Homework for Thursday (block1) and Friday (block 5)

• Be sure to read the chapters "The Things They Carried" and "Love" from the book, The Things They Carried.
• If you don't have a book, you can stop into room C246 in order to get a book.

Block 5 post your comments here

• Be sure to bring your revised literacy vignette to class on Tuesday with the peer review sheet and a copy of an earlier draft.
• In the comments section please answer the following question: What did you learn from peer review? How could we make peer review more useful in the future?

Block 5 Post your comment here!

For Tuesday be sure to bring in a revised literacy vignette with a draft and a peer review.

In the comment section please respond to the following questions: "What was helpful about peer review? How could we improve the process?"

Reminders for class on Friday

• Today you watched and took notes in your Cornell Notes notebook on the TED talk "The Girl Who Demanded School." If you were absent, please watch the talk and take notes.

Reminders for Friday

• Today in class we watched "The Girl Who Demanded School." We also took Cornell notes on this TED talk. If you were absent, be sure to make this up. Notebooks are available in C246. Here is the link: http://www.ted.com/talks/kakenya_ntaiya_a_girl_who_demanded_school?language=en
• Students in block 5 have to complete the notes on the TED talk, as we did not have time to finish the notes. The notes will be graded.
• If you have not handed in 3 copies of your literacy vignettes, you lost 15 homework points. If you don't present me with copies before Friday you won't be able to participate in peer review, and you will be required to complete peer review outside of class. Be sure to come prepared!
• See you on Friday!

Block 1 and Block 5 Homework

Your homework is to revise your literacy vignettes with the showing details we discussed in class.

The process of revision is as follows: Write the main idea for each vignette; identify places where you could strengthen the main ideas through showing; brainstorm showing details; rewrite the vignette.

In order to receive credit for the revisions, you need to bring 3 typed copies of your revision to class.

The homework for Tuesday or Wednesday depending on your block

Be sure to have a complete draft of your literacy vignettes in class. If you didn't complete the draft in class, please complete it for homework.

Your Literacy History

 

 

What is literacy?

 

It’s more than just reading and writing!  What does it mean to be a literate person?

 

For our purposes, literacy is:

 

·        A set of skills, behaviors, attitudes and dispositions demonstrated by people who function successfully in a field.  These skills allow people to feel comfortable and confident as they function in an educated group.

 

 

What do you think reading / writing literacy is?

 

Do you remember defining moments that shaped your reading and writing literacy?

 

Do you like writing and reading?  Do you avoid reading or writing at all costs?  When was the first time you wrote or read something you loved?  Did you write or read because you wanted to, or did someone make you write?  What kind of feedback did your parents/ teachers/ friends give you on your writing or reading?

 

On the back of this sheet of paper is your literacy timeline.  Brainstorm moments in your life that most stick out as having shaped your views on writing.

 

Assignment:  Pick any five of these moments that you feel best represent your life as a writer (or non-writer, as the case may be!).  Write at least six sentences per memory relaying that experience to your reader.  Be as specific as possible. Use details to help you convey this memory. REMEMBER TO CONSIDER YOUR VOICE AS A WRITER!  I want to hear you in your writing, and I want to see what you experienced.

 

This assignment MUST be typed, 12 pt standard font, STAPLED!

 

Your assignment is due next class! 

 

M. Forster

My Literacy History

 

 

Memory: 5 years old

I’m in trouble.  I’ve been sent to my room and told not to come out.  I can’t recollect what I did to land myself there, but it must have been bad.  Sitting there, in solitary confinement, I don’t quite know what to do with myself.  I must remove myself from this dreadful situation immediately, but how?  I find an old Steno notebook in my toy box and begin to construct my plea for freedom.  I write an apology note to my mother, begging her to forgive me for what I had done.  I offered her the alternative of “forgetting about me” if she wanted to.  My brother Travis having just been born, I also told her I hoped she “had a nice baby” (the implication that I may never see any of them again because of my imprisonment).  I folded it up like a letter, addressed it to my mother, and shoved it under my bedroom door where it skimmed down the hallway. 

Within moments I was released from my shackles and permitted to rejoin humanity.  The power of writing astounded me, and I kept it as a tool, in reserve.

 

Memory: 8 years old

 

I excel at penmanship.  I practice D’Nilean handwriting in my workbork.  I like its curly letters and graceful turns.  I hold the pencil tightly and stare intently at the guidelines on the paper, making sure all of my arches and tails fall exactly where they should.  This seems to be the sign of a good writer.  Row after row of scripty m’s proved I had the gift.

 

Memory: 10 years old

 

I try to keep a diary.  It seems direly important for me to do so.  I purchase a diary from the Weekly Reader book club at school.  It has a real lock and everything.  I decide it’s imperative to write in it to record all my deepest and darkest thoughts.  I write in it religiously for three days.  For the next three after that I write profound entries like “Went to school.  Had hot dogs for dinner.”  These entries make me feel guilty, and I rip them out.  Looking back at my first entries, I find them embarrassing and vulnerable.  I rip these out too, shredding them into a billion little pieces.  Over the next decade I will have a dozen of these diaries that will all meet the same fate.  I feel some obligation to record things, to be a writer.  I feel dreadful about my inability to channel that creative power and write.  I’m caught up in what a diary should be…what I think a diary should be, rather, and it renders me absolutely impotent to write anything.

Memory: 12 years old

 

I’ve finally found something I can write.  It’s sixth grade and I have started writing parodies of well-known songs.  I write one about a classmate who was overweight (the irony being that I, too, was overweight) to the tune of “I’m a little tea pot”.  “I’m an (insert name here), short and stout.  Here’s my love handles, here’s my snout.”  I write other parodies too, without one particular victim, but a lot of creative use of four-letter words.  These are the kinds of poems and songs that would make my mother shriek with horror and make my grandmother pray for my soul.  I get laughs.  I write more songs.  I get more laughs.  I branch out into poetry.  I never take my writing seriously.  No one else does either.

Memory: 13 years old

 

My seventh grade English teacher thinks I’m a poor writer.  Well, she doesn’t come right out and say so, but everything I turn in comes back with elaborate red splotches all over it, as though some poor Bic pen exploded on my page.  I write a profile of my best friend.  I’m creative, I incorporate pictures and stickers, I write neatly, I use stencils.  Mrs. Sundell remains unimpressed.  She seems to be communicating to me in her bizarre foreign tongue.  AWK.  R.O. SP.  It was worse than Morse code.  I don’t know what she wants from me, and after a few failed attempts, I stop trying.  I’m a poor writer.  I sigh, and accept my lot in life.

 I write academic papers with the help of my personal friend, Encyclopedia Britanica.  I copy entire paragraphs from books that I don’t include on my bibliography, so as not to be traced.  I write a thoughtful 10^th grade thesis on Ezra Pound’s Cantos (which I still don’t understand), which is almost entirely borrowed, with the exception of some filler.  I avoid writing at all costs.