ENG 1103: Reflecting on Your Literacy Narrative

Posted on September 13, 2023September 14, 2023 by janemlucas

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.”

Work Cited

Caulfield, Mike. Check, Please! Starter Course, 2021, https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/front-matter/updated-resources-for-2021/.

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.

English 1103, Reading, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: “The Falling Man”

Posted on September 12, 2023October 27, 2023 by janemlucas

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.

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 when you 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:

Go to the HPU Library site.
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.

English 1103, Reading, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: A Bridge to Words

Posted on September 11, 2023September 11, 2023 by janemlucas

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.

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.

English 1103, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Revising Your Literacy Narrative

Posted on September 6, 2023September 6, 2023 by janemlucas

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.

Check, Please!, English 1103, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Completing Your Second “Check, Please!” Assignment

Posted on September 5, 2023September 7, 2023 by janemlucas

https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/
front-matter/updated-resources-for-2021/.

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 quotation mark.
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 if in 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.

English 1103, Reading, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: A Second Look at Sedaris and a First Glimpse of Keller

Posted on September 4, 2023January 15, 2024 by janemlucas

Author David Sedaris in New York on August 3, 2018 / Robert Deutsch USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2018/08/03/david-sedaris-hates-word-awesome-but-loves-sequined-culottes-calypso-bookmark/900667002/

Today in class we will return to David Sedari s‘s essay “Me Talk Pretty One,” and you and three of your classmates will collaborate on an exercise that asks you to examine–and subsequently address in writing–these elements of his literacy narrative:

scene and summary–you will examine how and where Sedaris shifts from one to the other
metaphors and similes
hyperbole
conclusion–specifically how the conclusion conveys the story’s significance without stating explicitly, this experience was significant because. . . .

Each of these elements plays an important role in narrative, none more so than scene, which is vital to a story’s life. Without it, a narrative falls flat. With summary, a writer compresses time to offer an overview of events. Through scene, a writer lets time unfold in front of the readers’ eyes, which is what readers prefer. They are drawn into a narrative when they can see for themselves what is happening.

Helen Keller, https://www.biography.com/activists/helen-keller

Along with continuing our study of Sedaris’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” we will begin to examine “The Day Language Came into My Life,” the first pages of Chapter Four of Helen Keller’s autobiography, The Story of My Life.

Together, these two essays by David Sedaris and Hellen Keller 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.

And by the Way

Last week in class, I mentioned that David Sedaris’s sister Amy is an actress who is perhaps best known for her role as Deb in the movie Elf (2003). Here is a picture of her and her brother:

Humorist David Sedaris with his sister Amy, a writer herself as well as an actress, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/david-sedaris-amy-sedaris-60-minutes-2022-10-30/

Next Up

English 1103, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Beginning Your Literacy Narrative

Posted on August 30, 2023August 30, 2023 by janemlucas

Today is 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 do’s 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 move to bringing your 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
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

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

Friday marks the second Wordplay Day of the semester. To prepare for class, review the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website. Also review the posts on my blog devoted to Scrabble tips.

Check, Please!, English 1103, Reading, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Check, Please! and an Introduction to Literacy Narratives

Posted on August 28, 2023August 31, 2023 by janemlucas

Mike Caulfield, author of Check, Please! and Director of Blended and Networked Learning at Washington State University. https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/
front-matter/updated-resources-for-2021/.

At the beginning of class on Wednesday, August 30, I will collect your worksheets for Lesson One of the Check, Please! starter course. My sample version of the assignment appears below, as well as on your worksheet and on Blackboard.

Sample Check, Please! Assignment

Check, Please! Lesson One Assignment

In the first lesson of the Check, Please! Starter Course, 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.”

One of the most useful practices presented in lesson one is what the author terms the “Wikipedia Trick.” Deleting everything that follows a website’s URL (including the slash), adding a space, typing “Wikipedia,” and hitting “enter” will yield the site’s Wikipedia page. The Wikipedia entry that appears at the top of the screen may indicate the source’s reliability or lack thereof.

