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.