5th Blog Post of the Summer of 2013

Hurray you are done with the second novel!!!!  Now honestly, would you have actually read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Finn: A Novel by this point in the summer if I hadn’t forced you to do the summer blog posts?  There are only 12 words to make flashcards for this week.  I tried to keep the flashcards and blog response limited as to give you time to write your summer assignment compare and contrast essay for the novels.   I promise to have about the same number of flashcards for the following post as well.

Part #1-Blog Response

This week you were expected to have finished reading Olshan’s novel.  For this week’s blog write a list of at least 15 similarities and a list of at least 15 differences between the two novels by Sunday at midnight.  I will not approve your posts until Monday morning so that all responses are presented at the same time…Hence it is REALLY IMPORTANT for your post to be on time.

Next week make sure you have written your essay for the summer assignment and read the first eight chapters of Black Elk Speaks.

Part #2-Flashcards

Q

Qualifier / qualification  A statement that modifies or limits the meaning of a claim.

R

realism  A loose term that can refer to any work that aims at honest portrayal over sensationalism, exaggeration, or melodrama.  Technically, realism refers to a late 19th-century literary movement that aimed at accurate, detailed portrayals of ordinary, contemporary life.

reason  A statement offered as an explanation or justification for something; also a sufficient basis for believing something or a logical defense.

red herring  Something that distracts attention from the real issue.

reflective  Thoughtful, deliberative.

refutation  The process of proving something wrong by argument and evidence.

register  One of the varieties of language appropriate to particular social situations.  The four stylistic registers most commonly referred to are formal, informal, colloquial, and slang.

retrospection  A narrative technique in which some of the events of a story are described after events that occur later in time have already been narrated; also called analepsis and flashback.

rhetoric  The art of persuasion, or the art of speaking or writing well.  Rhetoric involves the study of how words influence audiences.

rhetorical context  The circumstances in which a text is written, including the intended audience, the author’s aim or purpose in writing, and the audience’s preexisting ideas and opinions.

rhetorical device  An extraordinary use of language to achieve a certain effect on an audience.  Examples are chiasmus, parallelism, rhetorical question, and synecdoche.

romantic irony  An author’s persistent presence in his or her work, meant to ensure that the audience will maintain critical detachment and not simply accept the writing at face value.

Ms. O'Rourke's Essay Rubric

In order to help you out a bit when you write your essay, here's my essay rubric.  It can also be found in the appendix of the O'Rourke Reader.

CATEGORY	4	3	2	1
Parts of Task	Clearly addresses all parts of the writing task.	Addresses all parts of the writing task.	Addresses only parts of the writing task.	Addresses only one part of the writing task.
Thesis & Organization	Provides a meaningful thesis and maintains a consistent tone and focus and purposefully illustrates a control of organization.	Provides a thesis and maintains a consistent tone and focus and illustrates a control of organization.	May provide a thesis and maintain an inconsistent tone and focus and illustrates little, if any control of organization.	May provide a weak, if any thesis; fails to maintain a focus, and illustrates little, or no control of organization.
Support & Details	Thoughtfully supports the thesis and main ideas with specific details and examples.	Supports the thesis and main ideas with details and examples.	May support the thesis and main ideas with limited, if any, details and/or examples.	Fails to support ideas with details and/or examples.
Style	Provides a variety of sentence types and uses precise and descriptive language.	Provides a variety of sentence types and uses some descriptive language.	Provides few, if any, types of sentences, and uses basic and predictable language.	Demonstrates no sense of audience
Sense of Audience	Demonstrates a clear sense of audience (formal language).	Demonstrates a general sense of audience.	Demonstrates little or no sense of audience (informal language).	Demonstrates no sense of audience.
Grammar Conventions	Contains few, if any errors in the conventions of the English language.	Contains some errors in the conventions of the English language. Errors do not interfere with the reader's understanding of the essay.	Contains several errors in the conventions of the English language. Errors may interfere with the reader's understanding of the essay.	Contains serious errors in the conventions of the English language. Errors interfere with the reader's understanding of the essay.