The most memorable segment of lesson one is the short, riveting video “The Miseducation of Dylann Roof,” which begins with the narrator asking the question, “How does a child become a killer?” Produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center, it documents how algorithms can lead unskilled web searchers down paths of disinformation. In the worst cases, such as Roof’s, algorithms can lead searchers to the extremist propaganda of radical conspiracy theorists.

Work Cited

Caulfield, Mike. Check, Please! Starter Course, 2021, https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/front-matter/updated-resources-for-2021/.

As a model for your own literacy narrative, today in class will examine “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” originally published in Esquire magazine and later as the title essay in David Sedaris’s 2000 essay collection.

To read more of Sedaris’s essays, see the list of links under the heading Writing and Radio on his website.

Next Up

As you begin work on your own literacy narrative on Wednesday, study Sedaris’s essay as a model, and consider how he uses the following:

Shifts from summary to scene and vice versa
Figurative language
Hyperbole
Vivid detail

Look for opportunities to use those elements in your own essay.

English 1103, Reading, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: First-Day Follow-Up

Posted on August 21, 2023 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—along with analysis—you will work 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, which 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 and 20 of English 1103 are required to have the paperback edition of the textbook, Writing Analytically, 8^th 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 complete some of the exercises related to the reading.

Your first reading assignment in the textbook will be scheduled for mid-September, which will give you ample time to order and receive your copy before you are required to have it in class. (Unlike my copy, pictured at the top of this blog entry, your textbook will not be in a binder.) Your textbook’s cover looks like this:

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.

English 1103, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Composing Your Final Reflection

Posted on April 17, 2023April 14, 2023 by janemlucas

Today in class you will compose a short final reflection essay that documents your work over the course of the semester, focusing on what you consider your most significant work and the feature or features of the course that have benefited your development as a writer and a student. Fetures to consider include the following:

Planning, drafting, and revising your literacy narrative and/or your analysis. You are welcome to address your final essay and annotated bibliography, but since you recently composed a refelection for it, you should address it only briefly in your final refelection.
Keeping a journal
Completing Check, Please! assignments
Delivering your group presentation on one of the Check, Please! lessons
Studying one of the readings examined in class, including “Blogs vs. Term Papers,” “The Case for Writing Longhand,” “Skim Reading is the New Normal,” “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “The Day that Language Came into My Life,” “Back Story” (from The Blind Side), “The Falling Man,” and “Scrabble is a Lousy Game.”
Writing collaboratively with your classmates
Completing follow-up revsving and editing exercises for your collaborative writing
Writing for an online audience/creating and maintaining a WordPress blog, and/or reading and responding to your classmates’ blog posts
Playing Scrabble/collaborating with your teammates on Wordplay Day
Writing longhand
Limiting screen time

You are welcome to focus on more than one feature but no more than four.

Include in your reflective essay the following elements:

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 quotation from Writing Analytically, a quotation from one of the class readings, or a quotation from one of the sources included in your final essay and annotated bibliography. Introduce your quotation with a signal phrase and follow it with a parenthetical citation, if needed.
A conclusion that restates your thesis without restating it verbatim
An MLA-style work 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. 

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.

Kay, Jonathan. Review. “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.

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.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/sites/mlk/files/letterfrombirmingham_wwcw_0.pdf.

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

Richtel, Matt. “Blogs vs. Term Papers,” The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2012, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/muscling-in-on-the-term-paper-tradition.html.

Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Integrating Quotations into Your Paper.” Writing Analytically, 8th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2019. pp. 231-33.

—. “Ways to Use Sources as a Point of Departure.” Writing Analytically, 8th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2019. p. 218.

—. “Writing on Computers vs. Writing on Paper.” Writing Analytically, 8th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2019. pp. 124-25.

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

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

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Wordplay Day! To up your game and increase your word power, review the tips and tools on the Scrabble website as well as my blog posts devoted to the game.