Author: janemlucas

Posted in English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

ENG 1103: “What’s in a Name?”

Posted on by janemlucas
(L-R): Jake D’Aquino, Kaitlyn Degraw, Brady Battista

To help us put names with faces, I have included the picture above with of all of you in a caption that list your names. Below the picture, I have included a list of first names that are also common nouns, making them playable in Scrabble.

  • Al: a type of East Indian tree
  • Alan: a breed of hunting dog (also aland, alant)
  • Alec: a herring
  • Ana: a collection of miscellany about a specific topic
  • Ananda: extreme happiness
  • Anna: a former Indian coin
  • Ava: at all, of all
  • Bailey: an outer castle wall
  • Barbie: a barbecue
  • Belle: a pretty woman
  • Ben: an inner room
  • Benny: an amphetamine pill
  • Bertha: a style of wide collar
  • Beth: a Hebrew letter
  • Biff: to hit
  • Bill: to charge for goods
  • Billy: a short club
  • Bo: a friend
  • Bobby: a policeman
  • Bonnie: pretty (also bonny)
  • Brad: a small nail or tack
  • Brock: a badger
  • Carl: a peasant or manual laborer (also carle)
  • Carol: to sing merrily
  • Celeste: a percussive keyboard instrument (also celesta)
  • Chad: a scrap of paper
  • Charlie: a fool
  • Chase: to pursue
  • Chevy: to chase (also chivy)
  • Christie: a type of turn in skiing (also christy)
  • Clarence: an enclosed carriage
  • Dalton: a unit of atomic mass
  • Dagwood: a large, stuffed sandwich
  • Daphne: a flowering shrub with poisonous berries
  • Davy: a safety lamp
  • Deb: a debutante
  • Devon: a breed of cattle
  • Dexter: located to the right
  • Dom: a title given to some monks
  • Don: to put on a piece of clothing
  • Donna: an Italian woman of repute
  • Erica: a shrub of the heath family
  • Fay: to join together closely
  • Florence: a former European gold coin
  • Franklin: a nonnoble medieval English landowner
  • Fritz: a nonworking or semi-functioning state
  • Gilbert: a unit of magneto-motive force
  • Gilly: to transport on a type of train car
  • Gabby: talkative
  • Graham: whole-wheat flour
  • Hank: to secure a sail
  • Henry: a unit of electric inductance
  • Herby: full of herbs
  • Jack: to hoist with a type of lever
  • Jacky: a sailor
  • Jake: okay, satisfactory
  • Jane: a girl or woman
  • Jay: any of various birds, known for their crests and shrill calls
  • Jean: denim
  • Jenny: a female donkey
  • Jerry: a German soldier
  • Jess: to fasten a strap around the leg of a bird in falconry (also Jesse)
  • Jill: a unit of measure equal to to 1/4 of a pint
  • Jimmy: to pry open
  • Joannes: a Portugese coin (also johannes)
  • Joe: a fellow
  • Joey: a young kangaroo
  • John: a toilet
  • Johnny: a hospital gown
  • Jones: a strong desire
  • Jordan: a type of container
  • Joseph: a woman’s long cloak
  • Josh: to tease
  • Kelly: a bright shade of green
  • Kelvin: a unit of absolute temperature
  • Ken: to know
  • Kent: past tense of ken
  • Kerry: a breed of cattle
  • Kris: a curved dagger
  • Lars: plural of lar, a type of ancient Roman guardian deity (also lares)
  • Lassie: a lass
  • Laura: an aggregation of hermitages used by monks
  • Laurel: to crown one’s head with a wreath
  • Lee: to shelter from the wind
  • Louie: a lieutenant
  • Louis: a former gold coin of France worth twenty francs
  • Marcel: to make waves in the hair using a special iron
  • Marge: a margin
  • Mark: a line, figure, or symbol
  • Martin: any type of the bird also known as a swallow
  • Marvy: marvelous
  • Matilda (a hobo’s bundle (chiefly Australian)
  • Matt: to put a dull finish on (also matte)
  • Maxwell: a unit of magnetic flux
  • Mel: honey
  • Melody: an agreeable succession of musical sounds
  • Merle: a blackbird
  • Mickey: a drugged drink
  • Mike: a microphone (also mic)
  • Milt: to fertilize with fish sperm
  • Minny: a minnow
  • Mo: a moment
  • Molly: a type of tropical fish
  • Morgan: a unit of frequency in genetics
  • Morris: a type of folk dance from England
  • Morse: describing a type of code made of long and short signals
  • Mort: a note sounded in hunting to announce the death of prey
  • Nelson: a type of wrestling hold
  • Newton: the unit of force required to accelerate one kilogram of mass on meter per second
  • Nick: to make a shallow cut
  • Norm: a standard
  • Pam: the name of the jack of clubs in some card games
  • Parker: one who parks a motorized vehicle
  • Peter: to lessen gradually
  • Pia: a fine membrane of the brain and spinal cord
  • Randy: sexually excited
  • Regina: a queen
  • Rex: a king
  • Rick: to stack, hay, corn, or straw
  • Roger: the pirate flag
  • Randy: sexually excited
  • Sal: salt
  • Sally: to make a brief trip or a sudden start
  • Sawyer: one who saws wood
  • Shawn: past tense of show
  • Sheila: a girl or young woman
  • Sol: the fifth note on a diatonic scale (also so)
  • Sonny: a boy or young man
  • Sophy: a former Persian ruler
  • Spencer: a type of sail
  • Tad: a young boy
  • Tammie: a fabric used in linings (also tammy)
  • Ted: to spread for drying
  • Teddy: a woman’s one-piece undergarment
  • Terry: a soft, absorbent type of cloth
  • Tiffany: a thin, mesh fabric
  • Timothy: a Eurasian grass used for grazing
  • Toby: a drinking mug in the shape of a man or a man’s face
  • Tod: a British unit of weight for wool equal to twenty-eight pounds
  • Tom: the male of various animals
  • Tommy: a loaf or chunk of bread
  • Tony: very stylish
  • Vera: very
  • Victoria: a light, four-wheeled carriage
  • Warren: an area where rabbits live, or a crowded maze-like place
  • Webster: one who weaves
  • Will: to choose, decree, or induce to happen
  • Willow: a tree or shrub
  • Willy: to clean fibers with a certain machine

