ENG 1103: Model Literacy Narrative, “A Bridge to Words,” and Writing Analytically

Posted on September 8, 2025September 9, 2025 by janemlucas

Hillaire Belloc’s “Rebecca,” illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen

Today in class, we will examine the model literacy narrative “A Bridge to Words,” which you read for today, and you and two or three of your classmates will collaboratively compose a piece of writing that addresses these elements of the essay:

Appositives
Scene
Figurative language
Gaps in memory/what the narrator doesn’t know
The story’s significance, how the writer conveys it subtly

As you continue to revise, consider the role of those elements your own literacy narrative. All of them may not figure in your own story, but scene, at least a brief one, and a sense of the story’s significance are vital. Keep in mind that the story’s significance should be conveyed subtly. Do not tell the reader that the the event was significant, and don’t resort to such trite statements as it made me the person I am today.

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.

Work Cited

Belloc, Hilaire. “Rebecca.” The Golden Book of Fun and Nonsense, edited by Louis Untermeyer, illustrated by Alice and Martin Provenson, Golden Press, 1970, p. 61.

Posting to Blackboard and WordPress

In the second half of today’s class, I will take you through the steps posting your literacy narrative to Blackboard and WordPress. If you are absent from class or need a review, watch these YouTube videos on submitting an assignment to Blackboard and publishing a post on WordPress.

Contractions: Are They or aren’t They Permissible?

It isn’t surprising that contractions, such as “couldn’t” for “could not,” appear in “A Bridge to Words” because it’s a personal narrative with a conversational voice. But sometimes students are uncertain whether they should use contractions in traditional academic assignments, ones of a more formal nature, such as the other major writing assignments you will produce for English 1103.

Sometimes students are told that they ~~can’t~~ cannot use contractions in formal writing, but MLA style does permit their use. The MLA Style Center notes, “there is nothing inherently incorrect about contractions.” But the website goes on to state that in some contexts and for reasons of clarity, avoiding contractions may be preferable. In your writing assignments for English 1103, use contractions sparingly. Your literacy narratives are an exception to that rule because of their personal nature.

Some professors may prohibit the use of contractions in writing assignments. If you’re uncertain whether a professor permits them, ask.

Writing Analytically

For Wednesday, read “On Keeping a Writer’s Notebook” (157-58) and “Writing from Life: The Personal Essay” (161-64). Those sections of the textbook serve as companion pieces to your writing thus far in English 1103, and reading and taking notes on those sections will prepare you to compose part of the reflective essay you will write in class on Wednesday.

After you have read and taken notes on “On Keeping a Writer’s Notebook” and “Writing from Life: The Personal Essay,” choose a phrase, clause, or sentence relevant to your writing process and draft in your journal a short passage that connects that quotation to your writing. That passage will serve as part of your reflection. Here are the instructions that will be included on the handout that I distribute on Wednesday:

Directions

Include in your reflection a minimum of one relevant quotation from the textbook, Writing Analytically, from the section “On Keeping a Writer’s Notebook” or from “Writing from Life: The Personal Essay.” Introduce your quotation with a signal phrase and follow it with a parenthetical citation.

Remember that the writing that follows 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.

Example

When I began planning my literacy narrative, I was skeptical of the assertion that “the more you write, the more you’ll find yourself noticing, and thus the more you’ll have to say” (Rosenwasser and Stephen 157). However, as I wrote in my notebook about the difficulty of holding a page of newspaper when I was a preschooler, I once again saw how those long, thin sheets of newsprint would drape over me. Then I saw my parents holding their pages of newspaper with ease, and I was back in the den with them—where I was more than fifty years ago—marveling at their ability to read.

A variation on the previous option is integrating a quotation that serves as an epigraph in Writing Analytically. If you quote an epigraph, which is a quote at the beginning of a book or book section, intended to suggest its theme, you are presenting an indirect quotation.

