In the previous weeks, Scrabble blog posts have featured playable two-letter words beginning with the letters a through l. Today’s post features the playable two-letter words beginning with m, n, o, and p. 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.
M, by the way, is the most versatile consonant. In the first position, m pairs with every vowel: ma, me, mi, mo, mu, and also my. In the second position, m pairs with every vowel except i: am, em, om, um.
ma: a mother
me: a singular objective pronoun
mi: a tone of the diatonic scale
mm: an expression of assent
mo: a moment
mu: a Greek letter
my: a first-person possessive adjective
na: no, not
ne: born with the name of (also nee)
no: a negative answer
nu: a Greek letter
od: a hypothetical force
oe: a whirlwind off the Faero Islands
of: originating from
oh: an exclamation of surprise
oi: an expression of dismay (also oy)
om: a sound used as a mantra
on: the batsman’s side in cricket
op: a style of abstract art dealing with optics
or: the heraldic color gold
os: a bone
ow: used to express pain
ox: a clumsy person
oy: an expression of dismay (also oi)
pa: a father
pe: a Hebrew letter
pi: a Greek letter
Don’t Go There (in Scrabble)
Baum, L. Frank. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. 1900. Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005.
Occasionally, students will play oz, which isn’t one of the words in the list above. It’s absent from that list because it’s a proper noun that isn’t also a common noun.
That isn’t the case with the name of Dorothy’s aunt, Em, which is playable as the common noun em: the letter m and the width of a piece of type about as wide as it is tall, used as a unit of measure of typeset matter (hence the term em dash).
And if the letters on your rack spell emerald–the first word in the name of Oz’s capital city–and you can play them all in one turn, you will earn an extra fifty points for playing all seven of your letters. Ditto for cyclone and tornado, words for the storm that sends Dorothy on her journey, and woodman, the second word in her tin friend’s name.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder page, and review your journal notes and the blog posts devoted to Scrabble.
This morning, you will compose a reflective essay focusing on the process of planning, drafting, and revising your literacy narrative. If you are still in the process of completing your essay (since you have until Friday morning’s hard deadline to post it without penalty), your reflection will address your work in progress. Instructions for your reflective essay are included below.
Directions
Compose a short reflective essay that documents the processes of planning, drafting, and revising your literacy narrative. Questions to consider include the ones listed below. You do not need to address all the questions. Focus on the ones whose answers reveal the most about your work.
In the brainstorming stage, did you follow the model in the August 25 blog post for using AI ethically? If so, did the conversation help you choose a topic? What other useful information did the AI assistant provide?
When you began transferring the words from your handwritten draft onto the screen of your laptop or tablet, what did you observe about the process?
What aspect of the writing seemed the most challenging? Determining the focus of your narrative? Developing the story? Beginning a scene? Introducing dialogue? Crafting the conclusion? Why did that aspect of the writing seem the most challenging?
Did you change the subject of your narrative? If so, what was the original subject? What did you change it to? Why?
Did you change the organization of the narrative? For example, did you initially present the story chronologically, then begin in the present and move to flashback?
What do you consider the strongest element of your literacy narrative?
What is the title, and at what point in the process did you decide on it? Did you change the title during the writing process? If so, what was the original title?
What image did you include in your blog that documents part of your writing process away from the screen? Why did you choose that particular image?
What relevant website did you link to your blog post? Why is that particular site relevant to your narrative?
Include in your reflection a minimum of one relevant quotation from one of the assigned readings (“Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “The Day Language Came into My Life,” the excerpt from To Kill a Mockingbird, “A Bridge to Words,” “Creativity is Key,” “The Journey of the Greatest Story”). Introduce your quotation with a signal phrase and follow it with a parenthetical citation.
At the end of your essay, include the heading Work Cited followed by your works cited entry. (If you followed the preparation guidelines in yesterday’s class notes, the information you need to complete steps three and four is recorded in your journal.)
Remember that the writing following the quotation should demonstrate its relevance. Although you are required to include a quotation, its presence in your writing shouldn’t seem obligatory. In other words, the quotation shouldn’t appear to be there simply because you were required to include it.
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, review your journal entries on Scrabble and the blog posts devoted to the game. Also, revisit the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder page.
Today’s blog entry begins with step-by-step instructions for posting your literacy narrative to Blackboard and WordPress.
Posting to Blackboard
Log in to Blackboard and select the course site for ENG 1108.03, then scroll down to Literacy Narrative Submission Site.
Click LiteracyNarrative Submission Site. On the next page, click the black rectangle on the lower right, labeled View instructions.
The next page is where you will submit your literacy narrative file as an MS Word document or PDF. Click on the paperclip icon, and attach your file as you would an email attachment.
An important posting note: Be sure to click the gray rectangle labeled Submit, on the lower right. If you click Save and Close, your file will be saved to Blackboard, but it will not be submitted and will not be accessible to me. To submit your file, you must click Submit.
If you follow the steps above, voila! You have submitted your literacy narrative to Blackboard.
