This morning in class you will compose a short reflective essay that documents the processes of planning, drafting, and revising your analysis. In your reflection, you will include at least one relevant quotation from one of the sections of Writing Analytically listed below or from another section of the textbook.

Sample Works Cited Entries for Writing Analytically

Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Late-Stage Editing and Revising: Some Tips.” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 151-52.

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. “Putting X in Tension with Y.” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 248-49.

Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “The Thesis and the Writing Process.” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 237-38.

Questions to Consider in Your Reflection

• What aspect of the writing seemed the most challenging? Choosing your topic? Deciding which text would serve as your subject? Determining your thesis? Identifying details to support your claims? Organizing the body of the essay? Composing the conclusion? Why did that aspect of the writing seem the most challenging?
• Did the subject of your analysis change? If so, what was your original subject, and what did you change it to?
• What do you consider the strongest element of your analysis?
• 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 that documents part of your writing process away from the screen did you include in your blog post? Why did you choose that particular image?

Next Up

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

This morning in class you will read the sample student analysis “Wait Means Never” and collaboratively answer the questions that follow.

• Does the writer present a summary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” before he presents his thesis?
• The authors of Writing Analytically note that “a productive thesis statement usually contains tension, the balance of this against that” (Rosenwasser and Stephen 248). Reread the thesis and note whether it includes any instances of “this against that.”
• What specific example stands as the writer’s most effective support for his thesis
• Effective strategies for concluding analyses include (1) offering an insight about the text or an additional quotation from it, (2) revisiting the thesis without stating it verbatim, and (3) pointing to the broader implications of the analysis. Does the writer employ any of those strategies? If so, which one or ones?

After you answer the questions above, review the grade criteria on your analysis assignment handout, and assign a grade. If you cannot reach a consensus, write each recommended grade.

---

Next Up

In class on Wednesday, you will compose a reflective essay on your analysis.

Last week I published a blog post that listed the first twenty-two playable four-letter words with three vowels. Knowing those words, and others with multiple vowels, proves useful when you’re faced with a rack of mostly, or all, vowels. Here’s a list of the remaining fourteen playable four-letter words with three vowels:

• naoi: ancient temples (pl. of naos)
• obia: form of sorcery practiced in the Caribbean (also obeah)
• odea: concert halls (pl. of odeum)
• ogee: an S-shaped molding
• ohia: a Polynesian tree with bright flowers (also lehua)
• olea: corrosive solutions (pl. of oleum)
• olio: a miscellaneous collection
• ouzo: a Turkish anise-flavored liquor
• raia: a non-Muslim Turk (also rayah)
• roue: a lecherous old man
• toea: a currency in Papua, New Guinea
• unai: a two-toed sloth (pl. unai; an ai is a three-toed sloth)
• zoea: the larvae of some crustaceans

---

Next Up

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

What makes for an effective title? That’s an important question to consider since the title contains the first words of yours that a reader will encounter. First, it should be descriptive; it should evoke an image in the reader’s mind. It should also be relevant to your subject; it should convey something about the writing to follow. Lastly, it should be intriguing; it should create in the reader a desire to keep reading. With those traits in mind, review the titles of your classmates’ midterm reflections listed below. Which of these is most effective and why?

• “Aspects Leading to Success”
• “The Awakening of My Inner Writer”
• “Becoming a Better Writer
• “Becoming a Stronger Writer”
• “Controlled Writing”
• “Developing as a Writer”
• “Developing Skills”
• “The First Half”
• “Growth as a Writer”
• “Growth in Analyzing”
• “Growth-Mindedness”
• “Highlights of Working with Others”
• “How a Board Game Changed My Writing”
• “How I have Grown”
• “Impact of a Class”
• “Impact of Collaboration”
• “Improvements in My Writing”
• “The Key to Writing”
• “My Personal Development”
• “My Road to Success”
• “Professionalism”
• “A Semester of Improvement”
• “Seven Tiles but a Lifetime of Knowledge”
• “The Start of a New Beginning”
• “Think before You Write”
• “Thinking beyond What I Knew”
• “Transition to College”
• “Unforeseen Clarity”
• “Ways of Learning”

Bonus-Point Opportunity

Directions:

1. Determine which of your classmates’ titles you deem most effective.
2. Compose a comment that includes the title enclosed in quotation marks and a brief explanation of its effectiveness.
3. Post your comment as a reply to this blog entry no later than 4 p.m. today, Thursday, October 3.  (To post your comment, click on the post’s title, and scroll down to the bottom of the page. You will then see the image of an airmail envelope with a leave comment option.) 

