Over your well-deserved Spring Break, you are welcome to begin contemplating, even designing, a Personal Essay for Honors English Eleven. Full assignment sheets will follow on your return in early April. For now, please mull over these thumb-nail descriptions of A Life-Changing Experience, The Three Traits, and the all-new and experimental College Essay Prompt!
A Life-Changing Experience
Write an essay that describes and explains what you have learned by living through, or working through, a big experience. Briefly describe the experience itself, but then write about what you've learned: the changes you’ve made, especially in your behavior in relation to others. For some, a life-changing experience prompts little changes, such as better manners, more eye-contact, or a new morning routine. For others, the changes are more profound: renewed courage, humor, and willingness to express feelings, for example; or stronger connections to siblings, more honesty in relationships, and stronger acceptance of those who are different from you or your friends. Analyze and evaluate the resulting changes in your life by subdividing your progress into discernible aspects of your behavior and values.
Three Traits, linked by a common thread or metaphor
In many students’ lives, there isn’t one “Big Moment” – a single catalyst that prompts major changes. Instead, the characteristics of one’s personality seem to develop independently over time. This prompt asks you to notice and describe three major characteristics of yourself. If you are happy-to-lucky, perhaps three of your strongest traits include your independence, your friendliness toward others, and your willingness to take risks in public. Another student might realize that three observable traits are loyalty, a passion for science, and a devotion performing instrumental music. Whatever your traits turn out to be, try to unite them with a common thread: an image that persists throughout your paper. For your common thread, try to imagine an image – a flower, a bird, an animal – that’s close to who you are, that will help readers connect & understand your three traits. (If I were writing about what I’ve learned this year, you know the common image I’d use… brazenly and un-sheepishly!!)
The College Essay prompt ~ New in 2010!!
Assuming you acquire the necessary pre-approval – the doting nod – from your English teacher, you are welcome to compose an actual college essay, for an actual school you intend to apply to. Most colleges require an essay – a major reason why we pursue this assignment – so why not write a response to a real one? Some colleges are notorious for their vexing and demanding essay prompts. The University of Chicago is foremost among these, but there are other colleges and universities that require the essay as well. The Up-side of doing this includes timeliness and focus on the college decision! Pitfalls include laboring over a school you ultimately don’t qualify to attend, raising hopes and dashing expectations! With this assignment it is essential that you obtain pre-approval, which will hinge, among other things, on whether the essay you choose resembles the scope of the other two essays in terms of effort, writing demands, and all the rest.
In General:
Write and rewrite! Develop this essay into a masterpiece of honest observation, of attention to detail, and of vivid, life-like, even piquant expression in prose.
Organize and reorganize!! Push yourself to achieve solid structural integrity – a literary “architecture” of purpose - that makes it easy for readers to follow your thinking, step by step, with persistence around a unifying sense of purpose.
Piquant prose is provocative; but then, so are truthfulness, simplicity, and thoughtfulness. Hester Prynne’s advice to “be true” prompts some students to run for cover ("What, my truth?? But it’s so boring!!). Still, be true. Essays draped in half-truths or exaggerations do not survive the tough scrutiny of college admissions readers (i.e., they know right away when it is - or when it's not - the real Spiderman or Venus Williams who’s applying!) So… be true! Trust that the facts of your life will carry the day, empowering this essay with vivid, true and coherently-drawn examples of how you choose to live your life.
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Curtain Up on American Theatre!
Early FSF residence on Summit Ave.
A "cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial"
Another Georgian mansion, complete with its "quarter of a mile" of lawn (...who MOWS that thing??).
(Click on Map to see a LARGER IMAGE.)
Can you tell what the arrow is pointing toward? Better still, can you guess where the camera was positioned when it took this picture? Click on the image for Carl Sagan's breath-taking explanation. (Thank you, Abby!!! Thank you, Adam, brother of Abby!!!)
Bratnober and Thoreau compare palm-prints
Mr. B. at Thoreau's desk, grading WALDEN (Thoreau got an A+).
Mr. Bratnober's Two Sections, Second Semester, 2010.
Summer Reading Lists Online
Writer's Resources in AP Lang & Comp: Feel free to use: from now until you graduate, & beyond!