Posting to WordPress
Log in to WordPress, and you will see a home page similar to the one below. Hover over +New in the upper left of the screen, and click Post. You can also add a post by scrolling down the left menu to Posts (beside the pushpin icon) and selecting Add Post.
On the next page, type your literacy narrative title in the Add title line and hit return. Then copy and paste the text of your narrative from your MS Word file into the space below the title. On a PC, copy and paste with control + c, control + v; on a Mac, copy and paste with command + c, command + v.
After you have pasted the text, it will appear as single-spaced, block-style paragraphs. Do not indent. Your file posted to Blackboard should follow MLA formatting guidelines, including paragraph indentations, but WordPress posts are easier to manage if you keep the default paragraph settings. To add your required image between the title and the first paragraph, hover below the title, and a + will appear.
Click the +, and a menu will pop up with various options for add-ins. If Image is not among them, click Browse all.
Scroll down, and under the heading Media, click Image.
After you select Image, click Upload to add your picture. Do not post an AI-generated image or a stock photo from the Web. The image in your blog post should be a picture you took yourself that documents part of your writing process away from the screen. Note that the blog image you see below, and in Monday’s post, is a collage that includes snippets of my handwritten draft. Your image may be of your writing alone, or it may include other elements, as mine does.
Your image should now be centered on the page. If it isn’t, you can use the Align feature (shown above) to center it. If you would like the picture to be rounded, click on the picture, then click the half-black, half-white circle on the right (shown below). Then select the Rounded option.
Optional: To make the first letter of the first word of your literacy narrative a drop cap (or monogram), place the cursor on the first paragraph, and click Topography in the menu on the right (see the image below).
In the pull-down menu, click Drop cap, and a toggle switch will appear (see below). Click the toggle switch, and you will have a drop cap at the beginning of your narrative.
To add the required embedded link, open a new tab and go to the page you want to link to your post. Copy the address and return to the draft of your blog post. Highlight the word or phrase where you want to embed the link, and a link option will appear (see below).
Click the link icon, and a box will appear (see below).
Paste the address into the box, hit enter, or return, and the link will be embedded.
Save your draft (by clicking Save draft in blue in the upper right). Once you have finalized your post, click Publish. After you have published a post, you can still make changes. To do that, simply return to your dashboard, scroll down to Posts, click All Posts, then click edit under the post you want to edit (see below).
Preparing for Your In-Class Reflection
Directions
To comply with the requirements for your reflection assignment, you will need to complete the planning exercise that follows. In class, you will not be permitted to refer to this blog post or any other online resources. You will need to have all the necessary citation information written longhand in your journal.
Review the pieces of writing we have examined in class, and choose a phrase or sentence from one that is pertinent to your own literacy narrative. The passage you choose may be one that reminded you of your experience with reading, writing, or learning a second language, or it may be a turn of phrase that inspired you to use a similar rhetorical device.
After you have chosen a passage, compose a signal phrase in your journal to introduce the quotation. (See the examples below.) Many academic writing assignments, including most that follow MLA style, require a signal phrase. A quotation that lacks one is considered a dropped quotation.
Follow your signal phrase with the quotation, and follow the quote with an MLA-style parenthetical citation. (See the examples below.)
Below your sentence, write the MLA-style works cited entry for the reading you quoted. (See the examples below.)
Sample Quotations with Signal Phrases and Parenthetical Citations
David Sedaris’s hyperbolic description of his classmate’s “front teeth the size of tombstones” (168) led me to seek moments when figurative language would enliven my own narrative.
Helen Keller’s observation that she did “not remember” (par. 8) all the words she learned that day reminded me that gaps in my memory could figure in my story.
The author’s hyperbolic description of his classmate’s “front teeth the size of tombstones” (Sedaris 168) led me to seek moments when figurative language would enliven my own narrative.
Her observation that she did “not remember” (Keller, par. 8) all the words she learned that day reminded me that gaps in my memory could figure in my story.
The third and fourth examples include the author’s last name in the parenthetical citation because the author is not named in the sentence. Note that no comma is included before a page number in an MLA parenthetical citation, but a comma does precede the abbreviation for paragraph (par.).
If you quote “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” cite it as if you are quoting a page in a book because your handout is a photographic image of the essay from David Sedaris’s collection Me Talk Pretty One Day. (See the examples above.)
If you quote a line from any class handout other than “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” include the paragraph number in the parenthetical citation. For your works cited entry, use the MLA format for a course handout. (See the examples below.)
Sample Works Cited Entries
Keller, Helen. “The Day Language Came into My Life” by Helen Keller. ENG 1103.01 (or 08), High Point University, Received 24 August 2026. Course handout.
Lucas, Jane. Sample Literacy Narrative: “A Bridge to Words.” ENG 1103.01 (or 08), High Point University, Received 4 September 2026. Course handout.
Lucas, Jane. Sample Literacy Narrative: “Creativity is key [sic].” ENG 1103.01 (or 08), High Point University, Received 28 August 2026. Course handout.
