This morning at the beginning of class, we will examine the literacy narrative that you read for today, “The Day Language Came into My Life,” which is the fourth chapter of Helen Keller’s autobiography, The Story of My Life.
Together, Sedaris‘s essay and Keller’s chapter demonstrate two vastly different ways to present a literacy narrative. “Me Talk Pretty One Day” offers a quirky look at the challenges of learning French from a sarcastic, soul-crushing instructor. Keller’s story poignantly recounts learning to make meaning of the world through sign language.
After we discuss Keller’s chapter, you will begin planning and drafting your first essay assignment, a literacy narrative: an account of a learning experience involving reading, writing, or learning to speak a language.
Directions
Begin by asking yourself this question: What were some of my most formative experiences as a reader, a writer, or a language learner? Freewrite on those, then choose one to bring to life. Your aim is to recreate your experience on the page and reflect on its significance. Your focus may be any one of the following:
A memory of a reading or writing assignment that you recall vividly
Someone who helped you learn to read or write
A writing-related school event that you found humorous or embarrassing
A particular type of writing that you found (or still find) challenging
A memento that represents an important moment in your development as a reader or writer
Learning a second language
Your literacy narrative should be a well-told story that includes these elements:
Vivid detail
Some indication of the narrative’s significance
A minimum of 600 words
A title that offers a window into your essay (It should not be titled “Literacy Narrative.”)
Detailed instructions are included in the assignment handout that you will receive in class today. An additional copy is posted on Blackboard in the Major Paper Assignments folder.
Yesterday in class, you wrote about David Sedaris‘s use of similes, metaphors, and hyperboles. The list that follows illustrates the wide variety of figurative language that you identified in “Me Talk Pretty One Day.”
David Sedaris employs a simile when he describes himself as “not unlike Pa Kettle trapped backstage at a fashion show” (167).
Sedaris fashions a metaphor with the words “everybody into the language pool, sink or swim” (167).
The essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day” features the metaphorical hyperbole “front teeth the size of tombstones” (Sedaris 168).
David Sedaris uses a simile when he writes that one classmate’s introduction sounds “like a translation of one of those Playmate of the Month data sheets” (168).
The author of “Me Talk Pretty One Day” turns to hyperbole when he writes, “The teacher killed some time accusing the Yugoslavian girl of masterminding a program of genocide” (Sedaris 169), and again when he notes that he and his classmates “learned to dodge chalk” (170).
Similarly, Sedaris uses hyperbole to emphasize his teacher’s reaction, which “led [him] to believe that these mistakes were capital crimes in the country of France” (170).
David Sedaris fashions a metaphor when he describes his dread, writing, “My fear and discomfort crept beyond the borders of the classroom and accompanied me out onto the wide Boulevard” (171).
Sedaris’ teacher insults him with a simile when she remarks, “‘Everyday spent with you is like having a cesarean section'” (172).
The bulleted sentences above follow the format that you should follow in your group exercises and other writing assignments that require quotations. These are the specific guidelines to remember:
The answer should be a minimum of one sentence. It need not be a long sentence, but it should include concrete detail.
The sentence should not begin with a quotation. Though journalists, fiction writers, and memoirists sometimes begin sentences with quotations, in academic writing, quotations are introduced with signal phrases.
Do not foreground the paragraph or page number in a sentence. The most important feature of the sentence is the writer’s particular use of words. The page or paragraph number follows in the parenthetical citation.
Dead Metaphors
Some of you identified “killed some time” (169) as a metaphor, but it’s actually a dead metaphor, one so familiar that it’s lost its meaning. Killing time and running for office have become synonymous with the actions they once compared. A dead metaphor is not the same as one that has become a cliché: a predictable or overly familiar expression. Avoid clichés like the plague, which I just failed to do for the sake of illustration. (Avoid . . . like the plague is textbook cliché.)
