Monday, Sept. 22

We talked about segmented essays - though really most of your time was spent planning ideas for how YOU might write a segmented essay. For those of you who would like to look at more than one example of a segmented essay, or who would like to read more about how and why writers choose to write them - I am leaving a copy of Fourth Genre in my mailbox in 301E, and you can pick it up, take it home overnight, etc to read through some examples (segmented essays are listed on xii, and Root's essay on segmented essays is on p. 404). I wanted you to do some brainstorming, planning, thinking about how *you* might write a segmented essay before overloading you with models so you wouldn't get "boxed in" in your thinking. From the brainstorming you were doing it sounds like this is going fairly well for you.

If you look ahead in the calendar - you see that on Wednesday I will finally give a presentation on what is expected for your first essay. I wanted you to have lots of ideas - lots of writing - in your notebooks before you begin to plan any of the essays you are actually going to write. On Wednesday we will look over the assignment sheet for Essay 1 - and you will get started on writing some CNF.

For class, read Danticat, "Westbury Court" - in your textbook, and "Alive" by Laurie Lynn Drummond (link on your web site). In class on Wednesday - and in your blog - do some thinking about focus => what the essay is about. Your essay needs to relate an experience - tell a story - depict events - AND it needs to convey an idea. Your essay needs to be ABOUT something, and that something needs to come through as embodied in the story you tell and the reflective writing that surrounds that story.
Both the Danticat + Drummond have strong narrative lines - but they are also both "about" an idea. In your Blog - write about what that idea is - and how the story/reflecting in these two pieces set up and convey that idea. Describe how the story's structure contributes to getting that point across.

Good class today. I am getting really eager to read some of your writing in the form of an essay!