Final Exam

Today (Thursday the 15th of April) is the final exam for ENGL 108.

We'll be meeting in room 152 on the lower floor of CFAC.

You will have three hours to complete the exam: 9:00 - 12:00


Good luck everyone!





Note: Image from Stanford EdTech on flickr.

Review

Today we'll review for the exam. We'll go over content and the general structure of the exam.





Note: Image from postcool on flickr.

Lecture 13: Transliteracy and Inanimate Alice

Today's lesson will be devoted to reading a new kind of narrative - an online multimodal one (Inanimate Alice).

The outline for today's class will go like this:

BACKGROUND:
What is a web fiction?
What is multimodality?
What do I mean by transliteracy?

YOUR TURN:
Transliteracy in action



Read Episode 1, 2 and 3 of Inanimate Alice. If time permits, read Episode 4.

While reading note:
How reading this online fiction is different from reading the essays in the course books or reading the texts for your research assignment
What can readers infer about the identity of Alice? What traits does Alice seem to possess?
1 instance of foreshadowing
Complete this sentence: “I think the author is trying to say....”
The definition of transliteracy, do you feel you are transliterate? Why or why not (explain).


Post your responses to the class blog DURING this lesson

Lecture 12: The Yellow Wallpaper

A reminder: we're in the same lab as last class (room 258).

Note: Comparative Essays due today!

"For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia-and beyond. During about the third year of this trouble I went, in devout faith and some faint stir of hope, to a noted specialist in nervous diseases, the best known in the country. This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which a still good physique responded so promptly that he concluded that there was nothing much the matter with me, and sent me home with solemn advice to 'live as domestic a life as possible,' to 'have but two hours' intelligent life a day,' and 'never to touch pen, brush or pencil again as long as I lived.' This was in 1887…"
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "Why I Wrote the Yellow Wall-paper," 1913

"Every kind of creature is developed by the exercise of its functions. If denied the exercise of its functions, it can not develop in the fullest degree."
—Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Gilman),
from Hearing of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., January 28, 1896

Background to Social Setting of "The Yellow Wallpaper":

Group 1 (Amelia, Justin, Andrew, Gavin): Explore - "Gender and the Nineteenth Century Home" and "Masculine Superiority Fever": Making Sense of "Spheres"

Group 2 (Chris, Nick, Oleg): Explore - "Light of the Home" image and "Motherhood" essay

Group 3 (Oumnia, Courtney, Shelby, Chantelle): Explore - "Puss in the Corner" and Gilman's brief suffrage commentary in the Votes for Women Collection: (Search by keyword "Gilman"; text under "Charlotte Perkins Stetson, of California)

After exploring the websites in your groups, add a comment to this lecture post. Address these questions (you should have a paragraph as a response):

• How do the primary documents on these websites portray the roles of middle-class men and women in the early- to mid-nineteenth century?
• What do you think of these roles?
• How are the roles similar or different from today's roles for women? 

Two online texts for "The Yellow Wallpaper" are available: the full text of "The Yellow Wall-paper" (1899 edition), available online at the University of Virginia Library's Electronic Text Center via EDSITEment reviewed Center for the Liberal Arts, or the original New England Magazine version, available online at the Library of Congress' Nineteenth Century in Print Collection (periodicals).



In groups, answer the questions contained in the following table and post your answers here as a group comment. Remember to include all group members' names in your comment.

With a partner, choose TWO of the following quotations from The Yellow Wallpaper and respond to the questions. Post your thoughts here as a blog comment.

1. "It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity but that would be asking too much of fate!"

• Questions:
  
  
  
  
  
  • How would you describe the story's setting?
  • How and why is the setting significant?
    

 2. "John is a physician, and—perhaps—(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)—perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster."

• 
  Questions:
  
  
  
  
  
  • How would you describe the narrator's husband?
  • What is the narrator's style of writing? What is her tone?
    

