Weekly Reminder

Class,

I enjoyed meeting with you all yesterday. I hope you walked away with a little bit more information and were challenged to see interpretations in more than one way. This will become helpful as we analyze different texts over the rest of the semester. To view information through our own personal lens is always helpful, but we also have a historical lens, a literary lens, and we can create a new one by putting texts into conversation with one another. We did this a bit yesterday with Carl Sandberg's poem and the Holocaust.

Remember, for this week, you will read the first sixty pages of Night and prepare two academic paragraphs in response to either your own personal claim or the three C's: The most compelling, most controversial, or most confusing scenes in the story. Your academic paragraph must include the following:

1. Make a claim.
2. Define your claim or further explain what you mean.
3. Provide textual evidence. This is where a quote should be placed. I'll provide more in a minute on how to do this.
4. Interpret that evidence to prove your claim.
5. Conclude your paragraph in a way that reminds the reader of your claim.


Here's an example paragraph:

                                           Ideologies, Adolescents, and Struggles 

         John Green’s Looking for Alaska is a compelling example of adolescent literature, particularly with its exploration of ideology. “Pudge” enjoys sitting in his religion class, and his big assignment is to explore what he thinks is the most important question the three main religions seek to answer. This broad assignment not only gives us a glimpse into Pudge’s mind but also introduces how his ideology is formed and tested. When he wrestles with finding a conclusion, he abandons the formalities and tells us what he thinks, and he says, “People, I thought, wanted security. They couldn’t bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn’t bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, and couldn’t even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn’t bear not to” (100). With this novel, we participate in the struggle with him to find meaning in life and death. These ideologies will later be tested with the loss of his first love, and those ideologies he struggles to define will become some of the most important issues he will face. 

You'll notice that the quote I used in this paragraph is followed by the page number in parenthesis. This is the standard MLA documentation style for quotations. The text is italicized. Remember, short pieces like poems and song titles, and even short stories, are in quotations. Longer pieces, like novels, albums, and movies are italicized. 

When you are adding in a quote, your goal is to embed it into your own original sentence. Avoid dropping a quote in and leaving it filling that space without you somehow working it into your own context. And if you drop a quote in and do not provide an explanation, the quote is awkward and leaves the reader trying to make meaning out of your conversation. Don't give them the opportunity. A good argument provides the interpretation. Let your reader know exactly what this quote proves and its significance. 

Your paragraphs are not limited to five sentences, but that is the absolute minimum for an acceptable length. They can be longer. Here's an example of a longer paragraph that includes all five elements with a little more expansion. :

                                       Huckleberry Finn: First Person Perspective

Huckleberry Finn is compellingly told from the first-person perspective, which helps to align the novel with the adolescent literature criteria. The reader is immediately pulled into Huck’s narrative, and through this, we are better able to witness his transition from a playful boy to a compassionate young man. When Huck is lost in the fog, we empathize with his fears and his return to Jim’s side brings relief; however, his dirty trick of gas lighting Jim into believing it was all a dream reminds us of the child that Huck truly is. It is through Jim’s rebuke that we feel Huck’s shame, remorse, and humility. When Huck says, “It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back” we see a significant change in Huck (47). He becomes compassionate and thoughtful, and we see how his relationship with Jim has changed from one of traveling companions to one of deep respect and friendship. Having this story told through Huck’s perspective brings in a more raw and emotional element than one that would be told through a narrator, and that emotion is what helps connect the reader to this story, adolescent or otherwise.

Also, you will need to review your vocabulary words for the week. You will have five more next Tuesday, so try not to get behind. The quiz will sneak up quickly. 

Please watch the interview posted with Elie Wiesel and Oprah Winfrey. I will also post a link to the experiment I mentioned in class. Try to watch that as well, since it will likely work its way into our conversations. 

If you have any questions or confusion, please reach out to me. You can leave a message on this blog, or send me an email. 

See you Tuesday morning!