Lucas, Jane. Sample Literacy Narrative: “The Journey of the Greatest Story.” ENG 1103.01 (or 08), High Point University, Received 31 August 2026. Course handout.
Lucas, Jane. “Summary, Scene, and Dialogue”: An Excerpt from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. ENG 1103.01 (or 08), High Point University, Received 26 August 2026. Course handout.
Sedaris, David. “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Me Talk Pretty One Day. Little, Brown, 2000, pp. 166-73.
Your own works cited entry will not be a bullet point but will have a hanging indent (the first line will be flush left and the second line and any additional lines will be indented five spaces or one-half inch.
You will not include a section number in parentheses. You will simply include your section number. See the examples below.
The word sic, Latin for “thus,” appears in brackets above to indicate the preceding error. Key should be capitalized.
Quiz Follow-Up
Rather than listing the answers to the questions on Monday’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.
What is the term for the kind of narrator the writer employs in “A Bridge to Words”? If you cannot remember the term, describe the nature of the narration. See the September 2 class handout and the September 3 class notes.
Record one concrete detail you recall from “A Bridge to Words.” (What did you see or hear in your mind as you read the words on the page?) See “A Bridge to Words,” paragraphs one through eight.
Record a second concrete detail you remember from “A Bridge to Words.” See “A Bridge to Words,” paragraphs one through eight.
Your quiz also included a bonus opportunity. Possible answers for that bonus are found in the class notes for September 4.
Next Up
In class on Wednesday, you will compose your reflective essay focusing on the process of planning, drafting, and revising your literacy narrative. If you are still in the process of completing your essay on Wednesday (since you have until Friday morning’s hard deadline to post it without a late penalty), your reflection will address your work in progress. Follow the guidelines included above to ensure you will be prepared to complete all requirements for your reflection.
Hillaire Belloc’s “Rebecca,” illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen
This morning’s blog post features “A Bridge to Words,” my model literacy narrative that you read and annotated for today’s class. After the Scrabble debriefing and our study of “A Bridge to Words,” I will lead you step by step through the process of posting your literacy narrative to Blackboard and WordPress. Tomorrow’s post entry will include step-by-step directions with screenshots.
The image above meets the guidelines for the picture you are required to include in your blog post: one that documents part of your writing process away from the screen. That image may include notes in your journal or lines of your handwritten draft. The image should not include your laptop, tablet, or phone.
In the picture, a page of my draft serves as the background for a collage with a photocopied illustration of Rebecca, the title character of Hillaire Belloc’s “Rebecca,” and lines of the poem in the foreground. (Note that using a fragment of the illustration for educational purposes constitutes fair use.) The image could simply be the lines of my draft, but I wanted to include Rebecca as well since her poem figures prominently in my narrative.
A Bridge to Words
To a small child, the pages of a newspaper are enormous. Looking far back through the years, I see myself, not yet school age, trying to hold up those long, thin sheets of newsprint, only to find myself draped in them, as if covered by a shroud. Of course, back then, my inability to hold a newspaper properly was of little consequence. Even if I could have turned the pages as gracefully as my parents did, I couldn’t decipher the black marks on the page; thus, my family’s ritual reading of the newspaper separated them from me. As the youngest and the only one who couldn’t read, I was left alone on the perimeter to observe. My family’s world of written words was impenetrable; I could only look over their shoulders and try to imagine the places where all those black marks on the page had carried them—these people, my kin, who had clearly forgotten that I was in the room.
My sister, who was three years older, had her very own news source: The Mini Page, a four-page miniature paper that arrived at our house as an insert in the Sunday edition. While our parents sat in their easy chairs poring over the state and local news, my sister, Jo, perched at the drop-front desk and occupied herself with articles, puzzles, and connect-the-dots.
Finally, one Sunday, someone noticed me on the margin and led me into our family’s reading circle. Whether it was one of my parents or my sister, I don’t know. I remember only the gesture and the words: someone handing me the Sunday comics and saying, “You can read part of the funny pages, too. You can read Henry.”
I took the giant page and laid it flat in the middle of the oval, braided rug on the floor of the den. Once I situated the page, I lay on top of it with my eyes just inches above the panels of the comic strip. To my parents, my prone position was a source of amusement, but for me it was simply a practical solution. How else was someone so small supposed to manage such a large piece of paper?
As I lay on the floor and looked at the comic strip’s panels, I realized what the voice had meant. I could “read” Henry, the comic with the bald boy in a red shirt, because it consisted entirely of pictures. In between panels of Henry walking, there were panels of him standing still, scratching his hairless head. I didn’t find Henry funny at all. I wondered how that pale forerunner of Charlie Brown had earned a prime spot in the funnies. Still, I was glad he was there. He was the bridge that led me to the written word.
Reading the wordless comic strip Henry for the first time was the beginning of a years-long habit of stretching out on the floor with newspapers and large books—not thick ones but ones that were tall and wide, among them one of my childhood favorites: The Golden Book of Fun and Nonsense. My sister and I spent hours lying on our bedroom floor, the pink shag carpet tickling our legs as we delighted in the antics of Rebecca, the mischievous title character of one of the poems.
