Course Recap for Wednesday, October 11, 2012

Quick Tips on Grammar, Formatting, etc.

I returned your rough drafts of your literacy narratives with my comments.  Remember I only carefully checked the first two pages of your draft for grammatical errors so be sure to go through your entire draft carefully and you complete your final revision.

Here were a couple of common errors I saw in most of the papers that we talked about in class and ways you can avoid them.

1. Italicize the titles of books and make sure that you include the author's name.  I need to know whether or not you're talking about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or Dean Koontz's Frankenstein.
2. A lot of you have a double space between each paragraph.  What you need to do is open your document in Word, highlight the entire document, go to Paragraph on the toolbar and click the option that says "Do not leave a space between each paragraph."  I will take points off if you do not do this.
3. Watch your tenses. If you start your piece in past tense you should stay in past tense.  Do not randomly shift to present tense.  Many of you will write one sentence in present tense and then the next one would be in past and vice versa.  I've even seen two different tenses within one sentence.  Here's an example:  She cried all day long and then she is fine.
4. Run-on sentences! A run-on sentence is a sentence where you string two or more ideas together without proper punctuation you just keep going and going, it doesn't matter that you've already stated 2 very complete thoughts you decide to go ahead and add a few more just for dramatic effect and you end up with a sentence that is over four lines long.  The previous sentence is a run-on.  Here is that sentence corrected: A run-on sentence is a sentence where you string two or more ideas together without proper punctuation.  You just keep going and going.  It doesn't matter that you've already stated two very complete thoughts.  You decide to go ahead and add a few more for dramatic effect, and you end up with a sentence that is over four lines long.
5. Writing passively vs actively. " The first project was passed by most of the class." Doesn't that sound awkward?  Wouldn't it be easier to say "The class passed the first project."
6. Try to reduce your use of "to be" verbs like is, was, am.  I am walking would become I walk. They were fighting in the hall would become they fought in the hall.  It's straight to the point, makes your sentence more active, and will help some of you who had problems with wordy sentences.
7. Avoid the phrase "would have been."
8. Do not start sentences with conjunctions. Because, but, and, or etc are conjunctions
9. Do not start sentences with verbs that start in -ing.  "Walking to the store, they saw a stray dog."  Just say "They saw a stray dog while walking to the store."  
10. Follow the above tips and you will have caught most of the common grammatical and formatting errors of our class.

Carrie Discussion

The we went over the Carrie Response Guide.  We talked about your reactions to the movies and your interpretations of the film.  Here is a summary of your responses.

• The color red represented anger.  It also represented blood.
• The camera often shot Carrie from above which showed how her classmates looked down on her.
• White represented purity and Carrie was often shown in bright white light before the end.
• Religion was represented as a repressive force in the movie.  Religious symbols were often seen in small, dark places.
• Carrie's mom was a major cause of all of Carrie's problems, possibly the main cause.

We then talked about the two critical pieces you read on the movie.  In these two pieces the authors analyzed various aspects of the movie from a specific point of view in order to prove a point.  Both authors equated Carrie's telekinetic power with her burgeoning sexuality.  Both authors believed that Carrie was indeed a monster.  Muir analyzed the film mostly from a technical point of view and talked about how the director used certain techniques like slow motion, split screen, and intense music to track Carrie's transformation into a monster.  Lindsay examined it from a feminist point of view.  She talked about how the gender of the different characters affected how you interpreted their actions.  

You will be doing an analysis of a piece of art for your next project.  The types of questions you asked yourself while watching Carrie are the types of things you want to ask about your piece.  What are the hidden meanings behind the plot of the movie or book?  What do the different colors in the painting say to you about the author's feelings toward his subject? Why did a songwriter use a specific word in their song instead of another one?  We will examine some pieces together as we prepare you to learn how to interpret different pieces.  

Your first assignment will be to analyze Carrie as you try to prove which characters from the movie were the true monsters. 

Homework

• Final Draft of Literacy Narrative (Due Mon 10/15)
• Attend Performance of Sleep Deprivation Chamber at the York Theatre in the Gilmore Theatre Complex-right across from Brown, next to Miller Auditorium (Due Sun 10/14 or Mon 10/15 at 5pm)
• Read "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin (Due Mon 10/15)
• Finish up Carrie Project-You will have 15 minutes in class to prepare your presentations.  Make sure you email me the links to your research. (Due Mon 10/15)