Example

In The Situation and the Story, memoirist Vivian Gornick observes: “What happened to the writer is not what matters; what matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened” (qtd. in Rosenwasser and Stephen). That notion of what matters became apparent to me as I drafted the conclusion of my essay. The story itself is not dramatic but the bridge it delineates—the one that connects my preliterate self to my reading self—signifies a vital crossing point in my life.

The words that I quote are Vivian Gornick’s, but the source is the textbook Writing Analytically. That is why the parenthetical citation begins with qtd. in, to indicate that the words are quoted in David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen’s book.

Note that when I introduce Gornick’s words, I use present tense because MLA style requires present tense in writing about written works, whether fiction or nonfiction, mainstream or academic.

At the end of your reflective writing, you will include a work cited entry for the section of the textbook that you quoted. See the samples below.

Sample Works Cited Entries

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. “Writing from Life: The Personal Essay.” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 161-65.

Next Up

In class on Wednesday, you will compose a short 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) your reflection will address your work in progress.

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

ENG 1103: Two-Letter Words, F-L

Posted on September 5, 2025September 6, 2025 by janemlucas

Previously, I published a blog post featuring playable two-letter words beginning with a, as well as a 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 may 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, the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder page, and review the blog posts devoted to Scrabble.

English 1103, Reading, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Lessons in Summary, Scene, and Dialogue from Harper Lee

Posted on September 4, 2025September 9, 2025 by janemlucas

Yesterday before you you began your revision work, we examined a page (pictured above) from Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. That page from the first chapter serves as a valuable model for three narrative elements: summary, scene, and dialogue–at least two of which will figure in your literacy narrative.

The first paragraph of the passage summarizes the characters’ circumstances, designating the “summertime boundaries” (12) within which the narrator, Jean Louise, “Scout,” Finch, and her older brother, Jem, may play outdoors. The short one-sentence paragraph that follows continues the summary, informing readers that the summer Scout has just summarized is the one in which Dill (Charles Baker Harris) first visits Maycomb, Alabama.

With the first words of the next paragraph, “[e]arly one morning,” Scout shifts from summary to scene (12). All of the remaining paragraphs except the final one continue the scene with dialogue. Scout returns to summary with the words “Dill was from Meridian” (12).

Note that Harper Lee begins a new paragraph whenever the speaker changes. Also note that every line of dialogue does not include a dialogue tag, such as “he said” or “she said.” If a passage of dialogue includes only two speakers, none of the paragraphs require dialogue tags after the speakers’ first lines because the start of a new paragraph signals to the reader that the other person is speaking. If a dialogue includes three or more speakers–such as Scout’s conversation with Jem and Dill–occasional tags are essential.

Lessons in Punctuation

The excerpt from To Kill a Mockingbird also demonstrates how to use a variety of punctuation marks, including em dashes, hyphens, and commas.

Harper Lee uses em dashes to set off “Miss Rachel’s rat terrier was expecting” (12) from the rest of the sentence because it is nonessential. It adds details, but the sentence can function without them. An em dash is used before and after phrases that are nonessential. Note that there is no space before or after the dash, which is made with two strikes of the hyphen key.
Jem asks if Dill is “four-and-a-half”? Hyphens appear between those words because multiple-word numbers are hyphenated.
Near the end of the excerpt, “Mississippi” and “Miss Rachel” (12) are both set off by commas because those details are nonessential. Commas are used to set off single words and short phrases of nonessentials the way that em dashes are used to set off longer units of words.

Work Cited

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Lippincott, 1960. p. 12.

Next Up

English 1103, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Revising Your Literacy Narrative

Posted on September 3, 2025December 8, 2025 by janemlucas

This morning 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, September 10 (before class). The hard deadline is Friday, September 12 (before class). Directions for submitting your literacy narrative are included on your assignment sheet and on the Blackboard submission site. Next Monday, September 8, I will guide you through the submission processes step by step.

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 11.

I attached a Writing Notes handout to your introductory reflective writing exercises, one that I noted you should keep in your pocket portfolio and refer to when you are composing assignments. I have included an additional copy of that list below, followed by a second list of notes, which I have attached to the drafts of your literacy narratives.