I will approve your responses (make your comments visible) after the 4 p.m. deadline on October 3. Commenters will receive five bonus points for their October 4 Scrabble assignment.

---

Postscript

Congratulations to Ryan Kelley and Annalise Lindsay (section 19) whose titles were chosen as the most effective. Nicole Edelman (section 19) chose Ryan’s title “Impact of a Class,” and Cristique Duvall (section 20) chose Annalise’s title “Seven Tiles but a Lifetime of Knowledge.” Nicole and Cristique will each receive five bonus points for their October 4 Scrabble assignment/score sheet.

Next Up

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

This morning, I will return your drafts with my notes, and you will have the remainder of the class period to begin revising your analyses on your laptops. Because next week is fall break, you will have two additional weeks to continue your revision work before you submit the assignment to Blackboard and publish it as a WordPress blog entry. The due date is Wednesday, October 16 (before class). The hard deadline is Friday, October 18 (before class). Directions for submitting your analysis are included on your assignment sheet and on the Blackboard submission site.

As you continue to revise your analysis, 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 analysis, consult with a Writing Center tutor no later than Thursday, October 17.

Nearly all of you in section nineteen consulted a Writing Center tutor as you worked on your literacy narrative, while less than half of you in section twenty did so:

• Section 19: 18 of 20 students, 90%
• Section 20: 7 of 19 students, 36.8%

Please encourage your classmates to take advantage of the opportunity to have an additional reader for your analysis-in-progress–and earn five bonus points to boot.

---

Next Up

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

This morning in class you will plan and compose a midterm reflective essay that documents your work in the first half of the semester, focusing on two or three assignments or aspects of the course that have contributed to your development as a writer and a student. Since you have already written a reflection devoted solely to your literacy narrative, your midterm reflection should focus primarily on other assignments or aspects of the course, including the following:

• Keeping a journal
• Completing Check, Please! assignments
• Studying one of the readings examined class, including “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “The Day that Language Came into My Life,” “The Power of the Pun,” “Back Story” (from The Blind Side), “The Falling Man,” “The School,” or the sample literacy narrative (“A Bridge to Words”)
• Reading and editing samples of student writing
• Writing for an online audience beyond the classroom/creating and maintaining a WordPress blog
• Collaborating with your classmates on in-class writing assignments
• Playing Scrabble/Collaborating with your teammates on Wordplay Day
• Writing longhand
• Limiting screen time

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 conclusion that revisits the thesis without restating it verbatim

Optional: A quotation from one the readings, introduced with a signal phrase and followed by a parenthetical citation. See the citation handout for models.

Sample MLA Works Cited Entries

Bartheleme, Donald. “The School.” The Best American Short Stories 1975, edited by Martha Foley, Houghton Mifflin, 1975. pp.8-11.

Clark, Roy Peter. “The Power of Pun, from Shakespeare to Cronkite to Roy Peter Clark.” The Neiman Storyboard, 23 Apr. 20204. https://niemanstoryboard.org/stories/writing-language-linquistics-puns-walter-cronkite/.

Junod, Tom. “The Falling Man.” Esquire, vol. 140, no. 3, Sept. 2003, pp. 176+. Gale Academic OneFile Select, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A106423422/EAIM?u=hpu_main&sid=bookmark-EAIM&xid=ce48797f.

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

Lewis, Michael. Chapter One: “Back Story.” The Blind Side. 2006. Norton, 2009. pp.15-16.

Lucas, Jane. “A Bridge to Words.” Jane Lucas, 9 Sept. 2024, https://janelucas.com/2024/09/09/eng-1103-model-literacy-narrative-a-bridge-to-words-2/.