    Bonus Point Opportunity!

    Students who correctly respond to the playable first names and last names question below will earn five bonus points for their first Check, Please! assignment.

    How many students in English 1103.19 have first and/or last names that are playable Scrabble words? Keep in mind that only playable first names appear in the lists above. Some students may have playable last names.

    Directions for Finding and Submitting Your Answer

    1. Review the list of playable first names, compare it with the students’ first and last names in the photo captions above, or on the class page, and determine which of the students’ first and last names are playable in Scrabble. If you aren’t sure whether a name is also a common noun, you can consult the Scrabble website’s dictionary
    2. Compose a response of one or more complete sentences that includes (1) the number of students with playable names, and (2) the first and last name of each student with a playable name. Indicate which name, first or last, is playable.
    3. Post your comment as a reply to this blog post by 9:00 a.m. on Monday, January 13.
    4. To post your comment, click the title of the post, “What’s in a Name. . . . ,” 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, January 13.

    Next Up

    For class on Monday, you will read David Sedaris’s essay “Me Talk Pretty On Day.” In class we will study Sedaris’s essay after we examine some of the collaborative writing that you composed on Wednesday.

    Posted in English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

    ENG 1103: Parallel Play and Two-Letter Words Beginning with “A”

    Posted on by janemlucas

    Parallel play increases your score through the points you earn by spelling more than one word in a single turn. In the first play of the hypothetical game pictured above, the first player or team would score sixteen points by spelling enact with the t on the center double-word square. With the second turn, the other player or team could take advantage of the opportunity for parallel play. If the team knew that aa is a type of lava, they could earn twenty-four points with four words: whoa, he, on, and aa.

    Aa is one of sixteen playable two-letter words beginning with a. Learning these two-letter words, as well as the others that follow in the alphabet, will enable you to see more options for play and increase the number of points you earn in a single turn.