 

4th Blog Post of the Summer of 2013

Hopefully you found the reading this week considerably easier than in the past few weeks.  I enjoyed rereading Finn this past week and was able to find even more parallels.  I purposely have students read Twain’s novel first, as it is much more complex than Olshan’s.  Think about this for a moment…both novels were written for children and young teenagers just a little over a hundred years apart.  Don’t you find it interesting that the complexity of Twain’s text is much more involved than Olshan’s?  Why do you think there is such a difference? (rhetorical questions)

Part #1-Blog Response

This week you were expected to have read the first half of Olshan’s novel.  For this week’s blog you are expected to write at least one paragraph on the characterization of Chloe, and one paragraph on the relationship between Silvia and Chloe by Sunday at midnight.  Clearly there are many similarities between Chloe and Huckleberry Finn, but remember I am asking you to focus on Chloe only in your characterization.  Next week, once we have finished reading the novel, we will start the lists of similarities and differences.  Additionally, remember I am asking you to focus on the relationship between Silvia and Chloe and not to make any comparisons yet.  Consider what is Chloe’s backstory?  What about Silvia’s backstory?  What does Chloe’s mother think of her?  What about Chloe’s interactions with people at school?  How does Silvia see Chloe?  How does Chloe see herself?  How does Chloe see Silvia in the beginning of the novel?  How does Chloe’s perception of Silvia change as the novel continues?

For next week we will be finishing the novel Huck by Matthew Olshan and delving into similarities and differences.  Hopefully, by the end of next week’s blog you will be able to write your first essay for the summer assignment.

Part #2-Flashcards

M

main idea  The central meaning, purpose, or concept around which a piece of writing is organized.

mediation  The process of bringing opposing parties or positions into a state of accord or compromise; also refers to negotiation.

melodrama  The use of sentimentality, gushing emotion, sensational action, or plot twists to provoke audience or reader response.  Popular in Victorian England, melodrama is now considered manipulative and hokey.

mood  The atmosphere of a work of literature; the emotion created by the work (most notably by its setting).

motif  A recurring idea, structure, contrast, or device that develops or informs the major themes of a work of literature.

myth  A story about the origins of a culture’s beliefs and practices or of supernatural phenomena, usually derived fro, oral tradition and set in an imagined supernatural past.

N

narrative  A story.

narrative device  A design or pattern in a literary work used to achieve a particular effect.

narrator  The person (sometimes a character) who tells a story; the voice assumed by the writer.  The narrator and the author of the work of literature are not the same person.

negotiation  The process of discussion and compromise between conflicting positions.

neologism  A new or invented word, expression, or usage.

nostalgia  A yearning for the past or for some condition or state of existence that cannot be recovered.

O

objective narration / third-person objective point of view  A style in which the narrator reports neutrally on the outward behavior of the characters but offers no interpretation of their actions or their inner states.

ode  A serious lyric poem, often of significant length, that usually conforms to an elaborate metrical structure.

omniscient narration / third-person omniscient point of view  A literary style in which the narrator knows all the actions, feelings, and motivations of all the characters and discusses these using proper names and the third-person pronouns he, she, it, and they.

opening  The beginning of an argument or essay; the introduction.

overstatement  An exaggeration of fact; also called hyperbole.

 P

parable  A short narrative that illustrates a moral by means of allegory (in which literal meaning and symbolic meaning correspond clearly and directly).

parody  A humorous and often satirical imitation of the style or particular work of another author.

passive voice  In this verb form, the subject of the sentence receives the action denoted by the verb.  Always consists of a form of “to be” plus the past participle of the verb.  Example”  The floor was swept by Gretchen.

pastiche  A work that imitates the style of a previous author, work, or literary genre; also a work that contains a hodgepodge of elements or fragments from different sources or influences.  The imitation in pastiche is not meant as satire or mockery.

pathos  From the Greek word for “feeling”; the quality in a work of literature that evokes high emotion, most commonly sorrow, pity, or compassion.

persona  The character an author assumes in a written work.

perspective  The point of view through which a subject or its parts are mentally perceived.

persuading  The process of influencing an audience to alter its actions and attitudes.