Carl Thomas Anderson’s comic strip character Henry
“Rebecca”—which my sister read to me before I could read it myself—introduced me to the word abhors, the very sound of which appealed to me. Sometimes before Jo had finished reading the opening lines, my uncontrollable giggles collided with her perfect mock-serious delivery. As the last word in the first line, abhors serves as a lead-in to an enjambment: the continuation of a sentence or clause in a line break. It would be years before I learned the term “enjambment,” but I was immediately swept away by its effect in the opening lines: “A trick that everyone abhors/ In Little Girls is Slamming Doors” (Belloc 61). The first line lured me into the second one, and so on and so on. I was drawn both to the individual word abhors—with its side-by-side b and h, rare in English—and the way the words joined, like links in a chain, to yank me giggling through Rebecca’s cautionary tale:
It happened that a marble bust Of Abraham was standing just Above the door this little lamb Had carefully prepared to slam, And down it came! It knocked her flat! It laid her out! She looked like that.
Her funeral sermon (which was long And followed by a sacred song) Mentioned her virtues, it is true, But dwelt upon her vices too, And showed the dreadful end of one Who goes and slams the door for fun. (61)
Why these particular early memories visit me now, I don’t know. Perhaps rereading Art Spiegelman’s graphic memoir Maus with my students has roused the wordless Henry and the word-filled Golden Book of Fun and Nonsense from the corner of my brain where they’ve slumbered. The former wakes and stretches out in my mind as a bridge to the latter: a spot in the world of words I’ve inhabited ever since.
Today’s Scrabble debriefing continues with a study of some of the plays in the games pictured below. Answers to the questions that I pose about those plays are included near the end of the post.
Assessing S
On the board pictured below, the first team opened the game with the play of dims for fourteen points. Even though the s increases the score, playing it there on the first turn may not have been advisable. Why?
You Can’t Do That
In the game below, a team played the verb cant: to tilt or slant. Despite the word’s playability, the group lost five points because of the presentation of the word on the score sheet. What lost the group five points?
When You Draw a Blank (or Two)
On the board pictured below, a team played l after the e in gore, to form el (an elevated train and the two-letter spelling of the letter l), and below the l used blanks for g and e, along with o, u, n, and s to play lounges. Although the other two u‘s on the board (in juts and aqua) had not been played, you may still question the decision to use both blanks and one of the u‘s in a single turn. Why was el and lounges a well-advised play?
Answers
Assessing S: Adding s to dims increases the score by only two points. In the team’s second play or another later play, they could likely raise their score by more than two points by using the s to form two or more words through parallel and/or perpendicular play. Keep in mind that the first play of the game is the only one in which you don’t have the opportunity to form more than one word. If playing an s enables you to form a five-letter word with a consonant–especially a high value one–that opportunity would warrant using an s in the first play. For example, if a team had the letters to spell dimes in the first play, playing the d on the double-letter square would increase the score from fourteen to twenty. Even better, if a team had the letters to spell zones in the first play, playing the z on the double-letter square would increase the score from twenty-six to forty-eight.
You Can’t Do That: Although cant is playable, the team that played it lost points because the scorekeeper recorded the word can’t, the contraction of cannot, on the assignment sheet. Words with apostrophes are not playable in Scrabble, and recording one on the score sheet and subsequently assigning it a point value it cannot have results in a penalty.
When You Draw a Blank (or Two): At first glance, playing both blanks and one of the u‘s in a single turn might seem like a bad idea; however, by playing the two blanks (as g and e) with l, o, u, n, and s the team used all seven of its tiles in one turn which gave them a bonus of fifty points. With ten for lounges for a double-word play and two for el, the team scored a total of sixty-two points. Note that the misspelling of quills went unchallenged, resulting in a five-point loss.
Bonus Assignment Opportunity
Students who correctly respond to the AI misstep question below will earn a bonus assignment credit.
Information Versus Knowledge
As a model for your own ethical use of generative AI for English 1103, the August 25 blog post features screenshots of a conversation in which I developed ideas for my literacy narrative with the help of ChatGPT. Now that you have read my literacy narrative, it should be apparent that despite the AI assistant’s wealth of information, one of its answers revealed a lack of knowledge about the comic strip Henry. What did the AI assistant not know? (What did it say about Henry that was false?)
Directions for Finding and Submitting Your Answer
To find the AI assistant’s error, review the descriptions of Henry in “A Bridge to Words,” then review the AI assistant’s words in the screenshots in the August 25 blog post.
Compose a response of one or more complete sentences that identifies and briefly explains the error.
Post your comment as a reply to this blog post by 7:30 a.m. on Friday, September 11.
To post your comment, click the title of the post, “ENG 1103: A Bridge to Words . . . ,” then scroll down to the bottom of the post. There you will see the image of an airmail envelope with a white rectangular box for your comment. Type your comment in the box and hit return. Voila! You have submitted your answer. Good luck! I will make the comments visible before class on Monday, September 14.
