After I check your journal exercises on the opening of Tom Junod’s “The Falling Man,” I will return your drafts with my notes, and you will have the remainder of the class period to begin revising your analyses on your laptops. Because next week is spring break, you will have two additional weeks to continue your revision work before you submit the assignment to Blackboard and publish it as a WordPress blog entry. The due date is Wednesday, March 4 (before class). The hard deadline is Friday, March 6 (before class). Directions for submitting your analysis are included on your assignment sheet and on the Blackboard submission site.
Analysis Draft Notes
I have attached to your analysis draft a handout of notes for you to review–along with my handwritten annotations–before you begin your revision work. An additional copy of those notes is included in yesterday’s blog post.
The Writing Center
As you continue to revise your analysis, consider visiting the Writing Center. If you do so, you will earn five bonus points for the assignment.
To schedule an appointment, register online here, email the Writing Center’s director, Professor Justin Cook, at jcook3@highpoint.edu, or scan the QR code below. To earn bonus points for your analysis, consult with a Writing Center tutor no later than Thursday, March 5.
Writing Center Consultations for Literacy Narratives
Section 8: 2 of 17 students, 11.7%
If you are one of the students who did not take advantage of the Writing Center when you were composing your literacy narrative, do not miss the opportunity to receive that guidance–and those bonus points–for your analysis, and later for your final essay and annotated bibliography.
Model Analysis
After spring break, we will examine the student sample analysis “Wait Means Never” and “The Strange Fruit of Sosnowiec,” my model analysis of a page of Art Spiegelman’s graphic memoir Maus. Before class on Monday, March 2, read and annotate “Wait Means Never,” which you will receive a copy of today, and read the page of Maus that is posted in the readings folder on Blackboard. As you read the page, make note in your journal of the elements of the page you would address if you were writing an analysis of it.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website and review the blog posts devoted to Scrabble.
Rosenwasser, David, and Jill Stephen. “Focus on Individual Words and Senetnces.” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 48-49.
In Writing Analytically, David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen recommend “focus[ing] on individual sentences and short passages and build[ing] up a knowledge base from there” (48). The paragraphs that follow demonstrate how developing your understanding of a text through your close examination of individual words enables you to develop an analysis of it.
Suppose you are writing about Michael Lewis’s “Back Story” and are examining the words “[f]our Mississippi”(21). You might be drawn to the fact that Lewis withholds those words for several pages, rather than presenting them shortly after the previous counts in the Redskins’ play—one, two, and three Mississippi–which he documents in the opening paragraph of the chapter. You might ask yourself why he withholds “[f]our Mississippi”(21), and answer with these words:
Doing that allows him to develop the backstory.
Although the statement above answers your question, it does so in very general terms. To develop the idea, state specifically what that is, which is delaying the resumption of the chapter’s opening scene:
Delaying the resumption of the chapter’s opening scene for several pages allows Lewis to develop the backstory.
Noting that backstory is the title of the chapter and stating what the backstory is develops the sentence more:
Delaying the resumption of the chapter’s opening scene for several pages allows Lewis to develop the backstory of the title: how Lawrence Taylor redefined the running back position and fundamentally changed the game of football.
The sentence above fleshes out the idea of the original nine-word sentence and nearly quadruples its length.
As you revise your analysis, follow the same steps to develop your ideas.
Tomorrow, when I return your drafts with my annotations, you will also receive a handout with general notes. An additional copy of those notes is included below.
Analysis Draft Notes
The opening paragraph of your essay should be a summary that leads to your thesis statement. Remember that summaries are objective by nature. If you comment in any way on the quality of your subject (the text you are writing about), you turn from summary to commentary or analysis. That should not occur until you present your thesis statement, which will follow the summary.
Summaries are written in the third person. No singular or plural first- or second-person pronouns should appear in your summary. In other words, you should not use the words “I,” “me,” “you,” “we,” or “us.” MLA style requires the use of the present tense in writing about literature and other pieces of writing that are sources of study.
On first reference, refer to the author by first and last name. On subsequent references, refer to the author by last name, not first.