    • aa: a type of stony, rough lava
    • ab: an abdominal muscle
    • ad: an advertisement
    • ae: one
    • ag: agriculture
    • ah: an exclamation
    • ai: a three-toed sloth
    • al: a type of East Indian tree
    • am: the first-person singular present form of to be
    • an: an indefinite article
    • ar: the letter r
    • as: similar to
    • at: in the position of
    • aw: an expression of sadness or protest
    • ax: a type of cutting tool (also axe)
    • ay: a vote in the affirmative (also aye)

    Important Note about Challenges

    If you think that the opposing team has played a word that isn’t permissable, 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. If the challenged word isn’t permissble, 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.

    Next Up

    Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, look to the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review this post devoted to Scrabble tips.

    Posted in English 1103, Teaching

    ENG 1103: Habits of Mind

    Posted on by janemlucas

    College writing offers you the opportunity to develop skills, such as supporting arguments with evidence, writing effective thesis statements, and using transitions well, but it also gives you the opportunity to develop habits. Successful college students develop certain habits of mind, a way of approaching learning that leads to success.

    In 2011, the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the National Writing Project (NWP) identified eight habits of mind that successful college students adopt.

    In class on Monday, you began an exercise focusing on four of the eight habits of mind. Today in class, you will address one of those habits in a collaborative piece of writing.

    The paragraphs that follow include the descriptions of the habits that you examined (and the ones you will examine today), as well as the questions that you answered in writing (and the ones you will answer in writing today).

    Curiosity

    Are you the kind of person who always wants to know more? This habit of mind will serve you well in courses in which your curiosity about issues, problems, people, or policies can form the backbone of a writing project.

    WRITING ACTIVITY: What are you most curious to learn about? What experiences have you had in which your curiosity has led you to an interesting discovery or to more questions?

    Openness

    Some people are more open than others to new ideas and experiences and new ways of thinking about the world. Being open to other perspectives and positions can help you to frame sound arguments and counterarguments and solve other college writing challenges in thoughtful ways.

    WRITING ACTIVITY: In the family or the part of the world in which you grew up, did people tend to be very open, not open at all, or somewhere in the middle? Thinking about your own level of open-mindedness, reflect on how much or how little your own attitude toward a quality like openness is the result of the attitudes of the people around you.

    Engagement

    Successful college writers are involved in their own learning process. Students who are engaged put effort into their classes, knowing that they’ll get something out of their classes—something other than a grade. They participate in their own learning by planning, seeking feedback when they need to, and communicating with peers and professors to create their own success. Write about a few of the ways you try (or plan to try) to be involved in your own learning. What does engagement look like to you?

    WRITING ACTIVITY: Write about a few of the ways you try (or plan to try) to be involved in your own learning. What does engagement look like to you?

    Creativity

    You may be thinking that you have to be an artist, poet, or musician to display creativity. Not so. Scientists use creativity every day in coming up with ways to investigate questions in their field. Engineers and technicians approach problem solving in creative ways. Retail managers use creativity in displaying merchandise and motivating their employees.

    WRITING ACTIVITY: Think about the field you plan to enter. What forms might creativity take in that field?

    Persistence

    You are probably used to juggling long-term and short-term commitments—both in school and in your everyday life. Paying attention to your commitments and being persistent enough to see them through, even when the commitments are challenging, are good indicators that you will be successful in college.

    WRITING ACTIVITY: Describe a time when you faced and overcame an obstacle in an academic setting. What did you learn from that experience?

    Responsibility

    College will require you to be responsible in way you may not have had to be before. Two responsibilities you will face as an academic writer are to represent the ideas of others fairly and to give credit to writers whose ideas and language you borrow for your own purposes.

    WRITING ACTIVITY: Why do you think academic responsibility is important? What kind of experience have you already had with this kind of responsibility?

    Flexibility

    Would your friends say you are the kind of person who can just “go with the flow”? Do you adapt easily to changing situations? If so, you will find college easier, especially college writing. When you find, for example, that you’ve written a draft that doesn’t address the right audience or that your peer review group doesn’t understand at all, you will be able to adapt. Being flexible enough to adapt to the demands of different writing projects is an important habit of mind.