Memorable Words
One group cited the use of nonsense words, such as “meimslsxp” (167), as an effective way to convey Sedaris’s utter lack of understanding of his French teacher’s speech.
Another noted the fitting choice of “intoxicating” (173) to describe the feeling Sedaris experienced when he finally began to understand French.
Work Cited
Sedaris, David. “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Me Talk Pretty One Day. Little Brown, 2000. pp. 166-73.
“What’s in a Name” Follow-Up
Friday’s blog entry offered a bonus assignment credit to any student who posted a response identifying the classmates whose names are also common nouns, which makes them playable Scrabble words.
The playable names of your classmates appear below in bold, followed by the definitions in parentheses.
Nick (to make a shallow cut) Beeker
Aidan Berlin (a type of carriage)
Jermaine Cain (a tax paid in produce or livestock, also kain)
Zach Dick (a detective)
Tommy (a loaf of bread) McHugh
Davis Smith (a worker in metals)
Dylan Virga (wisps of precipitation evaporating before reaching ground)
Sierra (a mountain range) Welch (to fail to pay a debt, also welsh)
Kudos to Nick Beeker, Aidan Berlin, Jermain Cain, Nicole Marin, Sophia Marin, and Sierra Welch for identifying your classmates’ names that are playable words. For their efforts, they will receive a bonus assignment credit in the short assignments and participation category
I will offer additional bonus assignments, so be on the lookout for those. Reading all the notes that I post for you here, on my blog, will ensure that you don’t miss those opportunities.
Congratulations to Aidan Berlin for winning a copy of The Santaland Diaries in yesterday’s raffle.
Next Up
In class tomorrow, you will begin drafting your first major writing assignment longhand. The assignment, a literacy narrative, is an account of a learning experience involving reading, writing, or learning to speak a language. As part of your prewriting process, look back at “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and consider how you might incorporate into your own essay some of the same elements that David Sedaris includes in his. Repeat the process with Helen Keller’s “The Day Language Came into My Life.”
This morning in class, after your Scrabble debriefing, we will examine David Sedaris‘s essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” and you and two or 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:
Metaphors and similes
Hyperbole
Your group will also identify a word or phrase that appeals to you, or that seems particularly effective—one that is not an example of a metaphor, a simile, or a hyperbolic statement—and compose a sentence that includes the word or phrase and your observations about it.
Metaphors and similes make writing more vivid and can deepen a reader’s understanding of and connection to a piece of writing. In Imaginative Writing, novelist Janet Burroway observes, “Both metaphor and simile compare things that are both alike and different, and it is the tension between this likeness and difference that their literary power lies” (25).
Hyperbolic statements, along with metaphors and similes, are common in Sedaris’s humor, which has garnered him considerable commercial and critical success. Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000) was awarded the Thurber Prize for American Humor. In 2019, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2021, the New York Public Library voted Me Talk Pretty One Day one of the 125 most important books of the last 125 years.
Sedaris rose to prominence in 1992 after National Public Radio broadcast his essay “Santaland Diaries,” which chronicles his stint as an elf at Macy’s flagship store in New York. That essay is included in his collection Holidays on Ice (1997). You will have the opportunity to win a copy of that book in today’s class raffle.
Work Cited
Burroway, Janet. Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft. Pearson, 2014.
Scrabble Debriefings
Starting today, at the beginning of class on Mondays, I will return your Scrabble score sheets from Friday, and you and your group members will participate in a Scrabble debriefing in which you will (1) review and discuss your game, and (2) individually compose journal entries on the game. Questions to address include, but are not limited to, the ones on the handout that I will distribute this morning in class. Those questions for consideration are also listed below.
Did you learn any new words from your teammate or from your opponents? If so, what were they? If you did not look up their meanings after class and record them in your journal, look them up and record their meanings now.
What plays involved analyzing multiple options? Did your team opt not to make the highest-scoring play possible in order to either (1) block your opponent, or (2) keep letters that might enable you to score more points later?
