Schedule

As you know, this class meets one day per week.  That means we fit a week’s worth of classes into one class meeting.  That's a lot of work in one sitting.  My goal, therefore, is to keep you excited and enthusiastic about our work.  And since my classes rely on dynamics, our syllabus is subject to change--to add or to subtract material---depending on how many hazy eyes I notice.  Any changes will not only be announced in class, but will also be placed on our website.  Please do all readings and review exercises associated with the readings by the class date on this menu.  Be prepared to discuss all readings, answer questions and do the exercises in class.  You must also bring your journals of five new vocabulary words with you to each class. These will be collected at times, during the semester.  If you are not prepared, do not show up to class.

Disclaimer:  You may find the language, or the sexual or violent content of some of the material submitted or assigned in this class offensive. I generally do not censor class reading material. Please see me if you feel offended.  I will offer alternatives for any assignment.

Week One: 8.30
introduction to Engl. 56
discussion of requirements and expectations
vocab, journals, and exams
set up groups

In class: read: 38-64 and do exercises in textbook

what is expected in word journals:

Monday Sept. 3 Labor day no school
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five new words per week, beginning with this week's readings

derision: ridicule; mockery.

To deride is derived from the Latin prefix de, meaning “down,” and the root ridere, meaning “to laugh.”  The literal meaning is “to laugh someone down.”

innate: inborn.

[Innate is derived from the Latin in, and the root, natus, meaning to be born.]

tenacious: Holding or tending to hold persistently to something, such as a point of view.

excruciating: to inflict severe pain upon; torture: The headache excruciated him.

[Origin: 1560–70; < L excruciâtus, ptp. of excruciâre to torment, torture, cruciâre to torment, crucify]

symbiotic: A relationship of mutual benefit or dependence.

[Greek sumbiosis, companionship, from sumbioun, to live together, from sumbios, living together  : sun-, syn- + bios, life]
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discussion: evaluating the evidence
evaluating persuasive writing

-emotionally loaded language; tear-jerking stories; figurative analogies; manipulation of tone; propaganda techniques; psychological appeals; moral appeals; appeals to authority
-deductive and inductive reasoning

read: pp. 411-436; 451-457 & exercises

Love
Pablo Neruda

Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the perfumes of spring.
I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands;how did your lips feel on mine?

Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks,the white statues that have neither voice nor sight.

I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; I have forgotten your eyes.

Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory of you. I live with pain that is like a wound; if you touch me, you will do me irreparable harm.
 
Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls.

I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every window.

Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me; because of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitate desires: shooting stars, falling objects.

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Anecdote of the Jar
Wallace Stevens

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

New words: With this week's words, you should have fifeteen words in your journals.

Instead of the paper, you may opt for our three-book reading adventure.

You will choose three books from our list of books, read these three, and write a two page review on each book. You will discuss these books with me, and you may be asked to discuss your books in front of the class.

Click the book burning picture above for your list of books. 

Choose any three, and tell me which books you have chosen

3/28 Last day to petition for credit no credit
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Week Five:  9.27
discussion: author’s purpose and the rhetorical modes

read: pp.108-137

MLA handout
Maya Angelou: read chapters 6-10 by this class.
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Click here for a sample MLA works cited paper.
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Word Journals: With these new words, you should have 25 class-words in your journals.          

Galvanize: To arouse to awareness or action

Condescend: To descend to the level of one considered inferior; lower oneself

Ambiguous: Open to more than one interpretation

Incongruous: Lacking in harmony; incompatible; out of place

Litany: A repetitive or incantatory list

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New addition to journals
Each week you are going to find the "sentence of the week" in your readings.  You will write your sentence of the week in your journal.

This weeks sentence is the "Simple Sentence."  Please read below for information on the simple sentence.

Simple Sentences
A simple sentence is built of a single subject-verb unit.

Ron runs.
The chicken flew the coop.
The unicycle has been riden by several sad circus clowns.

Yet, a simple sentence can have more than one subject or verb.

multiple subjects:
Ron and Aryeh run.
The chicken and the rooster flew the coop.
The unicycle and the ostrich have been riden by several sad circus clowns.

multiple verbs:
Ron runs and trips.
The chicken flew and buzzed the coop.
The unicycle has been stolen and riden by several sad circus clowns.

We can even have multiple subjects and verbs:
The unicycle and the pogo stick and the Schwinn Airdyne had been stolen, ridden, and returned by several sad circus clowns.

more examples of simple sentences:

Century's passed.
London frightened him.

Life resisted.
Happiness is a choice.