Writing Notes

&: Do not use an ampersand (&) in place of the word and in formal writing.
Abbreviations should often be avoided in formal writing. Do not write vocab for vocabulary. On first reference, spell out Advanced Placement in the name of a course. In subsequent references, AP is acceptable.
A lot: Don’t use a lot a lot. There are a lot of better ways to express that idea, such as many, often, considerable, etc. If you use a lot in your writing, I will mark it with a d, which denotes diction or word choice.
Compound modifiers are linked with a hyphen. Write twelve-page paper, not twelve page paper.
English and the names of other languages are always capitalized. If you write English with a lower-case e, I will underscore the letter with three vertical lines. Those three lines are the proofreader’s mark that denotes the need for a capital letter.
Hopefully: I hope is a more direct expression of your wish and is preferrable in formal writing.
Numbers that can be expressed as one or two words are written as words, not figures, in MLA style, which is the style used in English courses as well as some other courses in the humanities. Write twenty-five, not 25.
Paragraphs: Business writing calls for block paragraphs, but your writing for English 1103 and many of your other classes will require you to indent the first lines of each paragraph five spaces or one-half inch.
Passive voice should often be avoided in formal writing. The subject should perform the action. Write we read several nineteenth-century novels, not several nineteenth-century novels were read.
Then/Than: Than is used in comparisons; then refers to a point in time.
Titles: In MLA style, the titles of book-length works are italicized. If you are writing longhand, the titles of book-length works are underlined. The titles of shorter works—such as essays, short stories, and poems—are enclosed in quotation marks.

Writing Notes, Part II

Apart: If you write apart when you mean a part, you have the written the opposite of what you intended. Apart is separate from; a part is a segment of a whole.
Appositive: an appositive phrase offers additional information about a word or phrase that precedes it. Consider this sentence: My journal, a worn, spiral-bound notebook with Snoopy on the cover, is near at hand most hours of the day. The words a worn, spiral-bound notebook with Snoopy on the cover are an appositive because they offer more information about the journal.
Center: The preposition that follows the verb center is on, not around. Centering around is impossible. Try to do it.
Commas are not the equivalent of periods. Consider the following pairs of independent clauses: (a) The test consisted of fifty questions. I thought it would never end. (b) The test consisted of fifty questions; I thought it would never end. (c) The test consisted of fifty questions, and I thought it would never end. A comma can join two independent clauses—as it does in example c—only if it is followed by a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so, referred to as the acronym FANBOY). If you use a comma between two independent clauses without following it with a coordinating conjunction, you have created a comma splice.
Do: What specifically did you? (There is almost always a stronger verb than do.) Drafted, revised, edited, reviewed, studied, and memorized are all verbs that denote a particular action. Use action verbs whenever possible.
Modifiers: Place modifiers and modifying phrases as close as possible to the words they are meant to describe. Consider this sentence: As a four-year-old, my grandmother taught me to print the letters of the alphabet. In it, the person who is four is the grandmother, which makes no sense. (She cannot be a grandmother at four.) The sentence should be revised to read something like this: As a four-year-old, I learned from my grandmother how to print the letters of the alphabet.
That/Who: The relative pronoun who, not that, refers to people. (That refers to things.) Do not write He is the teacher that taught me to how to develop my writing. Instead, write He is the teacher who taught me to how to develop my writing.

No Duck-Rabbit Illusion* Here

Monday at 7 a.m., after I parked my car, I spotted the duck and rabbit in the picture above. It’s not unusual to see a rabbit on campus in the early-morning hours or a duck swimming in the reservoir of one of the fountains. But Hayworth Hall is nowhere near any of HPU’s water features. Seeing those two creatures so close to each other was a lovely surprise. If you haven’t seen a duck or a rabbit on campus, take an early-morning walk.

*The duck-rabbit illusion theory demonstrates how a single image can be perceived in two distinctly different ways, underscoring the ambiguity of perception. Do you see a duck or a rabbit in the image below?

Next Up

Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website or the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder Page, and review the blog posts devoted to Scrabble.