Mr. Bratnober's Summer Reading List
Nonfiction:
The Battle Cry of Freedom, by James MacPherson
The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara
Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce, by Kent Nerburn
Comanches: a History of a People, by T.R. Fehrenbach
Fiction:
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling
My Name Is Red, by Orhan Pamuk
Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
Shadow Tag, by Louise Erdrich
Sula, by Toni Morrison
Other possibilities include books by Tim O’Brien, John V. Fleming, James Joyce, and Norman Maclean.
Personal Essay Deadlines
Rough O/L & Thesis Statemt.:
- due Apr. 26/27
[ret. to you: Apr. 29-30]
1st Draft (rough dr.) - due May 18-19(!!!)
[ret. to you: May 24-25]
2nd Draft (3 typed copies) - June 1-2
[Peer-edit in class]
Final Draft - due in class on June 7-8
[ret. to you: June 9-10]
- due Apr. 26/27
[ret. to you: Apr. 29-30]
1st Draft (rough dr.) - due May 18-19(!!!)
[ret. to you: May 24-25]
2nd Draft (3 typed copies) - June 1-2
[Peer-edit in class]
Final Draft - due in class on June 7-8
[ret. to you: June 9-10]
Blues Blog for The Bluest Eye
LINK to http://honors11bluesblog.blogspot.com/ to view our companion blog, with supplemental materials for The Bluest Eye.
ADD to the contents of the Blues Blog by sending links for music, YouTubes, art, photography, articles, and other materials to Mr. Bratnober's school e-mail address.
COMMENT on what you see there; Comments will be "On" in the Blues Blog.
ADD to the contents of the Blues Blog by sending links for music, YouTubes, art, photography, articles, and other materials to Mr. Bratnober's school e-mail address.
COMMENT on what you see there; Comments will be "On" in the Blues Blog.
American Play Presentations in April
Your fifteen-minute presentation should consist of the following:
A talk on the playwright: his or her life story; awards he or she has won; the era he or she lived in. (2 min.)
A talk on the style of the play. Is it realistic? Is it comic? What other plays does it remind you of??? How/Where does this play fit into American Lit.? (2-3 min.)
The context of your scene, within the larger scheme of the play: Set it Up!!! (1 min. Director??)
Your Scene!! – performed with élan!!! (6-8 minutes)
Follow-up: Q & A, handled with convincing skill and enthusiasm. Director & actors explain the decisions that went into the performance. (2 min.)
A talk on the playwright: his or her life story; awards he or she has won; the era he or she lived in. (2 min.)
A talk on the style of the play. Is it realistic? Is it comic? What other plays does it remind you of??? How/Where does this play fit into American Lit.? (2-3 min.)
The context of your scene, within the larger scheme of the play: Set it Up!!! (1 min. Director??)
Your Scene!! – performed with élan!!! (6-8 minutes)
Follow-up: Q & A, handled with convincing skill and enthusiasm. Director & actors explain the decisions that went into the performance. (2 min.)
Curtain Up on American Theatre!
Early FSF residence on Summit Ave.
Take the Walking Tour from your Home Computer!!
Boffo Gatsby Field Trip Specs
8:00 a.m. WHEELS UP, as buses leave WHS (Att. Office entry).
8:15-8:45 "Walking" tour of old St. Paul (via bus).
8:45-9:30 Nina's & Common Good Books (upstairs/downstairs)
9:45-10:15 The Commodore Hotel - a St Paul classic.
10:30-11:05 The University Club - a St. Paul icon.
11:10 a.m. WHEELS UP, as buses depart for WHS.
11:30 a.m. "Gee, it's been swell!"
8:15-8:45 "Walking" tour of old St. Paul (via bus).
8:45-9:30 Nina's & Common Good Books (upstairs/downstairs)
9:45-10:15 The Commodore Hotel - a St Paul classic.
10:30-11:05 The University Club - a St. Paul icon.
11:10 a.m. WHEELS UP, as buses depart for WHS.
11:30 a.m. "Gee, it's been swell!"
A "cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial"
Another Georgian mansion, complete with its "quarter of a mile" of lawn (...who MOWS that thing??).
Fifteen Conventions to Uphold in Writing About Literature (1)
1. Compose sentences in the present tense (PT).
“Readers see how fully Huck matures.” (not ‘matured’)
“Huck fears for his life whenever his father drinks too much.” (not ‘feared’; not ‘drank’)
(Exceptions: (a) points about the author’s life; or (b) fictional events that precede the
book’s main narrative (e.g., “Pap mentions that Huck’s mother died many years ago.”)