The wind was asleep (Rachel Carson).
Vigorous writing is concise (Strunk and White).
Omit needless words (Strunk and White).

Webster’s Encyclopedic: 
A sentence having only one clause as in, I saw her the day before yesterday.

Week Six:  10.4                                                                                                                                                        
discussion: Transition Words and Patterns of Organization

The Art of Critical Reading, read:
140-143
145-151
154-159 (do ex on 159-162)
171-176 (do up to 16 on 176)

Review all the exercises on these pages.

Maya Angelou: chapters 11 through 15
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Word Journals: With these new words, you should have 30 class-words in your journals.

Temerity: foolhardy disregard of danger; recklessness

Baleful: full of menacing or malign influences

Somnolent: drowsy; sleepy

Ratified: to approve and give formal sanction to; confirm

Cognizant: fully informed; conscious

Annotate: supply with critical or explanatory notes; comment upon

Week Seven: 10.11
discussion: Transition Words and Patterns of Organization
discussion: Inference

The Art of Critical Reading, Read:
181-186
193-200
200-204
Do Excercises on pp.205-207, up until #9

Maya Angelou: chapters 16 through 20 should be read by this week
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word journals:

Malicious: malevolent, spiteful

Sporadic: appearing or happening at irregular intervals in time; occasional

Promiscuous: having casual sexual relations frequently with different partners

Austerity: severe or stern in disposition or appearance; somber and grave

Genial: warmly and pleasantly cheerful; cordial

Simile: A figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly,
 often in a phrase introduced by like or as, as in.

Personification: The representation of a thing or abstraction in the
 form of a person, as in art.

Intrinsic: Belonging to a thing by its very nature.

Ravenous: Intensely eager for gratification or satisfaction.

Fatalism: The acceptance of all things and events as inevitable;
 submission to fate
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Dire: Causing or involving great fear or suffering; dreadful; terrible

Contusion: An injury, as from a blow with a blunt instrument, in which
 the subsurface tissue is injured but the skin is not broken; bruise. 
 
Patronizing: To behave in an offensively condescending manner toward.

Irreverent: Not reverent; manifesting or characterized by irreverence;
 deficient in veneration or respect.

