Hi guys! This week we'll be organizing and gearing up to draft our research papers. This week, I want to talk about:
Quote IntegrationGuys, take a good, hard look at the 2 images above. What changes between the first and second photograph? I'll tell you: the pine branch in taken apart so that we can see all the separate pieces individually. There's a word for this process: analysis. To analyze is to take something apart and look at the separate elements in order to understand it. In this class, we are in the business of analyzing literature. We do it every day. There's also a word for the process of taking these separate things and putting them together to make a whole. The word for this, for going from pine needles and sticks to a complete branch, for taking little things and making a whole, is synthesis. For our research paper, you will be synthesizing information from your three sources and your chosen short story to make one, whole, cohesive essay. On a practical craft level, you will be synthesizing the words, facts, and ideas from your sources with your ideas by integrating your quotes into your paper. Here are some general guidelines to help you do this as effectively as possible. 1. Choose Relevant Quotes
2. Introduce the Quote
3. Integrate the Quote into Your Sentence Structure
4. Use Signal Phrases
5. Quote Only as Much as Necessary
6. Comment on the Quote
7. Use Proper Punctuation and Formatting
8. Balance Quotes with Your Own Voice
Remember, quotes are a powerful tool in academic writing but should be used strategically and sparingly. Overuse of quotes can overshadow your own voice and ideas, while the effective integration of quotes can strengthen your arguments and add credibility to your paper. If you want to see some of these principles in action, and get a few extra punctuation strategies, I recommend checking out this video: Outline and Thesis NotesEverything I wrote about in my last post on outlines is still valid and relevant, including the blueprint. There is really only one major change: For your outline, I want you to include all the relevant quotes you've culled from the short story as well as your three sources. So all four of these documents need to represented on your outline. We already know that our thesis is the most important structural component of our essays. Everything in the essay must connect back to the thesis in some kind of way. On Monday, we'll have another thesis development workshop. Our goal will be that everyone walks out of class with a thesis strong enough to build an essay around. As you start crafting your thesis, it might help to consider one or two of the following questions:
First Draft Rubric and GuidelinesThe first draft of your essay should be between 500-1,000 words. It's possible that you might find it easier in the case of the research paper to write a longer first draft. If that's the case for you, bring it on. I will be assessing the following elements for your first drafts:
And just like that, it's time to start thinking about our essays for Unit 2. The first draft of your cultural context essays are due until next week, but this Saturday you will turn in your Annotated Bibliographies. In this post I cover:
A (Very) Few Words About the Cultural Context for "Jury of Her Peers"Perhaps you would like to write about Susan Glaspell and women's suffrage. We'll talk more about this story in class, but if do decide to look into this setting, here's a link to a video with background information to get you started. Annotated Bibliography GuidelinesConscientiously done, an good annotated bibliography can make for very easy essay drafting. Personally, I find this to be the most time-intensive step of the essay. For me, drafting a research essay comes easier than drafting an analytical essay because I've already assembled my material. This material assembling is what the Annotated Bibliography is all about. Just so you know, we will be writing one other research essay this semester. So it behooves us all to really attempt to get our heads around these research skills because we will be doing them all over again soon. Writing an annotated bibliography involves several steps. Each annotation typically consists of a citation followed by a brief paragraph that describes and sometimes evaluates the source. Here's a step-by-step guide: Step 1: Choose Your Sources Begin by selecting the sources that you will annotate in your bibliography. These should be sources that provide valuable information related to your topic or research question. You will need to have three sources for your essay in addition to the short story. That means your Annotated Bibliography will include three entries. Please reference the Research Folder in Blackboard. I have arranged databases and websites in descending order of usefulness. National Geographic is the first entry. I would be delighted if every student had at least one source from National Geographic. Step 2: Review Your Sources Read and evaluate your sources to understand their content, arguments, and relevance to your topic. Take notes as you go, especially on aspects that you want to highlight in your annotation. Just like with our dialectical journals, if you see any promising quotes, bookmark them somehow. This will make the next steps of your research paper (outline, 1st draft, final draft) way easier. Step 3: Cite the Source Start each entry with a full bibliographic citation in the appropriate style. For our purposes, this means MLA. Here is a link to the Purdue style guide we've been referencing. Also very helpful is a website like MyBib that saves and formats your sources for free. Step 4: Summarize the Source Write a concise summary of the main argument or purpose of the work. Include the main points, topics, and any conclusions drawn by the author. Aim for a neutral and objective tone. Each of your three annotations should be 100-200 words long. Step 5: Reflect on the Source's Relevance and Use Reflect on how the source fits into your research. You need to include at least one sentence that explains how it will be useful to your essay. Discuss how it changed your thinking on the topic, or how it might influence your paper or the way you will present your information. Annotated Bibliography Example EntrySmith, John. "Renewable Energy in the 21st Century." _Energy Journal_, vol. 35, no. 4, 2020, pp. 123- 145.