 3.  "Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good."

Questions:

• 
  
  • What does the narrator believe would be the best cure for her?
  • How does this contrast with what her husband and brother say? Cite additional passages from the story.

4. "There comes John, and I must put this away-he hates to have me write a word."

• Questions:
  
  
  
  
  
  • What is the narrative style of this story? What is the effect of this journal style narrative in developing the main character?
  • How does it influence how the reader understands the main character?

5.  "Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able, -to dress and entertain, and order things. It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous.
 I suppose John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about this wall-paper!At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies.

• He said that after the wall-paper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on.
  
  "You know the place is doing you good," he said, "and really, dear, I don't care to renovate the house just for a three months' rental." "Then do let us go downstairs," I said, "there are such pretty rooms there."
  
  Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down to the cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain.
  
  But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things. It is an airy and comfortable room as any one need wish, and, of course, I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a whim. I'm really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper.
  
  Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deepshaded arbors, the riotous old fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees. Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try.
  
  I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me. But I find I get pretty tired when I try."
  
  Questions:
  
  
  
  
  
  • How does the narration mimic the narrator's mental state?
  • Point out digressions and discuss why the narrator might digress during her account. Review the 1867 Godey's quote from the "Motherhood" essay in Lesson One ("About every true mother there is a sanctity of martyrdom- and when she is no more in the body, her children see her with the ring of light around her head."). Compare this description to the narrator's role of mother.
    

6. "And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head."

• Question:
  
  
  
  
  
  • What does this passage suggest about the relationship between the narrator and her husband?
  • How would you characterize the narrator?
  • How would you characterize the husband?
  • Cite another passage from your reading/notes to support your claims. You  might compare the narrator's and John's relationship to the relationship in the "Puss in the Corner" poem.
    

 7.  Section 3, "And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don't like it a bit. I wonder—I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here!"

• Questions:
  
  
  
  
  
  • What is the significance of the woman behind the yellow wall-paper?
  • To aid discussion for the above question, compare the narrator's feelings about the wall-paper to the tone and message of the 1890 cartoon, For the benefit of the girl about to graduate.
    

8. "What is the matter?" he cried. "For God's sake, what are you doing!"I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder. "I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!"

• Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!"
  
  Questions:
  
  
  
  
  
  • What does the narrator mean by, "I got out at last?"
  • What does the ending of this story suggest about the woman behind the wall-paper?
  • How are this woman and the wall-paper itself symbolic?
  • Discuss the metaphor of the window in relationship to "getting out."

Homework:

We'll be in the same lab (room 258). We will read Inanimate Alice in class.

Lecture 11: Carol Shields - Group Presentations

Lecture 11: Grammar Test

Please include your answers to the following questions as a comment here (on this blog post).

Please label your first 12 answers are Part 1, and the final 25 answers are Part 2. Part 3 should be the names of trees and first names.

Lecture 10: Compare and Contrast Essay Preparation

In today's class we shall complete:



Additionally Nancy Robertson will come and talk to us about proper MLA Citation Style (12:30 - 1:50)

Reading Review

In groups of 4:
Brainstorm 30 words that come to mind after reading the title
Choose TWO places in the essay to stop reading and discuss as a group – How many of your brainstormed words/ideas have appeared? Have some not appeared? What conclusions can you draw?
When finished reading, note:
The thesis
How the essay is arranged and is it effective?

Homework:
Review Grammar (Part 3, Section B of EW)
Grammar Test in class
Read Shields, “Hazel” (242 HA)


NOTE: We will meet in Lab 258 and class will finish at 1:00pm

Parts of Speech Poems

ENGL 108 students produced lovely, colourful and grammatically correct parts of speech poems:

Lecture 9: Comparison and Contrast Essays

Outline:

Reading Review
Compare and Contrast
Practise
Homework


Reading Review
On your own, create a poem using parts of speech
Create a legend for readers to identify each of the parts of speech (underlined words are adjectives, highlighted pink are verbs etc...)