Haughty: Disdainfully proud; snobbish; scornfully arrogant;
 supercilious

Week Eleven: 11.8 discussion: Facts and Opinions discussion: Point of View Short story handout: read: pp.272-79; 303-324including all exercises Maya Angelou: 32 to the end Workshop for papers _______________________________ vocab words:   Point of view – 1 a particular way of thinking about or judging a situation 2 someone’s own personal opinion or attitude about something Foreshadow – literary to be a sign of something that will happen in the future Genial – cheerful, kind and friendly Exuberant – very happy, excited, and full of energy Moiety – a half, a part, portion, or share Emanated – to come from or out of something Fervent – believing or feeling something very strongly Wend – to proceed or go Reverie – a state of imagining or thinking about pleasant things - daydream ___________________________________________________________________ Week Twelve: 11.15 final workshops for papers Short stories: first three in your handout should be read by this class. "Popular Mechanics" "A&P" by John Updike "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver ___________________________ Week Thirteen: 11.22 No School: Thanksgiving Week Fourteen: 11.29 Continue short story handout "Once More to the Lake" by EB White "The Storm" by Kate Chopin Tino Villanueva: Scene from the Movie Giant  11-33 ________________ Our Last Gang of Vocabulary Words Premonitory: A presentment of the future.   Transpotition: To reverse or change the order or place of.   Tentatively: No fully worked out or concluded; provisional.   Solicitude: The state of being solicitus.   Pensively: Deepen, often wistfully or dreamily thoughtful.   Sullen: Showing a brooding ill humor or silent resentment.   Vivacity: Full of animation or spirit.   Deluge: 1. Something that overwhelms. 2. A great flood; downpour.    Poignant: Keenly distressing to the mind or feelings.   Tableau: A vivid or graphic description.   Incoherent: Lacking cohesion; not coherent.   Troglodyte: A member of a fabulous or prehistoric race that lived in caves.   Reliquary: A receptcle for keeping or displaying sacred relics. Week Fifteen 12.6 "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" Flannery O'Connor Scene from the Movie Giant  33-end (52) Film: Scene from the movie Giant Last day of class: complete readings Review for final What to expect in future English classes Individual consultations with return of journals ______________________________ Week Sixteen 12.13 Run for your lives! It's the in-Class, Final Exam! Sentence Physiology Articles Articles: a, an, the  (recall hint: Ar-tickles nouns) Nouns: common and proper Common Nouns can be counted and can have an article in front of them. Proper Nouns are usually capatilized and can be longer than one word.  Also, the clues that work for common nouns do not work for proper nouns. You can't say the New Yorks, or I'm going to New Yorks. Personal Pronouns 1) Personal pronouns are defined as words that name persons or things.  2) Personal pronouns do not follow articles and do not form plurals by adding s as many nouns do. You will write pron. over personal pronouns. Subject and Object Pronouns The form of a pronoun will depend on where it is placed in your sentence. I you he she it we you they me you him her it us you them Subject pronouns will be subjects of your sentence. They tumble down the hill. "Who" or "what" tumble down the hill?  They!  The pronoun “they” is your subject. Always use subject pronouns after the "be" verb form.  (be, am, are, is, was, were, been, being, etc.) Woe is me.  Wrong! Woe is I.  Ah, much better. Use subject pronouns after the words "than" or "as." You sleep deeper than I. We like the beach as much as they. Object pronouns will be the objects of verbs or prepositions. Larry wrote him. She ran with me. I ate dinner with Roberto and her. (not she) _______________________________________ Verbs Most verbs show action. Verbs will fit into the following sentences: I will___________________. Yesterday I _____________________. I have ___________________. Some verbs don't show action.  These are linking verbs: am, is, are, were, be, being, been, become, seem.  Linking verbs will tell you something about the subject of the sentence. The chihuahua is yappy.  Is here tells you something about the subject, the "chihuahua." The subject is your key to finding the verb.  Find out what the sentence says about the subject, and you'll find the verb. Can you put I, you, he, she, it, or they, in front of the potential verb?  If you can, you have your verb. A helping verb appears before the main verb. The teacher and I have worked hard. A helping verb acts as the buddy of the main verb and gives a sentence its mood, voice, aspect, and tense.  Imagine the main verb as the action center, the Boss Tanaka, of a sentence with the helping verb as Boss Tanaka's dweeby assistant, always tweeking the action. Some helping verbs can stand alone and act as a main verb.  The linking verbs, such as be, been, being, am, are, is, was, were and helping verbs such as do, does, did, have, had, and has can all stand alone.  Other helping verbs work with a main verb: may, might, must, could, should, would, can, shall, and will. You would do well to memorize these verb, especially the "to be" verbs: do has may should shall ought does have might would will did had must could  can to be verb is am are was were be being been Contractions, interrogatives, adjectives, adverbs, and modification: Contractions Two parts of speech in one word. Contractions are built out of pronouns and linking verbs.   You + are = you’re She + will = she’ll   Interrogative Sentences An interrogative sentence asks a question. A sentence that asks a question separates the helping verb from the main verb.   Did Crandall run into the shack?   Did = helping verb Run = main verb   Adjectives   Many adjectives have antonyms: Big/small  Tall/short Happy/sad   Adjectives will make sense between articles and nouns that are places, persons, or objects.   The tiny lake The happy boy A red thermos   Many adjectives are found to the left of nouns.  This is not always the case because they can also be found to the right of linking verbs.   Memorize this: Adjectives will answer one or more of the following questions.   Which_____________? What kind of_____________? How many______________?   Adverbs   Adverbs often deal with time. Adverbs can be moved to another place in the sentence. Adverbs often end in –ly   Memorize this: Adverbs will answer the following questions: When? How? Where? To what extent? Why?   Won’t is a contraction of will not.  Not is an adverb for will.  It answers “how” or "to what extent" you will do something in the contraction “won’t.”   Modification   Adjectives modify nouns or pronouns.   Adverbs modify or describe verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. The  road runner ran very quickly.   