English 1103, Reading, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Takeaways from Keller and Sedaris . . .

Posted on September 2, 2025January 15, 2026 by janemlucas

Yesterday morning, after your quiz and Scrabble debriefing, we examined “The Day Language Came into My Life,” the fourth chapter of Helen Keller’s autobiography, The Story of My Life. The details of her literacy narrative that we considered include these:

Keller draws on her sense of touch to render her world to us because she cannot see or hear. She writes of the warmth of the sun “on her upturned face” (par. 2) as she depicts herself waiting for the arrival of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan. Aim to use relevant sensory details in your own literacy narrative.
In the conclusion of her chapter, Keller writes, “I learned a great many words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher were among them” (par. 9). In writing those words, Keller makes both what she doesn’t remember and what does remember part of her story. You may not remember all of the details of a memory from your childhood, but the details you do remember will render your narrative more vividly. And if there’s something you don’t remember, that uncertainty–as Keller demonstrates–can be on the page, too.
She spells out the words that her teacher spells for her by forming each letter one at a time in Keller’s hand. If you are writing about learning to spell words, let the reader see that on the page as Keller lets her reader see: “‘w-a-t-e-r’ is water” (par. 6).

In “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” David Sedaris does not spell out the French words he is learning to speak, but he does include nonsense words, such as “meimslsxp” (167), to convey his lack of understanding. If you are writing about learning a second language, consider following Sedaris’ lead and using nonsense words–not his but ones of your own making–to convey your initial confusion. Also, try including one or more words of the language itself. Remember that words you write that are not English words–nonsense words included–are italicized.

Work Cited

Keller, Helen. “The Day Language Came Into My Life.” https://janelucasdotcom. files.wordpress.com/2025/08/a0461-3.thedaylanguagecameintomylife_keller.pdf.

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

A Pair of Samples

As you prepare to revise your own literacy narrative, review the two samples that we examined in class. While the first, “Creativity is Key,” is admirable for its conversational voice, it lacks the structure and development it needs. It is not a story, it does not meet the minumum length requirement, and it is marred by errors of punctuation, mechanics, and style.

The second sample, “Giving a Speech: Worst Nightmare to Best Feeling” is a much better effort. The essay is a narrative, not simply a series of sentences, and the writer gracefully shifts from summary to scene. Note that a significant portion of the story is presented through scenes with diaogue.

The second part of the title, “Worst Nightmare to Best Feeling,” is an appositive, which is a phrase that offers additional information about the word or phrase that precedes it. Appositives are effective ways to develop your writing. You are welcome to include one in the title of your literacy narrative, but don’t fashion one that tells the reader too much. Your title should offer a window into your essay, but it should not be a spoiler.

Pop Quiz

Rather than listing the answers to the questions on yesterday’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.

In “The Day Language Came into My Life,” Helen Keller recounts what happened on that day, three months before she turned seven. Name one detail from that day. See your copy of “The Day Language Came into My Life.”
What is the style used for formatting files and documenting sources in papers for courses in English and many other courses in the humanities (philosophy, classics, religious studies, art history, and foreign languages)? See the August 29 class notes.
The class notes “ENG 1103: Matters of Style” includes details about formatting papers in the style you will use for English 1103. Name one of those details. See the August 29 class notes.
What is the topic of the most recent blog post devoted to Scrabble? Note that Scrabble is the subject, not the topic. The topic is something more specific. See the August 28 class notes.
What have you learned about writing from the Writing Notes handout distributed on August 20 or from the annotations on your introductory reflection or on one of your group exercises? Briefly note the rule or guideline. See your Writing Notes handout, your introductory reflection, and your group exercises.

Your quiz also included a bonus opportunity. Possible answers for that bonus are found in the class notes for August 21, August 22, and August 28.

Next Up

Tomorrow you will continue work on your own literacy narratives. At the beginning of class, I will return your rough drafts with my notes, and you will have the remainder of the class period to revise on your laptops. You will have an additional week to continue revising before posting your literacy narrative to Blackboard and to your WordPress blog. The due date is Wednesday, September 10 (before class); the hard deadline is Friday, September 12 (before class).