Where did creative problem-solving figure in the game? If your team had a rack of all consonants or vowels–or mostly consonants or vowels–how were you able to advance the game by playing only one or two letters?
What was the largest number of words formed in a single play and what were they?
Scrabble, like writing, is a process of composing, only the board game involves composing smaller units, words rather than sentences and paragraphs. What parallels, if any, can you draw between your Scrabble play and your writing process?
You will have the opportunity to draw on the journal entries that you write during debriefings when you compose your midterm and final reflections for the course. If you choose Scrabble as the focus of your final essay and annotated bibliography, you may incorporate portions of your Scrabble debriefings into that assignment as well.
Next Up
In class on Wednesday, you will begin drafting your first major writing assignment longhand. The assignment, a literacy narrative, is an account of a learning experience involving reading, writing, or learning to speak a language. As part of your prewriting process, look back at “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and consider how you might incorporate into your own essay some of the same elements that David Sedaris includes in his. Repeat the process with Helen Keller’s “The Day Language Came into My Life.”
(L-R): Izzie McLawhorn, Madison Davis, Zach Dick, Dylan Virga
To help us put names with faces, I have included in this post pictures of all of you in sections 08 and 18 with picture captions that list your names. I encourage you to review this page frequently. In between the pictures, I have included lists 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
Ally: an advocate
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
L-R: Sierra Welch, Avery Clark, Sofia Marin, Nicole Marin
Calla: a tropical plant
Cam: a rotating or sliding piece of machinery
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
Dick: a detective
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
Florence: a former European gold coin
Franklin: a nonnoble medieval English landowner
Fritz: a nonworking or semi-functioning state
Gi: a white garment worn in martial arts
Gilbert: a unit of magneto-motive force
Gilly: to transport on a type of train car
Gloria: a halo
Graham: whole-wheat flour
Hank: to secure a sail
Haven: a shelter
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)
(L-R): Davis Smith, Travis Pecararo, Ewan Paterson, Nick Beeker (Elise Claire Palmisano and Jermaine Cain are in the background)
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
Maria: a large plane on the surface of the moon that appears dark
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
(L-R): Elise Claire Palmisano, Jermaine Cain, Aidan Berlin, Andrew Hamel (Ewan Paterson and Nick Beeker are in the background). Not Pictured: Marcus Gerhardt, Tommy McHugh
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
Noel: a Christmas carol
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
Ruth: compassion
Sal: salt
Sally: to make a brief trip or a sudden start
Saul: a soul
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
Veronica: a handkerchief with the depiction of Christ’s face (after the Biblical woman who offered Jesus a handkerchief to wipe his face as he carried his cross)
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 Assignment Opportunity!
Students who correctly respond to the playable first names and last names question below will earn a bonus assignment credit, which means they will have an extra assignment in the short assignments category. Completing a bonus assignment such as this one will offset a low class exercise or pop quiz grade.
Which students in English 1103.08 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 as well–and in fact, there are more playable last names in your class than there are first names
Directions for Finding and Submitting Your Answer
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 and Merriam Webster’s Scrabble Dictionary site.
Compose a response of one or more complete sentences that includes the first and last name of each student with a playable name. Indicate which name, first or last, is playable.
Post your comment as a reply to this blog post by 9:00 a.m. on Monday, January 12.
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 12.
Next Up
For class on Monday, you will read David Sedaris‘s essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” which is posted in the readings folder on Blackboard. You do not need to print a copy. I will distribute copies in class. We will examine Sedaris’ essay as a model for your own literacy narrative, which you will begin drafting in class on Wednesday.
Every Friday is WordPlay Day, which means that the class period will be devoted to Scrabble games in which you and one of your classmates will play as a team against two other classmates. Before the beginning of class each Friday, volunteers will draw four names at a time at random to form five groups of four and write the group members’ first and last names on the white board. If you arrive early to class, please volunteer to help with the name-drawing or name-writing (on the whiteboard) process.
