5.6 End of Term Reading: Program

6:00  Joanna
6:10  Graig
6:25  Megan
6:35  Sharyn
6:45  Adrian
7:00 Kyle
7:10  Jennifer
7:20  Ashley
7:30  Becky
7:45  Alexis
7:55 Brandon
8:05 Brie
8:15 David
8:30 Michele

4.22 Presentations on Publication Venues

The talks tonight were well done.  Make sure your "handout" is posted to your blog so I can reply to it.

Next week will be devoted to setting up your portfolios and practicing for the end of year reading.

I passed around a sign-up sheet for "what to bring" in terms of refreshments.  We will revisit that list next week in class and create the reading schedule

In general, expect to read a piece about 10 minutes long (8-12 is OK, some of you will go short, some a little longer and that's OK).  You are welcome to bring a guest, and we have Kean Hall, 127 researved from 5 until 9, so there is time to set up and clean up.

For next week:
Blog 11: Final Short Essay (also send it to me as an attachment, this is the one that will get a grade).

In class you will work on setting up your portfolio and begin work on the introductory essay.

See you next week!

4.15 Work on Rhetorical analysis of publication venues; discussion craft essays; portfolios

Note:  the revised calendar for the rest of the term is posted here.

Rhetorical Analysis of Publication Venues
Your choices for publication venues are listed here.  If you have not yet signed up for a journal - send me an email with your choice ASAP.  A list of journals is on the link list to the bottom right of this link - or cruise around the internet for CNF journals.  Also - you can check out the choices that last semester's class picked for their reviews (listed at the bottom of this blog post).  You need to choose a journal not chosen by one of your classmates.  Once you send your choice (and if no one else has spoken for it) I will post your choice to the site.

Discussion of Craft Essays.
We spent some time talking about the very different paths through writing CNF taken by Pope and Stanton.  Pope was writing for a deadline, and she found her focus, researched it, developed it, revised it and polished it with a particular purpose in mind.  This is very much like "school" writing by a student invested in the work she is producing.  Our class discussion revealed that many students view this approach to writing as something they would do for a job application or essay, but way too much work for school.  And that the process for reviewing, workshopping, revising and polishing writing is more or less intuitive, and doesn't really need to be taught.  I dunno.  

Stanton's approach was more organic.  She began her writing for herself, and the original writing was not to develop a publication but to "know".  Her process was one of getting hold of the huge emotions associated with this piece and putting them into a voice that "worked" so that readers could feel that material.  She said that her final piece was very much the same as the original piece in terms of overall form and content, that the changes were to language, tone - the kinds of subtle revisions that make writing available to its audience.

The similarities in these two processes were their resort to readers (peer workshops, professional workshops, colleagues + family), the persistent re-thinking/re-imagining of the material, and a realization that the way they "felt" the material needed some translation to be available to readers.

Craft essays are a subgenre within CNF.  We read these specifically as a way to introduce the "process essay" which generally accompanies the senior seminar project for the writing option major.  You noted the moves in this genre - discussion of the "origin" of the idea, and a series of vignettes to describe how the piece developed from that idea into a fully realized composition.  These vignettes took different forms - sometimes describing the author's internal, felt relationship to the material, sometimes discussing writing process, sometimes presenting sections of text (later rejected or revised), sometimes assessing impediments or useful activities associated with the writing process.  So there you are.  You have a model, if you need it.

Portfolio
The model for the portfolio you will use to turn in your final project is posted to the right.  We will spend class time working on portoflios April 29.

See you next week!

For next week:
Blog 10: Rhetorical analysis of publication venue

Class choices for the Publication Venue Assignment

Adrian     Triquarterly
Alexis      Fugue
Ashley     The Pinch
Becky      Hunger Mountain
Brandon  Bellingham Review
Brianne   1966
Danielle
David      Slice
Graig      Terrain
Jennifer  Quarterly West
Joanna   Sweet
Kyle        Brooklyner
Megan  Defunct
Michele  Zone 3
Sharyn  Narrative Magazine

If you scroll down in this post from last term - you can take a look at the CNF journals chosen for Fall 2013.

Revised Calendar

April 15
Talk over short essays
Work on publication venue Blog posts
Talk about Craft essays
Introduction to Portfolio
For next week:
Blog 10: Rhetorical analysis of publication venue

April 22

Publication venue presentations

in-class workshop on revision + portfolio check in

Blog 11:  Final Short Essay 2

April 29  

in-class work on portfolio

practice for reading + sign up for times & food

Blog 12: post introduction to portfolio

May 6

Due: Portfolio

Celebration and reading
Kean Hall, Room 127, reserved from 5:30 - 9:00

4.9 Description + Publication Venue Assignment

Discussion of famous descriptions
In the four descriptions, we idenitified a number of different "moves" the writers made to get the reader to read through the literal description as a way to evoke a feeling, idea or sense of "the way things are" in the story.  In the Joyce excerpt from "The Dead," we noticed the repeated military references, so that the description of the food on the table also became suggestive of two armies staged for a battle.  The extended references to food and objects in terms of military descriptions, whether the reader picked up on it consciously or not, evoked a sense of impending confrontation.

