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A Walk Through the Highlights: Is Your Essay Tight and Energetic?

A Walk Through the Highlights: Is Your Essay Tight and Energetic?. Peer Edit If you want me to give you feedback please give me a draft by tomorrow morning ( before school), and I will give them back by Friday afternoon. HW: work on Gothic final assessment See webpage for directions.

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A Walk Through the Highlights: Is Your Essay Tight and Energetic?

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  1. A Walk Through the Highlights: Is Your Essay Tight and Energetic? • Peer Edit • If you want me to give you feedback please give me a draft by tomorrow morning (before school), and I will give them back by Friday afternoon. • HW: work on Gothic final assessment • See webpage for directions Some work time, so you don’t feel like you’re driving with a cat on your head!!

  2. The Basics: Workin’ it OUT • Introduction: • Attention Getter • Transition • Background of Critical Lens and Plot • Transition to thesis • Strong thesis • Author, title • Argument • Clear critical lens • Connection to society: “so what” • Body Paragraphs • Strong topic sentence • Thorough support (at least two quotes or one quote and one example) • Lead outs that clearly relate to thesis and attempt close reading • Informed use of critical vocabulary • Conclusion that sums up and links back to thesis • Conclusion • Reviews main points, but doesn’t regurgitate thesis • Makes clear application to modern society • Ends with a bang, no a fizzle. • Documentation • All quotes and paraphrases are cited. • Correct quote incorporation • Correct internal documentation—Mrs. Ackerman called out, “Happy Hump Day,” as her students walked into class (Ackerman 34). OR As Mrs. Ackerman’s students came into class, she called out, “Happy Hump Day” (Ackerman 34).

  3. Lead outs and close reading: 3 steps • What…does your quote reveal? • How…does the author do so? (Word choice, juxtaposition, punctuation, grammar) • Really analyze and think about how the text demonstrates your argument (thesis). • Think back to what we discussed with Dickinson—punctuation, capitalization, etc. • Why…does this quote and your close reading tie back to your literary theory?

  4. How Close Is Too Close? Analyzing Your Quotations. • Quote: “Tell me ‘bout the rabbits, George” • Analysis: Lennie’s repetition of this phrase reveals his need for stability in an inherently unstable environment. Although he must move from ranch to ranch, his dream is unchanging as long as he has George to tell and retell it. Moreover, Lennie’s particular focus on rabbits exposes both Lennie’s comfort and his most threatening obstacle; while Lennie’s love is simple, as he enjoys touching soft things, it causes him to lose control and traps him in a cycle of self-destruction.

  5. Did You Get Close Enough? • Analysis Checklist: • Does the analysis make an argument, or is it simply retelling the quote? • Does the analysis clearly link the quote to the topic sentence and thesis? • Is the analysis specific to the quotation? Does it examine diction (word choice)? Connotations? Which words stand out and why were they chosen?

  6. Smooth it out: Transitional words • When you switch from one paragraph to another, you need to help your reader transition by using a transitional word or phrase. • For a helpful list, check out the following website: • http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/574/02/

  7. Topic Sentences…The Arteries of Your Essay • Topic sentence checklist: • Is it clear? (Scale 1-5) • Is it specific? Does it expand upon the thesis? • Does it make an analysis/a judgment? Be sure to avoid plot summary. • Does it mention the author or title?

  8. How To Write the Topic Sentence of Your Dreams and More… • Poo: • Salinger presents characters who are searching for their true selves. • Decent: • Salinger presents characters who feel lost and search for stability. • Impressive: • Salinger presents characters who desperately search for stability because they fear the corruption of adulthood.

  9. How To Be Smooth and Suave…Quote Incorporation • Pooey: Lennie is desperate for George’s approval and reassurance. “Tell me ‘bout the rabbits, George” (Steinbeck 6). • Getting there: Lennie is desperate for George’s approval and reassurance. He says to George, “Tell me ‘bout the rabbits” (Steinbeck 6). • Hot stuff: Lennie, desperate for George’s approval and reassurance, pleads to him, “Tell me ‘bout the rabbits” (Steinbeck 6).

  10. More examples • Good: “Holden feels protective of Jane: ‘I kept thinking about Jane, and about Stradlater having a date with her.’” • Better: “Consequently, Holden feel protective of Jane, so he ‘kept thinking about Jane, and about Stradlater having a date with her.’” • Good:LeGuin explains the significance of the bridge when “the light breaks through a last time” • Better: “As the king descends from placing the keystone into this magnificent bridge, ‘the light breaks through a last time’”

  11. Do you need a few more? • Needs work: “He seeks pleasure in his revenge “No answer still; I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within.” • Good: “He seeks pleasure in his revenge by “thrusting a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within.” • Better: “He seeks pleasure in his revenge by listening for his victim’s cries, but he hears “No answer still; I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within.”

  12. Bad Word/Phrase List • I/me my you your • big bad good thing • really very not a lot • true self searching for self • finding self contractions • How to get rid of “not”? Turn the negative voice into the positive voice. • Negative voice: She wasnot successful. • Positive voice: She was unsuccessful. • Negative voice: They were not able to fulfill their dream. • Positive voice: The were unable to fulfill their dream.

  13. Bad Word List, continued • How to get rid of “really” and “very”? • CROSS THEM OUT • You may have to adjust the adjective. • Ex: • They felt very sad as they left. • They felt devastated as they left.

  14. Trim the Fat: Concise Writing • When in doubt, cross it out! • Eliminate unnecessary adjectives. If they sound melodramatic, cross it out! • Get rid of unnecessary prepositional phrases. • “The death of Allie” Allie’s death • “Holden is a boy of sixteen” “Sixteen-year-old Holden” • Cross out any repetitive ideas. • Celie feels defeated for believing in God, when she finally realizes the kind and loving God that she has dreamt about fails to exist. She wonders how God can let such an atrocity, like rape, happen to her.

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