    WRITING ACTIVITY: Describe a situation in which you’ve had to make changes based on a situation you couldn’t control. Did you do so easily or with difficulty?

    Metacognition (Reflection)

    As a learner, you have probably been asked to think back on a learning experience and comment on what went well or not well, what you learned or what you wished you had learned, or what decisions you made or didn’t make. Writers who reflect on their own processes and decisions are better able to transfer writing skills to future assignments.

    WRITING ACTIVITY: Reflect on your many experiences as a writer. What was your most satisfying experience as a writer?  What made it so?

    Next Up

    Friday marks the first Wordplay Day of the semester. To prepare for class, review the Scrabble Ground Rules posted in Blackboard, as well as the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website. Also review the Scrabble blog entry that I will post tomorrow. Most weeks of the semester, on Thursday or Friday, I will publish a post devoted to Scrabble.

    Posted in English 1103, Teaching, Writing

    ENG 1103: Looking Ahead to Our Second Class

    Posted on by janemlucas

    Before tomorrow’s class, be sure to complete the following tasks.

    • Review yesterday’s blog post as well as the syllabus. If you added the class after our first meeting on Monday, you can download the syllabus from Blackboard. In your journal, jot down any questions you have about the course.
    • Complete the Habits of Mind handout that you began working on in class yesterday. If you added the class after our first meeting on Monday, you can download the Habits of Mind handout from Blackboard. Tomorrow in class you will share your writing with two or three of your classmates, and you will collaborate on a writing assignment that synthesizes some of your individual writing.
    • If you haven’t purchased or rented it already, order the textbook, the paperback edition of Writing Analytically, 9th edition, by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen.

    Also, as soon as possible, create a free WordPress blog at wordpress.com, and email the URL to me so that I can link your blog to the class page.

    Because writing longhand and limiting screen time are essential components of the class, I am including below some notes that illustrate why those practices, which may seem quaint, are vital to our work.

    Writing Longhand

    One practical reason for writing longhand: What we mark through remains on the page. Sometimes what we cross out can be useful later on, elsewhere in our writing. More importantly, research in cognitive neuroscience indicates that writing longhand has these benefits:

    Simply put, writing longhand sharpens our minds in ways that typing doesn’t.

    Limiting Screen Time

    When we use our phones and laptops, it’s difficult for us to give our undivided attention to one endeavor, but often that singular focus is critical.

    When we type on our phones, we often aim to convey as much as we can with as few characters as possible. Texting and emailing–both of which now feature predictive text–do not foster the vital skills of developing our writing and producing original thought.

    Limiting our screen time not only helps us improve our writing skills, it can also benefit our overall well-being.

    The research cited in the links that I’ve included above isn’t definitive, but it makes a strong case for the value of limiting our screen time and putting pen to paper. I encourage you to continue these practices after the semester ends.

    Next Up

    On Wednesday, you and two or three of your classmates will collaborate on an assignment fousing on the Habits of Mind worksheet that you will complete before Wednesday’s class.

    Posted in English 1103, Teaching

    ENG 1103: First-Day Follow-Up

    Posted on by janemlucas

    Am I the person who will teach your English 1103 class? I posed that question this morning at the beginning of class as a starting point for analysis, one of the key features of the course.

    To begin the collaboration and inquiry that will figure prominently this semester, you worked together in groups today to find the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the course. After class, continue to review the syllabus. (An additional copy is posted in Blackboard.) If you have any questions about the assignments, the course policies, or the calendar, please let me know.

    Textbook

    All of you in sections 19 of English 1103 are required to have the paperback edition of the textbook, Writing Analytically, 9th edition, by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen. Bring your copy to class on the days when the title, Writing Analytically, appears in bold on the course calendar. On those days, we will examine portions of the chapters in class and you will address passages in the textbook in your own writing.

    Your first reading assignment in the textbook is scheduled for February 5, which will give you ample time to order and receive your copy before you are required to have it in class.