poetic license  The liberty that authors sometimes take with ordinary rules of syntax and grammar, employing unusual vocabulary, metrical devices, or figures of speech, or by committing factual errors, in order to strengthen a passage of writing.

point of view  The perspective that a narrative takes toward the events it describes.

position  A point of view or opinion on an issue.

prior knowledge  Ideas, facts, or awareness that an audience already possesses about a topic.

propaganda  Ideas, facts, or allegations spread to persuade others to support one’s cause or to go against the opposing cause.

prose  Any composition not written in verse.  The basic unit of prose is the sentence, whereas the basic unit of poetry is a line of verse.  Prose writing can be rhythmic but is generally less musical than verse.

protagonist  The main character around whom the story revolves.

3rd Blog Post of the Summer of 2013

Week #3-July 15-21

Congratulations you are now done with the most difficult novel of the summer.  It wasn’t so bad was it?  It is considered an American classic yet very few people have actually read it.  You are now among the few of your generation.

Part #1-Blog Response

This week you were expected to have finished the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  We will be continuing with characterization and content.  You are expected to write at least one paragraph on the characterization of Huckleberry Finn for this week’s blog response by Sunday at midnight.  In the second half of the novel we see the relationship between Huck and Jim grow.  They truly care for one another and look out for each other.  As the relationship between the two grows so does Huck’s internal conflict about what is right and what is wrong.  Throughout the second half of the novel Huck participates in stealing, lying, forgery, impersonation and more, yet the biggest struggle has to do with assisting Jim in his attempt to be a free slave.  Delve further into why this is so significant.  At one point Huck and Jim are separated by a terrible accident and Huck ends up being adopted by the Grangerfords who are in the middle of a family feud.  Huck witnesses the violent death of many of the Grangerfords.  What has happened to Jim during this time and how is it a testament to the relationship between Huck and Jim?  Soon after Jim and Huck are reunited they encounter the King and the Duke.  Why do Jim and Huck put up with these con men?  How is Huck able to redeem himself for all of the wrongs he commits as part of the King and Duke’s plot?  Eventually a familiar character emerges, Tom Sawyer; however, he is a much more unlikeable character than audiences remembered from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  Why does Huck put up with the shenanigans of Tom and his treatment of Jim?  Why does Jim put up with Tom?  In the end what is ironic about the situation?  At the end of the novel Jim tells Huck that Pap is dead.  Why did Jim keep this information from Huck?  Remember why Huck ran away.  Who is the Huck we see at the novel?

For next week we will be beginning to exam the novel Huck by Matthew Olshan.  Be sure to have read the first half of novel.  It is a much faster read as many aspects of the novel are probably familiar to us.  Pay attention to the setting, back story (remember how we examined slavery and the n-word…for the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), as well as to the relationships Chloe Wilder has and your impressions of Chloe Wilder.

Part #2-Flashcards

E

ellipsis  A figure of speech in which a word or short phrase is omitted, but easily understood from the context; also the marks (. . .) that indicate the omission of a word or phrase.

emblem  A concrete object that represents something abstract; unlike a symbol, an emblem has a fixed meaning that does not vary in different contexts.

emphasis  Force or intensity of expression brought to bear on a particular part of a text or speech.

enthymeme  An informal method of argument in which one of the major premises is implied or assumed rather than stated.  Example:  The sentence “We can’t trust this article because it’s actually an advertisement” assumes, rather than states, that advertisements cannot be trusted.

epigraph  A quotation placed at the beginning of a piece of literature or at the beginning of one of its chapters or scenes to provide the reader with some ideas about the content or meaning to follow.

epiphany  A sudden, powerful, and often spiritual or life-changing realization that a character reaches in an otherwise ordinary or everyday moment.

epistolary  Narrated through letters.

epitaph  A brief statement to memorialize a deceased person or a thing, time, or event that has ended.

ethos  The overall character, moral makeup, or guiding beliefs of an individual, group, or institution.

eulogy  A formal statement of praise.

euphony  A pleasing arrangement of sounds.

evidence  Specific facts or examples used to support a claim in a piece of writing.

expletive  A syllable, word, or group of words added to fill a void (perhaps to make a metrical scheme work), but which do not add to the meaning of a piece of writing; also an exclamatory word or group of words, especially an obscenity.

explication  The detailed analysis of a literary work.

exposition  An explanation of the meaning or purpose of a piece of writing, especially one that is difficult to understand.

