aid/reminder (all regular, or typical, verbs will follow the top chart)

• Pay attention to sentences with multiple subjects 


• 'and'= plural
• 'nor' or "'or'=verb must agree with the subject closest it (200)
• Collective nouns (where a group of people is referred to as one unit) such as jury, committee, crowd, and class are to be singular forms unless the idea in the sentence shows the individuals acting separately (see 201-202)
• indefinite pronouns are treated as singular (200)
• Who, which and that=agree with the antecedent 
• antecedent sounds like 'ancestor,' and it means: the noun or pronoun that came before which the current one is supposed to refer to...
• A title of a work or company needs a singular verb, even if it sounds plural!  (The Chicago Bears is my favorite team.)
• Treat gerund phrases (when -ing verbs are used at start) as singular nouns (Beginning with today...)
• ...and other special cases

Editing  Strategies for Your Essays

• Read your paragraphs backwards or with a sheet that covers the other sentences to slow you down

• Do your editing on a printed copy first, so that you can better diagram

• Diagram each sentence for its subject (underline) and verb (circle). 

• Convert the subject to its pronoun form (
• Or, cross out (on the page or in your head) all the words but the basic subject 

• Read for agreement between pronoun and verb to test the verb's correctness

• Make sure to then write the corrections above where you find a lack of agreement. Consult your Rules for Writers for extra help where unsure. 

• If editing on the computer:

• Re-type your essay from a blank document
• REALLY DO THIS WITH at least one Major Error editing session, for the action is another way to slow down and reflect on what you wrote:

• Run-ons (both fused and comma splice) editing session
• Fragment editing session
• Comma editing session
• Verb Tense shift editing session (chapter 13)

Writing and Revising: Musical Components

Turn First Person Sentences  into Third Person Sentences

• Use "one" instead of "I" (and "you") 
• "Whenever I have a problem at home, I listen to this band's positive songs" --> Whenever one has a problem at home, one can listen to this band's positive songs

• Start with the third person pronoun as subject(s) of a sentence, as they are subject of essay, and move modifiers around (and change them, even) to satisfy the idea

• I really love how Gnarls Barkley combines quick rap lines with poppy, drawn out chorus notes in "Crazy."  -->  Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" amazingly combines quickly rapped lines with poppy, drawn out chorus notes.

Music Analysis Essay Thoughts & Pre-(essay writing) Writing

1. What are your Top 5 favorite bands/artists?

2.     What types of songs do you like to listen to? What genre or topic do they normally cover?  (Background information…! Context for the song you chose to analyze)

3. What do you like most about music? Freewrite about all the things that you most pay attention to when you listen to music….

4. Figures of Speech—language.

• What is the greatest figurative line from a song, and what about that line is so great?

• Where does the line take the reader in and outside the song?

5. What types of instruments are part of the songs? How are these instruments used in the band?

Listen to the particular instrument as it is used in the song: describe in a quick free-write of three minutes the emotions, sounds, or whatever else you feel needs to be said about the use of tat instrument...

• Slipknot and drums...

• Mumford & Sons and the banjo...

Monday's Writing And Blackboard Post (Complete all of the work in post by Wednesday, 4/13)

Dear Students:

Below is the lesson and the work to be done for your Portfolio essays. Our focus is "writing/revising illustrations" into our essay body paragraphs. You want to make that a focus of at least one draft, for each of Essay 1-4 and Midterm.

Your assignment includes uploading some of your work to Blackboard, Unit 4, for both attendance credit and to help me assess and guide you towards the best essays for the Portfolio. In short, do your best at this work, for you.

For personal reasons,  I cannot make it to class Monday; therefore, we are not having regular class on Monday, 4/11. However, here is what you need to do for yourself:

1. Come to campus, or stay on campus.
• If you don't come to campus, take yourself to a quiet computer somewhere (public library, home)
2. Take our normal class meeting hours to work on your essays:
• Go to the library to do the work
• Go to a computer lab on campus to do the work

With your essays, here is your focus for the day: the E in your PRE-structured body paragraphs.

• Remember, we are discussing only the body paragraphs--those two or three paragraphs that develop your ideas.

Focus on Illustrations as your E:

What are illustrations? We have discussed using descriptive language, sensory language, specific names, and more. You have to learn to demonstrate one good example illustration that your reading audience can see visualizes your topic sentence's claiming point.

For example, you may have written a body paragraph for Essay 1 in which you discuss learning a lesson that not stereotyping someone based on their gender is importan. You may even provide some solid reasoning sentences about why one should not stereotype women, for instance. Well, did you give an example that illustrates how a specific woman was treated unfairly in some way because she was a woman? Did you name the woman and describe what she went through? 