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

Grade Criteria

GRADE CRITERIA

An A midterm reflection complies with all assignment guidelines, demonstrates a depth of understanding by using relevant and accurate detail, and is also well organized and relatively free of surface errors.

A B midterm reflection complies with all assignment guidelines and presents an adequate reflection that is well organized and relatively free of surface errors.

A C midterm reflection complies with most but not all assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by issues of organization and/or surface errors.

A D midterm reflection complies with only a few of the assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by issues of organization and/or surface errors.

An F midterm reflection 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, I will return the drafts of your analyses with my notes, and you will have the class period to devote to your revisions. The due date for your final revision is Wednesday, October 16 (before class). The hard deadline is Friday, October 18 (before class).

This morning in class, after I collect your fifth Check, Please! worksheets, you will begin planning and drafting your analysis. You will receive a hard copy of the assignment in class, and I am including an additional copy below.

Directions for Planning and Drafting

• Review the texts that you have read for class, and determine which one appeals to you most as a subject of analysis.
• Identify two or more elements that contribute to its effectiveness.
• Develop your analysis through a close examination of those elements.
• Write in dark ink, preferably black. You are welcome to use both sides of the page.
• Before you leave class today, staple this handout on top of your draft and submit it to me. Next week I will return your draft with notes, and you will have the class period to begin revising and editing on your laptop or tablet.

Directions for Revising

The revision of your analysis should include the following:

• A title that offers a window into your analysis
• An introduction that includes a summary of the essay, essay excerpt, chapter, or story
• A thesis statement, or main claim, that presents your take on the essay, essay excerpt, or chapter based on your close study of it
• Textual evidence that supports your claims
• A minimum of one relevant quotation from the text, introduced with a signal phrase and followed by a parenthetical citation
• A conclusion that revisits the thesis without restating it verbatim
• A work cited entry 
• A minimum of 600 words

Sample Works Cited Entries

Barthelme, Donald. “The School.” The Best American Short Stories 1975, edited by Martha Foley, Houghton Mifflin, 1975. pp.8-11.

Clark, Roy Peter. “The Power of Pun, from Shakespeare to Cronkite to Roy Peter Clark.” The Neiman Storyboard, 23 Apr. 20204. https://niemanstoryboard.org/stories/writing-language-linquistics-puns-walter-cronkite/.

Junod, Tom. “The Falling Man.” Esquire, vol. 140, no. 3, Sept. 2003, pp. 176+. Gale Academic OneFile Select, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A106423422/EAIM?u=hpu_main&sid=bookmark-EAIM&xid=ce48797f.

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

Lewis, Michael. Chapter One: “Back Story.” The Blind Side. 2006. Norton, 2009, pp. 15-23.

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

Think of your preliminary draft as your down draft; your aim in the early stage of the process is to get your ideas down on the page. You may need the process of drafting to discover what you think the essay, essay excerpt, or chapter means and how it makes its meaning.

Directions for Formatting and Posting Your Revision—See the Course Calendar for the Due Date and Hard Deadline

1. Save your revised essay as a Microsoft Word file or PDF and submit it to Blackboard in compliance with MLA manuscript guidelines.
2. Publish your revision as a blog post. In your post, omit the first-page information included in your file submitted to Blackboard (your name, course, section, instructor’s name, and date). Add to your blog post an image that documents some part of your writing process away from the screen, such as a photo of your reading notes or a page of your draft. Also add to your blog post an embedded link to a relevant website.

Grade Criteria

An A analysis complies with all assignment guidelines, demonstrates a depth of understanding by using relevant and accurate detail, and is also well organized and relatively free of surface errors.

A B analysis complies with all assignment guidelines and presents an adequate analysis but examines little more than what was addressed in class. A B analysis is also well organized and relatively free of surface errors.

A C analysis complies with most but not all assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by issues of organization and/or surface errors, or more consequential factual errors.

A D analysis complies with only a few of the assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by issues of organization and/or surface errors, or more consequential factual errors.

An F analysis fails to comply with most or all assignment guidelines and may also be flawed by substantial issues of organization and/or surface errors, or more consequential factual errors.