10-15 minutes

Reading Review

• 3 adjectives
• an abstract noun (things not knowable through the senses)
• 1 participial phrase (verb form used as an adjective to modify nouns and pronouns)
• 2 prepositional phrases (begin with a preposition and end with a noun,pronoun, gerund, or clause, the "object" of the preposition): In the weedy, overgrown garden OR Along the busy, six-lane highway
• 2 participial phrases (verbals ending in -ing, and -ed  are combined with complements and modifiers): The stone steps, having been worn down by generations of students, needed to be replaced. [modifies "steps"]
• the place name

Compare and Contrast:

When you compare items, you look for their similarities--the things that make them the same.

For example:

Apples and oranges are both fruit.

They're both foods.

Both are made into juice.

Both grow on trees.


When you contrast items, you look at their differences.

For example:

Apples are red. Oranges are orange.

The fruits have different textures.

Oranges need a warmer place to grow, like Florida. Apples can grow in cooler places, like Alberta.



There are three strategies to organise comparison and contrast papers:

1. Whole-to-Whole, or Block

2. Similarities-to-Differences

3. Point-by-Point



*****Homework*****

Read “Addition in Free Markets” (229 Essay Writing)
Read “Embraced by the Needle” (305 EW)

NOTE: Librarian Nancy Robertson will be coming next class for a tutorial in proper MLA referencing and citation (necessary for your comparative essay)


Note: Top image from Into the Book.

Final Exam

A reminder to all that our final exam is on Thursday the 15th of April from 9:00-12:00 in room 152.

Classroom Change: Computer Lab Sessions

On the 23rd and 30th of March and on the 6th of April we will meet in Lab 258.

NOTE: Our Blog Comment: Grammar Test will be done during our lab session on the 23rd of March and will be completed in class.

Comparative Research Essay Assignment

ENGL 108: Comparative Essay with Research

Assignment: Comparative Essay, Library Research

Topic: Any TWO essays from essay text OR any TWO stories from anthology

Overview: This assignment gives you the opportunity to compare any two essays or stories from your course text. You will need to find to essays that share similarities as a base for your comparison. You might find similar topics, writing styles or points of view. Additionally, remember to include some contrasting ideas. Comparative essays ask you to compare AND contrast.

For the research portion of the essay assignment, I would like you to find TWO sources that help support your essay. You might have sources that support a view point or a critique you might make.

Part 1: Choose 2 “academic” resources that are highly relevant to your topic. These sources can be online but they must be peer reviewed (not simply self-published or unvetted).  Give full MLA reference information for each source and thoroughly explain why each resource is appropriate and relevant to your topic.  Additionally, include how each resource was found (include keywords used in any Google searching).

Part 2: Once you have your two academic resources and you’ve written your annotations (see above), craft a 3 page essay.  In the essay you should make clear what your basis for comparison is.

Purpose: Learn basic methodologies of research, learn how to locate and evaluate information, learn how to find appropriate resources, evaluate and synthesise arguments, critique thinking, and employ critical reasoning and writing strategies. Additionally put into practise comparative arguments and refine academic writing.

Length: Each annotation should consist of at least one fully-formed paragraph with complete reference information in MLA style. The essay itself should consist of 3 pages. The total length should be 4 pages.

DUE: 30^th March 2010

EXAMPLE ANNOTATION

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York:

Anchor Books, 1995.

Lamott's book offers honest advice on the nature of a writing life, complete with its insecurities and failures. Taking a humorous approach to the realities of being a writer, the chapters in Lamott's book are wry and anecdotal and offer advice on everything from plot development to jealousy, from perfectionism to struggling with one's own internal critic. In the process, Lamott includes writing exercises designed to be both productive and fun.

