Week 10

Then it was as if suddenly I saw the secret beauty of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in the eyes of the Divine. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. . . . I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.

–Thomas Merton

Welcome to class. As you know, the final exam, a 350- word, three-paragraph essay is scheduled for this week. Any students who miss class this week must make certain to come next week to make up the essay exam, or contact me to discuss some other accommodation. Next week also offers all who take the exam today a chance to retake it, if necessary.

I'm confident all of you can pass this exam. If you have been applying yourself throughout the quarter, you have done by now at least half a dozen formal assignments, and numerous practice and free-write exercises. We have practiced the form of the paragraph and multi-paragraph essay each week, along with basic sentence structures–the simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentence types. We have reviewed the use of standard punctuation and grammar. We have modeled the primary modes of presenting information and organizing a paragraph or an essay–description, narration, illustration, and argument. We have discussed and practiced the necessity of having a thesis idea–the point that unifies and gives direction to the essay, the one central thing you want your essay to express. And we have practiced building paragraphs organized around a single clear topic idea, each paragraph serving, if part of a larger essay, to advance the thesis idea in one or another supporting way.

We can spend the first hour of class on review, and in preparing a checklist for the editing process to follow as you review your final draft. Thus will you have time to compose and a format to edit for the major errors that occur in grammar and punctuation.

The essay topics will be given in handout before the exam begins.

Note: Use of the Internet is not allowed during the exam.

See you in class, then.

Week 1

Welcome to The Art Institute, and to your first writing class here at the school. This class is designed for practice and instruction in writing short essay compositions. In it, you will discover some of the ways in which writing can help you to develop your creative capacities and understand better your particular kinds of knowledge and experience of the world. Writing is a process that will reveal to you what you know, and what you don't. The simple act of putting words on paper (and screen!) will open the spring of remembered people, places, events, and ideas that you carry inside. What is more, writing will reinforce your sense of what you can contribute to the lives of others, for all of us are seeking greater knowledge and understanding of the very large and often complicated world we live in, and all of us are in need of the perspective and experience contact with others can give us. Each of us brings something fresh and unique and lovable to the world. In giving expression to our thoughts, memories, dreams, desires–and in sharing them with others–we discover the many ways we have been shaped by life, and the connections we have with others. Getting started is easier than you might think. The first step is to take the pressure off yourself. Forget rules, forget rules, forget rules. Comma? Semi-colon? Forget them for now. Restrictions can make anyone freeze up, and most of what anyone writes will be forgotten or lost or trashed at some point. Suspend your inner critic. Write for the sheer pleasure of it, the sense of discovery and surprise at how the mind works, and what you've got hidden inside. The following prompts and exercises are designed to help you get started. There is no purpose to them beyond getting words to flow from you, and having a little fun. You may well find something in what you write, something for keeps, something to shape and present to the class or others. But that part of the process, which involves making decisions, making decisions about what to keep, what to toss, and how to order, shape and polish the stones, if rough, all that comes later. The start of anything is often messy. So be it.

Exercise 1: Write for five-ten minutes on anything that comes to mind, no matter what it be. Pretend, if you must, you've been let loose in a grocery store and the more items you can pull down into your cart, the fewer you'll have to pay for later. Don't pause for long. Let one thought lead into the next with as little interference from the analytic mind as possible. Don't censor yourself. Let yourself go.

Ex. 2: Write for five minutes a mini sketch of yourself, right here, right now. Record the five senses–what you see around you (objects, colors, lights, people), what you imagine you look like, what you are feeling (nervous, relaxed, tired, hungry, etc.) what you hear (even to the voices in your head), what you smell.

Ex. 3: Word Prompts: respond to one or several of the following words for two or three minutes at a stretch.

love

cherries

lips

gods and goddesses

time

grass

the sea

music

dolphins

The Mockingbird at My Window

For Homework: As you structure your compositions, think about the following:  The central idea of a paragraph is called the topic idea.  It is an idea stated or implied.  When stated it is often found at the very beginning and thus gives readers a clear sense of what the paragraph is about and its direction of development. All the material that is in the paragraph supports the topic idea by way of elaboration in the form of detail, example, and/or story incident.  An essay composed of multiple paragraphs is built around a central idea referred to as the thesis idea;  this idea, too, is directly stated or implied at the outset.   It is emphasized, reiterated in some way,  at the conclusion as well to create the impression of having been brought full circle in the writer's (and reader's) journey.  There is a beginning, middle, and end, all sufficiently connected and fleshed out. The thesis idea is always an opinion the essay writer has come to through experience and reason.  The essay is thus a vehicle for expressing the writer's opinions and beliefs, and the thoughts, feelings, and experiences that inform them.