Text is a blanket term for all your readings. When you are referring to a particular reading, do not use a blanket term. Instead, identify by type: essay, chapter, chapter excerpt, or magazine article excerpt.
MLA style requires the use of the present tense in writing about literature and other works that are sources of study. Write Sedaris meditates on, not Sedaris meditated on. For more on writing in the present tense, see MLA’s notes on writing in the present tense.
Do not foreground the words page and paragraph in your sentences. In other words, do not write, on page twenty-two. . . . Page and paragraph numbers are for parenthetical citations.
Once you begin your analysis, you may use first person, but MLA’s editors and your textbook’s authors recommend that you use first-person sparingly, if you use it at all. If you find it difficult to write in third person, compose your analysis in its entirety in first person, then afterward try recasting it in third person. For more on the person question (to write I or not), see Writing Analytically (415-16) and MLA’s notes on using I.
In your drafts, some of you presented ideas that you heard in class as if they were your own, which is a form of plagiarism. If you mention an idea that I presented in class, you should introduce the idea with a signal phrase, such as this: As Professor Jane Lucas has observed, the narrator Edgar’s apparent detachment may stem from his grief. The signal phrase is in past tense because it refers to a statement from a previous class, but Edgar’s verb is present tense (stem, not stemmed) because of the present-tense MLA rule. Again, see
If you paraphrase a statement of mine from class, include the following work-cited entry at the end of your revision. You will need to consult your class notes to identify the correct date.
Lucas, Jane. English 1103: Academic Research and Writing. 4 February 2026, High Point University.
If you quote or paraphrase an idea from our class notes, the same rule applies. The work cited entry for a blog post appears below.
Do not use the phrase in conclusion or any variation on it at the beginning of the final paragraph of your essay. While that transitional phrase can be useful in a speech (because the audience cannot see that the end is near), there is no reason to write those words when readers can see for themselves that only one paragraph remains. For more, see Harvard University Writing Center’s notes on conclusions.
Next Up
At the beginning of class on Wednesday, I will return your handwritten analyses drafts with my notes, and I will conduct a check of your journal exercise on the first paragraph of Tom Junod’s “The Falling Man.” Afterward, you will have the remainder of the class period to begin revising on your laptops and tablets. The due date for posting your revised analysis to Blackboard and to your WordPress blog is Wednesday, March 4 (before class). The hard deadline is Friday, March 6 (before class).
Today in class you will plan and compose a midterm reflective essay that documents your work in the first half of the semester, focusing on two or three assignments or aspects of the course that have contributed to your development as a writer and a student. Since you have already written a reflection devoted solely to your literacy narrative, your midterm reflection should focus primarily on other assignments or aspects of the course, including the following:
Keeping a journal
Studying one of the readings examined class, including “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “The Day Language Came into My Life,” “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” the excerpt from Chapter One of To Kill a Mockingbird, “The School,” “Back Story,” and the excerpt from “The Falling Man.”
Reading and editing samples of student writing
Creating and maintaining a WordPress blog and writing for an online audience beyond the classroom.
Collaborating with your classmates on in-class writing assignments
Playing Scrabble and collaborating with your teammates on Wordplay Day
Writing longhand
Limiting screen time
Include in your refelective essay the following elements:
A title that offers a window into your reflection
An opening paragraph that introduces your focus and presents your thesis
Body paragraphs that offer concrete details from your work to support your claims
One relevant quotation from one of the readings listed above or from Writing Analytically
A signal phrase and a parenthetical citation for the quotation. Consult your class handouts for models. If you include the author’s name in the sentence, include only the page number or the abbreviation par. and the paragraph number in the parenthetical citation. If you do not name the author in the sentence, include his or her name and the page number or the abbreviation par. and the paragraph number.
A conclusion that revisits the thesis without restating it verbatim
A work cited entry for the text that you quote
Sample MLA Works Cited Entries
Barthelme, Donald. “The School.” The Best American Short Stories 1975, edited by Martha Foley, Houghton Mifflin, 1975. pp. 8-11.
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “‘Interesting,’ ‘Revealing,’ ‘Strange.’” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. p. 24.
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “On Keeping a Writer’s Notebook.” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 157-58.