2. Maintain a third-person viewpoint (3rd pers.) (‘One’, ‘they’, or ‘readers’; not ‘I’, ‘we’ or ‘you’)
“Readers can detect the Duke’s sarcasm.” (not ‘You’ or ‘We’)
“One would be hard-pressed to ignore the satirical attacks in Huckleberry Finn.” (not ‘You’)
3. Avoid the use of contractions (avoid contr.!).
“Huck should not assume that he is safe.” (not ‘shouldn’t’; not ‘he’s’)
“Huck cannot make up his mind about what is right.” (not ‘can’t’)
4. Uphold Honors English Eleven grammatical principles regarding Subject-Verb Agreement (SV-Agr.), Clear Pronoun Reference ( it ), and Parallel Structure (PAR).
5. Write out small & medium-sized numbers (spell #!!).
“Huck stays with the Grangerford family for at least four weeks.” (not ‘4’)
“The King and the Duke discover six thousand dollars in gold.” (not ‘$6,000’)
(Exceptions: Dates (“January 11, 1889”) and long numbers (‘17,485,332.39’).
6. Use MLA format: double-space; one-inch margins; numbered header; no title p.; 12-pt. font. (See the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue.) Include a Works Cited page in MLA format. (MLA)
7. Use concise, accurate internal citations to direct readers to relevant items in your Works Cited page. (Plain-English translation: Cite all your sources – do not engage in plagiarism.)
8. Block-indent quoted passages of four or more lines. Because block indentation implies quotation, additional quotation marks are redundant and thus incorrect (except to denote dialogue).
9. Avoid elaborate re-hashing of the plot. If you need to hug something, hug your thesis, not the plot.
10. Favor the active voice over the passive voice in sentence construction.
“Huck treats Jim with respect.” (not “Jim is treated with respect by Huck.”)
“Pap abuses Huck.” (not “Huck is abused by his cruel pap.”)
11. Write as though the book produces a given literary effect, not the author.
“Huckleberry Finn engages readers with its fine natural imagery.” (not ‘Twain engages…’)
“The Scarlet Letter weaves intricate symbolic patterns.” (not ‘Hawthorne weaves…’)
12. Avoid redundancy. (E.g., The phrase “throughout the entire novel” says the same thing twice.)
13. Literary authors do not quote: they write! Therefore, avoid statements like this one: “’I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,’ quotes Henry David Thoreau.” Buzzer!! Wrong!!
14. Proofread by reading your paper aloud. If it sounds good, it probably is good (and vice versa).
15. "Simplify, simplify, simplify!" (HDT)
[1] Sources: Writing About Literature, by E.V. Roberts. Brief 11th Ed. (2005). The MLA Handbook, 6th ed. (2005). The Woodbury High School English curriculum (rev. 2006). Walden, by Henry David Thoreau (1850).
“Readers see how fully Huck matures.” (not ‘matured’)
“Huck fears for his life whenever his father drinks too much.” (not ‘feared’; not ‘drank’)
(Exceptions: (a) points about the author’s life; or (b) fictional events that precede the
book’s main narrative (e.g., “Pap mentions that Huck’s mother died many years ago.”)
2. Maintain a third-person viewpoint (3rd pers.) (‘One’, ‘they’, or ‘readers’; not ‘I’, ‘we’ or ‘you’)
“Readers can detect the Duke’s sarcasm.” (not ‘You’ or ‘We’)
“One would be hard-pressed to ignore the satirical attacks in Huckleberry Finn.” (not ‘You’)
3. Avoid the use of contractions (avoid contr.!).
“Huck should not assume that he is safe.” (not ‘shouldn’t’; not ‘he’s’)
“Huck cannot make up his mind about what is right.” (not ‘can’t’)
4. Uphold Honors English Eleven grammatical principles regarding Subject-Verb Agreement (SV-Agr.), Clear Pronoun Reference ( it ), and Parallel Structure (PAR).
5. Write out small & medium-sized numbers (spell #!!).
“Huck stays with the Grangerford family for at least four weeks.” (not ‘4’)
“The King and the Duke discover six thousand dollars in gold.” (not ‘$6,000’)
(Exceptions: Dates (“January 11, 1889”) and long numbers (‘17,485,332.39’).