If you haven’t played Scrabble before, this short video tutorial will provide you with a helpful overview of the game. Also, I will be offering a brief introduction to the game myself at the beginning of class and will be available to answer your questions, except these: (1) Is this a word? and (2) Is this a playable word? For the answers to those questions, you must rely on your own knowledge and that of your teammate.
You may think of Scrabble solely as a game that increases players’ word power, but it also fosters creative problem-solving skills and foresight. And for those who play in teams, as you will in English 1103, it offers exercises in collaboration. Through my own research on the game, I have learned that college faculty in a variety of disciplines incorporate Scrabble into their classes, including an English professor at California State University-Monterey Bay, a professor of Christian education at MidAmerica Nazarene University, and a professor of engineering at Tomsk Polytechnic University in Russia.
Each week I will publish a blog entry devoted to tips for improving your game. This week’s post focuses on parallel play and two-letter words beginning with a.
Parallel Play and Two-Letter Words Beginning with “A”
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 at the top of this post, 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)
Recording Scores
The image of the hypothetical game below includes seven words that were spelled in the players’ first two turns. Examine the scoresheet beside it and note how the scores are recorded.
Because both teams played multiple words in their second turn, those words are recorded in the same space. Each cell is for a single turn, not a single word. The second line in each score column is for the score of the second play. The line that follows the plus-sign line is for the total. Maintaining a running tally enables all the players to see the current scores at a glance.
For the task of completing the scoresheet, select the team member with the best penmanship. Make sure that the writer you appoint records the first and last names of each group member, the section number, and the date. After a blank tile is played, the writer should write the designated letter in the box provided (see the two boxes near the top of the sheet). Remember that the designated letter for a blank cannot change once the letter has been played and recorded on the score sheet.
Important Note about Challenges
If you think that the opposing team has played a word that isn’t permissible, 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 playable, 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.
The Scrabble socks pictured above were a Christmas gift that I will wear for the first time tomorrow. To commemorate our Wordplay Days, I will sport these socks each Friday.
This morning in class, I will return your reflections-in-progress, and you and three of your classmates will compose two paragraphs that incorporate some of the details from your individual reflections. Afterward, we will review the syllabus exercise that you completed on Monday.
Directions
Discuss your writing with your group members, and collaboratively plan and compose two paragraphs that address your various experiences with your most recent literature and composition courses.
In the first paragraph, provide a summary of your experiences. Your first sentence might begin something like this: Our recent English courses include Advanced Placement Language and Composition, AP Literature and Composition, and courses focusing on American literature and journalism. The sentences that follow should include more specific details, such as some of the works that you studied, identified by title and/or author, and one or more of the major assignments. Keep in mind that your first paragraph is a summary, which by definition is objective. Do not comment on the courses; simply provide an overview of them.
In the second paragraph, offer commentary on the courses. (Here is where your personal observations enter the writing.) Since you will not be able to address everyone’s take on all of the courses, you’ll need to be selective. One way to organize the paragraph is to focus on some of the differences among your group members’ experiences; focusing on similarities is another option. Yet another option is this: focusing on how the courses contributed to your group members’ development as writers, as analytical readers, as both, or as neither.
After the note taker has recorded your paragraphs, allow time for each group member to review them and offer recommendations for revisions. Discuss any suggestions for changes and edit as needed.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, visit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review tomorrow’s post on my blog devoted to Scrabble tips. If you have never played Scrabble before, be sure to watch this short video on how to play Scrabble.
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.
Also, if you added the class after our first meeting on Monday, begin composing a reflective essay focusing on your most recent experiences in literature and/or composition courses. Begin your essay with a one-paragraph summary. Keep in mind that summaries are by nature objective. Do not comment on the courses, simply offer an overview of them.
Follow those paragraphs with your observations on the courses. (Here is where your personal observations enter the writing.) Points to address include the following:
Were the courses similar to or different from your previous English classes? How?