In the excerpt from "Prue" by Monroe, we noted the language construction of "denial" - all the insistence of what the act "was not" => as if the main character's rebellion and resistance were built into the grammatical structures of the description.  We also noticed the use of symbolic objects (of addiction), the candy and the tobacco, and the significance of the action portrayed (possession without consent).

In Ozick's "Existing Things,"  we noted the incongruence of the poetic/symbollic language/metaphors associated with the description of the mica ("hypnotic semaphores signaling eeriness out of the ground") and the heat, and the light, as compared with the more straight-forward descriptive language for other objects.  We also noticed the empty street, the absence of adults - the aloneness of the narrator in the presence of her realization - so that the physical correlate of the realization paralleled the sense of being "in your head with a big realization".

Finally, Dybek's "Thread," the story about his loss of faith, as in the other stories, also seemed to make the objects take on double signification = both with their literal meanings and with symbolic meanings.  The acts of unraveling the gold sash, weighing the thread, laying among the lines on his palm, tasting it for "gold" were all suggestive of parallel meanings in terms testing/reflecting on beliefs. 

You then wrote some descriptions - and they were wonderful.  You were all working with the ideas/writerly moves from our past couple of weeks, and I am looking forward to see how these in-class writing exercises are morphing your writing!

Rhetorical analysis of writing venues.  We talked through the assignment sheet for the analysis of a writing venue assignment - and you didn't seem to have many questions so I am guessing you have a good first approximation of what is expected.  We spent the last part of class clicking through the essays in the last issue of Brevity and classifying them in terms of the features listed on the assignment sheet.  We looked for patterns in the publication's preferences for subject material, form, "mindsets" or value systems that shape the "take" or message embedded in the material, genre (really sub-genres of CNF), and so on.  

If you scroll down, to the right,  this page has a link list of journals which publish CNF. There is a wide range of venues here.  Check through them and see if there is one that matches your writing/interests.

Analysis of Brevity.   We clicked on the submissions link to get an idea of the reading period, editorial description of "what they want", and manuscript requirements.  We then read through a set of essays in the most recent edition. Our discussion suggested that Brevity's audience was interested short CNF that is experimental, is centered on an abstract or metaphoric meaning (rather than focused on a "good story" per se"->literary), and concerned with human relizations (rather than about nature or politics= more focused on the way people relate to one another & the world).  Of course we had a small sample - and if you scan a larger set of essays this provile might look different. The texts were literary in that they mostly complied with the definitions by Lott & Gutkind in terms of their earnestness/seriousness in terms of subject matter, were reflective and presented a "realization" (circling around a question/contemplation/representation), and took on innovative/fresh approaches to form.  

Good class!

What we will do  next class
Class will start with some in-class work on the publication venue project.  You will choose your venues and we will workshop any questions/uncertainties about how to finish the project.

The second half of class will be a presentation on the final portfolio (described on the syllabus).  A Sample Portfolio is available at this link  (also listed under "Links" on the right panel of this blog).  We will also spend some time talking about  craft essays (listed below).  You already read "Teacher Training" - "Composing 'Teacher Traning'" is a narrative account of Pope's composing process.  These composing narratives are a standard genre within writing studies, and as you read through the CNF journals, you will notice that there is also a market for composing narratives.

For next week:

Choose 2 or 3 publication venuse that would work for you.  (If you scroll down, to the right,  this page has a link list of journals which publish CNF).

Read:  Zion, 402+ On writing Zion, 410 by Stanton,  Pope, Teacher training, 388, Composing 'Teacher training'" 394.
Blog 9:  Short essay 2 

4.8 Famous Descriptions

1.  A fat brown goose, lay at one end of the table and at the other end, on a bed of creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer skin and peppered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its shin and beside this was a round of spiced beef.  Between these rival ends ran parallel lines of side-dishes: two little minsters of jelly, red and yellow: a shallow dish full of blocks of blancmange and red jam, a large green leaf-shaped dish with a stalk-shaped handle, on which lay bunches of purple raisins and peeled almonds, a companion dish on which lay a solid rectangle of Smyrna figs, a dish of custard topped with grated nutmeg, a small bowl full of chocolates and sweets wrapped in gold and silver papers and a glass vase in which stood some tall celery stalks.  In the centre of the table there stood, as sentries to a fruit-stand which upheld a pyramid of oranges and American apples, two squat old-fashioned decanters of cut glass, one containing port and the other dark sherry. On the closed square piano a pudding in a huge yellow dish lay in waiting and behind it were three squads of bottles of stout and ale and minerals, drawn up according to the colours of their uniforms, the first two black, with brown and red labels, the third ad smallest squad white, with transverse green sashes.



