For this morning’s class, I had planned for us to examine David Sedaris‘s essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day” as a model for your first major writing assignment: a literacy narrative, which is an essay that recounts an experience with literacy, such as reading, writing, or–as in the case of Sedaris’s narrative–learning a second language.
Because our discussion of your collaborative writing from last Wednesday consumed most of today’s class period, we did not examine “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” We will, however, study both Sedaris’s essay and Keller’s, “The Day Language Came into My Life,” on Wednesday. In the meantime, review the notes I’ve included below on your collaborative writing from last Wednesday. Though that collaborative writing was not a literacy narrative, the specificity that it required is essential to storytelling. Aim to include as many significant concrete details as you can in your literacy narrative as well as your other writing.
Though the story itself is of primary importance in a literacy narrative, errors of form will distract the reader from the narrative and may jeopardize your credibility. (Readers may ask themselves why they should continue reading if you have overlooked matters of punctuation, spelling, grammar, or mechanics).
The notes that follow address both the content (what is included) and the form (the presentation of the content). As the semester progresses, return to these notes. Some serve as reminders of practices to engage in; others demonstrate what to avoid.
Content
- The first paragraph should address each group member’s specific experience with one of the habits. Such details as “listening, taking notes, and trying to absorb the material” are examples of what constitutes engagement, but they do not speak to the particular experiences of any students. The addition of just a few words, such as “in my sophmore-year history class,” begins to give readers a sense of place.
- The second paragraph should offer a close look at one student’s experience with the habit. Think of the first paragraph as a bird’s eye view and the second paragraph as a close-up. When one group writes that a student “asked the teacher if he could crumple his [paper] plane into a ball,” readers find themselves there with the students in Ms. Marinelli’s sixth-grade science class. Note how that paragraph that features the paper-airplane exercise functions as a narrative in miniature.
- One of the second paragraphs that students composed on Monday ends with these words: “On the contrary, in our English class we are learning about limiting distractions, thinking critically, and activly listening to improve engagment and learn to the best of our ability.” The misspellings are errors that I will address when I turn matters of form. Here, under the heading of content, I note the sentence because of the risk of such content. Though the writers may not have intended to be ingratiating, the sentence comes across as sycophantic. In other words, the words come across as an attempt to curry favor with the professor.
Form
- When you compose a paragraph in an academic essay, the first line should be indented five spaces or one-half inch. Note that blog posts are an exception to this rule. In the versions of your paper assignments that you post to Blackboard, the first line of each paragraph should be indented. On your blog, the paragraphs will be block style.
- Use active voice. The clause “thoughts are tossed around all the time” should be rewritten as “my family members and I are always tossing around ideas.” Note that the revision changes the voice from passive to active by letting the family perform the action (tossing around the ideas).
- The clause “[h]e feels like his openness is self-made” should be rewritten as “[h]e feels as if his openness is self-made.” Use “like” when a noun follows to form the comparison; use “as if” when a clause follows.
- The “sentence” “[a]lso problem solving and using these problem solving techniques in real life scenarios” is a sentence fragment because its meaning depends on the previous sentence. It is not a complete thought. It should be written something like this: Problem-solving and applying problem-solving techniques to real-life scenarios are additional ways to engage in learning.
- Note that the example above adds hyphens to “problem-solving” and “real-life.” [R]eal-life” and the second instance of “problem-solving” need hyphens because they are compound adjectives. The first instance of “problem-solving” needs a hyphen because it is a compound noun.
- “[A]ctivly,” “crutial,” “effectivly,” and “engagment” are all misspelled. The correct spellings are a-c-t-i-v-e-l-y, c-r-u-c-i-a-l, e-f-f-e-c-t-i-v-e-l-y, and e-n-g-a-g-e-m-e-n-t. Because you cannot look up spellings in class when you are not permitted to use your laptops or smart devices, I do not deduct points for misspellings in in-class exercises. That said, when you are working in groups, you should be on the lookout for misspellings when you proofread your work.
- “This individual classmate” should be rewritten as “one individual classmate.” In formal writing, “this” should be used to refer only to something at hand.
- “
ThisThe student then felt they had to step up” lacks subject-verb agreement. It should be rewritten as “the student then felt that she had to step up.” Unless the individual in question is nonbinary, the pronoun for the subject is the singular he or she. - “Meanwhile the other group members such as [name withheld] and myself” should be rewritten as “meanwhile the other group members, such as [name withheld] and I.” The word “members” should be followed by a comma, and the correct pronoun is the subctive “I” not the reflexive “myself.” Writers and speakers often use “myself” when they are unsure whether to use “I” or “me,” but “myself” is not a substitute for either. “Myself” is used in the object position when the subject and the object are the same. For example: I revised the sentence myself.
- In the phrases “throw it the furthest” and “threw it further” and the clause “throwing his plane the furthest,” “further” should be replaced with “farther,” and “furthest” should be replaced with “farthest.” “Farther” describes literal distance. “Further” describes figurative distance, meaning more, as in I wish we could discuss the matter further.
Next Up
In class on Wednesday, we will examine David Sedaris‘s “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and Helen Keller’s “The Day Language Came into My Life.”
Jane Lucas 