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Seems to Be About X, But Could Also Be (Or is ‘Really’) About Y.’” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 104-7.
Sedaris, David. “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Me Talk Pretty One Day. Little, Brown, 2000. 166-73.
Note that unlike the works cited entries above, the one on your midterm reflection will have a hanging indent, as will all of the works cited entries in the Microsoft Word files and PDFs that you post to Blackboard.
The complete midterm reflection assignment, along with the grade criteria, is included on the assignment handout that you will receive in class.
Next Up
At the beginning of class on Wednesday, I will return your handwritten analyses drafts with my notes, and I will conduct a check of your journal exercise on the first paragraph of Tom Junod’s “The Falling Man.” Afterward, you will have the remainder of the class period to begin revising on your laptops and tablets. The due date for posting your revised analysis to Blackboard and to your WordPress blog is Wednesday, March 4 (before class). The hard deadline is Friday, March 6 (before class).
Monday in class, you will plan and compose a midterm reflective essay that documents your work in the first half of the semester, focusing on two or three assignments or aspects of the course that have contributed to your development as a writer and a student. Since you have already written a reflection devoted solely to your literacy narrative, your midterm reflection should focus primarily on other assignments or aspects of the course. One of the requirements of the assignment is incorporating a relevant quotation from one of the texts we have studied or from Writing Analytically. Before Monday’s class, determine what phrase, clause, or sentence you will quote, and draft a sentence in your journal that introduces the quotation with a signal phrase and follows it with a parenthetical citation.
One option for integrating a quotation into your essay is to include a line from one of your readings and explain what that passage has taught you about writing.
Examples
In the opening line of “Back Story,” Michael Lewis demonstrates that repetition can be an asset. With the words “[f]rom the snap of the ball to the snap of the first bone” (15), he repeats “snap” as a frame for the seconds leading up to Jo Theismannn’s career-ending injury. The first “snap,” the hike of the football, begins the sequence. The second “snap,” the fracture of Theismann’s tibia and fibula, ends it.
The opening line of “Back Story,” demonstrates that repetition can be an asset. The two prepositional phrases “[f]rom the snap of the ball to the snap of the first bone” (Lewis 15), repeat “snap” as a frame for the seconds leading up to Jo Theismannn’s career-ending injury. The first “snap,” the hike of the football, begins the sequence. The second “snap,” the fracture of Theismann’s tibia and fibula, ends it.
The two examples above are very similar. The first one names the author, so only the page number appears in the parenthetical citation. The second does not name the author, so his last name precedes the page number in the parenthetical citation. Notice how omitting the author’s name from the passage shifts the emphasis from the writer’s actions (“he repeats ‘snap’”) to the words themselves (“prepositional phrases . . . repeat ‘snap’”).
Another option for integrating a quotation into your essay is to include a line from Writing Analytically that presents a concept that figures in your own reading or writing process.
Examples
The observation that “understandings are rarely simple and overt” (Rosenwasser and Stephen 104) led me to reexamine “The School” and reenvision it. No longer was it primarily a chronicle of deaths, but instead it was a narrative about the nature of storytelling itself.
David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephens’ observation that “understandings are rarely simple and overt” (104) led me to reexamine “The School” and reenvision it. No longer was it primarily a chronicle of deaths, but instead it was a narrative about the nature of storytelling itself.
Works Cited
Lewis, Michael. “Back Story.” The Blind Side. 2006. Norton, 2009. pp. 15-23.
Rosenwasser, David, and Jill Stephen. “Seems to Be About X, But Could Also Be (Or is ‘Really’) About Y.’” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 104-7.
Happy Valentine’s Day Eve!
Today in class, you will receive a red paper heart on a lace doily for an informal writing exercise: composing a valentine for someone.
Next Up
In class on Monday, you will compose your midterm reflection. To prepare, choose a phrase, clause, or sentence from one of the course readings–one that is relevant to your work in the course–and draft in your journal a short passage that connects those words to your writing. That passage will serve as part of your reflection.
