Now that you have revised your literacy narrative, consider submitting it for publication. Although posting a public blog entry is referred to as publishing, it does not have the prestige associated with publishing your work in a peer-reviewed journal.
High Point University no longer publishes its own student journal, but there are many national undergraduate magazines you can submit to, including the one listed on the CUR (Council on Undergraduate Research) website.
If you are interested in looking beyond publications specifically for undergrads, Poets and Writers magazine’s site features a page where you can search for publications by the genre’s they publish (creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry), subgenre (speculative fiction, young adult, etc.) and reading period (the time when the journal accepts submissions).
Next Up
In class on Wednesday you will begin planning and drafting your analysis, which will focus on one of the texts that we have studied in class, including David Sedaris‘s “Me Talk Pretty One,” Helen Keller‘s “The Day Language Came into My Life,” Tom Junod‘s “The Falling Man,” and Michael Lewis‘s “Back Story.” If you have misplaced your copy of any of those or were absent the day that I distributed copies, you can download a copy from Blackboard and print it. Next Monday we will examine an additional text that may serve as the subject of your analysis. If it appeals to your more than the text you write about on Wednesday, you are welcome to change your subject to that latest addition to the readings.
Today’s class will be devoted primarily to reading and responding to the blog post of one of your classmates’ literacy narratives. Elements to consider in your response include these:
the title
vivid details
dialogue, the use of scene and/or summary
After you complete that assignment, you will begin reading the opening pages of “Back Story,” the first chapter of Michael Lewis’s The Blind Side, which dramatizes the moments in the November 1985 Redskins-Giants football game leading up to the injury that ended quarterback Joe Theismann’s career:
“From the snap of the ball to the snap of the first bone is closer to four seconds than to five. One Mississippi: The quarterback of the Washington Redskins, Joe Theismann, turns and hands the ball to running back John Riggins. He watches Riggins run two steps forward, turn, and flip the ball back to him. It’s what most people know as a “flea-flicker,” but the Redskins call it a “throw-back special.” Two Mississippi: Theismann searches for a receiver but instead sees Harry Carson coming straight at him. It’s a running down—the start of the second quarter, first and 10 at midfield, with the score tied 7–7—and the New York Giants’ linebacker has been so completely suckered by the fake that he’s deep in the Redskins’ backfield. Carson thinks he’s come to tackle Riggins but Riggins is long gone, so Carson just keeps running, toward Theismann. Three Mississippi: Carson now sees that Theismann has the ball. Theismann notices Carson coming straight at him, and so he has time to avoid him. He steps up and to the side and Carson flies right on by and out of the play. The play is now 3.5 seconds old. Until this moment it has been defined by what the quarterback can see. Now it–and he–is at the mercy of what he can’t see” (15).
What Theismann cannot see is Lawrence Taylor. A second later, as Taylor sacks Theismann, Taylor’s knee drives straight into Theismann’s lower right leg, leading to the “snap of the first bone” that Lewis mentions in the first sentence. He hooks the reader by linking the beginning of the play, “the snap of the ball” to the gruesome “snap of the first bone” that will follow. Lewis develops the paragraph using the common one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi method of marking seconds to present the events leading up to the compound fracture that ends Theisman’s career.
Lewis doesn’t dramatize the injury itself because his interest lies instead in the blind side that led to it and subsequently elevated the status and salary of the left tackle, the player who protects the quarterback’s blind side.
When you’re struggling to develop a piece of writing, reread the opening paragraph of The Blind Side. Study how Lewis dramatizes 3.5 seconds–yes, only 3.5 seconds–with 224 words.
Next Up
In class on Wednesday you will begin planning and drafting your analysis, which will focus on one of the texts that we have studied in class, including David Sedaris‘s “Me Talk Pretty One,” Helen Keller‘s “The Day Language Came into My Life,” Tom Junod‘s “The Falling Man,” and Michael Lewis‘s “Back Story.” If you have misplaced your copy of any of those or were absent the day that I distributed copies, you can download a copy from Blackboard and print it. Next Monday we will examine an additional text that may serve as the subject of your analysis. If it appeals to your more than the text you write about on Wednesday, you are welcome to change your subject to that latest addition to the readings.
