Reading time at the start of class today followed by a discussion about your CCA. Your working thesis statement is due Monday May 15. Your CCA essay will be due Friday June 2.

Literature-Circle-Culminating-Activity-2017

How to Write a Comparative Analysis 2014

Comparative Essay organizer 2014

How to Generate a Good Thesis Statement 2014

Then I’ll hand out the descriptive essay assignment.

I will send you on a 15 minute adventure

via GIPHY

to find something to describe. Start by deciding on the dominant impression you want to give the reader: Do you want the reader to think the thing you are describing is powerful? threatening? safe? comfortable? peaceful? It’s your call, but you will need to ensure that all the descriptive details you use align with this overall impression. Next, start jotting down similes, metaphors, sensory words, words with strong connotation, powerful adjectives, etc. that you would use to describe your subject. At the end of the 15 minutes you must be back in class where you will write a descriptive paragraph.

We’ll be reading: On the Road to Berlin

And you’ll be completing the following questions: ENG-4U-Descriptive-Essay-Characteristics-and-Study-Question

We will be blogging in room 211 today. If you would prefer to use this time for working on your concept map, you are welcome to do so. Just make sure you get your blog post posted before the weekend.

Lit circle day

Today you’ll be preparing for your literary theory test by making a concept map. I will give you specific instructions for the concept map but first let’s talk about the test.

There will be 15 multiple choice questions about terms, definitions, and key ideas of the literary theories studied in class.

Then there are 6 short answer questions (worth five marks each).

Here’s what you’re going to have to know:

1. The key ideas, terms, and context of the following theories:
   1. Reader Response
   2. Formalism
   3. Feminism
   4. Archetypal
   5. Postcolonial
   6. Postmodern
2. Any of the theories presented in class by your classmates are fair game for the test, but make sure you could do an analysis of any given text using your own theory (ie the one you presented on).
3. Make sure you know what the following terms mean and how to use them in an analysis of a text:
   1. transactional analysis
   2. patriarchy
   3. subversive
   4. colonization
   5. hybridity
   6. double consciousness
   7. Eurocentricism
   8. cultural relativism
   9. cultural imperialism
   10. grand narratives
   11. collective unconscious
4. Review all the slide presentations and focus on key ideas and questions.

Literary Criticism Concept Map

Please hand in your questions for “Breathing Under Ice” and then you will working on your outline for the personal narrative essay.

This week we’re moving on to the personal essay.

Here are the handouts you’ll need:

ENG 4U Breathing Under Ice Study Questions

ENG 4U Breathing Under Ice

How to Analyse an Essay

ENG 4U The Personal Narrative Essay

Your job today is to read the narrative essay complete the essay analysis (point form) as indicated on the “How to Analyse an Essay” handout and then complete the study questions.

Don’t forget your essay of argument outlines are due tomorrow.

Today we will start by identifying the logic errors in the following essay: On Death

Then we will take up some of the key ideas in Politics in the English Language.

“Politics and the English Language”

Type of essay:  Essay of Argument

Structure:  Problem – Solution

Problem:  language is unclear, inaccurate reflecting our inability and unwillingness to think clearly.  The inability to think clearly leads to the degeneration of politics, as people fail to challenge the unclear, illogical or euphemistic statements made by politicians.

Solution:  Fight against bad English

Orwell lists the problems of bad English with examples; provides rules for clear writing (and by implication, clear thinking) warns against the dangers of political language and its sinister purposes; finishes by a call for writer’s everywhere to “jeer at” “verbal refuse” and to “put it into the dustbin where it belongs.”

__________________

When you first learned to write an essay, you may have been taught to follow a model that is sometimes called the “five-paragraph essay” or “keyhole structure” or even “hamburger essay.” These models may have helped you learn how to develop and structure ideas in a logical coherent way. However, this model can be limiting.

Think about how a child learns to ride a bicycle. He or she probably starts with a bike with training wheels. These help the child develop the skills necessary for riding a bicycle but don’t allow the child to ride very fast or maneuver very well until the training wheels come off.

Although the five-paragraph essay format does provide a basic organizational structure, there are many potential problems:

• Most newspaper editorials, magazine essays, scholarly articles, and other types of “essay-like writing” don’t have five paragraphs.
• The reader usually needs some sort of context for the thesis, some idea of why he or she should be interested in reading about this now. In general, the model students are given for an introductory paragraph in this format doesn’t provide enough context. You may need more than one paragraph to introduce a topic.
• Such essays are usually too short to require a summary at the end. The summary repeats ideas that the reader has just read about and hasn’t had time to forget. So it feels formulaic and redundant.
• The format encourages too much repetition—often the same three phrases are repeated in the introduction, the body paragraphs, and the conclusion. The reader gets bored.
• If you follow this format too strictly, you are letting the form generate the content. In other words, you are putting far more emphasis on how you organize the content than on what you want to say, the purpose you have in mind, and what your readers need.

__________________________________

Finally, we you will be working on writing an outline for an essay of argument.

ENG-4U-Essay-of-Argument-outline

This will be due Friday

First, we need to talk about the short fiction and literary theory test which will be happening next week (contrary to what’s written in the calendar)

We’ll take up the questions for Politics and the English Language.

After that we’ll have a discussion about logic:

Logical Thinking and Argument

You will apply your knowledge by writing a paragraph arguing for or against one of the following positions:

• Hunger Games style tournaments should be held each year in St. Thomas.
• Twilight represents the pinnacle of literary achievement.
• Cats are better than dogs.
• Vegetarians are morally superior to the rest of the population.

Include at least 3 examples of faulty logic and be prepared to identify them.

While there were some really outstanding presentations, I thought I should share with you a list of some of the critiques that I wrote down more than once:

1. Too much text on the slides
2. Overall appearance of lack of confidence in the ideas you were explaining
3. Superficial research (E.g., clearly not doing required reading, relying on dictionary definitions of terms that are not relevant to theory)
4. Lack of confidence in knowledge of material
5. Poor use of class time
6. It appeared that some groups didn’t consult the assessment criteria
7. Uptalking: presenting statements as questions

I would like you to fill out the following reflection sheet (it’s anonymous) to help me figure out what I need to focus on next time:

We are blogging today in room 211.

Here’s some food for thought: