Week 4

Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day–like writing a poem or saying a prayer. What matters is that one be for a time inwardly attentive.   –Anne Morrow Lindbergh, b.1906

Good day, to you all.  Hope you are well.

Today we will  start by looking at past work and the narratives (#3) before going to review use of the apostrophe in possessive constructions, the grammar of verbs, sentence punctuation, and use of quotations.  We will get through as much as we can, perhaps moving the summary work described below to next week or finding some practice substitute to model the process and cause/effect modes of organization.  We will discuss these matters in class.

--------------

There are modes of developing and arranging information, and we have looked closely at two thus far: narration and description.  Several other commonly used modes include illustration, process analysis, cause and effect analysis, definition, and comparison/contrast.  

We can use narration and description and example or illustration to show readers the world and the lives we lead in very particular ways.  We can also "explain" things to readers:  why we or others acted just so (what motivated or caused the actions) or the effects of specific human actions.  We may also explain the means by which something is done or made, the procedure, protocol, or specific method, detailing to some degree the sequential steps or stages in the process.  

     Cause and effect mode sets out to explore the probable reasons why certain events, actions, or manifestations occur or have occurred, and the effects or consequences of these happenings.  We may explore why we behave in a certain way or the effects of certain kinds of behavior on ourselves and others.  We may explore the sources of our satisfactions, for instance, as causes.  We may look at all manner of natural and social phenomena whose causes or effects interest us.  Why are flowers brightly colored?  Why do birds sing?  Why do young animals play?  Why do humans make war?  What effects do our lifestyle choices have on our environment? And what effects have the  decisions of policy makers (who decide whether, for instance, gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to marry) and powerful corporations (whose industry practices may harm or hurt us)?   Bear in mind, a short paper should be limited to either cause or effect, rather than both.  

Examples:         

   

      The fundamental pathology of Alzheimer's disease is the progressive degeneration and loss of vast numbers of nerve cells in those portions of the brain's cortex that are associated with the so-called higher functions, such as memory, learning, and judgment.  The severity and nature of the patient's dementia at any given time are proportional to the number and location of cells that have been affected.  The decrease in nerve-cell population is in itself sufficient to explain the memory loss and other cognitive disabilities, but there is another factor that seems to play a role as well–namely, a marked decrease in acetylcholine, the chemical used by these cells to transmit messages.

                — Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die

     Contemplating our food for a few seconds before eating and eating in mindfulness can bring us much happiness.  In our practice centers, we use the Five Contemplations as a way of reminding ourselves where our food comes from and its purpose.

      The first contemplation is being aware that our food comes directly from the earth and the sky.   It is a gift of the earth and the sky, and also of the people who prepared it.  The second contemplation is about being worthy of the food we eat.  The way to be worthy of our food is to eat mindfully—to be aware of its presence and thankful for having it.  We cannot allow ourselves to get lost in our worries, fears, or anger over the past or the future.  We are there for the food because the food is there for us; it is only fair.  Eat in mindfulness, and you will be worthy of the earth and the sky.

     The third contemplation is about becoming aware of our negative tendencies and not allowing them to carry us away.  We need to learn how to eat in moderation, to eat the right amount of food.  The bowl that is used by a monk or a nun is referred to as the "instrument of appropriate measure."  It is very important not to overeat.  If you eat slowly and chew very carefully, you will get plenty of of nutrition.  The right amount of food is the amount that helps us to stay healthy.

     The fourth contemplation is about the quality of our food.  We are determined to ingest only food that has no toxins for our body and our consciousness, food that keeps us healthy and nourishes our compassion.  This is mindful eating.  The Buddha said that if you eat in such a way that compassion is destroyed in you, it is like eating the flesh of your children.  So practice eating in such a way that you can keep compassion alive in you.

    The fifth contemplation is being aware that we receive food in order to realize something.  Our lives should have meaning and that meaning is to help people suffer less, and help them to touch the joys of life.  When we have compassion in our hearts and know that we are able to help a person suffer less, life begins to have more meaning.  This is very important food for us and can bring us a lot of joy.  A single person is capable of helping may living beings.  And it is something we can do anywhere.

                                        —Thich Nhat Hanh, Happiness

There are few things humans are more dedicated to than unhappiness.  Had we been placed on earth by a malign creator for the exclusive purpose of suffering, we would have good reason to congratulate ourselves on our enthusiastic response to the task.  Reasons to be inconsolable abound:  the frailty of our bodies, the fickleness of love, the insincerities of social life, the compromises of friendship, the deadening effects of habit.  In the face of such persistent ills, we might naturally expect that no event would be awaited with greater anticipation than the moment of our own extinction.