2.  She doesn't mention that the next morning she picked up one of Gordon's cufflinks from his dresser. The cufflinks are made of amber and he bought them in Russia, on the holiday he and wife took when thy got back together again. They look like squares of candy, golden, translucent, and this one warms quickly in her hand.  She drops it into the pocket of her jacket.  Taking one is not a real theft.  It could be a reminder, and an intimate prank, a piece of nonsense. 
//
When she gets home she puts the cufflink in an old tobacco tin. The children bought this tobacco tin in a junk shop years ago, and gave it to here for a present.  She used to smoke, in those days, and the children were worried about her, so they gave her this tin full of toffees, jelly beans, and gumdrops, with a note saying, "Please get fat instead." That was for her birthday. Now the tin has in it several things besides the cufflink-- all small things, not of great value but not worthless, either.  A little enameled dish, a sterling-silver spoon for salt, a crystal fish.  These are not sentimental keepsakes.  She never looks at them, and often forgets what he has there. T hey are not booty, they don't have ritualistic significance.  she does not take something every time she goes to Gordon's hous, or every time she stays over, or to mark what she might call memorable visits.  She just takes something, every now and then, and puts it away in the dark of the old tobacco tin, and more or less forgets about it.


3. The lots are empty because no one builds on them.  It is the middle of the summer in the middle of the Depression. I am alone under a slow molasses sun, staring at the little chips of light flashing at my feet. Up and down the whole length of the street there is no one, not a single grownup, and certainly, in that sparse time, no other child.  There is only myself and these hypnotic semaphores signaling eeriness out of the ground.  But no, up the block a little way, a baby carriage is entrusted to the idle afternoon, with a baby left to sleep, all by itself, under white netting.


4.  One Sunday, sitting in the pew, watching flashes of spring lightning illuminate the robes of the angels on the stained glass windows, my mind began to drift.  I studied my gold sash upon which the tarnishing imprint of raindrops had dried into vague patterns-- it had begun to rain just as we marched in off the street.  There was a frayed edge to my sash and I wrapped a loose thread around my finger and gently tugged.  The fabric bunched and the thread continued to unwind until it seemed the entire sash might unravel. I pinched the thread and broke it off, then wound it back round my finger tightly enough to cut off my circulation.  When my fingertip turned white, I unwound the thread from my finger and weighted it on my open palm, fitting it along the various lines on my hand.  I opened my other palm and held my hands out to test if the balance between them was affected by the weight of the thread.  It wasn't. I placed the thread on my tongue and lit it rest there where its weight was more discern able. I half-expected a metallic taste of gold, but it tasted starchy like any other thread.  Against the pores of my tongue, I could feel it growing thicker with the saliva that was gathering in my mouth.  I swallowed both the saliva and the thread.

4.1 Short essays!

If you haven't sent me a copy of your long essay as an attachment already = please do so.  Send it to the ENG4017 account.

Short essay assignment: The assignment sheet is posted to the right.  We did a quick check through of some of the different forms you might choose for your short essay by reading through the work listed on the calender.  We noted that these pieces are built quite differently: as lists, as video with voice over, as essays, as a kind of chronicle (lists of experiences by date). and so on.  Hopefully the criteria on the assignment sheet will give you some guidance regardless of the form you choose.

We spent the next section of class looking in some detail at a couple of short works that are written more or less using traditional CNF essay forms.  We noted how economic the essays were, in that the left out lots of information that surrounds the story = so as to focus deeply on the heart of the experience.  We noticed that one result of this economy of language was a kind of indirection, which engaged the reader in creating the essays meaning (because the explanations were not stated directly).

Indirection = what writers choos to say and choose not to say.  We did a close reading of Accident, and Fallout as examples of how authors draw their readers in to their stories through presenting  their story within its context and articulating its focus through references which the reader then needs to interpret.  For example, Accident does not state where the story takes place = but we noticed plenty of clues.  We must infer the larger political conflict which surround the very human story at the center of this essay. It is as if by leaving out any direct statement of the anger and bitterness between the two sides, the story evades justification or partisanship and focuses on the experience of the young narrator, who needs makes sense of his feelings first in terms of his physical perspective = what he saw and how he responded to it as a physical being; and then in terms of his cultural identity, where he felt the need to re-construct his feelings to match his family allegiances.  Again, in fallout, the consequences of the Cold War are present => its fallout, but not the details of its cause.

You spent the last part of class thinking about what form you would like to use for your short draft, and drafting some ideas/writing.

For next week:
Blog 8: Post short essay 1
Read: at least 12 of the pieces in the current issue of Brevity