Smith's article offers a thorough analysis of the progress and potential of renewable energy technologies, such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric power. He reviews a range of recent studies and forecasts that these technologies could become the dominant energy sources by the middle of the century. Smith, an environmental scientist, argues for essential policy changes to promote renewable energy adoption. His article will significantly contribute to the literature review on renewable energy, providing a forward-looking perspective supported by recent studies. Moreover, Smith's detailed examination of the policy changes necessary for this energy shift will be instrumental in framing the discussion on renewable energy adoption in my research. This source is particularly valuable for its in-depth analysis and its focus on future implications within the field. Y'all finished up your first unit! Turned in your first 1,000 word essay! Created your own main characters out of thin air! Congratulations! And now we're going to buckle in and do it all over again. This blog post covers:
Let's Talk about SettingI think we all know a setting is: the place and time in which a story is set. In the state of Texas, the first time you are officially tested on your knowledge of setting is in the 4th grade. Of course, how we think about the setting of work of literature is different. In this Unit, I want us to use this question to shape how we learn and think about the setting of a work of literature: How does the cultural context of a work change our understanding of it? We are going to consider the setting present within each literary work we study, but we are also going to consider the cultural context in which the work itself was created. So what I'm telling you is that we have arrived to our first research unit! And I am very, very excited about this. Y'all, I truly love research. As I was working on my novel that I'm revising this past week, I realized there is a section about a quarter of the way through that needed more research. I was delighted. But I never realized that I loved research until I started doing it for myself to answer my own questions. (What the heck was it like to ride on an ocean liner in the 1950's?) So, I wasn't that big of a fan of research in high school. It was just something necessary that I had to do. There will be an element of student choice involved in every research project we do because I'm hoping that you will be able to enjoy research earlier than I did. We are reading three different short stories set in four different places written by four different authors. Each story represents a different research path, because your essay for this Unit will be comparing the cultural context of a work of literature to the setting and themes present within the story. Here are the three stories we will read and their contexts:
We are, of course, always limited by time. So, in order to expand your choices, you may also explore the context and setting of these two short stories we read from Unit 1, as long as you didn't write about them in your Character Analysis essay.