Here is what an illustration may look like, with that scenario:

BP TS 1 (P):   Coming to college, I have learned not to view strong women as masculine; mental and physical strength does not belong to just men.  

R:  As I have matured, I have seen more women who take on common male roles without compromising their own gender. 

Illustration (E): In college, I became friends with a lot of girls who like sports and video games, just like me. Even crazier to me at first, many of my female friends have tattoos. I met one of them, Ocean, in my freshman art class. Ocean has a giant tattoo on her left forearm of her brother, who died after being hit by a car two years ago. While we were playing Halo 4, Ocean told me she got the tattoo to feel the pain and remember her brother whenever she gets down. She cried when she told me, but then she punched me in the arm when I tried to comfort her. She said she did not need my comfort; she was only telling me because I asked. She also said, "A girl can cry and have a tat--and I can hurt I can can cause pain." She made me realize that her crying was not a weakness, and that her toughness wasn't a manly thing. 

• This illustration has a couple of writing skills that we want in our own illustrations:

• We want to describe a specific person that fits our topic sentence's point.
• We want to tell a short story that allows us to see that person in action, symbolizing the claim.
• Transitional phrases help link the point to the reasons, and the reasons to the examples. Most of these sentences are linked by transitions.

• Those transitional phrases rely on key words from each prior sentence.

• The illustration, too, often balances description of the person and action with the other part of E, which is explanation.  You can really help tighten up the coherence of a body paragraph when you find yourself having a sentence or two that explains the story you are providing. 

• In the above example the very last sentence explains the illustration: "She made me realize...."  Without that explanation, the illustration may seem confusing to anyone outside your own head, as the writer. 

How do I apply this idea of "illustration" in my essay revisions?

• Read through each essay separately. 
• Do a reverse outline of each essay to help you pull out your main points, especially if you are having a hard time understanding your own ideas.
• The "key words" in topic sentence point and reasoning sentences will help you create/imagine/etc. the kind of illustration you need for your essay. 

• For example: In the above example, "strong women" and "masculinity" are a few words the student used to help craft his example illustration of Ocean. 

• How Do I Choose, from there, proper illustrations? 

• Do I have a personal story that fits the Body Paragraph Topic Sentence (BP TS)?
• Do I know of any social stories/famous examples that fit the BP TS? 
• Do I know of any historical, global examples that fist the BP TS?
• Can a peer, tutor, or teacher provide an example to help me pick my own?

Homework for Wednesday:

• Go through each of you essays, and make sure you spend at least two hours (replacement of Monday's class, even)  writing and illustrations (or revising those you do have) into each of your essays--even the one's I have not handed back yet with grades. 

• Upload through Blackboard: for two of your essays, provide one revised body paragraph with a new illustration added based on your understanding of the above lesson. 

• We will have the computer lab on Wednesday, so have a USB drive or e-mail version of every single essay you've written for this class (including Essay 4). I will be conferencing with students about essays while students work on revisions. 

HW for 4/11

1. Bring in Essay 4 rough draft: at least four paragraphs, at least with intro-body-conclusion. Attach an outline to the back. Printed copies, please.

• There is no handout for this essay, because our dates for working on it are fluid. We will be doing another draft of Essay 3, too, next week. So, you will be working on at least two essays at once.

2. Also, bring in CLEAN COPIES OF ESSAY 1 and 2 and Rules for Writers.

Essay 4: Being a Critic

I. Intro:

• A hook: what's the cultural theme? (hook and context)
• A brief description of the culture (context)
• Two or three subtopic*s:
• something good (successful) about the food/music/movie
• another good thing...
• a problem with the food/music/movie

* the good or the bad must, in some way, refer to the food/music/movie's connection to the culture it is representing...

• Thesis: What is your overall position on the food/music/movie?

II. Body

A. Topic Sentence 1:

• Reason:
• Example:

B. Topic Sentence 2:

• Reason:
• Example:

C.  Topic Sentence 3:

• Reason:
• Example:

III. Conclusion

A. Topic Sentence:  What is the cultural relevance of the text?

Cultural Critiques in Movies: Zootropolis as Example

Here is one on Zootropolis, from British periodical Independence.

• Look at some of the sentences that operate like essay topic sentences that fit our prompt:

• "The genius of the film lies in its combination of traditional Disney characters and situations with a very subversive storytelling style."

• "In their own subtle way, the film-makers are dealing with sexism, racism and political correctness. "

• "Intolerance and corruption turn out to be rife in Zootopia."

Example Music Review

Green Day's American Idiot Album Review in Pitchfork.