English 1103, Reading, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: A First Glimpse of Heller

Posted on September 1, 2025September 1, 2025 by janemlucas

This morning in class, we will examine the literacy narrative that you read for today, “The Day Language Came into My Life,” which is the fourth chapter of Helen Keller’s autobiography The Story of My Life.

Together, Sedaris‘ essay and Keller’s chapter 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.

Sample Student Essays

After we study Keller’s chapter, will examine two literacy narratives written in a previous 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
A title that offers a window into the essay

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

Literacy Narrative 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 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 assignment guidelines and may 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 assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by substantial issues of organization and/or surface errors.

Next Up

On Wednesday you will continue work on your own literacy narratives. At the beginning of class, I will return your rough drafts with my notes, and you will have the remainder of the class period to revise on your laptops. You will have an additional week to continue revising before posting your literacy narrative to Blackboard and to your WordPress blog. The due date is Wednesday, September 10 (before class); the hard deadline is Friday, September 12 (before class).

Theatre, Writing

Aboard the Orca

Posted on August 30, 2025 by janemlucas

or “We’re Going to Need a . . .”

On August 16, 17, and 23, audiences at the Winston-Salem Theatre Alliance’s Beall black box theatre found themselves aboard the Orca with Robert Shaw (Patrick Daley), Richard Dreyfuss (Kenan Stewart), and Roy Scheider (Robert Evans), waiting for the tech crew to repair the mechanical shark for the umpteenth time. The shark’s frequent malfunctions (animatronics are no match for saltwater)—a staple of behind-the-scenes accounts of Jaws—try the actors’ patience, none more so than Shaw’s. Like his character in the film, the eccentric shark hunter, Quint, Shaw is a quick-tempered alcoholic. His similarities to his character prompt Dreyfuss to remark that he isn’t sure where Shaw ends and Quint begins. Shaw exploits that blurred line, needling the neurotic Dreyfuss who hops about the Orca’s deck like a nervous rabbit, confessing his desire to meet the renowned playwright Harold Pinter.

Shaw, a masterful interpreter of Pinter’s work, cruelly misleads the naïve Dreyfuss, telling him that Pinter would love for Dreyfuss to call him in the morning and tell the playwright his own interpretations of his plays. When Shaw and Dreyfuss almost come to blows—as they do more than once—it’s Scheider who serves as mediator, his primary function in the play. Like his Jaws character, Police Chief Brody, he’s there to keep the peace. Neither Brody nor Dreyfuss is as deftly drawn as Shaw, undoubtedly because one of the play’s coauthors, Ian Shaw, began the project that became The Shark is Broken as a way of exploring the life of his father, who died three years after he brought Quint to life on screen. Ian was only nine years old.

Like his father, Ian became an actor, and like his father, he turned to writing, but the two pursuits do not compete for the younger Shaw’s attention as they did for his father’s. In The Shark is Broken, Shaw—recipient of the Hawthornden Prize for his second novel—laments that he has neglected his writing in favor of a Hollywood career, a choice he makes not for stardom but to support a family of (then) nine children. When Shaw recites Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, his utterance of the desire for “this man’s art and that man’s scope” (7) speaks to his longing to write. Notably, he recites the sonnet as an antidote to Dreyfuss’ panic attack. Though Shaw has bullied the younger actor throughout the play, when Dreyfuss finds himself in crisis, Shaw speaks the words that calm him.

Photo by Neil Jester Photography https://neiljesterphotography.shootproof.com/ (L-R): Patrick Daley (Shaw), Kenan Stewart (Dreyfuss), and Robert Evans (Scheider) in the Winston-Salem Theatre Alliance production of *The Shark is Broken*.