MLA Style

Look to my sample assignments on Blackboard as models of MLA style. For more information on MLA style, see the MLA Style Center and OWL sites linked to my blog.

---

Next Up

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

In the final revision of your analysis, you will include a minimum of one quotation, introduced by a signal phrase and followed by a parenthetical citation. The rough draft that you will begin in class tomorrow does not need to include a quotation because you may still be focused on determining which of the texts will serve as your subject. However, as your analysis progresses, you should be sure to review the citation notes in this blog post (and on the handout you will receive in class tomorrow) to ensure that you are citing the text correctly.

Parenthetical Citations

In your analysis, you will include parenthetical citations for quotations and paraphrases. Since you are writing a textual analysis, I recommend quoting rather than paraphrasing because the writer’s particular word choices are vital to the text’s overall effect. If your subject is one of the unpaginated texts (“The Day Language Came into My Life,” “The Power of the Pun,” or “The Falling Man”), your parenthetical citations will include the abbreviation par. for paragraph, followed by the paragraph number. If your subject is one of the paginated texts (“Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “Back Story,” or “The School”), your parenthetical citations will include the page number by itself.

Including the author’s last name as well would be redundant because you have established in your introduction that your essay focuses solely on a work by him or her. When you write a paper in which you cite multiple sources, you will need to include the author’s last name in the parenthetical citation to clarify which of your sources you are citing.

Here are some examples of how to use parenthetical citations in your analysis:

For “Me Talk Pretty One Day”:

• The nonsense words “meimslsxp” and “lgpdmurct” underscore his utter lack of comprehension in French class (167).

For “The Day Language Came into My Life”:

• The line “‘like Aaron’s rod, with flowers’” alludes to Numbers 17.8 (par. 9).

For “The Power of the Pun, from Shakespeare to Walter Cronkrite to Roy Peter Clark”:

• He observes that in Act I, Scene IV of Hamlet, “Four words collide with multiple meanings: memory, seat, distracted, globe” (par. 10).

For the excerpt from “The Falling Man”:

• He notes that in contrast to the Falling Man, the others who jumped appeared “confused, as though trying to swim down the side of a mountain” (par. 1).

For “Back Story” (the first chapter of The Blind Side):

• He employs the “One Mississippi . . . Two Mississippi . . .” count to mark the seconds leading up to Joe Theismann’s career-ending injury (15).

For “The School”:

• With the words, “[I]s death that which gives meaning to life?,” the story shifts from realism to surrealism (10).

Work Cited Entries

At the end of your analysis, you will include an MLA-style work cited entry. Refer to the models below.

Barthelme, Donald. “The School.” The Best American Short Stories 1975, edited by Martha Foley, Houghton Mifflin, 1975. pp. 8-11.

Clark, Roy Peter. “The Power of Pun, from Shakespeare to Cronkite to Roy Peter Clark.” The Neiman Storyboard, 23 Apr. 20204. https://niemanstoryboard.org/stories/writing-language-linquistics-puns-walter-cronkite/.

Junod, Tom. “The Falling Man.” Esquire, vol. 140, no. 3, Sept. 2003, pp. 176+. Gale Academic OneFile Select, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A106423422/EAIM?u=hpu_main&sid=bookmark-EAIM&xid=ce48797f.

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

Lewis, Michael. Chapter One: “Back Story.” The Blind Side. 2006. Norton, 2009, pp. 15-23.

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

---

Next Up

In class on Wednesday you will begin planning and drafting your analysis of one of the texts we have studied in class: “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “The Day Language Came into My Life,” “The Power of Pun . . . ,” the excerpt from “The Falling Man,” “Back Story” (Chapter One of The Blind Side), or “The School.” If you were not in class on the day that I distributed copies of one of the texts or you misplaced your copy, you can download and print the text file posted in the readings folder on Blackboard.

Looking Ahead

A week from tomorrow, October 2, I will return your analysis drafts with my comments, and you will have the remainder of the class period to begin revising on your laptops. Because fall break is the week of October 7, you will have an additional week to continue revising before your revision is due on Blackboard and on your WordPress blog. The due date is Wednesday, October 16 (before class). The hard deadline is Friday, October 18 (before class).