 H

hamartia (tragic flaw)  A “tragic” or “fatal” character flaw that causes the downfall of a person of high status.

hero / heroine  The principal character in a literary work or narrative.

hypothetical  Involving a hypothesis (an assumption granted for the sake of argument).

I

identification  A rhetorical technique in which a speaker suggests his or her similarity or closeness to a particular group, such as the audience.

idiom  A way of speaking that is peculiar to a region, group, or class, or the conventional forms peculiar to a language.  Also an expression that is odd or incorrect and yet accepted, or one that has a meaning that does not clearly derive from the words that combine to form it.

imagery  Language that brings to mind sense-impressions, especially via figures of speech.

informal  Refers to language appropriate for every day, casual, or familiar conversation or writing.

in medias res  Latin for “in the middle of things”; refers to the technique of starting a narrative in the middle of the action.

introduction  The first part of a argument, the purpose of which is to establish the topic to be discussed and engage the reader’s interest.

irony  A technique of detachment that draws awareness to the discrepancy between words and their meanings, between expectation and fulfillment, or, most commonly, between what is and what seems to be.  There are five types to be aware of:  verbal irony, situational irony, romantic irony, dramatic irony (also called tragic irony), and cosmic irony.

L

limited omniscient narration / third-person limited omniscient point of view  A literary style in which the narrator conveys the actions, feelings, and motivations of only one or a handful of characters and discusses these using proper names and the third-person pronouns he, she, it, and they.

literal  Focusing on the explicit meaning of words only, and not dealing with context, connotation, figurative language, or other elements that add deeper shades of meaning to a text.

logic  The mode of reasoning by which we determine whether something is valid or invalid, according to which any claim should in principle be able to be justified by reasons and evidence.

logos  Greek for “wisdom” or “reason”; in the context of rhetoric, refers to the process of persuading by means of logic and reason, as opposed to style, authority, or emotion.

A Little Reminder

Please remember to use in text citations.  Some of you have this down and others do not.  This is different that just providing a bibliography or works cited at the end of your response.  As a reminder, even when you are not directly quoting from another source but using another source's ideas, you still need to use in text citations.  Please see Purdue University's website for assistance http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/  This is an excellent resource and should become one of your favorites in the upcoming years.

I am not sure if you have already been taught this but...do you know the difference between a bibliography and a works cited?  The simplest way to explain this is to say that a bibliography is when you have used resources but have not directly quoted anything from the sources.  In a works cited you have actually quoted from a resource and therefore are "citing" it.  That is why when you look at some pieces of literature, essays, books etc. they have a bibliography and a works cited.  If something uses the term "references" that means that the list of resources is a combination of both the works cited and bibliography rather than having two separate lists.

On another note, your responses to the blog are not necessarily posted immediately.  I monitor all comments and post them after they have been reviewed.  If I did not do this, anyone with Internet (notice that Internet is capitalized) access would be able to post anything on my/our class blog, and that would not necessarily be a "good" thing.

Still another note, my list of AP students can be seen below.  Am I missing anyone that you think should be included?  Have you contacted them to remind them to contact me and get started on the blog?  What is Sary's last name?  Here's the Great Eight...

Arroyo	Andres
Carter	Maya
Dorian	Lavabre
Gumby	Iman
McClelland	Elise
Mitchell	Gregory
Mussman	Rebecca
	Sary

2nd Blog Post of the Summer of 2013

I hope you all had a happy 4^th of July.  My last week included a wedding, a school reunion (the last high school I worked at), and starting back at LMU.

As you can see by the comments from last week’s blog post you are off to a good start.  Most of you posted on the 7^th and that’s okay.  I am still expecting a couple of more posts from people who are on vacation.  If you know of anyone who is supposed to take the class but you don’t see a comment from them, be sure to spread the word that they need to get on board this week.