Next Up
In class on Wednesday, you will compose a reflective essay focusing on the process of planning, drafting, and revising your literacy narrative. If you are still completing your essay on Wednesday (since you have until Friday morning’s hard deadline to post it), your reflection will address your work in progress. To ensure that you are prepared to meet all the requirements for your reflection, carefully read the directions for preparing, which will be outlined in tomorrow’s blog post.
Previous Scrabble blog posts featured playable two-letter words beginning with the letters a through e. Today’s entry lists playable two-letter words beginning with f, g, h, i, j, k, and l. 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 may increase your score.
fa: a tone on the diatonic scale
fe: a Hebrew letter (also feh)
gi: a white garment worn in martial arts
go: a Japanese board game
ha: used to express surprise
he: a pronoun signifying a male
hi: an expression of greeting
hm: used to express consideration
ho: used to express surprise
id: the least censored part of the three-part psyche
if: a possibility
in: to harvest (a verb, takes -s, -ed, -ing)
is: the third-person singular present form of “to be”
it: a neuter pronoun
jo: a sweetheart
ka: the spiritual self in ancient Egyptian spirituality
ki: the vital life force in Chinese spirituality (also qi)
la: a tone of the diatonic scale
li: a Chinese unit of distance
lo: an expression of surprise
It’s all Greek to Me
Since this week finds us in the midst of sorority and fraternity rush, today’s post includes the Greek alphabet. The names of all twenty-four letters are playable words.
alpha
beta
gamma
delta
epsilon
zeta
eta
theta
iota
kappa
lambda
mu
nu
xi
omicron
pi
rho
sigma
tau
upsilon
phi
chi (also khi)
psi
omega
The idiom “it’s all Greek to me,” used to describe anything hard to understand, was popularized by Julius Caesar, in which the character Casca says he didn’t understand a word Cicero spoke (in Greek) at the festival (Shakespeare 1.2).
Thanks to Shakespeare, Greek, sometimes with a lowercase g, is playable in Scrabble as a common noun meaning anything unintelligible.
Next Up
On Monday, after your Scrabble debriefing, we will examine “A Bridge to Words,” which I will distribute today. Read and annotate your copy before Monday’s class. If you were absent today or misplace your copy, print one from Blackboard.
As you continue your revision, try experimenting with the order of your narrative. For details, see the notes on narrative order included below (and on your revision handout). Also consider how “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and “The Day Language Came into My Life” demonstrate two vastly different ways to present a literacy narrative. Together, David Sedaris’s essay and Helen Keller’s chapter show us that the stories we recount—for our purposes, ones of learning to read or write, or speak a second language—may be humorous or serious and may consist primarily of scene or may be composed of roughly equal parts scene and summary.
Temporal Distance and the Adult Retrospective Narrator
Sedaris’s and Keller’s stories show us two narrators whose temporal distance from their narratives differ significantly. In “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” Sedaris recounts struggling to learn French “[a]t the age of forty-one” (166). His essay, published in Esquire magazine when he was forty-three, chronicles an experience only two years in his past. In contrast, Keller writes of the life-altering experience of learning sign language “three months before I was seven years old” (par. 1), more than fifteen years before she published her autobiography, The Story of My Life (1903). The term for a narrator looking back at childhood, as Keller does, is adult retrospective narrator.
Chronological and Nonlinear Narratives
Consider experimenting with the order of your narrative. Many of your drafts were chronological—and ultimately you may decide that suits your story best—but try one of these nonlinear approaches.
Beginning your narrative in the present, then depicting the experience in one or more flashbacks
Starting in medias res (in the middle of things), then turning to exposition to explain how the story arrived at that point
Diction, Mechanics, Grammar, and Style
The August 19 blog entry includes a bullet-point list of notes on diction, mechanics, grammar, and style, a list also included on the handout you received when I returned your introductory reflective writing. If you have not reviewed that list, be sure to do so before you post your final revision to Blackboard and WordPress.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder page, and review your journal notes on the game and the blog posts devoted to Scrabble.
Today’s class will be devoted primarily to revision work. After we examine the student literacy narrative “The Journey of the Greatest Story,” I will return the drafts of your literacy narratives, and you will have the remainder of the class period to begin revising on your laptops. You will have an additional week to continue revising before posting to Blackboard and WordPress. The due date for your literacy narrative is Wednesday, September 9, before class; the hard deadline is Friday, September 11, before class.
As you continue to revise your literacy narrative, consider visiting the Writing Center. If you do so, you will earn five bonus points for the assignment.
To schedule an appointment, visit the Writing Center’s sign-up page, email the Writing Center’s director, Professor Justin Cook, at jcook3@highpoint.edu, or scan the QR code above. To earn bonus points for your literacy narrative, consult with a Writing Center tutor no later than Thursday, September 10.