In this sentence, very and quickly are both adverbs, with the word very modifying quickly. Adverbs not and very almost always modify the words they are next to. Simple Sentences A simple sentence is built of a single subject-verb unit. Ron runs. The chicken flew the coop. The unicycle has been riden by several sad circus clowns. Yet, a simple sentence can have more than one subject or verb. multiple subjects: Ron and Aryeh run. The chicken and the rooster flew the coop. The unicycle and the ostrich have been riden by several sad circus clowns. multiple verbs: Ron runs and trips. The chicken flew and buzzed the coop. The unicycle has been stolen and riden by several sad circus clowns. We can even have multiple subjects and verbs: The unicycle and the pogo stick and the Schwinn Airdyne had been stolen, ridden, and returned by several sad circus clowns. Compound Sentences A compound sentence is built out of two or more simple sentences.                   These are two complete sentences with a subject and verb hooked up together, and they are usually connected by a comma plus a word to join the two sentences. The joining words are called coordinating conjunctions because they coordinate the two sentences. the coordinating conjuncions: and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet. Carl opened the door, and the ants made their break to freedom. Lois loves to go shopping at Sacks, but Superman can never find anything to match his costume there. Billy loved his asparagus garden, for he was not your average boy. You see?  Each of the above can be separated into two sentences, but the coordinating conjunction coordinates them together. Consider the coordinating conjunction as the camp councilor of the word world.  The words and, but, for, nor, or, so, and yet, are always trying to hook their sentence campers together.  There will usually be something in common between the first sentence and the second sentence.  In other words, the ideas of both sentences should be related. Complex sentences: A complex sentence is made up of a sentence with a complete thought and a statement of an incomplete thought (one that begins with a dependent word). We are talking about an dependent clause and an independent clause hooked up together. Remember:  an independent clause tells a complete thought; a dependent clause tells an incomplete thought. Here's an example of a dependent clause: When I get those P.F. Flyers... Do you feel the tension in the above dependent clause.  It's incomplete.  It needs more, more, MORE! When I get those P.F. Flyers, I'll be the most popular kid in school. A dependent clause begins with a dependent word.  Let's look at a few. Dependent words: After Although As Because Before Even though How  If In order that Since That Unless Until What    When, Where Whether Which While Who Whose When do we use complex sentences? When we want to emphasize one idea over another.  Before I left the house, I fed my pet cockatiel. What we want to emphasize here is this guy fed Cessna. I fed my pet cockatiel is a complete thought. Before I left the house is subordinated to the complete thought. This technique of giving one thought more emphasis than another is called subordination. With subordination, the part of the sentence starting with the dependent word or the subordinator will always be the less emphasized part of the sentence. But if you want to emphasize leaving the house you would write: After I fed my pet Cockatiel, I left the house. Do you see how the use of the the word after causes the first half of the sentence to emphasize I left the house? Read it again.  This is important stuff and will give your writing a tremendous boost. It depends on what you’re trying to express.  If you want I left the house as the emphasis of the sentence, you would leave that clause independent.  But, like all the grammar we've learned in this class, it depends on context.  Check out the context in the following sentence: After I fed my pet cockatiel, I left the house.  But when I got to my office, I realized I had forgotten my keys for the third time this week. And in this one: Before I left the house, I fed my pet cockatiel.  Cockatiels are very picky eaters, and if Cessna does not find a piece of mango in her birdseed, she gets into a huff.  Can you feel the difference between the above two sentences?  One emphasizes the forgetting of the keys; the other emphasizes the feeding of Cessna, the cockatiel A very important point to remember is to make the last part of your sentence the emphatic part.  Emphasize your main thought at end of your sentence and pick up that thought in the beginning of your next sentence. ________________________________________________ On Your Paper In-text citation from an anthology (from Diana Hacker) Put the name of the author of the work (not the editor of the anthology) in the signal phrase or the parentheses. In Susan Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers," Mrs. Hale describes both a style of quilting and a murder weapon when she utters the last words of the story: "We call it--knot it, Mr. Henderson" (302). In the list of works cited, the work is alphabetized under Glaspell, not under the name of the editor of the anthology. Glaspell, Susan. "A Jury of Her Peers." Literature and Its Writers: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.      Ed. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. 2nd ed. Boston:Bedford, 2001. 286-302. _____________________________________________ Works cited from an anthology (our book is an anthology) Give the elements in this order: The name of the author of the selection (not the name of the editor of the anthology) The title of the selection The title of the anthology The name of the editor, preceded by "Ed." for "Edited by" Publication information The pages on which the selection appear If you wish, you may cross-reference two or more works from the same anthology. Provide an entry for the anthology. Then in separate entries list the author and title of each selection, followed by the last name of the editor of the anthology and the page numbers on which the selection appears. Desai, Anita. "Scholar and Gypsy." Craig 251-73. Malouf, David. "The Kyogle Line." Craig 390-96. Alphabetize the entry for the anthology under the name of its editor (Craig); alphabetize the entries for the selections under the names of the authors (Desai, Malouf). ______________________________________ Click here for Diana Hacker's MLA Documenting sources site, or click the Hacker pic above. Click here to check out an MLA sample paper ______________________________ 1. Short stories to be handed out by me. 2. Movie at Mopa You are then to write a review, good or bad.  But you must base your review on a professional review.  You can click on the following links for lots of good reviews.  We have Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, Jan Stuart of Newsday, and Roger Ebert of Ebert and Roper. Peter Travers Jan Stuart Roger Ebert Remember: You must include your ticket and a copy of the review on which you based your review.  Now where do we go?