                             —Alain De Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life

     The process mode of organization is used when explaining how a thing happens or is done or made.  It includes description of the steps, stages, or procedures involved in any natural occurrence or phenomenon, or in any that involve human endeavor.  Such writing addresses the question how?  For example, how do bees find their way to the hive, how does photosynthesis work, how does one change a tire on a steeply ascending road, make a cheesecake or keep houseplants alive and happy? 

     We all, to some degree, understand how things proceed, and can describe the procedures by which things get done or made. We have followed directions and read instructions from a young age and we have learned how to do a thing or two ourselves; in fact, there are certain skills we could actually teach: how to saddle a horse, how to sweep a floor, build a boat or house, sew a hem, design an advertisement, paint with oil colors.  There are certain life experiences we could coach others through; for example, we have all experienced pain, sadness, and loss and so have learned a thing or two about healing, happiness, getting along, starting over.  The stages or steps involved in bettering our health, our outlook, our lives in general always involve a specific method, a means, a process. Writing about such matters involves organizing your material into distinct steps or stages, whether as a "how to" instructional or no.

Examples:  

Wear loose and comfortable clothing when working out. Because a warmed muscle is believed to be more flexible and pliant, you will often see people wearing sweat suits and woolen socks. You should also be sure to position yourself as comfortably as possible to reduce the tension and make the stretching more enjoyable.                

                                                                       –from The Science of Stretching, by Michael Alter

For centuries, it was assumed that honey bees simply visited flowers and collected the honey ready-made, bringing it back to the hive and storing it there. The truth of the matter is that honey making is an elaborate and complicated process. The first step is the collection of floral nectar from the gullets of colorful and fragrant blossoms. Floral nectar starts out as sugar water enriched with a few amino acids, proteins, lipids, phenolics, and other chemicals. While it sits in floral ponds, waiting to be sampled by pollinators, the nectar takes on the aroma of the flowers that produced it. Though the scent of the nectar itself is faint, the aromas are intensified once it is concentrated into honey. Excess water is driven off and the complex volatile oils and other chemicals from the flower are magnified, becoming part of the honey and adding to its appeal. Single-source honeys reveal their characteristic aromas best at room temperature, especially when drizzled across a warm piece of toast.

                                                                                                    —from Secrets of the Bee

One holds the [surgical] knife as one holds the bow of a cello or a tulip–by the stem. Not palmed nor gripped nor grasped, but lightly, with the tips of the fingers. The knife is not for pressing. It is for drawing across the field of skin. Like a slender fish, it waits, at the ready, then, go! It darts, followed by a fine wake of red. The flesh parts, falling away to yellow globules of fat. Even now, after so many times, I still marvel at its power–cold, gleaming, silent. More, I am still struck with a kind of dread that it is I in whose hand the blade travels, that my hand is its vehicle, that yet again this terrible steel-bellied thing and I have conspired for a most unnatural purpose, the laying open of the body of a human being.

from "The Knife," by Richard Seltzer

When a farmer calls in a cheetah capture, it is CCF's job to retrieve the animal from a field trap, gather biological information, and then relocate or release it. Normally the work is done in the field and not in a farmer's kitchen. Until last night, there had not been a call in a month–proof that that farmers are learning to co-exist with cheetahs rather than to shoot first and ask questions later.

from "Blur: Cheetahs. Ranchers. Hope.," by Susan Zimmerman

Homework:  (#4)  Summary/Response and Quotation Work:  Read the  photocopied chapters from P.M. Forni's book Choosing Civility, which take the form of both process (intructional) and cause/effect analysis.  Respond in summary form to several  of the ideas, enough to give a clear sense of one chapter focus and to give a sufficient and interesting review of his major points and means of support or illustration.   Relate experience of your own or provide commentary to  "talk to" the points he makes and your imagined audience.  Quote several line(s) or parts of lines that convey his ideas particularly well.  Punctuate them as direct quotations and see that they “fit” grammatically in the sentence and paragraph in which you have placed them or set them off.  Bring the responses to class.

*You can review the guidelines for using quotation marks at the following URL:  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/577/01/

Grammar Practice: Review the following exercise/practice work:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/exercises/2/22/49

Review the material on pronoun use here:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/595/01/

and here: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/595/02/

Week 3

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.

–Helen Keller

Good day! How was your weekend?  What words would you use to describe it? Which moments and what aspects of those moments?  What details of person, place and action?  What feelings, thoughts, perceptions?  What large or general ideas can you draw from the specifics of your focus? With such questions in mind might you begin writing about the stuff of daily life.
   