Next Monday, September 7, in the second half of class, I will guide you through the Blackboard and WordPress submission processes step by step.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder page. Also, review the Scrabble notes in your journal and the blog posts devoted to Scrabble.
The paragraphs that follow include detailed but not comprehensive notes on the two sample essays that you read and evaluated yesterday. Look to these notes as a guide for editing your own literacy narrative.
“Creativity is Key”: Notes on Content
The essay is not a narrative. The writer mentions his experience writing a Southern gothic story, and he briefly recounts writing about his training for track and field and international football (soccer), but the writer offers very few details. Focusing on one of those experiences and recreating one or more moments from it would transform the essay into a narrative and develop it into one that meets the six hundred-word minimum requirement.
“Creativity is Key”: Notes on Form
Form is less important than content, but easily avoidable errors of form may prevent readers from appreciating the content of your narrative. Creating a compelling story is hard work; proofreading isn’t. If you don’t get the easy part right, readers may stop reading.
The writer changes the font of the body of the paper to Times New Roman but does not change the font of the running header, which should also be Times New Roman.
The writer incorrectly adds an extra space between the first-page course information (in the upper left) and between the title and the first line of the essay. MLA-style manuscripts are double-spaced. Note that later, the writer also incorrectly adds space between the paragraphs.
The title should be typed in twelve-point font, which is the font size that should be used throughout the document.
The title should not appear in boldface.
The title should be centered.
In MLA style, all major words in a title, including the final one, are capitalized (“key” should be “Key).
The second “sentence” of the second paragraph is a fragment because the meaning of “one being my senior year . . .” is dependent upon the clause that ends the previous sentence. See Writing Analytically, page 426-29.
The comma between “all” and “matter” is a comma splice. See Writing Analytically, 429.
“[R]eal life” should be hyphenated (as real-life) when it functions as a compound modifier. Ditto for “open minded” and “four to five.”
Errors of letter case–upper rather than lower, or vice versa–are mistakes of mechanics that are prevalent in the second paragraph. Track, Field, defensive back, and Athlete should all begin with a lowercase letter.
“[F]elt like” should be “felt as if.” In comparisons, use “like” before a noun and “as if” before a clause.
“I’m a writer that” should be “I’m a writer who.” The correct relative pronoun for a person is “who,” not “that.”
“The Journey of the Greatest Story”: Notes on Content
“The Journey of the Greatest Story” is a well-told narrative, but one with a glaring omission: Kate Chopin’s words. The writer claims that the last sentence of The Awakening affected her profoundly, but the absence of those words may lead readers to question the writer’s reliability. If Chopin’s words were so memorable, why aren’t they on the page? Near the end of the narrative, the writer states that she “can still recall key details from the story” (par. 4), but provides no examples. The only detail the writer mentions is Edna Pontelier’s suicide by drowning, which is a well-known fact about the novel.
The writer may have chosen to withhold Chopin’s last sentence from her introductory paragraph because she wanted to focus instead on what followed: the “loud slam of the book as he [the teacher] shut it” (par.1). Still, the writer could have included it later. For example, when she writes about the feelings the novel evokes, she might have included a sentence such as this:
I kept thinking about the last sentence: “There was a hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air” (Chopin, ch. 39).
Quoting The Awakening doesn’t require having a copy of the novel at hand. The complete text is available on Project Gutenberg. The parenthetical citation in the example above follows the format for an unpaginated online book (author’s last name, chapter abbreviation, and chapter number). The MLA work cited entry for the book appears below. Note that in a manuscript, the entry would have a hanging indent, which means the first line would be flush left and any subsequent lines would be indented five spaces or one-half inch.
“The Journey of the Greatest Story”: Notes on Form
The Awakening (pars. 2, 4) should be italicized rather than underlined. In the process of composing her draft longhand, the writer learned that titles of book-length works are underlined in handwritten documents, and she mistakenly applied that rule to her typed revision.
The word as should not precede “the final sentence” (par. 1), because it is used improperly there. As offers comparison, shows reason, or introduces a clause. Here are two ways the writer could revise the sentence:
I still remember the moment the final sentence of the story slipped from my teacher’s mouth, and the loud slam of the book as he shut it.
I still remember the final sentence of the story slipping from my teacher’s mouth, and the loud slamming of the book as he shut it.
The second example above is more direct because the writer doesn’t tell the reader it’s a moment. Instead, she lets the moment happen. The strike-throughs indicate that “of the story” (par. 1) is an unnecessary phrase. The writer has already established that The Awakening is her subject. Also, if specifying the book is necessary at any point, it should be referred to as a novel, not a story.
The writer describes Edna Pontelier as “submerging as death grew upon her” (par. 2), but growing indicates a rise, while submersion indicates a lowering. Grew should be replaced with engulfed.
The writer incorrectly uses hyphens to set off the appositive “-the author-” (par. 2). Here are two ways the writer could correct the presentation of the appositive and edit the passage for brevity:
I yearned for more pages to materialize to clarify the ending, or to have a chat with Kate Chopin–the author–so she could relieve my frustration by explaining the conclusion. Instead, I just sat and pondered those aggravating feelings.