Postscript
Bonus Assignment: Publish your completed Valentine as a post on your blog before 9 a.m. on Monday, February 16, and you will earn a bonus assignment credit in the short assignments/participation category. You are welcome to include a photo caption or a brief explanation of the Valentine, but that is not required. The photograph alone will suffice. Once you have published your post, email me so I can visit your site and credit you with the assignment.
Yesterday in class, before you began composing your analysis draft, we examined the beginning of Tom Junod‘s article “The Falling Man,” published in Esquire magazine two years after 9-11. One of the elements that we considered–and one that I asked you to address later in your journal–is the unusually long first paragraph.
The authors of Writing Analytically recommend that “[i]f you find a paragraph growing longer than half a page–particularly if it is your opening or second paragraph–find a place to make a paragraph break” (Rosenwasser and Stephen 308). Junod does not follow that advice. He opts instead to open his article with a paragraph of more than four hundred words.
If Junod had chosen to divide the first paragraph, where might he have divided it?
Work Cited
Rosenwasser, David, and Jill Stephen. “The Idea of the Paragraph.”Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 307-313.
“The Falling Man” presents you with a seventh option for your analysis. (The others six are “MeTalk Pretty One Day,” “The Day Language Came into Life,” “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” the excerpt from the first chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The School,” and “Back Story.”)
If you would like to analyze more of Junod’s article than the first paragraph and the beginning of the second, you are welcome to study a larger section, just as you are welcome to examine a larger section of the first chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird. The complete first chapter of Harper Lee’s novel is posted in Blackboard. To access all of Junod’s article, see the directions below.
Unless you subscribe to Esquire, the magazine’s paywall will deny you access to the full text of “The Falling Man,” but you can access it through the HPU Library site by following these steps:
Directions for Accessing “The Falling Man” (Full Text)
Under the heading Search HPU Libraries . . . , click on the Articles tab.
Under the Articles tab, type Tom Junod “Falling Man” Esquire in the search box and click search.
On the next screen, you will see a brief summary of the article. Click View full text to see the complete article.
On the next screen, click View full text beside one of the database options.
. . . Constant Consonants? Hmm
Learning phpht and hmm, pictured above, and other all-consonant words can enable you to continue a Scrabble game when you are faced with a rack without vowels.
brr: used to indicate that one is cold
crwth: an ancient stringed instrument (pl. -s)
cwm: a cirque (a deep, steepwalled basin on a mountain, pl. -s, prounounced to rhyme with “boom”)
hm: used to express thoughtful consideration (also “hmm“)
mm: used to express assent or satisfaction
nth: describing an unspecified number in a series
phpht: used as an expression of mild anger or annoyance (also “pht“)
psst: used to attract someone’s attention
sh: used to urge silence (also “shh” and “sha“)
tsk: to utter an exclamation of annoyance (-ed, -ing, -s)
In class on Monday, you will compose a midterm reflection focusing on the assignments and aspects of the course that have contributed the most to your development as a writer and a student. Tomorrow’s post will serve as a guide for your preparations.
This morning, you will begin planning and drafting your analysis, your second major assignment for the semester. In class, you will receive a hard copy of the instructions, which are also included below.
Overview
A textual analysis aims to demonstrate how a text works, how it achieves its effects. The process of writing your analysis will include these steps:
Summarizing the text precisely so the reader can envision it. Note that your analysis is not a summary but will begin with one that will serve as a lead-in to your thesis or main claim: what you think the text achieves or what it means and how it conveys its meaning.
Paying close attention to details, what they imply, and how they relate to each other and the whole
Explaining what the text means or what it achieves
Directions for Planning and Drafting
Review the texts that you have read for class, and determine which one interests you most as a subject of analysis. You are not permitted to read any of the texts on screen during your drafting period today. (Yesterday’s class notes specify that if you were missing one of the reading handouts or decided to analyze a larger section of Chapter One of To Kill a Mockingbird, you should have printed a copy.)
Identify elements in the text that contribute to its effectiveness. (See the list of elements below.)
Develop your analysis through a close examination of those elements.
Write in dark ink, preferably black.
Double-space to allow for my annotations in between. You are welcome to use both sides of the page.