Today we  pick up where we left off last week and that was with directions to practice writing in descriptive mode.  You were to choose a suitable subject, one that exists in concrete, physical form and bring it to vivid life and in such a way as to create a unified, strong impression and point.  Descriptive work makes a reader sense and understand the physical aspects of a given subject and the attitude of the author in conveying the subject, whether of awe, wonder, fear, loathing, love, etcetera.  We will spend some time with your work and review punctuation and grammar topics, as well.


Practice suggestion/exercise:  See the photos at the following link of people who live on one dollar a day.  Depict what you see in one or another and learn from the caption.  This practice piece is to describe a photo composition and the meaning or larger story suggested by it. http://time.com/3513703/living-on-a-dollar-a-day/
Have any photo links to suggest?

           

__________________

Exercise:  Identify the parts of speech in the following bit of nonsense:  

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves, 

And the mome raths outgrabe.

                                     –Lewis Carroll's opening lines in "The Jabberwocky"

How many independent clauses are contained in the lines above?

----------------

Before we go on to our next assignment, we'll practice the sentence, catching up on last week's exercises on sentence structure and punctuation.  
     
 Last week we saw that English syntax consists fundamentally of a grammatical subject and predicate. The subject is typically a noun or noun phrase or a verbal functioning as a noun.  The verb is the base of the predicate and operates as a linking mechanism (no action:  I am a teacher) or designates the action put in play by the subject, which we can think of as an actor or agent.                                                                                                                      The direct object is usually a noun or noun phrase following the verb and that receives or takes the action of the verb.  We do well to keep subjects and verbs at the head of a sentence, and together, with the subordinate elements following after (naturally, they are exceptions).

Bill struck the match.  I lit the cigarette.  We shared a smoke one warm summer night.

Here is a poem that expresses the relationship (sort of) between syntax elements:

     One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.

     An adjective walked by, with her dark beauty

     The nouns were struck, moved, changed.

     The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

           – Kenneth Koch, "Permanently" (referenced in Stanley Fish's How to Write a Sentence)

Words exist in logical relationships with each other, and discovering those relationships will help you understand syntax better, and the sentences you create.

Not all verbs take an object, but for now we will play with the basic structure and build ever more layered sentences by adding predicate elements, modifying words, phrases, and clauses to the first simple sentence (independent clause). 

 In the following example,  the main (independent) clause is italicized:  

A customer shot me a dirty look, long and low, as if I had in some way offended her deeply, though I could not but think myself innocent, and unjustly vilified. 

In this next example, the main clause and the additive phrases and dependent clauses are laid out in outline:

 1.  The women whispered late into the night,

     2.  their voices rising and falling softly,

           3.  while I,

                4.  a mere six years old,

                     5.  dreamed of a time when I, too, would have a world as rich as theirs seemed to me then.

We punctuate for two reasons:  one, to order the pace of reading; two, to separate words, phrases, and clause into groups for the sake of clarity and readability and emphasis.

  The period has been described as a stop sign; the comma a speed bump; the semi-colon a "rolling stop"; the parenthetical a detour; the colon a flashing yellow light indicating something's up ahead; and the dash as "a tree branch in the road"(Writing Tools, Roy Peters Clark).  Punctuation rules have been standardized, but options and play remain.  We'll review today beginning with the comma, a mark that indicates where one reading aloud would likely pause, and which sets off modifying words and phrases and clauses by asking one to slow down and see the constituent units.   The semi-colon works well to set off large blocks of text, particularly where commas are already at work; and to show the contrast between cause elements on either side in balanced and parallel sentence constructions.

Punctuation Homework:

*The following URL leads to an excellent article on the common errors of comma placement:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/the-most-comma-mistakes/

  

I have created a practice set of sentences to illustrate comma placement in additive structures where some information is essential and some non-essential, as discussed in the article above.  I will distribute it in class.

Complete also the set of exercises on using possessive constructions and the apostrophe to show possession:  http://bartelby.com/141/

For Review:  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/02/   (comma use rules)

                http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/04/    (sentence fragments)

Narrative Work 

Writing is for many people a very satisfying way of exploring where they have been and where they may be going, and why.   In Why I Write, Joan Didion says: "We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and screamed, forget who we were."

Autobiographical narratives are structured as stories about the writer himself or herself, what some have called "core stories,"  and they are related to our core beliefs.  The essay writer will show herself caught in some way or facing something troublesome. The story  shows the author both recounting and reflecting on personal experience, making sense of it, putting it in some meaningful frame to be understood and communicated to a reader. Such essays may have an historical, social, and/or psychological frame, delving into the events, the changes, the lessons, and particularly the themes that have shaped the author's life. Who one has been, and is, is the central focus and the story elements–character, setting, action–serve to dramatize the life. Description is used to convey the physical characteristics of person, places, and things, to bring them vividly to life in the reader's imagination, in specific forms, colors, shapes, sounds, scents–whatever the key sensations.