Did the courses contribute to your development as a writer, an analytical reader, both, or neither?
How did those courses shape your attitude towards writing and/or reading?
How do you anticipate that English 1103 may be similar to or different from those courses?
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. Bring your journal to class along with your other required materials, which are listed in the syllabus and pictured in yesterday’s post.
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:
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, I will return the reflective writing that you began on Monday, and you and three of your classmates will draw on your individual pieces of writing to create a collaborative text.
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 our critical thinking, one of the key features of the class and of your other college courses.
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 section 8 of English 1103 are required to purchase or rent 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–one you will complete in class–is scheduled for January 28, 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 Monday and Wednesday 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 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 will continue to compose the introductory reflective essay that you began in class today.
(L-R) Madison Kline, ENG 1103.19 Fall 2024, Kaitlyn Ngo, and Olivia Quinones with their poster display for their research project “Environmental Effects on Wing Shape in the Painted Lady Butterfly, Vanessa Cardui.”
As you leave our English 1103 class for the last time, aim to continue the practices you have cultivated this semester, including blogging. Although you may prefer to delete your major writing assignments from your blog, I encourage you to maintain your WordPress site. Tailoring it to showcase your writing and other projects in your major—and posting your resume on it too—will serve you well when you apply for internships and jobs. In your application cover letters, you can direct employers to your blog by writing, To learn more about my work, please visit my website: [yourblogname.wordpress.com].
Molly McCarver, ENG 1103.19 Fall 2023, with her poster display for her research project “The Prevalence of Physical Problems and Overuse Injury Symptoms in Adolescent Athletes.”
For many of you, composing longhand isn’t preferable to typing—and often it isn’t for me either—but I recommend putting pen to paper at least occasionally, especially when you find yourself struggling to move forward with a piece of writing. The words you are now reading—and those in the other posts I composed this semester—all began as scribbles on paper. Also, remember that putting pen to paper offers us an opportunity to turn away from our screens, a practice that not only benefits our writing but also our overall well-being.
Madison Kline, ENG 1103.19 Fall 2024, (center) and her collaborators (right) discuss their project with a poster session attendee (left).
Envision how the papers you wrote for English 1103 and your other classes may evolve into larger projects for upper-level courses or conference presentations. Look back at those assignments and ask yourself the same questions that you addressed in your final essay for English 1103: What larger project might develop from it? What would serve as its theoretical framework?
Molly McCarver, ENG 1103.19 Fall 2023, discusses her project with a poster session attendee (left).
The photographs included in this post feature former students of mine who produced projects chosen for High-PURCS (High Point University Research and Creativity Symposium) 2025. Please attend the 2026 conference in April at the Qubein Center. Attending will show your support for your fellow students’ hard work—and it may also inspire ideas for projects of your own.
Superlatives
Congratulations to the students who have earned the highest preliminary averages and to those who achieved perfect attendance.
Section 8: Chloe Freeman, Raven Houston, Ethan Howard
Section 18: Jorja Mangeot
Parting Thoughts
The essayist Susan Sontag advised writers to “[l]ove words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.” As you commence life after English 1103, keep those words in mind.
Section 8 (10:40): Remember that your exam period begins at 8 a.m. on Saturday, December 6.
Section 18 (9:15): Remember that your exam period begins at 8 a.m. on Wednesday, December 10.
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 line-edited them and deleted any placeholder posts. Since blog activity is a component of your coursework, I will review your blogs before I finalize your course assignment grades.
If you haven’t done so already, submit course evaluations for ENG 1103 and your other classes.
Tomorrow morning, your course assignments grade will be updated to its preliminary final average. Blog activity may raise or lower it. If you wish to check your preliminary grade, please do so before 5 p.m. tomorrow, Thursday, December 4. After that, the Blackboard course site for English 1103, sections eight and eighteen, will no longer be available to students. Final grades for the course will be posted in eServices by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, December 10.
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 the December 1 blog post for details.
Jane Lucas 