    Other Required Materials

    • Writer’s notebook/journal, bring to every class. 
    • Loose leaf paper (for drafts and short in-class assignments), bring to every Monday and Wednesday class
    • Pen with dark ink, bring to every class
    • Pocket portfolio (for class handouts), bring to every class

    WordPress Blog

    As practice in developing your web literacy and writing for a broader online audience, you will maintain a free WordPress blog for the class. As soon as possible, create a free blog at wordpress.com. After you create your blog, email the address, or URL, to me, and I will link your blog to our class page, English at High Point. If you encounter technical difficulties creating your blog or publishing a post, email help@wordpress.com or contact the HPU Help Desk: helpdesk@highpoint.edu, 336-841-HELP (3457).

    You will post the revisions of all of your major writing assignments both to your blog and to Blackboard. The posts that you publish for class will be public. You are welcome to create additional posts on your own. If you prefer for some of those posts to be private, keep them in draft form or choose the private visibility option. 

    You may also be asked to post comments to your classmates’ blogs and to mine.

    Next Up

    On Wednesday, you and two or three of your classmates will collaborate on an assignment fousing on the Habits of Mind worksheet that you will complete before Wednesday’s class.

    Posted in English 1103, Teaching

    ENG 1103: End-of-Semester Checklist

    Posted on by janemlucas
    • Remember that your exam period time is posted on the syllabus calendar and in Monday’s blog post. For students in section twenty, that is 8 a.m. on Saturday, December 7; for students in section nineteen, that’s 8 a.m. on Wednesday, December 11.
    • Keep all of your required blog posts for the semester (your final essay and annotated bibliography, analysis, and literacy narrative) published (visible on your blog) until final grades have been posted. Also make sure that you have corrected errors of grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and style, and deleted all placeholders/sample posts. Since blog activity is a component of your course assignments grade, I will review your blogs before I finalize those grades.
    • If you haven’t done so already, submit course evaluations for ENG 1103 and your other classes.

    Today or tomorrow your course assignment grade will be updated to its preliminary final average; exemplary blog activity, class participation, and attendance may raise it. If you wish to check that preliminary grade, please do so before 5 p.m. tomorrow, Thursday, December 5. After that, the Blackboard course site for English 1103, sections nineteen and twenty, will no longer be available to students. Final grades for the course will be posted in eServices on the afternoon of Wednesday, December 11 or on Thursday, December 12.

    If you have any questions regarding your individual presentation grade or your final grade for the course, please email me the second week of January. I will be out of the office from the afternoon of December 11 until the morning of January 6.

    Next Up

    During the exam period, you will deliver your individual presentations and serve as the audience/intern selection committee for your classmates. See your assignment handout and Monday’s blog post for details.

    Posted in English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

    ENG 1103: Literary Letter Play

    Posted on by janemlucas

    This final Scrabble post of the semester features the names of authors and characters that are playable words. Learning these will not only increase your word power (and up your game), it will also broaden your knowledge of literature. If you haven’t read some of classics listed here, I encourage you to check them out.

    • eyre: a long journey (the last name of of the title character in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, 1847)
    • dickens: a devil (Charles Dickens, 1812-1870)
    • fagin: a person, usually an adult, who instructs others, usually children, in crime (from a character of that type in Dickens’ Oliver Twist, 1838)
    • holden: the past participle of hold (Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, 1951)
    • huckleberry: a berry like a blueberry (the first name of the title character in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Hucklebery Finn, 1884)
    • oedipal: describing libidinal feelings of a child toward the parent of the opposite sex (from the title character in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, c. 429 B.C.)
    • quixote: a quixotic, or extremely idealistic person; also quixotry, a quixotic action or thought (the title character in Michael de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Part I: 1605, Part II: 1615)

    Next Up

    Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review the posts on my blog devoted to Scrabble tips, including this one.

    Posted in Check, Please!, English 1103, Teaching

    ENG 1103: Planning and Preparing for Your Presentations, and . . .

    Posted on by janemlucas

    This morning in class, after we discuss the article “The Onion Buys Infowars . . . ,” you will have time to plan and prepare the individual presentation that you will deliver during the exam period: 8 a.m., December 7, section 20, and 8 a.m., December 11, section 19. I will distribute copies of the assignment in class. An additional copy is posted on Blackboard and the directions are also included below.

