Week 10 Notes 29 November 2017 Revised deadlines/reminders: Second drafts: Upload to IS by Monday, 11 Dec (not 13 Dec). Last class: 6 Dec NO CLASS 13 Dec! I will schedule one-on-one meetings that week to discuss your 2^nd drafts. Final draft still due 17 Jan Notes from this week, 29 Nov: SHOW don’t TELL! Use specific examples to support every claim you make. Here are some sentences from your album reviews. Writing about music is tricky—after all, how can you use words to describe sounds? Well, you can at least name the instruments and use adjectives to describe the sounds they are making. You can also use similes and metaphors to compare the feeling of the music to other sensory experiences. I admire these two sentences because they use both these strategies: The intro of the song is catchy with its…natural sounds such as wind blowing which is slowly mingled by other sounds, more artificial ones—drums and springy sound—slowly going to hip hop tunes. They together makes such a good symphony which changed your eyelids to opposite polar magnets. When “Addi” sings in English, his voice loses its sharpness and becomes nothing but a useless blunt knife that couldn’t even cut through water. In the three sentences below, I feel like the author makes a start towards SHOWING but stops half way there. The author is having a beautiful experience and I want to share it with them, but I’m trapped on the outside of it. I want and need more specific imagery and examples to really feel what the author is feeling. How would you revise these sentences? These two songs are quite emotional, strong, and mysterious…It reminds me that even after stormy adolescence and the age around twenty, people before thirty are also sometimes in quite difficult and complicated life situations which can end up tragically for them (they could die or be ruined in a non-pleasant way). When I listened to the album…I payed attention mostly not to the words… but to the rhythm. It was winter back then, and for certain moments I saw nothing but the road and snowy horizon. These beats filled me with the warm, positive and calm feelings. Rolling Stone’s genius is in giving you a direct description in what you’ll feel listening to the single songs. They are able to create specific images in an original way in order to catch your attention. Run-on sentences! A run-on happens when two independent thoughts (which could stand alone as separate sentences) are put together without proper punctuation. He often watched TV when there were only reruns, she preferred to read instead. There are three main ways to fix a run-on: 1. Split the two independent thoughts into two different sentences with a period in between. He often watched TV when there were only reruns. She preferred to read instead. 2. Add a comma and/or a conjunction such (and, but, yet, whereas…) He often watched TV when there were only reruns, whereas she preferred to read. 3. Add a semicolon (;) He often watched TV when there were only reruns; she preferred to read instead. Here are two run-on sentences from your album reviews. How would you fix them? Sometimes you can understand the songs even if you do not know the words, they just fit some moment perfectly so you can derive their meaning. I am not saying it is easy to get into the Solstafir mood, some people may never get into it, for others it may take more than one listening. HW for our final class session, 6 Dec: 1. Keep working on your essay, and please BRING TO CLASS a HARD COPY of your latest draft. You will share this in class and get feedback. 2. If you were not in class this week, please read the handout “Quick Guide to Quotation” which I have posted on IS. Imagine you are writing an essay and need to quote from the “Mad Libs” text we created in class: from the “About Us” page of the MU website: We believe that education is not just a matter of apple or woman status. We quickly support plates. We are open-minded and dedicated to crying the fish of chairs around us. We have been creating a tender world since 1919. Complete the rest of the handout by creating 3 sentences which use the 3 quotation methods. Bring your sentences to class next week to share. 3. For next week’s reading and writing assignments, I’d like you to create a cento. A cento is a piece of writing which consists entirely of quotations. It is the written equivalent of a collage, in which you cut pictures out of various magazines and put them together into a new artwork. First, you should read a bit about the cento here. https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/cento-poetic-form and you can read an interesting example of a cento poem here: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/wolf-cento I think the process of composing a cento poem is similar to the process of composing an essay, since they both involve choosing interesting quotations and putting them into a new context. The difference is that most essays involve the author explicitly commenting on and responding to the quotations, whereas in a cento the commentary is only implicit. I have found one really good cento essay online, by Paul Haney: http://www.thers500.com/albums/204-bob-dylan-modern-times-2006/ The essay is about Bob Dylan’s album Modern Times, but it consists entirely and only of quotations from other sources. I think it’s appropriate, since Dylan has always been accused of “stealing” lines from other poets and writers, that Haney creates an essay about Dylan in which he “steals” from Dylan and many others too. What do you think—is Haney still the author of this essay, even though he didn’t write a single word of it? I’d like you to create your own cento. It can be in the form of a poem or an essay (or anything else). It can be short—maybe just a few quotes will be enough. Start by simply putting two quotes together which you think create an interesting pair. Then try adding more quotes around these two. Try to create something surprising or new simply by putting other people’s words in a new order. At the beginning of the term I asked you to start keeping a notebook of quotations from the texts you have been reading. Did you actually do this? ;) If you did, you might have already created a cento—read your notebook of quotes and see if they create an essay without you doing any further work! If you haven’t been doing this, you will need to find some quotes this week. I recommend using quotes from the research you are doing for your own essay. If you feel like you would still like to add your own words around the quotations, fine—but try to keep your own words to a minimum. BRING a copy of your cento to class next week.