This week’s Scrabble post addresses some recent questions of yours regarding abbreviations and acronoyms and whether they are playable.
When a shortened version of a word comes into common use, it will likely find its way into the Scrabble Dictionary. Keep in mind, however, that an abbreviation you use may not have found its way into the Scrabble dictionary yet, and acronyms, unlike abbreviations, are not playable. Unlike shortened words, acronyms are formed with the initial letters of separate words, for example: NASA for (for National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and IQ (for intelligence quotient.
Here’s a list–by no means a comprensive one–of playable abbreviations:
ab: an abdominal muscle
bi: a bisexual
cig: a cigarette
flu: influenza
hic: used to represent a hiccup
hippo: a hippopotamus
mono: mononucleosis
narc: an undercover drug agent
rec: recreation
ref: a referee
rhino: a rhinoceros
ump: an umpire
za: pizza
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.
This morning in class, after I collect your third Check, Please! assignments, you will compose a short essay in which you reflect on the processes of planning, drafting, and revising your literacy narrative. Questions to consider include the ones below. You don’t need to address all of the questions, focus on the ones whose answers reveal the most about your work.
What aspect of the writing seemed the most challenging? Determining the focus of your narrative? Developing the story? Crafting the conclusion? Why did that aspect of the writing seem the most challenging?
Did you change the subject of your narrative? If so, what was the original subject? What did you change it to? Why?
Did you change the organization of the narrative? For example: Did you initially present the story chronologically, then change it?
Did any of the sample essays we examined (“Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “The Day Language Came into My Life,” “A Bridge to Words”) prove helpful to you as a model? If so, how? (Offer one or more concrete details to support your claim.)
What do you consider the strongest element of your literacy narrative?
At what point in the process did you decide on a title? Did you change the title during the writing process? If so, what was the original title?
What image did you include that documents part of your writing process away from the screen? Why did you choose that particular image?
What relevant website did you link to your blog post. Why is that particular site relevant to your narrative?
In addition to metacognition, did any of the other habits of mind of successful college students play a significant role in your writing process? If so, which one? The other seven are curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, persistence, responsibility, and flexibility.
Students who have their physical copies of Writing analytically have the option of integrating a quotaion from the textbook into their reflection. See the directions and the example below.
Directions
Read the section of Writing Analytically titled “Writing on Computers vs. Writing on Paper.”
Choose a short passage from the section that is relevant to your writing process and include it in your reflection.
Introduce the quotation with a signal phrase and end the sentence with a parenthetical citation. At the end of your reflection, include an MLA-style work cited entry. See the example below.
Example
The authors of Writing Analytically note that beginning a piece of writing on a computer can “lock you into a draft or a particular idea too soon” (Rosenwasser and Stephen 124). Early in the process of writing my literacy narrative, I found myself locked into an idea that I was able to discard only after I resumed writing longhand.
Work Cited
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Writing on Computers vs. Writing on Paper.” Writing Analytically, 8th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2019. pp. 124-25.
Postscript
Here is my version of the Check, Please! lesson three assignment that you submitted at the beginning of class this morning:
Check, Please! Sample Assignment Lesson Three
In the third lesson of the Check, Please! Starter Course, Mike Caulfield, author of the course and research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, continues his instruction on the second step in four-step SIFT approach to determining the reliability of a source. Lesson three, “Further Investigation,” covers these topics: (1) Just add Wikipedia for names and organizations, (2) Google Scholar searches for verifying expertise, (3) Google News searches for information about organizations and individuals, (4) the nature of state media and how to identify it, and (5) the difference between bias and agenda.
One of the most instructive parts of lesson three focuses on two news stories about MH17, Malyasia Airlines Flight 17, a passenger flight scheduled to land in Kuala Lumpur that was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. While the second story, a television news segment, appears to present detailed investigative reporting challenging the conclusion of the Dutch Safety Board and Dutch-led joint investigation team–the conclusion that Russia was to blame–a quick just-add-Wikipedia check reveals that RT (formerly Russia Today) is a Russian state-controlled international TV network, a government propaganda tool rather than a source of fair and balanced news. The first video, the one produced by Business Insider, a financial and business news site, delivers accurate coverage of MH17.
