by Fitz | Nov 18, 2015 | The Crafted Word Blog
You guys are a great class. I mean that sincerely. What you do need to work on is getting your work turned in when and how I want it turned in.
By this point you should have turned in the Literary Reflections for the class periods so far this week. We can work on the next one in your next class. It is frustrating when the work is not there to be graded “when” I am doing the grading. It is frustrating when you do not comment on my blog posts as I have no idea whether you read them or not and if you have any questions.
The semester is winding down and these reflections are your final grades–an easy sixteen points in my book.
All you need to do is to write sincerely using “paragraphs;” use quotes to back up your thoughts, and spend a bit of time editing and proofreading and you turn in a pdf which looks good and reads fluidly and naturally–like your voice when you speak with me. Post it to your blog and make sure it looks just as good!
If you put in the time and effort now, you will be amply rewarded when we begin our next major essay after break.
Did you read this and get it. For your comment all you need to do is write a number between 50 and 100. Nothing else.
If you don’t, you have “failed” this test!
And you will be sad…
(These 250 words or so took me five minutes to write)
by Fitz | Nov 18, 2015 | The Crafted Word Blog
From what I have read so far, I have really loved the reflections. Hopefully, you have posted these to your blog, so every can see and read the diverse—but focused—way each of you has approached the assignment. There is one thing that many of you need to do—
Paragraph!!!
A big part of this reflection writing is for you to practice paragraph writing, to learn when you are shifting to a new thought and/or direction, and to do the proofreading and editing needed to make your reflection publishable: meaning, fit for people to read.
The document you turn in to iTunes U should also look good and be publishable.
I want you to write the reflections in class. Leave fifteen minutes for editing and publishing. This will give me a good idea of what a good production rate is for each of you.
As it is, I am asking you to write a bit less than fifteen words a minute. Not a lot, but not a little either. There is not a lot of room for screwing around.
So get to work…
In my Rocky story, Rocky is amply a metaphor for you guys writing without a rubric.
by Fitz | Nov 13, 2015 | The Crafted Word Blog
I have had a go0d read so far reading your haiku. I have a couple of thoughts…
I never quite know how to teach how to use specific imagery. When I say “specific” maybe I mean “real.” because every reader–wants to “see” what you are seeing in a real way.
- avoid anything generic that might mean something totally different depending on who and where you are. The ocean is different all of the world. There are a million types of flowers, so give your flower the name: rose, tulip, dandelion. What is in the field? What bug is it? The art of the haiku is in creating an image and then creating a mood, a meaning, or an insight.
- Emotions are tricky to write: joy and sadness, pain, sorrow don’t mean much on their own. Use specific imagery to create the sense of joy, sadness–or whatever emotion you are trying to capture in your haiku.
- Get rid of ALL unneeded words!
Here is Basho trying to capture “persistence”
Autumn moonlight–
a worm digs silently
into the chestnut.
Here is Issa capturing beauty:
Blooming Garden
Moonlit Wind Blowing
Silver Fragrance
Here is Buson capturing the essence of manual labor:
Blow of an ax,
pine scent,
the winter woods.
My haiku techniques should really be accompanied by you searching out the haiku of the Japanese masters. Check out this site and see what mean!
by Fitz | Nov 2, 2015 | The Crafted Word Blog
The devil is always in the smaller details, and it is these details that jump off the page when a reader is reading, a teacher is grading, or your boss is wondering why the heck he or she hired you in the first place.
I should not have to give you a checklist as all of these details are explained in the literary analysis paragraph rubric. It is as easy to make these mistakes as it is to avoid them.
First Look
Formatting
The most glaring errors—and the errors I catch most easily—are simple formatting errors and omissions of detail. Here is a list of the most common mistakes in formatting a literary analysis paragraph.
- The document has the wrong file name.
- Assignment information is missing or incomplete
- The title is not centered
- The quote is not centered, not in italics, or you do not cite the source of the quote.
- You do not tab in your first sentence.
- Book titles not capitalized or italicized.
Opening Paragraph
GUIDING THEME
This comprises the first third of your paragraph and guides the reader in the direction your paragraph. The three parts act together to clearly state the reason your paragraph exists.
- Broad Theme: The most common mistake is to make this a long and complicated sentence. The only purpose of the broad theme is to “engage” the readers interest by introducing an enduring theme and tying it into your narrow theme.
- Narrow Theme: The most common mistake is to omit the one word theme and a specific reference to the literary piece in the sentence. This sentence shows how the broad theme is used in the literary piece.
- One/Two Punch: Don’t go back to your broad theme here; this is the place to narrow down your narrow theme even further to a specific character, event or observation—and be sure to reference your theme word or phrase again.
Body Paragraphs
TEXT REFERENCE & SUPPORT
This should fill up the center third of your paragraph. It is the physical proof of your theme working within the text of your literary piece.
- Setup: Oftentimes a writer does not provide enough specific detail for the reader to fully understand the context of the coming quote (the smoking gun). Be sure to fully create the “image” a reader needs to “see” by including a meaty and specific who, what, when, where, why leading into the actual text support,
- Smoking Gun: This can only be the actual text from the literary piece. The most common mistake is to forget to cite the source of the quote, or to forget to italicize the quote–or to forget to block quote the selection if it is longer than two lines on the page.
EXPLICATION & EXPLANATION
Head and Heart: This is the foundation of your paragraph. Without it, your paragraph will be as empty as it is shallow. It shows and tells the reader how your theme is relevant to your text reference. It makes reading your paragraph a worthwhile (edifying) experience.
- Head and Heart: By far the most common mistake here is to write about the theme itself instead of how the theme is specifically used in the piece of literature you are analyzing–and even more specifically how the theme is used in your text reference.
- The first sentence of the head and heart should explicate the quote.
- Never write anything along the lines of “This quote shows…” Or “What this quote means is…” Quotes don’t mean anything! The way the plot unfolds means everything, so refer to the action in the piece of literature.
- Do not tab the first sentence of the head and heart because it is not a new paragraph.
- Check this section and make sure that “every” sentence refers back to the literary piece (and your narrow theme) in some way shape or form.
Finishing Clean
TRANSITION OR CONCLUSION
This part of your paragraph should signal your readers that they have either reached their destination or you are talking the next exit off the highway. There is no reason to be wordy here. Too many words is like trying to clear a muddy puddle with your hand.
The most common mistake here is referencing your broad theme without referencing the piece of literature you just finished analyzing.
- Get On: The biggest mistake when transitioning to a new paragraph is when there is no logical flow between paragraphs.
- My rule of thumb is that I “should” be able to put a conjunctive adverb (moreover, finally, however, etc) or a conjunction (so, yet, and,or, nor, for, but) between the last line of one paragraph and the first line of the next. If you can’t do that, there might be something more you need to do….
- Get Out: It is critical to end a final or single paragraph with a sense of finality, so my advice is to finish it clean.
- The most common mistake here is to introduce a new thought that you haven’t already discussed in your paragraph–or you forget to refer back to your one-word theme AND the literary piece.
- Never refer back only to the broad theme. This final sentence needs to capture your narrow theme PLUS the added insight of your explanation and explication about the piece of literature you are analyzing.
Final Thoughts
I am not so vain as to think that my rubrics are the end all/ be all of how you should write or present a writing piece, but it is massively important that you learn to answer a writing prompt or assignment with meticulous attention to the details that are important to your “boss” (whatever shape that boss takes). If you are working in a supposed “collaborative” group and your partners are not exactly collaborating, you need to take control of the final product before it is presented to “the boss.”
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