I yearned for more pages to materialize to clarify the ending, or to have a chat with Kate Chopin, the author, so she could relieve my frustration by explaining the conclusion. Instead, I just sat and pondered those aggravating feelings.
An appositive can be set off by em dashes or commas, but commas are preferable for short appostives, so the second correction above is recommended.
The line “having me read this class” (par. 3) is not what the writer intended. The words shoud be having me enroll in the course or having me read Chopin’s novel.
When the teacher responds to the student (par. 3), the writer should begin a new paragraph because the speaker changes.
And when the writer responds to her teacher, she should begin a new paragraph yet again because the speaker changes from the teacher to the writer-student, with her words, “Have a nice day” (par. 3).
Years are an exception to MLA’s numbers rule regarding words and figures. 2025 should be written as 2025, not “twenty-twenty-five” (par. 4).
Next Up
On Wednesday, after our follow-up discussion of “Creativity is Key” and “Journey of the Greatest Story,” I will return your literacy narrative drafts, and you will have the remainder of the class period to begin revising on your laptops. You will have an additional week to continue revising before posting to Blackboard and WordPress. The due date for your literacy narrative is Wednesday, September 9, before class; the hard deadline is Friday, September 11, before class.
This morning in class, after your Scrabble debriefing, we will examine “Creativity is Key,” which you read and annotated for today. In groups, you and two or three of your classmates will compose a brief written assessment of the essay and determine a letter grade for it, based on the assignment guidelines and grade criteria.
Once you have evaluated “Creativity is Key,” we will discuss it as a class. After that, I will distribute copies of a second student literacy narrative for you to read, assess, and grade.
For your reference, your group worksheet lists the literacy narrative’s guidelines and grade criteria, which also appear below.
Guidelines
The focus should be one of the following:
A memory of a reading or writing assignment that you recall vividly
Someone who helped you learn to read or write
A writing-related school event that you found humorous or embarrassing
A particular type of writing that you found (or still find) challenging
A memento that represents an important moment in your development as a reader or writer
Learning a second language
The narrative should be a well-told story that includes the following elements:
Vivid detail
Some indication of the narrative’s significance
A minimum of 600 words
A title that offers a window into your essay (It should not be titled “Literacy Narrative.”)
All three major writing assignments for English 1103, including the literacy narrative, must comply with MLA style guidelines.
Grade Criteria
An A literacy narrative complies with all assignment guidelines: It presents a well-told story, includes vivid details, and conveys the story’s significance in a way that demonstrates a depth of understanding. An A literacy narrative is also well-organized and relatively free of surface errors.
A B literacy narrative complies with all assignment guidelines but may convey the significance of the story superficially, may have organization issues, or may be flawed by surface errors.
A C literacy narrative complies with most but not all assignment guidelines and may be flawed by organization issues and/or surface errors.
A D literacy narrative complies with only a few of the assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by organization issues and/or surface errors.
An F literacy narrative fails to comply with most or all assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by substantial issues of organization and/or surface errors.
Scrabble Debriefing, continued
Today’s Scrabble debriefing will continue with a study of some of the plays in the games pictured below. Answers to the questions that I pose about those plays are included at the end of the post.
Acronyms: To Act or Not to Act?
If you have the letters to form an acronym, should you act on it? Each of the following two games includes an acronym. In the first game, the acronym appears once. In the second game, the same acronym was played twice, once using a blank tile. What is an acronym, and are the acronyms below playable in Scrabble?
When You Draw a Blank
In the game below, a team used a blank on a bonus square to score a two-letter double-word play with the letter a. Although that play is permissible, it isn’t advisable. Why should the team have chosen a different play? The game also includes four unplayable words. The fourth unplayable word was formed by pluralizing (adding s) to an unplayable word.
Assessing S
In the game that follows, a team played two s tiles to form the single word toss. The play is similar to the play of blank in the previous game because although the play is permissible, it isn’t advisable. Why should the team have chosen a different play?
The Long and Short of It
The word vigorous in the game below was formed by adding “o-u-s” to vigor, yet another play that is permissible but not advisable. Why should the team have chosen a different play? Consider that the words duo and tour had already been played–and what letter had not been played?
Three Letters, Three Words
In the game below, in one play, a team formed one of the two-letter b words featured in Friday’s post, along with two other words for a total of forty-eight points. What is the two-letter b word and what are the other two?
Up Next
Wednesday will be devoted to revision work. I will return your literacy narrative drafts, and you will then have the remainder of the class period to begin revising on your laptops. You will have an additional week to continue revising before posting to Blackboard and WordPress. The due date for your literacy narrative is Wednesday, September 9, before class; the hard deadline is Friday, September 11, before class.