    As a finalist for a much-sought-after internship in your field, you are required to deliver a concise and engaging presentation that highlights your achievements in English 1103 and demonstrates your ability to effectively assume the responsibilities that the internship requires of you. Among the aspects of the course that you should address are one or more of your major writing assignments and the development of your critical thinking and collaboration skills. You are encouraged but not required to address additional aspects of the course.

    Directions for Planning

    Plan a brief presentation of approximately three minutes that highlights your achievements in English 1103 and demonstrates your ability to effectively assume the responsibilities that the internship in your field requires of you.

    Address one or more of your major writing assignments and the development of your critical thinking and collaboration skills. You are encouraged but not required to address additional aspects of the course.

    Include the following in your presentation:

    • an opening in which you state your first and last names and your major,
    • concrete details in your blog that illustrate the development of your writing, your critical thinking, and your collaboration skills
    • a close examination of one pertinent passage in your blog, and
    • a conclusion that provides closure and invites questions from the interview committee.

    Directions for Rehearsing

    • In preparation for rehearsing, write your notes on index cards. If your notes are in complete sentences, rewrite them to include only words and short phrases for your key points. If your notes are too detailed, you will risk relying heavily on them and making minimal eye contact with the interview committee. Make as much eye contact as possible and be sure to make eye contact with committee members throughout the room rather than fixing your eyes on one or two people.
    • Because you are required to project your blog on the classroom screen, you should familiarize yourself with the presentation station. Demonstrating that you are not adept at using the technology required for your presentation may jeopardize your chances for obtaining the internship. If you have not used the presentation station, I encourage you to devote part of today’s class period to familiarizing yourself with its setup.
    • Practice good posture. As you deliver your presentation, your ears should be directly above your shoulders. If you tend to shift your weight from one foot to the other—a distracting habit that’s sometimes called rocking the boat—stand with your feet perpendicular to each other. If you do, you will not be able to shift your weight from one foot to the other.
    • Avoid filler words, such as um, like, and you know. If you tend to use filler words, practice pausing at the points where you are likely to use fillers.
    • Rehearse with a classmate. Take turns delivering your presentations and offering feedback. Offer both suggestions for improvement and words of encouragement.

    Grade Criteria

    An A final presentation includes all elements outlined in the directions for planning and rehearsing and demonstrates the presenter’s poise and ability to avoid filler words.

    A B final presentation includes all elements outlined in the directions for planning and rehearsing but may be marred by the presenter’s lack of poise and/or lack of ability to avoid filler words.

    A C final presentation includes most but not all elements outlined in the directions for planning and rehearsing and may also be marred by the presenter’s lack of poise and/or lack of ability to avoid filler words.

    A D final presentation includes only some of the elements outlined in the directions for planning and rehearsing and may also be marred by the presenter’s lack of poise and/or lack of ability to avoid filler words.

    An F final presentation includes few if any elements outlined in the directions for planning and rehearsing and may also be marred by the presenter’s lack of poise and/or lack of ability to avoid filler words.

    . . . Satire’s Last Laugh?

    In lesson two of the Check, Please! course, Mike Caulfield introduces the concept of fauxtire: fake news presented in the guise of satire. A timely twist on that concept occurred two weeks ago, when The Onion—not a source of fauxtire but a well-regarded satirical site—purchased* at auction Alex Jones’s bankrupt Infowars, a website that published disinformation, including the false claim that the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which killed twenty children and six adults, was a hoax devised to bring about anti-gun legislation.

    *The purchase has been stayed in bankruptcy court pending a review of the bidding process.

    Next Up

    Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review the posts on my blog devoted to Scrabble tips.