Before you leave class today, staple this handout on top of your draft and submit it to me. Next Wednesday, I will return your draft with notes, and you will have the class period to begin revising and editing on your laptop or tablet.
Elements for Textual Analysis
Language and Stylistic Devices: Literary devices (metaphors, irony, symbolism), diction (word choice), and syntax (sentence structure).
Content and Themes: Recurring ideas, patterns, or points of contrast.
Structure: Organization, including scene structure, and how it adheres to or breaks from convention.
Characterization (for fiction only, which includes To Kill a Mockingbird and “The School”): Character development, motivation, and their role in the story.
Directions for Revising
The revision of your analysis should include the following:
A title that offers a window into your analysis
An introduction that presents a summary of the text
A thesis statement, or main claim, that presents your take on the text based on your close study of it
Textual evidence that supports your claims
A minimum of two relevant quotations from the text, introduced with signal phrases and followed by parenthetical citations
A conclusion that revisits the thesis without restating it verbatim
A work cited entry
A minimum of 600 words
Sample Works Cited Entries
Barthelme, Donald. “The School.” The Best American Short Stories 1975, edited by Martha Foley. Houghton Mifflin, 1975. pp. 8-11.
Lee, Harper. Chapter One. To Kill a Mockingbird. Lippincott, pp. 9-19.
Lewis, Michael. “Back Story.” The Blind Side. 2006. Norton, 2009, pp. 15-23.
Sedaris, David. “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Me Talk Pretty One Day. Little Brown, 2000. pp. 166-73.
Think of your preliminary draft as your down draft; your aim in the first stage of the process is to get your ideas down on the page. You may need to go through the process of drafting to discover what you think the text achieves or what it means and how it conveys that meaning.
Directions for Formatting and Posting Your Revision—See the Course Calendar for the Due Date and Hard Deadline
Save your revised essay as a Microsoft Word file or PDF and submit it to Blackboard in compliance with MLA manuscript guidelines.
Publish your revision as a blog post. In your post, omit the first-page information included in your file submitted to Blackboard (your name, course, section, instructor’s name, and date). Add to your blog post an image that documents some part of your writing process away from the screen, such as a photo of your reading notes or a page of your draft. Also add to your blog post an embedded link to a relevant website.
Grade Criteria
An A analysis complies with all assignment guidelines, demonstrates a depth of understanding by using relevant and accurate detail, and is also well organized and relatively free of surface errors.
A B analysis complies with all assignment guidelines and presents an adequate analysis but examines little more than what was addressed in class. A B analysis is also well organized and relatively free of surface errors.
A C analysis complies with most but not all assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by issues of organization and/or surface errors, or more consequential factual errors.
A D analysis complies with only a few of the assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by issues of organization and/or surface errors, or more consequential factual errors.
An F analysis fails to comply with most or all assignment guidelines. It may also be flawed by substantial issues of organization and/or surface errors, or more consequential factual errors.
MLA Style
Look to my sample assignments on Blackboard as models of MLA style. For more information on MLA style, see the MLA Style Center and OWL sites linked to my blog and the January 15 class notes devoted to MLA style.
Yesterday in class, we examined “Back Story,” the first chapter of Michael Lewis’s The Blind Side, which begins with Lewis’s depiction of the moments in the November 1985 Redskins-Giants football game leading up to the injury that ended quarterback Joe Theismann’s career:
“From the snap of the ball to the snap of the first bone is closer to four seconds than to five. One Mississippi: The quarterback of the Washington Redskins, Joe Theismann, turns and hands the ball to running back John Riggins. He watches Riggins run two steps forward, turn, and flip the ball back to him. It’s what most people know as a “flea-flicker,” but the Redskins call it a “throw-back special.” Two Mississippi: Theismann searches for a receiver but instead sees Harry Carson coming straight at him. It’s a running down—the start of the second quarter, first and 10 at midfield, with the score tied 7–7—and the New York Giants’ linebacker has been so completely suckered by the fake that he’s deep in the Redskins’ backfield. Carson thinks he’s come to tackle Riggins but Riggins is long gone, so Carson just keeps running, toward Theismann. Three Mississippi: Carson now sees that Theismann has the ball. Theismann notices Carson coming straight at him, and so he has time to avoid him. He steps up and to the side and Carson flies right on by and out of the play. The play is now 3.5 seconds old. Until this moment it has been defined by what the quarterback can see. Now it–and he–is at the mercy of what he can’t see” (15).