Select one writing prompt from the following options:


Option 1:  Sort through the material you wrote today in class. Select the best or most interesting parts of it, whether an interesting idea or sentence, a dramatic or fresh image.  Develop this material more formally in a paragraph or two to illustrate something you learned in today's writing work,  a discovery about the writing process, about yourself, or whatever you may have hit upon.  Refine the material as needed with the time you have outside of class. 

Option2:  Write on a topic that did not come up in today's class work, but which you would like to address because it is on your mind. Or use one of the topics from the handout reproducing reader submissions in the magazine The Sun.  

Option 3:  Respond to the essay(s) given as a reading assignment, as if you were sharing its storyline and your thoughts and feelings and experiences in association with it.

Please Note:  This essay practice should be at least 200 words in length, no more than 500, and typed in 10 or 11 point font (Times or Courier), and spaced 2.0. Bring the piece to class next meeting.


Remember your audience, however you imagine that group of readers and listeners, and make your work as clear and complete and generous and interesting in content as you can. Readers want to connect with the writer–that is, with you. So give them a good idea of who you are, where you are coming from, and why the topic is of interest and importance. For example, an audience of your peers, students, might want to know what other students think of just such a thing or two. If you are writing about food, to food lovers or chefs-in-the-making or restaurant owners, for example, establish a common ground of interest in advancing your point. Appeal to readers' love of a good meal, particulars of preparation or presentation, or the owner's pride in the quality of experience a restaurant can provide.


In Addition: By Next Class:

Review English Syntax/Readability:  https://owl.english.purdue.edu/media/pdf/20080306044359_727.pdf
Review the definitions and illustrations of independent and dependent clauses on the following page at the Online Writing Lab: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/598/01/
Review also the Parts of Speech in English: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/730/01
Finally, copy out the following sentences. Draw one line under the sentence subject and two lines under the main verb.


1. A large, sunny window brightens the whole room.

2. Certain people know early in life just what they want from life.  Most do not.

3. There should be more holidays.

4. I gave myself a present this Christmas–a trip to Guatemala.

5. Swimming in the clear, cool, blue waters of Lake Atitlan invigorated me.

6. Lake Atitlan is a caldera, a very large crater lake that filled after the extinction of a large volcano.

7. Volcanoes tower over the southern shore of the lake and provide a beautiful backdrop to the lake itself.

8. One day I will visit there again.

9. Do you dream of traveling?

10. Write about your dreams.








 

1/11/10

by Doyle Writings

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Week 2

Equanimity is a perfect, unshakable balance of mind.

–Nyanponika Thera

Welcome back! Here's hoping you had a peaceful and productive week, and enjoyed yourself.

     What will the day bring?  It is a question I ask myself each morning, and whether I am feeling dreadful or pretty darn good, I can never fully anticipate the answer.  Life is never truly routine, never without a multitude of things to wonder and marvel at.  As John O'Donohue writes, "If you could imagine the most incredible story ever, it would be less incredible than the story of being here.  And the ironic thing is, that story is not a story; it is true."  It is exciting to watch the world unfold, to witness the grand parade of things that pass before the eye of consciousness, to note the details, large and small, as one image, one thought, one feeling quickly passes on to the next! We ride the waves, sometimes on a crest, sometimes in a trough, but always we are in the realm of consciousness. . . . For me, meaning is found in the striving to become more aware of the life within and around us. If we can avoid getting caught up in our thoughts, the weight of which can at times be enormous, then we can connect with ourselves and others in that other space out of which all things flow and to which all return, and perhaps there find a goodness otherwise hidden. Behind the mask of appearances, there is a source, a cosmic sea of sorts; and instead of thrashing about in the waves as if at any moment we might drown, we might perchance learn to swim in harmony with that sea.  This weekend I started a series of blue paintings, in oils, color fields of abstract shapes and strokes.  For me it is a form of play that takes me away from the everyday, for I see things in the paint.  With each successive glaze of color, the image shifts.  In the end, I don't know what I'll have precisely, but I know it will be watery.  Likewise, in writing we become, I believe, more conscious of what we see, for in our mind we look at things, turn them over, bring them close, take a step back, listen more intently . . . in short we find images that might have escaped us had we not stopped to contemplate the show. 