Another notable segment of “Further Investigation” addresses the important distinction between bias and agenda. There, Caulfield observes that “[p]ersonal bias has real impacts. But bias isn’t agenda, and it’s agenda that should be your primary concern for quick checks,” adding that “[b]ias is about how people see things; agenda is about what a news or research organization is set up to do.”
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.
Yesterday in class, in addition to studying my sample literacy narrative “A Bridge to Words,” we examined the opening paragraphs of Tom Junod‘s essay “The Falling Man, published in Esquire magazine two years after 9-11. When you wrote in your journal about the first two paragraphs of Junod’s essay, I asked you to consider these questions:
The long first paragraph of Junod’s essay could be two or more paragraphs. If you were Junod, where might you have divided the paragraph? Why do think he chose not to divide it?
Where does Junod employ similes?
Though “The Falling Man” is not a literacy narrative, it is an excellent example of creative nonfiction. As you continue to revise your literacy narrative, what in Junod’s essay might prove useful to you as a model?
Junod might have started a second paragraph with the words “[i]n all the other pictures,” because there he shifts the focus from the Falling Man to the photographs of other people who jumped from the Twin Towers. An opportunity for a third paragraph comes with the words “[t]he man in the picture, by contrast” where Junod turns his attention back to the Falling Man. And he might have begun a fourth paragraph with “[s]ome people who look at the picture,” because there he shifts to viewers’ perceptions of the Falling Man.
The first paragraph is over four-hundred words long, longer than some of your literacy narratives will be. I advise you to avoid writing paragraphs of that length. Generally, one-hundred to one-hundred-and-fifty words is a suitable length. As a rule, you should begin a new paragraph whenyou present a new idea or point. If you have an extended idea that spans multiple paragraphs, each new point within that idea should have its own paragraph. But the first paragraph of “The Falling Man” is an exception. For Junod, choosing not to divide the first paragraph creates an unbroken movement that parallels the unbroken downward flight of his subject, the Falling Man. Outside of the photograph, “he drops and keeps dropping until he disappears.” With “disappears,” the last word of the paragraph,” the Falling Man disappears from the page, and Tom Junod turns to the photographer, whom we learn later in the essay is Richard Drew.
Junod’s use of figurative include these lines:
“he departs from this earth like an arrow”
“the towers . . .loom like colosssi”
“they look confused, as though trying to swim down the side of a mountain”
“as though he were a missile, a spear”
Unless you subscribe to Esquire, the magazine’s paywall will deny you access to the full text of “The Falling Man”; but if you’re interested in reading it in full, you can access it through the HPU Library site by following these steps:
Under the heading “Search HPU Libraries . . . ,” click on the “Articles” tab.
Under the “Articles” tab, type Tom Junod “Falling Man” Esquire in the search box and click “search.”
On the next screen, you will see a brief summary of the article. Click “Access Online” to view the full article.
Next Up
Wednesday in class you will compose a short essay that reflects on the process of planning, drafting, and revising your literacy narrative. In addition to revisiting your own final narrative and the writing that led up to it, you will address one or more of the essays that you examined as models.
Hilaire Belloc’s “Rebecca,” illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen
As you continue to revise your literacy narrative, look to the one that follows as another model. This narrative, “A Bridge to Words,” is one that I wrote as a sample for my students in 2021.
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. But 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.
On Monday, in preparation for submitting your second Check, Please! worksheet, I reviewed the model lesson one assignment, which is included on your Lesson One worksheet and is also posted on Blackboard. The assignment model that follows is my version of the lesson two assignment, which includes Mike Caulfield’s new credential. As you work on Lesson Three for next week, be sure to include his new credential. Also review the notes in my September 5 blog post.
