January 2024 – Jane Lucas

ENG 1103: Revising Your Literacy Narrative

Posted on January 31, 2024 by janemlucas

This morning, after I collect your Check, Please! worksheets for lesson two, I will return your drafts, and you will have the remainder of the class period to begin revising your literacy narratives on your laptops. You will have an additional week to continue your revision work before you submit the assignment to Blackboard and publish it as a WordPress blog entry. The due date is next Wednesday, February 7 (before class). The hard deadline is Friday, February 9 (before class). Directions for submitting your literacy narrative are included on your assignment sheet and on the Blackboard submission site.

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 https://highpoint.mywconline.com, 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 literacy narrative, consult with a Writing Center tutor no later than Thursday, February 8.

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.

Check, Please!, English 1103, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Notes on Check, Please! Lesson Two

Posted on January 30, 2024January 30, 2024 by janemlucas

https://checkpleasecc.notion.site/checkpleasecc/Check-Please-Starter-Course-ae34d043575e42828dc2964437ea4eed

Tomorrow, at the beginning of class, I will collect your worksheets for the second Check, Please! lesson. If you were absent on the day that I distributed copies of the worksheet or you have misplaced your copy, download the file from Blackboard and print it.

In preparation for submitting your assignment, review the notes below.

A summary is a third-person objective synopsis. In the first paragraph of your assignment, your summary, you should not use first- or second-person pronouns, singular or plural. In other words, “I,” “me,” “we,” “us,” and “you” should not appear in your summary. Your summary should also be free of commentary. If you use such words as “effective,” “useful,” and “instructive,” you have shifted from summary to commentary. Turn to commentary in your second paragraph.
Check, Please! is a nonprint source, which means that you do not include parenthetical citations with page or paragraph numbers (because, after all, there are no paragraphs or page numbers). Think of citing a website such as Check, Please! the way you would cite a film. Any lines that you include verbatim are enclosed in quotation marks, and the reader knows from the context that the lines are spoken in the film. The works cited entry at the bottom of the text provides the reader with the necessary source details.
Not all lists require a colon. Use one only if the clause (a group of words containing a verb) that precedes the colon makes sense on its own.

Consider the difference between these two sentences with lists:

In lesson two, Mike Caulfield continues his instruction in the four-step approach to determining the reliability of a source, which he terms SIFT: (1) “Stop,” (2) “Investigate,” (3) “Find better coverage,” and (4) “Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context.”
The steps of SIFT include (1) “Stop,” (2) “Investigate,” (3) “Find better coverage,” and (4) “Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context.”

The second example above does not include a colon because the clause before the list does not make sense on its own.

A work cited entry has a hanging indent, which means its appearance is the opposite of a paragraph’s. The first line of a paragraph is indented five spaces or one-half inch, and the remaining lines of the paragraph are flush left. In a works cited entry, the first line is flush left, and the remaining lines are indented.
Include concrete details. Specificity not only enables the reader to see your subject, it also demonstrates to the reader that you have examined your subject carefully.

Consider the difference between the two passages below.

Lesson two includes two websites that show how similar two can be even though one is propaganda.
Perhaps the most memorable portion of lesson two is the side-by-side comparison of the websites for the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Pediatricians. Though at first glance the two appear comparable, using the Wikipedia strategy reveals their profound differences. While AAP is the premiere authority on children’s health and well-being, ACP was founded to protest the adoption of children by single-sex couples and is widely viewed as a single-issue hate organization.

The two passages above address the same websites featured in lesson two, but the first example provides the reader with no specifics.

Next Up

At the beginning of class on Wednesday, I will collect your worksheets for the second Check, Please! lesson and return the drafts of your literacy narratives. You will have the class period to begin revising on your laptops, and you will have an additional week to continue your revisions. The due date for posting your revision to Blackboard and to your WordPress blog is Wednesday, February 7 (before class); the hard deadline is Friday, February 9 (before class).

English 1103, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Sample Student Literacy Narratives

Posted on January 29, 2024 by janemlucas

Today in class we will examine two literacy narratives written last semester. After you read and annotate the essays, you and two or three of your classmates will collaboratively compose a short assessment of each narrative.

In each assessement, consider whether the essay focuses on one of the following options for topics:

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) especially difficult or challenging
a memento that represents an important moment in your development as a reader or writer

Also determine whether each essay fulfills the requirements listed below.

a well-told story
vivid detail
some indication of the narrative’s significance
a minimum of 600 words

After you have composed your assessment, you will review the grade criteria listed below, and assign a letter grade to each narrative.