Lamott offers sane advice for those struggling with the anxieties of writing, but her main project seems to be offering the reader a reality check regarding writing, publishing, and struggling with one's own imperfect humanity in the process. Rather than a practical handbook to producing and/or publishing, this text is indispensable because of its honest perspective, its down-to-earth humor, and its encouraging approach.

Chapters in this text could easily be included in the curriculum for a writing class. Several of the chapters in Part 1 address the writing process and would serve to generate discussion on students' own drafting and revising processes. Some of the writing exercises would also be appropriate for generating classroom writing exercises. Students should find Lamott's style both engaging and enjoyable.

Note the indentation of all the text except for the first line of the reference.

For more information and style guidelines, visit the Online Writing Centre: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/01/

Note: Top image from Into the Book.

Lecture 8: Library Research Session and SearchPath Tutorial

Remember, today we're meeting in the library lab for our research session. This will feed into your comparative essay assignment.

Note, you will have  the final 1.5 hours of class to complete the SearchPath tutorial (accessible via Blackboard).

Homework:

Chapter 10 in Essay Writing

Grammar: Parts of Speech (407-424 in Essay Writing)

Note: Our campus librarian, Eva Revitt welcomes any questions or comments. You can e-mail her revitte AT macewan.ca (remember to replace the AT with @).

Lecture 7: Reaction and Response Essay

Position Paper

Due: by 2:00 pm today

Length: 5-8 Well Formed Paragraphs (2-3 pages)

Submission: via e-mail to jess AT jesslaccetti.co.uk OR laccettij AT macewan.ca (remember to change AT to  @ and remove the extra spaces)

Style: Formal (No Personal Pronoun)

Audience: Academic

Additional: Remember to use MLA style for references, include page numbers and your name on each page (top right header)

Refer to your Graphic Organisers, Notes, Text books, Dictionaries

Be ready with a topic and source(s) for your position paper - worth 20% - (newspaper report, journal article – must be at least two pages)

OR

Choose to write on “The Ticking Time Bomb” (247), “The Decline of Public Language” (367) or “Any Colour as Long as It’s Shakespeare” (361)


Homework:

• We will be meeting in the library lab. for our research session
• The SearchPath (online) tutorial is due at the end of class. Although you will have time after the research session to complete the SearchPath tutorial, I suggest making a start before then. Remember, to access the SearchPath tutorial log in to English 108 via Blackboard.

Lecture 6: Essays - Arguments & Reaction and Response

Outline:
Taking a Position
Reacting and Responding
Read Response Essay
Reading Activity
Homework


Taking a Position on Pandemics:
Definition? (on the board)
Examples? (on the board)
How does a pandemic usually erupt?
What actions or outcomes might be expected if there is a pandemic?
Can pandemics ever be useful?
What level of commitment is expected when you belong to an alliance?


Activity:
Record facts in point form to show evidence of a Global Pandemic due to Avian Flu

How is Avian Flu like a natural disaster?
Where does the world stand in its fight to contain the spread of Avian Flu?
Does another global pandemic loom on the horizon or has the threat passed?
What are the implications for Central Illinois with its large population of wild birds?





Much Ado about Clucking:
Review “Much Ado about Clucking” in Essay Writing
Address the following questions in a well structured response (paragraphs with topic sentences, transitions)
How do you feel about the way the topic is presented (hint: look at the title)?
What do you agree or disagree with?
Can you identify with the situation?
Give examples (at least three) of where the author agrees with others, disagrees, or both.
Rewrite three of the above examples in the opposing view.
Post as a comment to the Lecture 6 blog post


Homework:
Position Paper Due in class (23 Feb., after Reading Week)
Due: First half of next class
Length: 5-8 Well Formed Paragraphs (2-3 pages)
Style: Formal (No Personal Pronoun)
Audience: Academic
Additional: Remember to use MLA style for references, include page numbers and your name on each page (top right header)
Refer to your Graphic Organisers, Notes, Text books, Dictionaries

Come to class with a topic and source(s) for your position paper 20% (newspaper report, journal article, film review – must be at least two pages)
OR
Choose to write on “The Ticking Time Bomb” (247), “The Decline of Public Language” (367) or “Any Colour as Long as It’s Shakespeare” (361)

Read Chopin, “Story of an Hour” (95 HA)



Note: Image from No Sheep.