"The Allegory of the Cave" by PlatoAll three of the short stories from our first Unit were realistic literary fiction. Our two stories this week represent two different genres of writing. The "Allegory of the Cave," for example, is in fact an allegory. An allegory is the expression of truths or generalizations about human existence by means of symbolic fictional figures and their actions (Merriam-Webster). Although all literature on some level is engaged with understanding the world more deeply, allegories are specific tools that use story for the express purpose of trying to expand the readers' understanding of the world. If you are drawn to philosophy, this might be the story for you to write about. I first read it when I was in high school, and I've thought about it approximately 1 million times in the years since then. In a way, it is a story that engages the question that we will engage (how do our cultural contexts affect the way we perceive the world?), but it did so about 2,400 years ago. Here's a video that gives us an accessible entryway into "An Allegory of the Cave:" And here's a video that gives us a small taste of Ancient Greece: "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia MarquezAgain, the title of this story kind of gives away the new genre. Marquez is famous for writing magical realism, and we get a little taste of it in this story. Magical realism is related to fantasy and sci-fi because the events in the story diverge from reality. Old men don't have wings, for example. But otherwise, the setting remains generally realistic. The genre seems to explore the question: what if one strange otherworldly thing was introduced into our world? How would we react? What would we learn about ourselves? Magical realism draws heavily from myth. If you are interested in ways that myth and fantasy reflect our lives, this might be the story for you to research. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the second Nobel Prize recipient whose work we're looking at. Here's a video that gives us some information about Marquez's life filmed at the Harry Ransom Center right here in Austin: Here's an old travel film about Colombia from the 1940's: And here is a short film with footage of Colombia in the 1950's: Welcome to the last week of our first Unit! Also the first week where you will be doing some of your own creative work (I'm so excited!). This blog post covers:
Your Mini-Character BiosRemember how on the first day of class I said that we would be writing a short story together? Well, this week is the week that we begin. It will be a semester-long project, and this week you will begin creating your main character by filling out Mini-Bios that look like this: Mini-Bio for Key Characters Name: Age: Birthplace: Marital Status: Children and their ages: General Appearance: Living arrangements: Occupation, including name of employer/school if applicable: Degree of skill at occupation: Character's feelings about his occupation: Family background (whatever you think is important): The inspiration for your characters can come from all over—people in your life, other characters you've encountered in books and movies, and of course, that character we all know the best, ourselves. Pretty sure Hemingway based his main character in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" on himself. I might have already told you guys this, but I'm working on the second draft of a historical novel. As I've been revisiting and rewriting ALL 80,000 WORDS OF MY MANUSCRIPT (1,000 words doesn't seem so bad in comparison, right?), one of the things I've realized is that a very important supporting character is kind of flat. So I've been working on developing him. Here's an example of his mini-bio: My Example Mini-Bio: Name: Edward Connors Age and Birthday: 24 years old, born February 12, 1931 Birthplace: Leeds, England Marital Status: single (wink, wink) Children and their ages: No kids, but he has two older brothers who work in construction in Leeds General Appearance: Tall, dark hair, kind of lanky, pointy nose, always raising his eyes and wrinkling his forehead Living arrangements: During the archeological excavation season, Edward lives in the rooms at the British Archeological Society in Athens and travels to various dig sites throughout Greece. During the off-season, he lives back home in his parents' flat in Leeds and does drafting work for the local construction companies, especially the one that employs the rest of his family. Occupation, including name of employer/school if applicable: Edward graduated with a first-class degree in Architecture from Oxford University, with a specialization in ancient structures and historical engineering techniques. On the archeological digs in Greece, he works as a site architect to draft out and reconstruct ancient buildings from ruins left behind. Degree of skill at occupation: He's good, but he's gotten as far as he has mostly because of his charm and charisma. Character's feelings about his occupation: Edward wants to secure funding to run his own excavations. He's very ambitious for both money and prestige, and he feels unfairly trapped by the stigma associated with his lower class origins. He's got a chip on his shoulder. Family background (whatever you think is important): His whole family speaks in a heavy North England accent that Edward rinsed from his own speech at Oxford. Sometimes, when he's really angry or emotional, his vowels get elongated and his regional accent comes out. Edward really, really hates it when this happens. Strategies for Developing your First DraftsSo, you have the first drafts of your character analysis essays done and dusted. Now you just need to graft 500 more meaningful words onto the structure you've already built. Here are some of the ways you could go about doing this:
Expectations for Peer EditingThis week, we'll be working with our peer editors for the first time. Here are some guidelines and expectations for this:
Please remember: It is a privilege to be able to read another writer's work. In my experience, I learn at least as much from thinking about other people's work as I do when I think about my own work. You just might find the answer to a question you have in your classmate's essay. After all, it's really just another model text you can learn from. Also remember: The purpose of these editing sessions are to help build content and word count. As peer editors, we are mostly looking for opportunities for the writer to expand, as opposed to places where they forgot to put a comma or something. Here are some ways that editors can begin helpful conversations about the essay:
Rubric for the Final Draft of your Character Analysis EssaysYou are going to be assessed again on the same four elements from your first draft, which were:
This way, if you got dinged on one these areas, you will have an opportunity to look at your work again and strengthen it. You will also be assessed on one additional criteria, which is:
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