Check, Please! Lesson Two
In the second lesson of the Check, Please!, Starter Course, Mike Caulfield, author of the course and a research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, focuses on investigating a source, the second step in the SIFT approach, which he introduces in lesson one.
One of the most useful practices presented in lesson two is Caulfield’s follow-up to the Wikipedia strategy, which he outlined in the previous lesson. After he reviews that strategy, Caulfield explains how to use the control-f keyboard shortcut (command-f on a Mac). Typing control-f (or command-f) will open a small textbox in the upper right of the screen. Typing a word you are searching for will highlight the first appearance of the word in the text. Hitting return will highlight each subsequent appearance of the word.
Lesson two introduced me to fauxtire, a term for websites such as World News Daily Report, based in Tel Aviv, that present themselves as satirical but in fact serve primarily to perpetuate disinformation.
Perhaps the most memorable portion of lesson two was 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 first Scrabble blog post of the semester featured the sixteen 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 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 the posts on my blog devoted to Scrabble tips, including this one.
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, September 13 (before class). The hard deadline is 10:30 a.m. on Friday, September 15. 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, September 14.
If you haven’t yet created your blog and sent me the address, please do so ASAP. If you encounter technical issues creating your blog and cannot meet with me for help during office hours, contact WordPress, help@wordpress.com, or the HPU IT Help Desk, helpdesk@highpoint.edu.
As you work on your second Check, Please! assignment, refer to the sample lesson one assignment posted in Blackboard and on my blog. (See the entry published on August 28.) Also review the notes below.
When you first mention the course’s author, Mike Caulfield, include his credential. The fact that he is the author of the course is not a credential. His job title is. Anyone can create a course, but that doesn’t mean that the course has any worth. Including Caulfield’s job title, research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, tells readers that he is an expert in his field. Note that his title has changed since I wrote the sample assignment for lesson one. The credential that you should use is the one included above. In addition to listing Caulfield’s credential, you should mention that he is the author of the course.
On first reference refer to the author by first and last name. In subsequent references, refer to him by last name only.
If you present a list, do not follow a verb with a colon before the list. For example: The four steps in the SIFT approach are (1) “Stop,” (2) “Investigate,” (3) “Find better coverage,” and (4) “Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context.”
If you introduce a list with a statement that ends with a noun, follow the noun with a colon. For example: Mike Caulfield, author of the course and Director of Blended and Networked Learning at Washington State University, 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.”
Note that in the lists above the comma precedes the closing quotationmark.
Also note that the Oxford, or serial, comma–the comma before and–should be used when you are following MLA style guidelines.
The first paragraph of your assignment is a summary, which is an objective, first-person overview written in present tense. Neither first- nor second-person singular or plural (I, me, we, us, you) should appear anywhere in a summary.
The paragraphs that follow your summary are commentary. That is where you should use first person because you presenting your comments on the lesson.
Do not use an ampersand (&) in place of the word and in formal writing.
Use the word ifin reference to a condition. For example: If a source appears unreliable, investigate it.
Use whether in reference to a choice or alternative. For example: Using the SIFT method will enable you to determine whether a source is accurate and reliable.
Use like for comparison. For example: Wikipedia is like Britannica.
Use such as for inclusion. For example: Whenever possible, use publications of record, such The New York Times and The Guardian.
Include a complete MLA-style work cited entry. The heading should be the singular work, not works, because you are citing one source. Do not underline the heading, and be sure to handwrite or type the entry with a hanging indent. Remember that MLA-style works cited entries take the opposite form of paragraphs. The first line of a paragraph is indented five spaces or one-half inch and the lines that follow are flush left. In a works cited entry, the first line is flush left, and the lines that follow are indented five spaces or one-half inch.
Next Up
On Wednesday you will continue to work on your own literacy narratives. At the beginning of class, after I collect your second Check, Please! worksheets, I will return your handwritten drafts. You will have the class period to revise on your laptops and an additional week to continue revising before you post your revision to Blackboard and to your WordPress blog. The due date is Wednesday, September 13; the hard deadline is the morning of Friday, September 15.
Jane Lucas 