Tag: Davis Sedaris

Posted in English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: David Sedaris’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day” . . .

Posted on by janemlucas

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 involves identifying an instance of tension in the essay. Locating such a moment in another writer’s work provides you with a model for creating tension in your own story, which is key to maintaining the reader’s interest and propelling the narrative forward.

Your group will also identify a minimum of three talking points in Sedaris’s essay. Those points may concern any parts of the narrative you have questions about or any passages that you deem particularly interesting or revealing. I will include those points in tomorrow’s class notes.

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). “Me Talk Pretty One Day” is the title essay in his 2000 collection, which you will have the opportunity to win in today’s class drawing.

Sedaris’s current reading tour includes a performance at Greensboro’s Tanger Center on October 28.

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 annotated bibliography and preface, 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 some of the same elements David Sedaris includes.

Posted in English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: David Sedaris’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day” . . .

Posted on by janemlucas

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.”

Posted in English 1103, Scrabble, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: David Sedaris’ “Me Talk Pretty One Day” . . .

Posted on by janemlucas

This morning in class, after your Scrabble debriefing, we will examine David Sedaris‘ essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” 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
  • Figurative language–you will identify examples of metaphors, similes, and hyperbole

Each of these elements can play an important role in a 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.

Figurative language is an expression not meant to be taken literally but instead stands for something related. Figures of speech 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).

Tomorrow’s blog post will list some of the examples of scene, summary, and figurative language that you identify in “Me Talk Pretty One Day.”

Work Cited

Burroway, Janet. Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft. Pearson, 2014.

Scrabble Debriefings

At the beginning of class every Monday, 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?
  • 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.

Scrabble Skibidi?

The picture below, which also appears in the August 21 post, demonstrates how a player, or team, can form multiple words through parallel play.

The second player’s, or team’s, four-word play in a single turn is viable because all of the letters that touch form playable words:

  • whoa: used to command an animal to stop
  • he: a male person
  • on: a function word to indicate position (on top of)
  • aa: a type of lava

The pictures below, from last Friday’s Wordplay Day, show several instances of incorrect play where letters that touch are nonwords.

Deletedh, dh, and ng are all nonwords; Tigel and Gio are not playable in Scrabble because they are proper nouns–specifically product brands–that are not also common nouns.

Jigv, du, oo, lf, ua, ttssc, and sheete are all nonwords.

Keep your eyes on the board when you and your opponents are playing words. If you are uncertain whether letters that touch form a playable word, don’t play it. And if you question the validity of a word that your opponents play, challenge the word immediately. A challenge must directly follow a questionable play.

And by the way, skibidi is not playable in Scrabble yet. It was recently added to the Cambridge Dictionary but will not be playable until it is added to The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary.

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.

Posted in English 1103, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Collaborative Writing and David Sedaris’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day”

Posted on by janemlucas

For this morning’s class, I had planned for us to examine David Sedaris‘s essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day” as a model for your first major writing assignment: a literacy narrative, which is an essay that recounts an experience with literacy, such as reading, writing, or–as in the case of Sedaris’s narrative–learning a second language.

Because our discussion of your collaborative writing from last Wednesday consumed most of today’s class period, we did not examine “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” We will, however, study both Sedaris’s essay and Keller’s, “The Day Language Came into My Life,” on Wednesday. In the meantime, review the notes I’ve included below on your collaborative writing from last Wednesday. Though that collaborative writing was not a literacy narrative, the specificity that it required is essential to storytelling. Aim to include as many significant concrete details as you can in your literacy narrative as well as your other writing.

Though the story itself is of primary importance in a literacy narrative, errors of form will distract the reader from the narrative and may jeopardize your credibility. (Readers may ask themselves why they should continue reading if you have overlooked matters of punctuation, spelling, grammar, or mechanics).

The notes that follow address both the content (what is included) and the form (the presentation of the content). As the semester progresses, return to these notes. Some serve as reminders of practices to engage in; others demonstrate what to avoid.

Content

  • The first paragraph should address each group member’s specific experience with one of the habits. Such details as “listening, taking notes, and trying to absorb the material” are examples of what constitutes engagement, but they do not speak to the particular experiences of any students. The addition of just a few words, such as “in my sophmore-year history class,” begins to give readers a sense of place.
  • The second paragraph should offer a close look at one student’s experience with the habit. Think of the first paragraph as a bird’s eye view and the second paragraph as a close-up. When one group writes that a student “asked the teacher if he could crumple his [paper] plane into a ball,” readers find themselves there with the students in Ms. Marinelli’s sixth-grade science class. Note how that paragraph that features the paper-airplane exercise functions as a narrative in miniature.
  • One of the second paragraphs that students composed on Monday ends with these words: “On the contrary, in our English class we are learning about limiting distractions, thinking critically, and activly listening to improve engagment and learn to the best of our ability.” The misspellings are errors that I will address when I turn matters of form. Here, under the heading of content, I note the sentence because of the risk of such content. Though the writers may not have intended to be ingratiating, the sentence comes across as sycophantic. In other words, the words come across as an attempt to curry favor with the professor.