Lecture 5: Summary Review and Test

Outline:

Review Chapter 6
Test Part 1
Test Part 2


Homework:

Read “Much Ado about Clucking” (335 in EW)
Review Chapter 11




Note: Image from Jane Kokernak at Leaf-Stitch-Word.

Lecture 4: Summary Writing

Outline:
Review of Chapter 6
Pre-Reading Activity
Summary Activity
Summary Activity
Homework

Lecture 3: Paragraphs

The outline for today's class:

Introduction to Paragraphs
“The Missing Piece to the Gang-Violence Debate” in Essay Writing
Paragraph Review
Paragraph Activity
Paragraph Activity
Paragraph Test
Homework

Paragraphs:

A paragraph is a collection of related sentences dealing with a single topic
One idea per paragraph
If you begin to transition into a new idea, it belongs in a new paragraph
You can have one idea with several examples of support in one paragraph, but always only ONE idea


Supporting Details:

• Use examples and illustrations
• Cite data (facts, statistics, evidence, details, and others)
• Examine testimony (what other people say such as quotes and paraphrases)
• Use an anecdote or story
• Define terms in the paragraph
• Compare and contrast
• Evaluate causes and reasons
• Examine effects and consequences
• Analyse the topic
• Describe the topic
• Offer a chronology of an event (time segments)

A New Paragraph:

• Must link with the previous paragraph
• Use transitional words such as:
• Meanwhile
• Furthermore
• Contrastingly
• Consequently

See page 459-460 in Essay Writing for more examples


Recap:

Beginning - Introduce your idea
Middle - Explain your idea, support with examples, statistics
Conclusion - Make your point again, summarise, transition to next paragraph



Homework:

For Next Class: Read “Kiddy Thinks” 269 and Chapter 6 in Essay Writing


Note: image from North Coast Institute.

Student Work: Narrative Images

Lecture 2: Introduction to Essay Writing

Our outline for today's lecture:


Reading Review
Activity
Writing Process
Activity
Homework


Examples of Graphic Organisers we might use in our class activity:

 

 

Revising a Thesis Statement:

Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like "good" or "successful," see if you could be more specific: why is something "good"; what specifically makes something "successful"? Does my thesis pass the "So what?" test? If a reader's first response is, "So what?" then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change.
Does my thesis pass the "how and why?" test? If a reader's first response is "how?" or "why?" your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader.


Homework:

For Next Class: Read pages 458-460 in Essay Writing



Note: Essay image from Illinois Library. Graphic organiser images from Elgin High School.

Lecture 1: Introduction

Welcome to English 108 and to a new year!

Course Texts

Required Texts:

Stott, Jon. C., et al, ed. Harbrace Anthology of Short Fiction. 4th edition. Toronto: Nelson Thomson Learning, 2004.

Stewart, Kay L., Roger Davis et al., Essay Writing for Canadian Students, 6th Edition. Toronto: Pearson, 2008.

Pullinger, Kate and Chris Joseph, Inanimate Alice, Episodes 1-4. http://www.inanimatealice.com/



**Recommended: A good dictionary

Course Information

ENGL 108: INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Section: 503 Term & Year: Winter 2009

Course Hours: 45 Credits: 3

Class Time: T 11:00-1:50 Classroom: CAC 439

Instructor: Dr. Jessica Laccetti

Office: CAC 237

Phone: 780-497-4333

Email: laccettijATmacewan.ca

Office Hours: 10:00-11:00

Course Blog: http://engl108lit.blogspot.com/

Note: image from University of Western Ontario.