    Posted in English 1103, Reading, Teaching, Writing

    ENG 1103: Writing Your Final Reflection

    Posted on by janemlucas

    Today in class you will compose a final reflective essay that documents your work in the second half of the semester, focusing on what you consider some of your most significant work and the feature or features of the course that have benefited your development as a writer and a student. Since you have already written a reflective essay on your final essay and annotated bibliography, your final reflection should focus on other assignments and features, including two or three of the following:

    • Studying one of the texts we have examined in the second half of the semester, including “The Case for Writing Longhand,” The Competition, “Scrabble is a Lousy Game,” Seedlings, “Skim Reading is the New Normal,” “Strawberry Spring,” or the sample final essay and annotated bibliography (“Scrabble as a Game Changer in the College Classroom”)
    • Writing for an online audience beyond the classroom/creating and maintaining a WordPress blog
    • Delivering your group presentation on one of the lessons in the Check, Please! Course
    • Collaborating with your classmates on in-class writing assignments
    • Playing Scrabble/Collaborating with your teammates on Wordplay Day
    • Writing longhand
    • Limiting screen time
    • Keeping a journal

    Focus on one, two, or three assignments or features of the course.

    Include in your reflective essay the following elements:

    • A title that offers a window into your reflection
    • An opening paragraph that introduces your focus and presents your thesis
    • Body paragraphs that offer concrete details from your work to support your thesis.
    • A relevant quotation from Writing Analytically or a relevant quotation from one of the texts that we have studied in the second half of the semester. Introduce your quotation with a signal phrase and follow it with a parenthetical citation. Refer to your citation handout for models.
    • A conclusion that revisits the thesis without restating it verbatim
    • An MLA-style works cited entry for your source

    Sample MLA Works Cited Entries

    Bahr, Sarah. “The Case for Writing Longhand.” New York Times, Jan 21, 2022. ProQuest, https://libproxy.highpoint.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/case-writing-longhand/docview/2621453011/se-2. 

    Kay, Jonathan. “Scrabble is a Lousy Game.” The Wall Street Journal, 4 Oct. 2018. ProQuest, https://libproxy.highpoint.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com /newspapers/scrabble-is-lousy-game-why-would-anyone-play/docview/2116081665/se-2?accountid=11411.

    King, Stephen. “Strawberry Spring.” Night Shift. 1978. Anchor, 2011. pp. 268-82.

    Lucas, Jane. “Model Sample Final Essay and Annotated Bibliography—Scrabble as a Game Changer in the College Classroom.” Jane Lucas, 19 Nov. 2024, https://janelucas.com/2024/11/19/eng-1103-model-final-essay-and-annotated-bibliography-scrabble-2.

    Richtel, Matt. “Blogs vs. Term Papers.” New York Times, 20 Jan. 2012. ProQuest, https://libproxy.highpoint.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/blogs-podcasts-websites/blogs-vs-term-papers/docview/2216251885/se-2

    Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Arriving at an Interpretive Conclusion: Making Choices.” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp.111-12.

    Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Integrating Quotations into Your Paper.” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 343-46.

    Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “The Idea of the Paragraph.” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 307-313.

    Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Two Methods for Conversing with Sources.” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. p. 325.

    Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Ways to use a Source as a Point of Departure.” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. p. 326.

    Wolf, Maryanne. “Skim Reading is the New Normal. The Effect on Society is Profound.” The Guardian, 25 Aug. 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/018/aug/25/skim-reading-new-normal-maryanne-wolf.

    Next Up

    Thanksgiving!

    Enjoy the holiday. When class resumes on Monday, December 2, we will examine the article that I distributed today and assigned for you to read. If you were absent, download a copy from Blackboard and print it. Also on Monday, you will receive your assignment for your exam-period presentation. Details TBA.

    Posted in English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching

    ENG 1103: The Bard and the Board

    Posted on by janemlucas

    Today’s Scrabble post features Shakespeare characters whose names are also playable common nouns.

    • ariel: a gazelle found in Africa (Ariel, The Tempest, 1611-12)
    • dogberry: the fruit of a dogwood tree (Dogberry, Much Ado about Nothing, 1598-1599)
    • hamlet: a village (the title character of Hamlet, 1600-1601)
    • lear: learning (the title character of King Lear, 1605-1606)
    • puck: a disk used in ice hockey and other games (Puck, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1595-1596)
    • romeo: a seductive lover, a male lover (one of the title characters in Romeo and Juliet, 1594-1595)
    • shylock: to lend money with a high interest rate (Shylock, The Merchant of Venice, 1596-1597)

    Next Up

    Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review the posts on my blog devoted to Scrabble tips, including this one.