      In writing we find some perspective to put our subject in, a stance or idea to frame it. The frame, as a topic sentence in a paragraph, or thesis idea overall, tells a reader what to make of our subject. Say the subject–the raw material–is some event we can't shake from memory, whether from childhood, adolescence, or our adult life. Something happened and the memory of it has been shedding a certain light and force. This subject (event, phenomenon, fact, call it what you will) must be interpreted, its shape discovered, framed, its meaning revealed (in so far as we can grasp it) in the writing we do about it. It's not easy, but that is the challenge.  A composition of even a single paragraph must organize itself around an idea, stated or implied, which is the thesis or topic idea. Ideally, each sentence relates to the paragraph topic, alternating between the general idea and specific supporting details, and the finished effect is of a unified whole that fulfills a certain purpose. 


Read the following examples, whose topic ideas are in italic letters:

            Journeys are the midwives of thought.  Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships, or trains.  There is an almost quaint correlation between what is before our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads:  large thoughts at times requiring large views, and new thoughts, new places.  Introspective reflections that might otherwise be liable to stall are helped along by the flow of landscape.  The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do; the task can be as paralyzing as having to tell a joke or mimic an accent on demand.  Thinking improves when parts of the mind are given other tasks—charged with listening to music, for example, or following a line of trees. The music or the view distracts for a time that nervous, censorious, practical part of the mind which is inclined to shut down when it notices something difficult emerging in consciousness, and which runs scared of memories, longings and introspective or original ideas, preferring instead the administrative and the impersonal.

            —Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel

Everything is changing. . . . This is a prediction I can make with absolute certainty. As human beings, we are constantly in a state of change. Our bodies change every day. Our attitudes are constantly evolving. Something that we swore by five years ago is now almost impossible for us to imagine ourselves believing. The clothes we wore a few years back now look strange to us in old photographs. The things we take for granted as absolutes, impervious to change, are, in fact, constantly doing just that. Granite boulders become sand in time. Beaches erode and shape new shorelines. Our buildings become outdated and are replaced with modern structures that also will be torn down. Even those things which last thousands of years, such as the Pyramids and the Acropolis, also are changing. This simple insight is very important to grasp if you want to be a no-limit person, and are desirous of raising no-limit children. Everything you feel, think, see, and touch is constantly changing.
–Wayne Dyer, What Do You Really Want For Your Children?

Starting about one million years ago, the fossil record shows an accelerating growth of the human brain. It expanded at first at the rate of of one cubic inch of additional gray matter every hundred thousand years: then the growth rate doubled; it doubled again; and finally it doubled once more. Five hundred thousand years ago the rate of growth hit its peak. At that time, the brain was expanding at the phenomenal rate of ten cubic inches every hundred thousand years. No other organ in the history of life is known to have grown as fast. –Robert Jastrow, Until the Sun Dies

What my mother never told me was how fast time passes in adult life. I remember, when I was little, thinking I would live to be at least as old as my grandmother, who was dynamic even at ninety-two, the age at which she died. Now I see those ninety-two years hurtling by me. And my mother never told me how much fun sex could be, or what a discovery it is. Of course, I'm of an age when mothers really didn't tell you much about anything. My mother never told me the facts of life. –Joyce Susskind, "Surprises in a Woman's Life"

Note:  Some paragraphs, particularly ones descriptive or narrative, have no directly stated topic idea, but the idea is implied, the purpose of the paragraph clear, and the development shows unity and coherence.  The term coherence refers to the orderly, intelligible arrangement of sentences, phrases, and words.  Repetition of key words and use of transitions  are two ways of creating coherence.  Transitions  are words and phrases that clarify the connections between thoughts, for example:  now, then, after all, finally, for example, in the meantime, indeed, thus, likewise, similarly, on the one hand, on the other hand,naturally, of course, in conclusion, etc.  

  What is the topic idea, implied or explicit, in the following examples?

After our meal we went for a stroll across the plateau. The day was already drawing to a close as we sat down upon a ledge of rock near the lip of the western precipice. From where we sat, as though perched high upon a cloud, we looked out into a gigantic void. Far below, the stream we had crossed that afternoon was a pencil-thin trickle of silver barely visible in the gloaming. Across it, on the other side, the red hill rose one upon another in gentle folds, fading into the distance where the purple thumblike mountains of Adua and Yeha stretched against the sky like a twisting serpent. As we sat, the sun sank fast, and the heavens in the western sky began to glow. It was a coppery fire at first, the orange streaked with aquamarine; but rapidly the firmament expanded into an explosion of red and orange that burst across the sky sending tongues of flame through the feathery clouds to the very limits of the heavens. When the flames had reached their zenith, a great quantity of storks came flying from the south. They circled above us once, their slender bodies sleek and black against the orange sky. Then, gathering together, they flew off into the setting sun, leaving us alone in peace to contemplate. One of the monks who sat with us, hushed by the intensity of the moment, muttered a prayer. The sun died beyond the hills; and the fire vanished.