6. Use MLA format: double-space; one-inch margins; numbered header; no title p.; 12-pt. font. (See the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue.) Include a Works Cited page in MLA format. (MLA)
7. Use concise, accurate internal citations to direct readers to relevant items in your Works Cited page. (Plain-English translation: Cite all your sources – do not engage in plagiarism.)
8. Block-indent quoted passages of four or more lines. Because block indentation implies quotation, additional quotation marks are redundant and thus incorrect (except to denote dialogue).
9. Avoid elaborate re-hashing of the plot. If you need to hug something, hug your thesis, not the plot.
10. Favor the active voice over the passive voice in sentence construction.
“Huck treats Jim with respect.” (not “Jim is treated with respect by Huck.”)
“Pap abuses Huck.” (not “Huck is abused by his cruel pap.”)
11. Write as though the book produces a given literary effect, not the author.
“Huckleberry Finn engages readers with its fine natural imagery.” (not ‘Twain engages…’)
“The Scarlet Letter weaves intricate symbolic patterns.” (not ‘Hawthorne weaves…’)
12. Avoid redundancy. (E.g., The phrase “throughout the entire novel” says the same thing twice.)
13. Literary authors do not quote: they write! Therefore, avoid statements like this one: “’I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,’ quotes Henry David Thoreau.” Buzzer!! Wrong!!
14. Proofread by reading your paper aloud. If it sounds good, it probably is good (and vice versa).
15. "Simplify, simplify, simplify!" (HDT)
[1] Sources: Writing About Literature, by E.V. Roberts. Brief 11th Ed. (2005). The MLA Handbook, 6th ed. (2005). The Woodbury High School English curriculum (rev. 2006). Walden, by Henry David Thoreau (1850).
South Washington County Schools
Map of the Adventures of HF & Jim
(Click on Map to see a LARGER IMAGE.)
Term Paper in Literary Analysis
Compose a paper of four to five pages ~ typed and double-spaced ~ with one-inch margins. Respond to one of the following prompts.
I. Compare and contrast the way the setting contributes to the tone in Poe’s story “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and in Washington Irving’s story, “The Devil and Tom Walker.” Discuss quoted passages from each story as you develop your assertions about each author's use of setting – physical and chronological – to promote a tone.
II. Discuss Thoreau’s concept of time in relation to such elements as nature, humanity,
III. Defend or reject the proposition that Melville’s Bartleby exemplifies Ralph Waldo Emerson’s notion of a “great” nonconformist (as in “(t)o be great is to be misunderstood” ~ RWE, in “Self-Reliance”). Discuss quoted passages from “Bartleby” and “Self-Reliance” to support your views.
IV. Choose 12-20 lines - either from Dickinson or from Whitman - and compose a detailed close reading analysis. Begin by quoting the lines. Then paraphrase the lines - i.e., put them into plain English. Then briefly discuss the meaning of the lines in relation to the poet's larger theme or themes (for Dickinson: death, consciousness, love, nature, and others; for Whitman: America, life & death, the sea, nature, poetry, the soul vs. the self, and others). Finally - and most importantly - show how details of language in your passage support the poet's larger themes. Discuss such details as word choices (diction), figurative language, comparison, analogy, and sound effects (alliteration, assonance, rhyme, et al.).
Whichever essay you choose, be sure to include close reading – that is, detailed analysis of language – to support your broader analysis of ideas. In other words, don’t become so lofty that you overlook essential details of a writer's style.
Good luck with this! I will post a calendar deadlines for the various drafts, peer editing sessions, and final submission. In class, we will carefully discuss MLA format, citation procedure, and academic honesty.
Thoreau would have laughed and cried...
Can you tell what the arrow is pointing toward? Better still, can you guess where the camera was positioned when it took this picture? Click on the image for Carl Sagan's breath-taking explanation. (Thank you, Abby!!! Thank you, Adam, brother of Abby!!!)
PRB Meets HDT at Walden Pond
Bratnober and Thoreau compare palm-prints
Mr. B. at Thoreau's desk, grading WALDEN (Thoreau got an A+).
News Notes on Class Authors
Resources for Doing Literary Research at Home
Access Codes to JSTOR and WHS Lit. Resources
- The "home password" to WHS Lit. Resources is wood39234rpa (please JOT DOWN this password before you "Click"!!).