What Theismann cannot see is Lawrence Taylor. A second later, as Taylor sacks Theismann, Taylor’s knee drives straight into Theismann’s lower right leg, leading to the “snap of the first bone” that Lewis mentions in the first sentence. He hooks the reader by linking the beginning of the play, “the snap of the ball” to the gruesome “snap of the first bone” that will follow. Lewis develops the paragraph using the common one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi method of marking seconds to present the events leading up to the compound fracture that ends Theisman’s career.
Lewis doesn’t dramatize the injury itself because his interest lies instead in the blind side that led to it and subsequently elevated the status and salary of the left tackle, the player who protects the quarterback’s blind side. Rather than immediately continuing the action of the play he presents in the opening of the chapter, Lewis turns away from the 3.5-second moment to show how, in his words, “Lawrence Taylor altered the environment and forced opposing players and coaches to adapt” (17).
When you’re struggling to develop a piece of writing, reread the opening paragraph of The Blind Side. Study how Lewis dramatizes 3.5 seconds–yes, only 3.5 seconds–with 224 words.
In your groups yesterday, you wrote of how Lewis returns to the chapter’s opening scene with the words “[f]our Mississippi” (21). Delaying the resumption of that scene for several pages gives Lewis the opportunity to develop the backstory of the title: how Lawrence Taylor redefined the role of running back and fundamentally changed the game.
In response to the “Seems to Be about X, But Could also Be (Or is ‘Really’) about Y” question, some of you wrote that “Back Story” could also be (or is really) about (1) the factor of fear in football. Others observed that the chapter may also be about (2) Lawrence’ Taylors role in the evolution of the sport, (3) the origin of the term blind side, (4) Taylor’s ultimate demise, (5) the media’s exploitation of injuries, and (6) the dangerous nature of the sport–a sport with injuries that can not only end players’ careers but can also have long-term consequences, including Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).
Work Cited
Lewis, Michael. “Back Story.” The Blind Side. 2006. W.W. Norton, 2009. pp. 15-23.
Planning for Your Analysis
To explore possible topics for your analysis, repeat the a seems-to-be-about . . . but-could-also-be-(or-is-really)-about . . . exercise that you and your group members completed collaboratively in class.
Directions
Review the essays, short fiction, chapters, and chapter excerpt that you have read for class, and determine which one you are most likely to choose as the subject of your analysis.
In your journal, compose a seems-to-be-about . . . but-could-also-be-(or-is-really)-about . . . statement for that essay, story, chapters, or chapter excerpt. Begin your sentence with the author’s name and the title.
After you have composed your x–y statement, write a list of words and phrases in the text that demonstrate how the essay, short story, chapter, or chapter excerpt could also (or really) be about what you have stated.
The essays, short story, chapters, and chapter excerpt to consider include these:
Davis Sedaris’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day”
Helen Keller’s “The Day Language Came into My Life”
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
Chapter One of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
Donald Barthelme’s “The School”
Michael Lewis’s “Back Story,” the first chapter of The Blind Side
This exercise requires you to write only one x-y statement about one of the texts listed above. However, if you don’t yet have an inkling of what you want to write about, repeating the process with each text may lead you to a topic.
I will not collect your x-y journal exercise, but you should complete it in preparation for Wednesday’s class.
Note that you will have the option to write about a larger portion of Lee’s chapter, which is posted in the readings folder on Blackboard. You will also have the option to write about a seventh text, which we will examine in class on Wednesday.
Next Up
Tomorrow in class, you will begin planning and drafting your analysis, which will focus on one of the texts that we have studied, including David Sedaris’ “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” Helen Keller’s “The Day Language Came into My Life,” Martin Luther King, Jr.s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” the excerpt from Harper Lee’s Novel To Kill a Mockingbird, and Michael Lewis’s “Back Story,” the first chapter of The Blind Side.