Food Review Models

Models for Essay 3: The New York Times food reviews

Tertulia

1. What does title for the review of Tertulia tell you about the subject? ...How does this help you create your own essay title? 
2. What are some of the opening details, and again, what impact do these details have on the reader?
3. What were some details or descriptions where you felt you could have had a bit more explained to you, and why? 
• Why does this writer get away with things we can't? 
4. How did the author use adjectives and adverbs to paint a picture of the food experience? What types of adjectives and adverbs were used--and how might those be different from less effective modifiers?
5. What point does the author, Sam Sifton, make about service, and how does he support that claim?
6. How does he use paragraphs to organize what he has to say about the food? Let's look at a few paragraphs to see how Sifton can inspire us! 
• How 'long' does he take to describe one aspect of the food at the place?
7. What is lacking about the conclusion, and what would/could you write if this were your review? How might you incorporate the rating (two stars) that comes after the last paragraph? What ideas most pointed to that rating?

Per Se

1. Again, what does the title indicate to the reader about the subject?
2. How does the title connect to the hook?
3. What background information is given to support the claim's opening stance?
4. How does Sifton transition from the introduction to the current review of the restaurant? What are some of the key phrases and ideas?
5. How does Sifton create or develop the theme of "high-class culture" in this piece?
6. How and what does Sifton say about who should eat at Per Se? 
7. In this review, Sifton organizes his critique to discuss the service last. What are some reasons that he may have chosen to organize his points about service here instead of earlier? 

Developing A Point Synonymously

A good strategy for organizing your essay once you have a thesis statement and subtopics is to lay out in Word your points in the order you want them to be organized in your essay (outline of just sentences).

Then, erase the outline and work on revising the sentences so that they sound new (sounds simple, but take notes as we go through an example).

• Use the thesaurus on Word to help
• Use a print dictionary/thesaurus
• Re-order the sentence's structure (add or delete clauses, modifiers, etc.)
• Add more specific details and/or contextual information in the body versions.

***We will attempt to write our own thesis statement and subtopics on food, service and atmosphere on Tertulia so that we can illustrate the strategy and go over the rhetorical issues that come with trying out this strategy...

I. Intro

• Thesis:  ______ (of course, the more clear and developed the thesis, the easier it is to work on the rest)
• Subtopic 1:
• Subtopic 2:
• Subtopic 3: if applicable
• ...

II. Body

        A. Subtopic 1: paste the sentence/clause from introduction you are repeating, then work on revising it.

        B. Subtopic 2: paste the sentence/clause from the introduction you are repeating, then work on revising it.

        C. Subtopic 3: ditto, here, if you have a third point. 

III. Conclusion

• thesis statement: paste your thesis statement, then work on revising it! Use a transitional introductory phrase that indicates this is your conclusion topic sentence...

• "In conclusion...." is a standard, easy phrase, so try to come up with a variance to show you know there are many ways to indicate in words that this paragraph is a conclusion!
• "After considering ______, ..."
• "Based upon the _____ ______ and ______..."

HW for 4/6: Read through this post, including the links (especially the review examples)

For your last out of class essay, Essay 4, you need to pretend that you are a critic. You get to pretend you are writing a review for a a newspaper or magazine, which means you have to write to a general audience (think solid description and details for context).

Furthermore, I want your essays to demonstrate a sense of deeper critical thinking with topic sentence claims, so you must choose:

• an ethnic restaurant/one with a particular cultural focus 

• a foreign film/ movie that deals with an obvious cultural theme

• a music album that critiques culture -- the album must have songs that comment on culture in an evident way

This is to be an organized review in which you provide as thesis, your overall "opinion"/critique/review (however you view it!) of the restaurant/movie/or album and a few reasons why you have this outlook.


To review what it means to be descriptive, review what Purdue's OWL says about descriptive essays.   Your essay is to be descriptive, but to also have a clear position on the subject text.

Food Reviews

• The New York Times has a section of reviews in which they may vary from our purpose in overall organization/structure (because we use the 5-paragraph essay) and content, but not in writing style or in descriptive value. Therefore, it will be important to review what it means to be descriptive and to study the types of content that can appear in a restaurant review.

• Below are a few example restaurant reviews:

1. Tertulia 
2. Per Se

• Do what what one smart student did and google "descriptive food language" for a list of great terms to use in your own reviews.  Here is one site that helped that student out: Descriptive words for menus. 

• Here is one that is related to what we are doing: Food Critic Terms.

Developing Vocabulary: Word Banks for Written Essays

1.  Go through your own clean drafts and circle the key words (subject matter, particularly nouns, I'm guessing) the essay is based upon.

2. In your book club, you are going to read...each other's essays to help each other come up with word banks.  The author will want to use these words banks for revising his or her essays this months, with the portfolio coming up.

• Use a dictionary (get a free app on your phone!)