An A literacy narrative complies with all of the 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 of the assignment guidelines but may convey the significance of the story in a superficial way, may have issues with organization, or may be flawed by surface errors.
A C literacy narrative complies with most but not all of the assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by issues of organization and/or surface errors.
A D literacy narrative complies with only a few of the assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by issues of organization and/or surface errors.
An F literacy narrative fails to comply with most or all of the assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by substantial issues of organization and/or surface errors.

Next Up

At the beginning of class on Wednesday, I will collect your workshseets for the second Check, Please! lesson and return the drafts of your literacy narrative. You will have the class period to begin revising on your laptops, and you will have an additional week to continue your revisions. The due date for posting your revision to Blackboard and to your WordPress blog is Wednesday, February 7 (before class); the hard deadline is Friday, February 9 (before class).

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

ENG 1103: Two-Letter Words, F-L

Posted on January 25, 2024 by janemlucas

In the previous weeks, I published one blog post featuring playable two-letter words beginning with a and a second blog post featuring playable two-letter words beginning with b, d, and e. Today’ s blog post features 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 increase the number of points you earn in a single turn.

fa: a tone on the diatonic scale
fe: a Hebrew letter
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

Next Up

Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website. Also review this post.

English 1103, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Beginning Your Literacy Narrative

Posted on January 24, 2024 by janemlucas

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is eng-1103-blog-9-5-22.jpg

Today is class you will begin planning and drafting your first essay assignment, a literacy narrative, which is an account of a learning experience involving reading, writing, or learning to speak a language.

Begin by asking yourself some of these questions: How have you come to think about yourself as a reader or writer? What were some of your most formative experiences as a reader or writer? What are some of the do’s and don’ts you have learned about writing? How has what you have learned about reading or writing enhanced your confidence and skill in that role? You don’t need to respond to all of those questions. Try picking one or two as a starting point, then begin bringing one of those experiences to life.

Your aim is to recreate your experience on the page and then to reflect on its significance. Your focus may be any 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) especially difficult or challenging
a memento that represents an important moment in your development as a reader or writer

Detailed instructions are included in the assignment handout that you will receive in class today. An additional copy of the handout is posted on Blackboard in the essay assignments folder.

Next Up

Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, review the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website. Also review tomorrow’s Scrabble post.

Check, Please!, English 1103, Teaching

ENG 1103: Check, Please! Lesson One

Posted on January 23, 2024 by janemlucas

Tomorrow, at the beginning of class, I will collect your worksheets for the first Check, Please! lesson. If you were absent on the day that I distributed copies of the worksheet or you have misplaced your copy, download the file from Blackboard and print it.

My sample assignment for lesson one appears below, as well as on the worksheet, itself.

Check, Please! Lesson One

In the first lesson of the Check, Please!, Starter Course, Mike Caulfield, author of the course and a research scientist at Washington State University’s Center for an Informed Public, introduces the four-step SIFT approach to determining the reliability of a source: (1) “Stop,” (2) “Investigate,” (3) “Find better coverage,” and (4) “Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context.”

One of the most useful practices presented in lesson one is what the author terms the “Wikipedia Trick.” Deleting everything that follows a website’s URL (including the slash), adding a space, typing “Wikipedia,” and hitting “enter” will yield the site’s Wikipedia page. The Wikipedia entry that appears at the top of the screen may indicate the source’s reliability or lack thereof.

The most memorable segment of lesson one is the short, riveting video “The Miseducation of Dylann Roof,” which begins with the narrator asking the question, “How does a child become a killer?” Produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center, it documents how algorithms can lead unskilled web searchers down paths of disinformation. In the worst cases, such as Roof’s, algorithms can lead searchers to the extremist propaganda of radical conspiracy theorists.

Work Cited

Caulfield, Mike. Check, Please! Starter Course, 2021, https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/front-matter/updated-resources-for-2021/.

Check, Please! worksheets are designed to be handwritten, and I prefer for you to complete them by putting pen to paper. If, however, you wish to type them, you are required to follow MLA style manuscript guidelines. See the sample file posted in the Check, Please! folder on Blackboard.

Next Up

Tomorrow’s class will be devoted to planning and drafting your literacy narratives. Next Wednesday, January 31, I will return your handwritten drafts with my notes, and you will have the class period to begin revising your narratives on your laptops and tablets. After that class, you will have an additional week to continue your revision work. The due date for posting your revisions to Blackboard and to your WordPress blog is Wednesday, February 7 (before class); the hard deadline is Friday, February 9 (before class).

English 1103, Reading, Teaching

ENG 1103: A Second Look at Sedaris and a First Glimpse of Keller

Posted on January 22, 2024January 22, 2024 by janemlucas

Author David Sedaris in New York on August 3, 2018 / Robert Deutsch USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2018/08/03/david-sedaris-hates-word-awesome-but-loves-sequined-culottes-calypso-bookmark/900667002/

Today, along with continuing our study of Sedaris’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” we will begin to examine “The Day Language Came into My Life,” the first pages of Chapter Four of Helen Keller’s autobiography, The Story of My Life.