Shaw’s own writing comes to the fore in two scenes that depict his signature monologue, the speech that recounts the horrific aftermath of the torpedoing of the U.S.S. Indianapolis after it delivered the atomic bomb to the island of Tinian. Many of the sailors who survived the ship’s attack by the Japanese were later ripped to pieces by sharks. In the film, the monologue traces Quint’s deep-seated hatred of sharks to its depths in the Western Pacific, where hundreds of his shipmates perished in a sea of blood. In the play, the monologue foregrounds Shaw’s own writing. Rehearsing the scene, Shaw balks at the screenwriters’ shoddy speech. Then, in frustration, he pens his own version, the one we have watched over and over as Hooper and Brody listen in awe.

The final scene of the play returns to the monologue, giving the audience a live performance of the lines they have watched Shaw utter countless times on screen, and the ones they have now watched the actor put on paper. I can hardly fathom the mega-meta quality of watching Ian Shaw in the first productions of The Shark is Broken—the younger Shaw performing the role of his father in a play that he, the son, cowrote, with Joseph Nixon, to depict his father portraying Quint . . . At a community theatre, the effect isn’t mega-meta, but it’s multi-layered, nevertheless. Audiences at Winston-Salem Theatre Alliance watched Triad actors Patrick Daley (Shaw), Kenan Stewart (Dreyfuss), and Robert Evans (Scheider) portraying Hollywood actors performing—or mostly waiting to perform—now-iconic roles. Call it a Chinese box or a hall of funhouse mirrors. Maybe we’re going to need a bigger metaphor.

Work Cited

Shakespeare, William. “Sonnet 29: ‘When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes.'” Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45090/sonnet-29-when-in-disgrace-with-fortune-and-mens-eyes.

English 1103, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Matters of Style

Posted on August 29, 2025August 29, 2025 by janemlucas

MLA (Modern Language Association) style, the standard format used for writing and documentation in the humanities, is the style that you will use for paper assignments in English 1103.

Formatting a paper in MLA style requires changing the font because Times New Roman, used in MLA papers, is not the default font in Microsoft Word. You will also need to create a running header that includes both your last name and the page number. If you do not know how to change a font or create a running header, this YouTube video on MLA page set-up will show you how.

For additional models of MLA style, see the sample essays posted on Blackboard and the MLA Style center’s sample essays, including this one by Holly Nelson, an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University.

Bonus Assignment

As practice in both revision and MLA formatting, complete the assignment below. Students who do so will earn a bonus assignment credit in the short assignments (course work) category.

Directions

Revise the introductory reflective writing that you began in class on August 18. If your literacy narrative focuses on one of the classes that you wrote about in your reflection, do not include that class in your revision; the content of your bonus assignment should be markedly different from the content of your literacy narrative. You do not need to begin with a paragraph of summary followed by a paragraph of commentary. Those specifics were included in your reflective assignment so I could assess your understanding of the differences between the two and your ability to follow directions.
Compose a revision of at least two-hundred and fifty words, and type it into a Microsoft Word document that you have formatted to comply with MLA style. If you are unsure of how to change the formatting in a file, revisit the second paragraph of this blog post.
Print a copy of your file, and submit your paper copy at the beginning of class on Friday, September 5. You will not submit a copy online. Posting to Blackbaord and WordPress is a requirement for your three major writing assignments only. However, if you want to publish your bonus assignment as practice in using WordPress, you are welcome to do so.

Next Up

For class on Monday, you will read “The Day Language Came into My Life,” which is the fourth chapter of Helen Keller’s autobiography, The Story of My Life. You do not need to print a copy; I distributed copies in class on Wednesday, August 27.

In addition to examining Keller’s chapter, we will review a couple of student literacy narratives written in previous semesters.

English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

ENG 1103: Two-Letter Words, B-E

Posted on August 28, 2025 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, look to the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, Merriam-Webster’s Scrabble Word Finder page, and review the blog posts devoted to Scrabble tips, including this one.

English 1103, Reading, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Beginning Your Literacy Narrative

Posted on August 27, 2025 by janemlucas

Today in 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 dos 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
learning to speak a second langauage

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 or Meriam-Webster’s Scrabble Word Finder page and also review the blog posts devoted to Scrabble.