To repeat, a narrative pulls together the  basic elements of story:  character (s); plot, the  action/events/scenes that show how a certain conflict arises and develops ; setting, the time and place;  narrative point of view (POV), the perspective of the storyteller or narrator; and theme, the idea(s) put into play by all the elements together, whether of innocence, experience, youth, age, promise, loss, death . . . .

The reporter's basic questions are a shorthand means of recording the essentials:

What happened?

Who was involved?

When?

Where?

Why did this happen?

How did it happen?

Storytelling or narration proceeds by means of two methods:  scene and/or summary.  Scene creation involves portraying place and character and action by means of specific detail, dialogue, and vivid imagery.  Summary involves minimizing detail for the sake of brevity and maximum inclusion.  Most storytellers do some of both, selecting the most dramatic or revealing moments to portray in scenes, and moving quickly through related events of lesser narrative importance or interest.

The following paragraph is shaped as summary narrative:

A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb, and these six were among the survivors. They still wonder why they lived when so many others died. Each of them counts many small items of chance or volition–a step taken in time, a decision to go indoors, catching one streetcar instead of the next–that spared him. And now each knows that in the act of survival he lived a dozen lives and saw more death than he ever thought he would see. At the time, none of them knew anything.

John Hersey, Hiroshima

We imagine the action that took place in the event referenced above, but the writer does not show us the exploding bomb, the fire and smoke and devastation all around. The wails of the living, and the dying.

Narration does more than suggest, it shows action:

When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick–one never does when a shot goes home–but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to go there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly sticken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralyzed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a long time–it might have been five seconds, I dare say–he sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping. I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him. You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skywards like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay.

George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant"

Notice how Orwell works the elements of sight, sound, movement in space, and deep feeling into the account, revealing only at the last line he has been lying down, firing up at the huge animal whose final collapse reverberates in our imagination.

Consider well the opening paragraph, as it should serve to draw the reader in to the story subject.  Choose concrete, specific words to relay setting and the emotions at the heart of your piece.  The following is the start of a roughly 5000 word biographical essay about the ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, who defected to the West in 1974, and returned at age 50 to pay homage to his roots and dance for all those who had in some way shaped him.

     It is raining, and Mikhail Baryshnikov is standing in a courtyard in Riga, the capital of Latvia, pointing up at two corner windows of an old stucco building that was probably yellow once.  With him are his companion, Lisa Rhinehart, a former dancer with American Ballet Theatre, and two of his children–Peter, eight, and Aleksandra, or Shura, sixteen.  He is showing them the house where he grew up. "It's Soviet communal apartment," he says to the children.  "In one apartment, five families.  Mother and Father have room at corner.  See?  Big window.  Mother and Father sleep there, we eat there, table there.  Then other little room, mostly just two beds, for half brother, Vladimir, and me.  In other rooms, other people.  For fifteen, sixteen people, one kitchen, one toilet, one bathroom, room with bathtub.  But no hot water for bath.  On Tuesday and Saturday, Vladimir and I go with Father to public bath."

      I open the front door of the building and peer into the dark hallway.  Let's go up," I suggest.  "No," he says.  "I can't."  It is more than a quarter century since he was here last.

                                                                                      from "The Soloist," by Joan Acocella

Freewriting Prompts:

* Find an old photograph of yourself.  Describe in detail what you see and what you remember of the circumstances surrounding that moment.  What has happened to the child, adolescent or person you were then and the one you are today?  What lessons have been inscribed in those happenings?  What do you know now that you didn't then?

* Draw a cartoon of your family.  Make each member a character.  Write a list of moments central to the life and circumstances that came with being one of this family.  Freewrite on any that promise an interesting story and that show how you and your family got on, for better or for worse.

* Think back to your first day of school.  What was it like?  What lessons have stayed with you?  Who is memorable, and why?  Drop yourself into a scene and explore the ideas or themes that arise.  How important are they today?  Can you trace the influence of a certain individual or event on the thoughts, feelings or attitudes you have today?

Graded Writing Assignment #3: Construct a multi-paragraph essay (no less than three paragraphs and 350 words) that narrates an experience or event that reveals something about you and perhaps what life has taught you.  It may be descriptive of a place, a time, a person, an object, or an idea dear to you in some way, but there is a story there, too, an event or incident, part of your history.  You may use first-person voice, the familiar "I" that we use in conversations about ourselves, or you may third-person narration, referring to others using nouns and third-person pronouns.  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 350-500 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.

-------------------------------------------------------