            –Robert Dick-Read, Sanamu: Adventure in Search of African Art

In the old-time Pueblo world, beauty was manifested in behavior and in one's relationships with other living beings. Beauty was as much a feeling of harmony as it was a visual, aural, or sensual effect. The whole person had to be beautiful, not just the face or the body; faces and bodies could not be separated from hearts and souls. Health was foremost in achieving this sense of well-being and harmony; in the old-time Pueblo world, a person who did not look healthy inspired feelings of worry and anxiety, not feelings of well-being. A healthy person, of course, is in harmony with the world around her; she is at peace with herself too. Thus an unhappy person or spiteful person would not be considered beautiful. --Leslie Marmon Silko, Essays

Notice that well written paragraphs develop adequately the subject; that is, there is sufficient detail and enough examples to make a persuasive case for the idea(s) expressed. Often, too, in descriptive and narrative writing you will notice the pattern of arrangement is either spatial (the eye moves from point A to B and on to C and D in clear, coherent direction) or chronological (time is tracked either from a beginning point on forward, or backward, or some mix of the past, present, and future). Sometimes both the spatial, as in description of a setting or scene, and the chronological, as in an account of actions in time, are at work. Look again at the examples above. How are they arranged?

Graded Writing Assignment #1: Construct a single-paragraph piece (no more than a page is necessary).  It may narrate an experience or event that reveals something about you or others or the world we live in.  It may be descriptive of a place, a time, a person, an object, or an idea.  Use first-person voice, the familiar "I" that we use in conversations about ourselves. We may get time to work on it in class; nonetheless, you will revise and bring it to class week 3.   Make sure to double space the lines, to use 11 point type in Times font, and to indent the first paragraph (and all paragraph beginnings). Try for 200 words. Underline in text the explicit thesis idea or write at the bottom of the page the implicit thesis idea. Bring this essay to class week 3.

SENTENCE TYPES

Sentence Type 1: The simple sentence has one subject and one predicate, the base of which is always a verb or verb phrase. And in English, the subject usually comes up front, followed by the verb and other predicate elements such as direct and indirect objects. This subject-verb combo is called a clause, an independent clause, because it expresses a grammatically complete, stand-alone thought.  Examples follow here:

Jesus wept. 

Style has meaning.

Choices resonate.

Nuts! (that is nuts, this is nuts, he is nuts, etc., where "that", "this", "he" are the subjects and "is" the verb, with "nuts" describing the situation or person, as an adjective or subject complement).

What is the subject in each of the three preceding sentences?  Jesus.  Style.  Choices.  And the verbs?  Wept and has and resonate, and some form of the "be" verb":  is, was, are, were . . .

And in the following?

The house is surrounded by razor wire.

He and I fight too often. We cannot be good for one another. 

After spring sunset, mist rises from the river, spreading like a flood.

From a bough, floating down river, insect song.  (Sentence fragment here . . . no verb).

They slept. 

The girl raised the flag. 

Note:   inverted syntax order: Subject follows the verb instead of preceding it.  Lovable he isn't. This I just don't understand. Tall grow the pines on the hills.

Normal order: A fly is in my soup. With an expletive (which delays the subject) it looks like this: There is a fly in my soup.

Sentence type 2: The compound sentence has at least two independent subject and verb combinations or clauses, and no dependent clauses. Each independent clause is joined by means of some conjunction or coordinating punctuation:

Autumn is a sad season, but I love it anyway.
Name the baby Huey, or I'll cut you out of my will.
The class was young, eager, and intelligent, and the teacher delighted in their presence.
The sky grew black, and the wind died; an ominous quiet hung over the whole city.
My mind is made up; however, I do want to discuss the decision with you.

Any of the seven short coordinating conjunctions can be used before the comma to join independent clauses:  for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so:  they can be remembered as FANBOYS.

*A semi-colon (;) must be used before adverbial conjunctions joining independent clauses:  however, indeed, therefore, thus, in fact, moreover, in addition, consequently, still, etcetera.

Sentence Type 3: The complex sentence is composed of one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.  

Sentence Type 4:  The compound-complex sentence has at least two independent clauses and one dependent clause.

Many people believe that God does not exist.
Those who live in glass houses should not cast stones.
As I waited for the bus, the sun beat down all around me.
Because she said nothing, we assumed that she wanted nothing, but her mother knew better.

Examples of subordinating conjunctions––those used in from of dependent clauses–– include the following:  because, that, which, who, when, while, where, wherever, though, as though, although, since, as, if, as if, unless, et al .

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For homework, do the following comma exercise:  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/exercises/3/5/15


View the effects of varying sentence length and syntax:  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/573/1/