Wednesday, April 09, 2003

 
kelly~ that show-dont't-tell handout rocks, sista. good find. also~ show-don't-tell works really well with "Cathedral" for obvious reasons. they "get" it every time when they read that story.
posted by betsy 4:23 PM

 
Personal Narrative. Show-Don't-Tell.
http://www.uwec.edu/jerzdg/orr/handouts/Style/showing.htm
posted by Kelly 12:31 AM

Monday, April 07, 2003

 
btw--haven't used Fight Club to teach--I had some students last quarter write about it. I might use an excerpt of the movie this quarter although I haven't thought exactly of how yet.
posted by Kelly 4:07 PM

 
Memorable Prose. Exercise. Personal Narrative.

So yesterday I realized with horror that it was Sunday and I actually had to concoct a lesson plan so I spend hours drawing up a lesson about "memorable prose"--using strong verbs & nouns--and introductions, titles and sentence length. I pulled some good stuff out of books and well, they are basically plagiarized worksheets but whatever. The students went around the room and read the worksheets out loud, then (thanks to Betty! this is her idea) I passed out film reviews (from the Drexel web page, The New Yorker & The New York Times) and each person had to determine whether the film reviewer had mastered memorable prose. The students underlined the strong verbs & nouns and if they found a word that could be improved, they had to improve it. They also had to say whether the introduction hooked them and how sentence variety was impacting the prose. After writing down the answers to these questions, they met with a partner and the two people discussed their findings. ANYWAYS i feel like i spent forever drawing this assignment up so i am more than happy to send anyone copies of the worksheets & film reviews, if you want to use them. the entire exercise & discussion takes about 25 minutes.
posted by Kelly 4:05 PM

 
Readings. Personal Narrative.

not to brag or anything...okay, yes to brag but also to share my discoveries...i had a good class today and they really liked the following essays: Alice Walker's "Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self" and Lucy Grealy's "Mirrors." They are in Fields of Reading: Motives for Writing which is the reader I'm using (which I have blabbered about to most people) & anyone can borrow to peek: just say the word. It's Bedford/St. Martin's so you can go to the website & snag a free copy (i also snagged some fiction & poetry hehehhe). anyways...the group that led discussion for these essays was awesome. they passed out slips of paper with "disabilities" listed (i.e. constantly interrupting other people, stamping your foot incessantly, keeping head down) and each person had to have a discussion with two other people, "enacting" these "disabilities." after about five minutes everyone went around the room and had a very intelligent, very insightful discussion about communication and perception of disabilities, etc. and we had some brave souls who themselves experience "real" disabilities on a day-to-day basis share their experiences. then they spoke about how these women wrote similarily & differently & why...oh goodness. i was just so pleased with the way it went--when such a subject could, potentially, go very wrong.
posted by Kelly 3:56 PM

Sunday, April 06, 2003

 
stina~ yup. i'll put it in your mailbox when i get it.
posted by betsy 11:39 PM