Answers
Acronyms: To Act or Not to Act? An acronym is a series of letters in which each letter is the first letter in a word. For example, NASA is an acronym for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Acronyms are not playable in Scrabble. MIA, which was played in the first game, is an acronym for missing in action. Note that the word bon–playable in French Scrabble but not in the North American game–was also played. IQ, which was played twice in the second game, once with a blank, is an acronym for intelligence quotient.
When You Draw a Blank: Though the blank tile followed by the a can form many permissible two-letter words, it earns the team only two points for the double-word play. In all likelihood, the team could have scored more points elsewhere by playing one or more lettered tiles. Keep in mind that a blank can be used as any letter, but it has no point value. Also note that four unplayable words were played in the same game: taft, ea, df, and tafts.
Assessing S: Playing toss for six points is permissible but not advisable because the team probably could have earned six or more points by playing other letters and saving the two s tiles for higher-scoring words. Also, the placement of toss offers the opposing team the opportunity to make a triple-word play on the bottom row.
The Long and Short of It: Playing vigorous was a risky move that only gained the team thirteen points. It was a risky play because two of the four u tiles had been used (to form tour and duo), and the q had not been played. Even if the team could not score as many as thirteen points elsewhere, a lower-scoring play would have been preferable to losing a u and an s for a gain of only thirteen.
Three Letters, Three Words: One team’s knowledge of the two-letter word bi in last Friday’s post enabled its players to form three words in a single play: fix, bi, and ox, which earned the team a double double-word score for fix and ox with the x on the double-word square. That double double-word score and the additional word bi earned the team forty-eight points for a turn in which they played only three letters. The unplayable word pedels–a misspelling of pedals, perhaps–was played later in the game.
The first Scrabble blog post of the semester featured playable two-letter words beginning with a. Learning those two-letter words, as well as the others that follow in the alphabet, will enable you to see more options for play and can increase the number of points you earn in a single turn.
Here’s a list of the playable words beginning with b, d, and e:
ba: the soul in ancient Egyptian spirituality
bi: a bisexual
bo: a pal
by: a side issue
de: of, from
do: to perform, also a tone on a scale
ed: education
ef: the letter f (also eff)
eh: used to express doubt
el: an elevated train
em: the letter m
en: the letter n
er: used to express hesitation
es: the letter s
et: a past tense of eat
ex: the letter x
When in Doubt . . .
Consult the guidelines (in the game box) if you are unsure whether an action is permissible in gameplay. An additional copy of the guidelines follows.
Scrabble Guidelines
Do not let your opponents know which letters are on your rack. Whenever possible, communicate with your teammate nonverbally by pointing to the letters and rearranging them on the rack. If you need to refer out loud to letters on your rack, refer to them as “this one, that one . . . .”
Do not say the definition of a word aloud. If you play a word and your opponents question its validity, do not provide the definition. Definitions can be provided only in the event of a challenge. See the note below regarding challenges. Also, note that you will have the opportunity on your own after class to look up the meanings of any unfamiliar words played by your opponents or recommended by your teammate and subsequently played by the two of you. You will also have the chance to look up definitions during your Monday debriefings.
If you think your opponents have played a word that isn’t permissible, such as a misspelled word or a proper noun, tell me that you have a challenge. I will consult the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary to determine whether the word in question is playable and will provide the definition. If the challenged word isn’t playable, the team that set it down loses a turn. Conversely, if the challenged word is playable, the team that called the challenge loses a turn.
If any group member’s smartphone or laptop is in evidence during the game, immediately tell that person to put it away. The presence of any player’s digital device is a foul—as is providing a definition or otherwise offering unauthorized assistance—and fouls come with penalties, five points each.
Repetition, Plurals, and Competitive Scrabble
Fatsis, Stefan. Word Freak. 2001. Penguin, 2002.
One question raised during last Friday’s Scrabble games was whether a team can play a word that has already been played, either by that team or the opponent. The answer is yes; you can play the same word multiple times in a single game. Scrabble has no rule prohibiting repetition.
Another question raised was whether you can play plurals. You can, but unless playing the letter s enables you to form multiple words in a single play and earn a substantially higher score, keeping the s tile on your rack (for a higher score in a later play) is a better option.
Are there Scrabble tournaments? That’s another question asked last Friday. Yes, hardcore players do compete in tournaments, and journalist Stefan Fatsis’ book Word Freak (pictured above) documents his immersion in the competitive Scrabble subculture.
Competitive Scrabble is also chronicled in the documentary film Word Wars (2004).
Next Up
On Monday, we will examine “Creativity is Key,” the sample student literacy narrative that I will distribute today. In class on Monday, I will distribute a second student literacy narrative, and in groups, you and your classmates will assess the two. If you were absent today or misplaced your copy of “Creativity is Key,” download a copy from Blackboard and print it.
Coming Soon
Next Wednesday will be devoted to revision work. I will return your literacy narrative drafts, and you will then have the remainder of the class period to begin revising on your laptops. You will have an additional week to continue revising before posting to Blackboard and WordPress. The due date for your literacy narrative is Wednesday, September 9, before class; the hard deadline is Friday, September 11, before class.
Jane Lucas 