August 30 2024 - 8/30/2024
Types of essays:
- Persuasive
- Research
- explanatory
What is an essay?
- investigates, informs and/or argues for a particular way to understand something
- can help “answer” a question
- told in an interesting way
Introduction
Includes:
- name of text and author
- studies
- relevant dates
- specify or define terms
- major conflicts and events
- symbols or concepts
- thesis
Framing, tone and language
Popular: style, exposition, expressive, anecdote, personal, subjective (More opinionated)
Academic: form, argumentative, informative, analysis, study, technical, objective (More factual)
Thesis
The thesis statement is a sentence that clearly states a position and briefly mentions the supporting reasons that will follow throughout the paper
Claim - This should be the stance you take on a subject
Stakes - Prove to the
Support
Paragraphs
Includes:
- Topic sentence
- main idea
- support
- transition into a new idea
elements of the essay
- Topic sentence
- Supporting evidence
- transitions
- Causation
- Chronology
Conclusion
Recap main ideas in one paragraph keep the language simple and consider the implication of what you learned
Tips
Read essay guidelines carefully review your notes remember to write with an audience in mind stay on topic decide which ideas are simple or complex
today
Point of View 1st: I - Me - Myself 2nd: You23 3rd: They - Them - She - He
September 16 2024 - 9/16/2024
Intuition: Your unconscious guide, and instinctive suspicion that believes in structure and meaning
What makes being a human so special?*
*affect - a fekt: an experience of emotion that produces some change
Affect is perhaps the most difficult plane of human life to describe.
“Infer” Information
What happens in your head when you read?
- Authors seldom tell uou exactly what they mean
- suggest, avoid and imply
- Figurative language
- Symbolism, Metaphor & Simile, Personification, Hyperbole, Irony
- Think about the occasion of her visit. Is it significant?
- j
- Does the title help us understand anything?
- a
- What can you infer from her memoir?
- m
Grammar & Style
Figurative language - a figure-of-speech is a language tool that we use to help readers visualize what’s happening in a story
Personification - to attribute human qualities to some-thing
metaphor - compares two unlike things without using “like” or “as”
simile - compares two unlike things using “like” or “as”
hyperbole - an extreme exaggeration
Metaphors & Similes
- Make simple ideas more vivid
- Convey complex ideas in a few words
- Confusing concepts in simple terms
September 20 2024
| Sentence | type | example |
|---|---|---|
| Independent | Simple | His truck is way to noisy |
| Independent + Independent |
Compound | it was getting dark in the small town and the moon was rising fast |
| independent + Fragment |
Complex | when they hired her last year, the team knew about this problem |
Run-on sentences Fused sentence - has no punctuation to mark the break between complete ideas comma splice - use a comma to connect two complete ideas
How to correct a run-on , - separate with puncuation since - subordination conjunction , and - add comma & conjunction ; - add semicolon
September 23 2024
Rhetorical Devices Symbolism - where a word, character, object or image, is used to represent something beyond it’s literal meaning
- technique to produce complexity
- meaning on ‘different levels’ allegory - where characters, events, objects or settings are used symbolically to represent real-life thematic ideas, mnoral qualities, or concepts.
- help convey moral lessons
- depict social commentary indirectly
September 25 2024
lottery notes
really old tradition
not many in the village are opposed to it
Maybe for entertainment in the past
multiple villages had this tradition
some villages have stopped the tradition
maybe serves some religious purpose
lottery questions
- Just a tradition that their ancestors created, perhaps for entertainment
- Maybe entertainment or to prevent overpopulation
- probably Mr. Summers
MLA
Quotes - validate your arguments, add depth, and introduce authoritative voices.
Short Quote - less than 4 lines of text
Box Quote - longer than 4 lines
Double quote - a quote that is quoting something else (use a pair of apostrophes ‘ ‘ inside the quote)
periods, exclamation marks and question marks go on the inside of the quote
- Provide context
- Vary your introductions
- blend with your voice
Entire quote - james baldwin writes “not everthing that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed intil it is faced” partial quote - as james baldwin suggests, “not everthing that is faced can be changed” fragment - baldwins idea that little “can be changed until it is faced” proves the…
Follow-up
always follow up a quote with
common mistakes
Quote dumping over-quoting incorrect citation
September 30
The Memoir
| preface | memory | change | meaning | future |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| define your main idea | is this a process or event | interpret how you changed after this moment | can you tie it to your interpretation of a story | suggest what this means for you |