Day 43 - Wednesday

Day 43 - Wednesday

1) Class Business (5)

* Sign-in Sheet
* Discuss Final Portfolios and Last Day of Class

2) Topic Stress Lecture (20)

* Now I want to talk about another aspect of all of our papers, paragraphs, and sentences that we can use to our advantage. What I want to talk about is how we stress ideas, consciously and unconsciously, in our essays.

* Discuss role of the stress position. What’s the most important part of your introductions? (Claim) What’s the best place to locate this claim? (Launching Point) Why? (Because the last thing we read in the introduction emphasizes this idea and frames our expectations for the rest of the essay.) OK. Is this usually true? Do reader’s expect to find the most important idea last? What about in our sentences? Where do we place the most important idea?

* Now I want you to look at some sentence pairs. (Refer to examples on the board, taken from LRS Stress page 1. Sentence Pairs: He’s rather strange, but people like him. People like him, but he’s rather strange. Times are hard, but you deserve a raise. You deserve a raise, but times are hard.) What does each sentence mean? What’s the difference? OK. So, you see that whatever is placed in the end position is emphasized. How might we use this in our papers?

* Editing contest at the board. Now I want to see how you can use this stress to your advantage. Break class up into six groups of three. Distribute the "Using the Stress Position" handout. Groups have 3 minutes to write revised versions on the board. Team with best revisions gets a prize.

3) Titles (5)

* Discuss the role and importance of titles. I’ve noticed this semester that you’ve been pretty hesitant to supply titles for your papers. For your final portfolios, however, I want you to try to put a title on each paper you include. So, today we’re going to talk about titles, what they do, and what makes them good.

* Let’s start with an easy question: Why do we put titles on things? (So we know what to expect, what they’re about, whether we’ll be interested in them.) What does a good title do? (Creates proper expectations; sets the tone; gives us an idea about themes, characters;) Based on these criteria, which is a better title for a paper on biographical elements in The Patriot: The Patriot, or The Patriot: Fictional Biography and Film. Why? (Explain the wonderful colon.)

* Titles Game (if time allows): OK, now I want to get you guys to brainstorm some titles. Ask for 3 volunteers to serve as judges. Divide rest of class into three groups of five. Write a topic up on the board. Give groups 5 minutes to brainstorm titles of papers on that topic. Titles will be judged based on quality, creativity, relevance, and their ability to frame reader expectations. (Talk to judges about scoring: eliminating duplicates, they will rank the top five titles, giving 5 points for 1st, 4 for 2nd, etc..) The highest scoring team will get a surprise. Once the five minutes has expired, teams should come to the board and write down their titles, numbering them as they go.

* Round One: Topic — Forrest Gump’s use of an individual perspective to present historical events.

* Distribute candy to the winners, ask if they want to share.

4) Workshop Portfolios (20)

* Review Portfolio Instructions

* Take out your papers. Find a partner.

* Handout Workshop worksheets: write down the problem you want to deal with today on this handout.

* Share the problem you want to work on with your partner: this is your last chance to get advice.

* After a few minutes, I will come and you can ask me questions about your portfolio.

 

 

 

 

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