Announcements: We started class with a reminder that the blogs you post are public documents, and that you need to consider content (nothing illegal or anything that might compromise your future) of your writing.
We then previewed the way McPhee uses segments in "The Search for Marvin Gardens", You noticed that at the beginning he moves between descriptions of playing Monopoly, and walking through Atlantic City - the place with the streets/places that that gave the Monopoly properties their names. He later includes sections which fill in the history of the game and theories of game play, as well as the history of Atlantic City. As you read this essay, notice how the sections work together to develop a "meaning" - really a set of interrelated meanings - that work more effectively than if he pounded readers with his points.
And, you signed up for conferences (schedule at the end of this post). If you need to change your time - send me an email
Activity to reflect on your predispositions in telling stories (about yourself)
We started with you writing 3 adjectives to describe your self.
Then I asked you to mak a big list of the k stories you tell about yourself. And you did. After everyone had at least 10 stories, I asked you to classify the stories in terms of the following questions/features.
1. Did you edit your list or jsut put down every story that came to mind?
2. Classify your audience: close friends/family = intimate audience; for a rhetorical purpose; anybody= good story,
3. Describe the dominant feeling
4. Were you active or/passive? Did you act upon events and make them happen, or were you responding to events/people acting on you.
5. Was your story resolved or unresolved?
6. Which pieces would make a good CNF piece for you?
You then did some reflecting on yours classifications, and you shared a description of patterns you noticed in the kinds of stories you told. In this discussion, each of you presented a slightly different profile in the kinds of stories you told to represent yourself. .There were not good or bad patterns - what was important was for you to notice what your patterns were.
For the final part of the exercise, you went back to the adjectives you used to describe yourself and noticed how the adjectives did or didn't connect to the features of the stories you tell about yourself.
We observed that the only one who can interpret what these similarities/differences mean is you, because the request for adjectives to describe yourself (at the beginning of class) was in a sense a request for a story meant for a particular audience, and only you know what audience you imagined. At the same time, this reflection might suggest some of the differences in the way you "tell" your self (through a set of assessments in the form of adjectives) and the way you "show" yourself (as a story).
Why would you do this exercise? What does it tell you?
1. what kinds of stories you have a tendency to tell about yourself, and in light of that, what you might block from yourself
2. CNF is writing about yourself = examine the kinds of stories you have a tendency to tell
3. examining differences between how you would "tell" your self and how you would "show" yourself.
4.illustrating the differences between showing and telling
5. begin to think about the different ways you tell your stories for different audiences
6. think about why you tell the stories you do and for what purposes (why you write)
7. be conscious of the implications of a story
Analysis of segmented essays
You divided into groups to analyze the three essays you read. Each group was asked to do the following
.
1. Noticing what is there: What do the segments look like? how many sections?
2. Interpreting how sections work: What does each section do (what is its function)? how do they create the flow of the narrative? how do the sections contribute to the story?
3. Generalizing how the sturcture works: How does the structure contribute to the meaning?
Teacher Training
regular font + italicized = alternates
regular - expereinces in classroom as a teacher in the present
italicized, in the past, in the 5th grade, experiences with Mrs. Crane
Transitions from experience as teacher to experiences as a student, each paring illustrates what she learned from her experience as a student
Segments work in pairs, to make a series of XX experiences
Sequential AND interconnected
Below are my notes from your reports on what the essays "did"
Stripped for Parts
3 segments
each of the three segments focuses on organ donation from a diffrent focus
1. background and research + focus on dead man
2. organ donation in gnerl and set in ICU
3. surgery + where the organs are goingmore or less unfavorable presen
works as a story, points are there but not in your face
the last sentence of each section casts an unfavorable prespective
My Father Always Said
sections are clear and separate but not stark like they are in Pope. Facilitate the flow of the story as a progression. Each segment is related to the next, build on one another,segments are chronological,
set in a dual perspective = Schwartz and Father with respect to how they feel about their past
they approach that past from different perspective: Father re-;iving it, Schwarts discovering it
Their perspectives on their past change
Father goes from idealizing past = to letting it go
Schwartz goes from not caring about her past to valuing it
Workshop:
You only had about 10 minutes left, So I asked you to use your time in your groups to talk to each other about what kind of feedback you would like on your brainstorming - feedback to help you work the piece into a complete draft - as well as some conversation about what kind of feedback you DON'T want.
Groups were as follows.
Patrice, Osza, Cristal, Holly
Melissa, Christina, Brianna, Mary Ellen
Patricia, Matt, Stephanie, Florie
Then - give comments to the people in your group. Be sure to edit Blog 3 to include a request for the kind of feedback you want. That way I will have some direction in writing comments.
Finally, here is the conference schedule:
Monday, Septermber 29: Stephanie, 12:30; Mary Ellen 4:00; Osza 4:30
Tuesday, September 30: Patrice1:00
Wednesday, October 1: Matt 4:00
Melissa 7:30
Monday, October 6: Holly 12:30, Flora 4:00; Cristal 4:30
Wednesday, October 8: Patricia 3:00; Christina 7:30
For next week:
Read: McPhee, p.
128, "Search for Marvin Gardens"
Blog 4: Draft Long essay 1
I will try to give you some feedback on Blog 3 soon enough so that it might be of some use to you as you draft your essays. If you want your feedback ASAP - send my an email and I will put you at the top of the list.
What a great class this was! Thank you for your awesome participation.