Form

  • When you compose a paragraph in an academic essay, the first line should be indented five spaces or one-half inch. Note that blog posts are an exception to this rule. In the versions of your paper assignments that you post to Blackboard, the first line of each paragraph should be indented. On your blog, the paragraphs will be block style.
  • Use active voice. The clause “thoughts are tossed around all the time” should be rewritten as “my family members and I are always tossing around ideas.” Note that the revision changes the voice from passive to active by letting the family perform the action (tossing around the ideas).
  • The clause “[h]e feels like his openness is self-made” should be rewritten as “[h]e feels as if his openness is self-made.” Use “like” when a noun follows to form the comparison; use “as if” when a clause follows.
  • The “sentence” “[a]lso problem solving and using these problem solving techniques in real life scenarios” is a sentence fragment because its meaning depends on the previous sentence. It is not a complete thought. It should be written something like this: Problem-solving and applying problem-solving techniques to real-life scenarios are additional ways to engage in learning.
  • Note that the example above adds hyphens to “problem-solving” and “real-life.” [R]eal-life” and the second instance of “problem-solving” need hyphens because they are compound adjectives. The first instance of “problem-solving” needs a hyphen because it is a compound noun.
  • “[A]ctivly,” “crutial,” “effectivly,” and “engagment” are all misspelled. The correct spellings are a-c-t-i-v-e-l-y, c-r-u-c-i-a-l, e-f-f-e-c-t-i-v-e-l-y, and e-n-g-a-g-e-m-e-n-t. Because you cannot look up spellings in class when you are not permitted to use your laptops or smart devices, I do not deduct points for misspellings in in-class exercises. That said, when you are working in groups, you should be on the lookout for misspellings when you proofread your work.
  • “This individual classmate” should be rewritten as “one individual classmate.” In formal writing, “this” should be used to refer only to something at hand.
  • “This The student then felt they had to step up” lacks subject-verb agreement. It should be rewritten as “the student then felt that she had to step up.” Unless the individual in question is nonbinary, the pronoun for the subject is the singular he or she.
  • “Meanwhile the other group members such as [name withheld] and myself” should be rewritten as “meanwhile the other group members, such as [name withheld] and I.” The word “members” should be followed by a comma, and the correct pronoun is the subctive “I” not the reflexive “myself.” Writers and speakers often use “myself” when they are unsure whether to use “I” or “me,” but “myself” is not a substitute for either. “Myself” is used in the object position when the subject and the object are the same. For example: I revised the sentence myself.
  • In the phrases “throw it the furthest” and “threw it further” and the clause “throwing his plane the furthest,” “further” should be replaced with “farther,” and “furthest” should be replaced with “farthest.” “Farther” describes literal distance. “Further” describes figurative distance, meaning more, as in I wish we could discuss the matter further.

Next Up

In class on Wednesday, we will examine David Sedaris‘s “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and Helen Keller’s “The Day Language Came into My Life.”

Posted in English 1103, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: David Sedaris’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day”

Posted on by janemlucas

This morning in class, after we review some of your collaborative writing from last Wednesday, we will examine David Sedaris‘s essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” 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
  • hyperbole
  • metaphors and similes

Each of these elements can play an important role in a 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.

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.

Posted in English 1103, Reading, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: “Me Talk Pretty One Day”

Posted on by janemlucas

Today in class we will examine David Sedaris‘s essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” 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
  • hyperbole
  • metaphors and similes

Each of these elements can play an important role in a 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.

Next Up

Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review tomorrow’s Scrabble post.

Posted in English 1103, Reading, Teaching, Writing

ENG 1103: Model Literacy Narratives

Posted on by janemlucas

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

After we read  Sedaris’ essay, you will collaborate in groups of four to complete an exercise that involves exploring these aspects of his writing:

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

I will also ask you to consider what elements are the strongest aspects of the essay and whether “Me Talk Pretty One Day” has given you any ideas for developing your own narrative. Time permitting, we will also read Helen Keller’s essay “The Day Language Came into My Life.”

To read more of Sedaris’ essays, see the list of links under the heading Writing and Radio on his website. You can read more of Helen Keller’s autobiography, the full text in fact, here: The Story of My Life. “The Day Language Came into My Life” is Chapter Four.

Next Up

For Wednesday you should read Keller’s essay (if you don’t have time to read it in class today), and compose a short summary of both her essay and Sedaris.’ Aim for a minimum of fifty words each.

Keep Keller’s and Sedaris’ essays in your pocket portfolio and continue to look to them as models as you revise your literacy narrative. You will receive your draft with my notes at the beginning of Wednesday’s class, and you will have the class period to continue to revise. You will have an additional week to devote to your essay before you post it. It is due (on Blackboard and on your WordPress blog) before class the morning of Wednesday, September 14; the hard deadline is the morning of Friday, September 16.