One of the aspects of Sedaris’s essay that you examined last Wednesday was his movement from summary to scene. The first of those occurs with these words of his teacher’s: “If you have not meimslsxp or lpgpdmurct by this time, then you should not be in this room” (167).

You also identified Sedaris’s hyperbole “front teeth the size of tombstones” (168), and his use of metaphors and similes, including these:

“not unlike Pa Kettle trapped backstage at a fashion show” (167).
“everybody into the language pool, sink or swim” (167).
“like a translation of one of those Playmate of the Month data sheets” (168).

Helen Keller, https://www.biography.com/activists/helen-keller

Today in class you will closley examine the final paragraphs of David Sedaris’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and Helen Keller’s “The Day Language Came into My Life,” and collaboratively compose a paragraph that addresses what the last paragraph of each narrative conveys about the significance of the writer’s learning experience. In your examination of Keller’s essay/chapter excerpt, address the quotation “‘like Aaron’s rod with, with flowers’” (par. 9). If you do not recognize that allusion, simply show how the quotation connects to the clause that precedes it.

Together, these two essays by David Sedaris and Hellen Keller demonstrate two vastly different ways to present a literacy narrative. “Me Talk Pretty One Day” offers a quirky look at the challenges of learning French from a sarcastic, soul-crushing instructor. Keller’s story poignantly recounts learning to make meaning through the sign language of her teacher, Annie Sullivan, learning that certain finger positions mean “water” for those who cannot hear it, and for others, like her, who can neither see nor hear it.

Works Cited

Keller, Helen. “The Day that Language Came into My Life.” The Story of My Life. https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/keller/life/life.html.

Sedaris, David. “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Me Talk Pretty One Day. Little Brown, 2000. pp. 166-73.

Next Up

On Wednesday you will begin work on your own literacy narratives. At the beginning of class, after I collect your second Check, Please! worksheets, I will distribute the copies of the assignment, and you will have the remainder of the class period to plan and draft longhand. Next Wednesday I will return your handwritten drafts, and you will have the class period revise on your laptops. You will have an additional week to continue revising before you post your revision to Blackboard and to your WordPress blog. The due date is Wednesday, February 7; the hard deadline is the morning of Friday, February 9.

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

ENG 1103: Two-Letter Words, B-E

Posted on January 18, 2024 by janemlucas

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: 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

Next Up

Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review this blog post.

English 1103, Reading, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: “Me Talk Pretty One Day”

Posted on January 17, 2024January 17, 2024 by janemlucas

Today in class we will examine David Sedari s‘s essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” and you and three of your classmates will collaborate on an exercise that asks you to examine–and subsequently address in writing–these elements of his literacy narrative:

scene and summary–you will examine how and where Sedaris shifts from one to the other
hyperbole
metaphors and similes

Each of these elements can play an important role in a narrative, none more so than scene, which is vital to a story’s life. Without it, a narrative falls flat. With summary, a writer compresses time to offer an overview of events. Through scene, a writer lets time unfold in front of the readers’ eyes, which is what readers prefer. They are drawn into a narrative when they can see for themselves what is happening.

Next Up

Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review tomorrow’s Scrabble post.

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

ENG 1103: “What’s in a Name?” Follow-Up

Posted on January 16, 2024 by janemlucas

Last Friday’s blog post offered you the opportunity to earn bonus points if you posted a response that identified the names of students in sections nineteen and twenty with first and last names that are also common nouns, making them playable Scrabble words. The lists below include those students’ names with the playable names in bold.

Section 19

Kira Booker (one who books)
Annika Brown (brown color or pigment)
McKinnley Coles (pl. of cole, a plant of the cabbage family)
Jess English (to fasten straps around the legs of a hawk)
Jack Hutchins (to raise with a type of lever)
Jack Madigan-Green (to raise with a type of lever, green color or pigment)
Larisa Shaw (stalks and leaves of root plants)
Hannah Smith (a metal worker)
Simone Smith (a metal worker)
Olivia Wall (an upright structure that encloses an area)

Section 20

Ava Gaudioso (of all)
Santino Hall (a corridor or a large room for assembly)
Lily Murphy (a potato)
Regan Shea (an African tree)
Chaning Smith (a metal worker)
Autumn Spaulding (the season between summer and winter)
Renae West (the direction opposite of east)

Continue to review last Friday’s blog post, both to increase your word power and to put your classmates’ names with faces.

Next Up

Tomorrow in class we will examine an excerpt from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” one of your pieces of collaborative writing from January 10, and David Sedaris ‘s “Me Talk Pretty One Day.”