Part #1-Blog Response

This week you were expected to have read through the first half of the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  I stated that we would focus on characterization and content.  You are expected to write at least one paragraph on the characterization of Huckleberry Finn for this week’s blog response by Sunday at midnight.  Obviously Huckleberry Finn, also known as Huck, is the main character of the novel.  In many ways the novel is a coming of age story or a _______________ (look back at week #1’s AP vocabulary).  Like many television programs we watch today, the narrator gives us a recap of where we left off with the character of Huckleberry Finn from Twain’s previous novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  Describe how Huck is portrayed before the novel begins (the recap).  How does Huck change while he is living with the Widow Douglas?  Why do these changes upset Huck’s father?  Eventually Pap (Huck’s father) kidnaps Huck.  How does Huck react to being kidnapped by Pap?  What skills does Huckleberry employ while he is with his father?  How does Huck escape?  What is the result of Huck’s disappearance?  Soon after Huck gets to the island he encounters Jim, a runaway slave.  Jim makes Huck promise not to turn Jim in.  This causes a dilemma for Huck, why?  Why not?  Fairly quickly Huck becomes friends with Jim and they begin to look out for one another.  It is a complex relationship.  Why? (Think about when and where the novel is set and not in the context of 2013)?  While with Jim, Huck makes several choices that he struggles with whether or not they are right or wrong.  Explain.  For next week be sure to have finished reading the novel.  We will finish the focus on the character of Huck and the basic content of the novel.  Remember that these blog responses are not only grades in and of themselves, but also can be used to write your summer assignments.

Part #2-Flashcards

C

caricature  In writing and literature, an author’s exaggeration or distortion of certain traits or characteristics of an individual.

case structure  The logical outline of an argument, consisting of a claim supported by reasons and evidence.

catharsis  A cleansing or purification of one’s emotions through art.

claim  A statement or assertion that is open to challenge and that requires support.

climax  The moment of greatest intensity in a text, or the major turning point in the plot.

closure  An ending or completion, or something that gives a sense of finality.

colloquialism  An informal expression, or slang term; acceptable in conversation but not usually in formal writing.

conceit  An extended metaphor, or an elaborate parallel between two seemingly dissimilar objects or ideas.

connotation  The association or implied meaning that a word carries along with its literal meaning.

conclusion  The end of an argument, the function of which is to summarize or draw together what has come before and/or to draw final inferences from what has already been stated.

consequence  An inference or conclusion derived through logic, or the result following from a cause.

convention  In writing, a practice or principle (such as a rule of spelling, grammar, or usage), that is accepted as true or correct.

convincing  The process of making an audience believe or agree with something.

cosmic irony  The depiction of fate or the universe as malicious or indifferent to human suffering, creating a painful contrast between our purposeful activity and its ultimate meaninglessness.

D

Denotation  The explicit, literal meaning of a word.

device  A technique, such as a figure of speech, an author employs to achieve a certain literary or artistic effect.

dialectic  A form of reasoning that proceeds by juxtaposing contradictory ideas and synthesizing or finding areas of agreement between them.

dialogue  A conversation between two or more speakers; also an exchange of ideas.

diction  Specific word choice used in a piece of writing, often chosen for effect but also for correctness and clarity.

didactic  Intended to instruct or to educate.

digression  To turn or move away from the min subject of discussion or the main argument in a piece of writing.

discourse  The wider social and intellectual context in which communication takes place.  The implication is that the meaning of works depends on their context, not just their content.

dramatic irony / tragic irony  A technique in which the author lets the audience in on a character’s situation while the character remains uninformed.

F

first-person narration / first-person point of view  A literary style in which the narrator tells a story from his/her own point of view and refers to him/herself as I.  The narrator may be an active participant in the story or just an observer.

foil  A character who illuminates the qualities of another character by means of contrast.

foreshadow  To present ideas, images, events, or comments that hint at events to come in a story.

formal  Following established rules or conventions of writing.

free indirect discourse / third-person limited point of view  A literary style in which the narrator conveys a character’s inner thoughts while discussing these thoughts in the third person, using proper names and the third-person pronouns he, she, it, and they.

G

genre  One of the types of literature, such as short stories, poetry, drama, and novels, or one of the categories within those types, such as romance, science fiction, mystery, and melodrama.