If you have misplaced your copy of any of the readings or were absent the day that I distributed copies, download a copy from Blackboard and print it.
If you would like to analyze a larger section of the first chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird, download a copy of Chapter One from Blackboard and print it.
As an introduction to Michael Lewis, whose writing we will examine in class today, you read this overview of his publications. After you read it, you composed a one- or two-paragraph journal entry that addressed these questions: (1) Two of Lewis’ books on one subject have both been adapted for film. What is the subject, and what are the titles of the two books (and films)? (2) A third book of his, one devoted to a different subject, has also been adapted for film. What is the subject, and what is the title of the book (and film)?
As we read the first chapter of one of his books, consider what elements of his writing would attract filmmakers to his work. We will closely examine the opening of the chapter, paying special attention to its repetition of words and phrases. Later in class, we will read the remainder of the chapter and you will address in writing why Lewis may have chosen to delay the continuation of the action that he depicts in the opening paragraph.
As a segue from your Scrabble debriefing to your study of Michael Lewis’s “Back Story,” the cartoon below is included on your group assignment sheet.
Walsh, Liam. Cartoon. The New Yorker, 27 Jan. 2020. p. 64.
Food Cheeseheads for thought: This cartoon ran in The New Yorker shortly after the Packers lost the NFC title game to the 49ers and shortly before San Francisco lost Super Bowl LIV to the Chiefs. Would the Cheeseheads depicted here have opted to play Scrabble rather than watch the game that their team lost its chance to play, or would they have savored schadenfreude, watching the 49ers lose to Kansas City?
Next Up
In class on Wednesday, you will begin planning and drafting your second major writing assignment, your analysis. The chapter of Michael Lewis’s writing that we examine in class today and the other texts we have studied thus far in English 1103–“MeTalk Pretty One Day,” “The Day Language Came into Life,” “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” the excerpt from the first chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird,” and “The School“–are among the pieces of writing that may serve as the subject of your upcoming analysis.
Today’s blog post is the final installment in the series of posts devoted to playable two-letter words. Learning these two-letter words, as well as the other two-letter words in the alphabet, will enable you to see more options for play and increase the number of points you earn in a single turn.
qi: the central life force in Chinese culture (also ki)
re: a tone of the diatonic scale
sh: used to encourage silence
si: a tone of the diatonic scale (also ti)
so: a tone of the diatonic scale (also sol)
ta: an expression of thanks
ti: a tone of the diatonic scale
to: in the direction of
uh: used to express hesitation
um: used to express hesitation
un: one
up: to raise (-s, -ped, -ping)
us: a plural pronoun
ut: the musical tone C in the French solmization system, now replaced by do
we: a first-person plural pronoun
wo: woe
xi: a Greek letter
xu: a former monetary unit of Vietnam equal to one-hundreth of a dong (also sau, pl. xu)
As an introduction to Michael Lewis, whose writing we will examine in class on Monday, read this overview of his publications. After you read it, compose a one- or two-paragraph journal entry that addresses these questions: (1) Lewis’s two books on one subject have both been adapted for film. What is the subject, and what are the titles of the two books (and films)? (2) A third book of his, one devoted to a different subject, has also been adapted for film. What is the subject, and what is the title of the book (and film)?
Coming Soon
In class on Wednesday, you will begin planning and drafting your second major writing assignment, your analysis. The chapter of Michael Lewis’ writing that we examine in class on Monday and the other texts we have studied thus far in English 1103–“MeTalk Pretty One Day,” “The Day Language Came into Life,” “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” the excerpt from the first chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird,” and “The School“–are among the pieces of writing that may serve as the subject of your upcoming analysis.
Yesterday in class, we examined Donald Barthelme’s “The School” as another potential subject for your analysis. In groups, you and your classmates considered these elements.
The narrator and the narrative voice
Conflict
A short passage that strikes you as interesting, revealing, or strange
The Narrator and the Narrative Voice
The words and phrases you and your classmates used to describe the narrator, Edgar, and his voice include these:
“casual”
“emotionless”
“funny and go with the flow”
“indifferent”
“a little questionable”
“monotonus”
Do any of those descriptions seem at odds with the narrator’s words or actions? If so, what might account for that discrepancy?
