A Look at Our Essays

1. A Look at Our Essays

2. The Future • The final six weeks will be spent writing and analyzing that writing • The most fundamental thing I can do for you as an English teacher is to teach you how to be better writers. • Be prepared to work with phrases again- Garden of Phrases website • Four square exercises

3. The average grade was an 80 • Many students wrote very well on a few elements, but few wrote in depth on all the elements. • However, on average this was one of the better papers the class as a whole has written. You are becoming better writers.

4. Ways To Improve • Topic sentences are still weak- a good place to begin talking about is tone, as it is the mid point between the elements and theme. • Imagery Detail Diction Syntax P.O.V. • TONE/MOOD • Theme –How this text applies to life

5. Thesis Statements • Skeletal Thesis Structure • In his (shorts story, painting, etc), “Name,” the author uses (utilizes, manipulates, employs, etc) __________________________ to convey (highlight, emphasize, etc) the idea (believe, theory, feeling) that (subject) (is or does) ________________________________. • Then one can factor the thesis statement into body paragraphs. • Subject / Opinion about the subject / how or why “because clause” • Employ a subordinate clause in the thesis statement that will add complexity to the piece- Some sort of phrase (prepositional, absolute, appositive, etc.) • You can easily “since” clause or “until” clause to the beginning of a weak thesis statement to give it strength.

6. Way to Improve Number 2 • Seek out the CONNOTATION of images. • What makes the image important- Grady walking down a hall of his forebears to imprint his thumbprint in wax

7. Evidence- Quote or fact from piece • Context- The literal context of the piece of evidence • Commentary- Comment on the quote or fact in evidence box. Use “factoring” to build on ideas. Factoring- take a noun or idea from the previous sentence and write a sentence about its importance keep in mind the search for meaning keep going with this idea until you run out of space. – Effective in search for theme. • Assertion/Inference- Based on the evidence and commentary. Guard against using common morals. Best done last. What does the question ask and point to about the human condition?

8. The Secret to Writing • Take whatever you mean to say and take it one step farther. • Factoring- take a noun from the previous sentence and write a sentence on its importance.

9. Factor the following Sentence

10. Now Factor the Following Image • The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door. He took off his hat and came slowly forward. The floorboards creaked under his boots. In his black suit he stood in the dark glass where the lilies leaned so palely from their wasted cutglass vase. Along the cold hallway behind him hung the portraits of forebears only dimly known to him all framed in glass and guttered candlestub. He pressed his thumbprint in the warm wax pooled on the oak veneer. Lastly he looked at the face so caved and drawn among the folds of funeral cloth, the yellowed moustache, the eyelids paper thin. That was not sleeping. That was not sleeping. (p 1)