When the narrator, Edgar, says, “Of course we expected the fish to die” (9), he emphasizes the word expected, something you cannot do in monotone because emphasis in speech requires modulation.
In his account of the death of the students’ puppy, Edgar says, “I got it [the puppy’s body] out of there before the kids got to school. I checked the supply closet each morning, routinely, because I knew what was going to happen. I gave it to the custodian” (9). Later, when Edgar notes why his class didn’t adopt another orphan after the death of Kim, he says, “[W]e didn’t have the heart” (9).
Are those the words and deeds of an “emotionless” or “indifferent” character?
Conflict
All of your groups addressed the existential conflict of life versus death. The children want the plants and animals in their classroom to live. They want the Korean orphan, Kim, to live; they want their classmates and relatives to live, but the children are repeatedly faced with death.
Consider the lines below, and ask yourself what conflicts they reveal.
“[T]he boiler was shut off for days because of the strike” (8).
“But the lesson plan called for a tropical-fish input at that point, there was nothing we could do” (9).
“I don’t know what’s true and what’s not” (10).
Interesting, Revealing, or Strange
The lines that follow are the ones that you identified as interesting, revealing, or strange.
Bartheleme’s narrator observes that the school “had an extraordinary number of parents passing away, for instance” (10).
Edgar notes, “I forgot to mention Billy Brandt’s father, who was knifed fatally” (10).
The children ask, “[I]s death that which gives meaning to life . . . ? (10), and their teacher replies, “[N]o, life is that which gives meaning to life” (10).
The students ask Edgar, “[W]ill you make love now with Helen . . .?” (10). Instead, he embraces her, and “[T]hen the new gerbil walked in” (11).
In the examples above, I have included only signal phrases and quotations. However, in your analyses—as in your group responses yesterday—you will need to follow your quotations with commentary that demonstrates what makes the lines interesting, revealing, or strange.
Once you have decided on a subject for your analysis, repeat the interesting-revealing-strange exercise with the text you have chosen. As the textbook’s authors observe, those three words are “triggers for analysis” (Rosenwasser and Stephen 24).
Works Cited
Barthelme, Donald. “The School.” The Best American Short Stories 1975, edited by Martha Foley. Houghton Mifflin, 1975. pp. 8-11.
Rosenwasser, David, and Jill Stephen. “‘Interesting,’ ‘Revealing,’ ‘Strange,'” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. p. 24.
Pop Quiz
Rather than listing the answers to the questions on last Friday’s quiz, I have followed each question below with a note regarding where to find the answer. By finding the answers yourself, you will learn more than you would from simply reading them in a list.
From your reading for today, what did you learn about Donald Barthelme’s writing style or readers’ and critics’ responses to his fiction? See the February 3 class notes.
The class notes for last week included detailed commentary on the two student literacy narrative samples you read for class. What is one of the details you learned from those notes? See the January 27 class notes.
Last week’s class notes included step-by-step directions for posting your literacy narrative to Blackboard and WordPress. What is one of the steps you learned from those notes? See the January 27 class notes.
Your most recent Scrabble post covers two topics? What is one of them? See the January 29 class notes.
What is the subject of the two short sections of Writing Analytically assigned for reading before class on Monday, February 2? See Writing Analytically (48-50).
What is the bonus assignment in yesterday’s notes? Briefly note what was asked of you. See the February 3 class notes.
Your quiz also included two bonus opportunities. Answers for those bonuses appear in the January 29 class notes. If you aren’t familiar with Aesop’s fable of The Hare and the Tortoise,” you can read it on the Library of Congress site or on Project Gutenberg.
Be sure to write notes in your journal on all of your readings, including the notes posted on my blog. Before each class begins, take out your journal and review your notes. Those practices will increase your knowledge of what you read and ensure that you will earn high grades on your pop quizzes.
Kudos to Dylan Virga for completing yesterday’s bonus assignment, and congratulations to Sierra Welch, whose literacy narrative title, “Why I Hate the Letter R,” was selected by Dylan.
Jane Lucas 