Week 8

Welcome back. Thursday class today meets at the NSU Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art, at 3:30 p.m., as discussed and decided upon (Friday class will be watching a film in class.) I will take attendance there before you tour the various exhibits Kahlo, Rivera + Mexican Modernists, et al.

The Address and Phone:

NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale   1 E Las Olas Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301 (954) 525-5500

Friday Class:  We will watch The Diving Bell and The Butterfly (2007), directed by Julian Schnabel.  The screenplay is based on the 1997 book by Jean Bauby., which required some 200,000 eye blinks to compose, according to the site Wikipedia.

You are to write a 350-500 word response/review of the film, the story it tells and the imagery used to convey its central concerns.  Introduce the film by title and director and year of release, as written above.

The following essay, if you need to make up an assignment, cannot go to the museum, or want extra credit, will serve:

Essay (extra-credit, alternate, or makeup): In 350-500 words address an idea that you hold as an article of faith or philosophical belief, using narrative or descriptive examples to support and flesh out the basis of that belief.  Examples can be found (some 125,000)at thisibelieve.org.  There you can explore topics and examples going all the way back to the 1950s, when the project itself first began.The site supports an international forum of sorts on core values, and offers opportunity to upload your essay for publication.

The guidelines for writing the essay are much like those we have been following in class, keeping to 350-500 words in a voice that is personal and original. The following URL within the site describes in detail what the editors want in terms of style and development: http://thisibelieve.org/guidelines/. You may summarize and quote from any one of the published essays as a lead-in to your piece, though neither summary nor response is a required element of the essay. The topic you address should reflect your particular experience and corresponding beliefs or concerns–whether of religion, money, virtue, vice, growing up, growing old, love, death, sickness, health, the meaning of life, the nature of existence, the human condition, pleasure, pain, the fate of life on this planet, etcetera. Your statement of belief should be articulated in a sentence or two.

The final is week 10 or 11, we'll decide together, and will be an essay assignment done in class, no use of the Internet allowed.  Any rewrites should be submitted by the end of week 10.

Please check the grades posted at ecompanion to see what you may be missing and that my record is consistent with yours.

--------------

I have posted below material from an earlier post to allow for review of English syntax and basic punctuation principles. I also include the following link to an article featuring discussion and review of the use of commas: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/the-most-comma-mistakes/

Week 7

Good day.  Today we will review works in progress, particularly the essay 6 incorporating the subjunctive mood and conditional verb use, et al.  We'll review verb exercises and use of adjectives and adverbs, pronouns too.

As planned, we'll look too at a littleof the film Frida to gain some sense of how the artist developed before our field trip to the NSU Art Museum next week.  We may practice writing about images such as oil paintings, for many will be on exhibit next week and call for description as you recount the experience and highlights of the work on view.

-----------------------------------------

Assignment (6): If we were given the chance to rewrite some chapter in life, or to relive some moment now resigned to the past, what revisions would we make, or what insight would we bring to  the moment now? What lessons are there in wondering, what if . . . ?

What if we could time travel? We can. We can pretend that we had been born in 
different era and imaginatively enter into the lives of those who have lived before us. Thanks to
the research of scientists and historians of every stripe, the past unveils its secrets, and is now
recorded in layers of story and imagery, all adding to our knowledge of life on this planet.
We may learn how other human societies lived and what they believed, how they and 
other species met the challenges of life, how they at whatever time did navigate, nourish and 
reproduce themselves, defend themselves and their young. If you were given a day, week, month, or year to live wherever and whenever and however you choose, what choice would you make?

We can say, had I known such and such a thing, I might never have done what I did. Sometimes we rewrite the past with our inner voice, as a means of understanding what has worked and not worked for us, thus reshaping our thought and behavior as we move forward in life. What if we are stuck in outmoded ways of thinking and behaving? What if the possibility for personal change were to be taken from us? Transformation begins with our thoughts, and with the language we use to express ourselves. Thank goodness we can imagine possibilities beyond the given or present!

Essay 6: In 350-500 words you are to explore a hypothetical scenario; that is, one that you imaginatively enter into, with whatever sure knowledge makes it all plausible and meaningful as an essay. You are writing non-fiction, remember, seeking to show a truth. You might think in terms of the difference made if one or another event had occurred (or not) in your personal life or in history. 
What effects on the past, present, and/or future do you imagine in this hypothetical scenario? 
How might the past look, how might today be different, and how might the future look?

This essay assignment provides good practice with verbs–past, present, future–and in using 
comparison and contrast mode. You will likely use the subjunctive mood and conditional (modal) tense forms as well as simple and perfect tenses.

For example, imagine that you had been born under or into circumstances other than those you 
were born into; say, a different place and/or historical era, a different family, a different gender (or species), and so on. Describe what your childhood was actually like, and what it might have been like (under changed circumstances); what your present life might be like (as opposed to what is actually happening); imagine your future, actually or hypothetically. Or look at any important decision you made or did not make and trace the consequences of having taken an opposite track. 
If we had the chance to do things differently, if we had superpowers, the omniscience of a goddess, what would we do with these?  Of course, we don't have superhuman powers, and we must make do with what we have–but there are insights that reflection brings when we think of what might have been, or what might be if only . . .   This "other" life is what Cheryl Strayed ("Sugar") refers to in the piece called "The Ghost Ship That Didn't Carry Us" (class handout).

Modern technology allows us to see the world in ways we could not without it.  Look at the 
short film here:  https://www.ted.com/talks/louie_schwartzberg_hidden_miracles_of_the_natural_world
You could write about what is revealed by Schwartberg's camera eye, and your response to it.
If we had the power to examine a dragonfly's wings in slow motion, what would we discover? We now have the technology to make such an investigation possible, as the film reveals.

Checklist:

*Title the essay.

*Proofread to make sure you have a clear central idea and adequate support.

*Remember your audience and write on a matter of intrinsic or practical importance.

*Edit your sentences for clarity of expression and grammatical correctness.

Note:

–The use of narration and description, with scene setting, vivid detail and action, will make readers see  and feel the particular experience(s) and ideas you have in mind. – Comparison/contrast mode will show the actual versus the imaginary, and make it clear that your  focus is hypothetical.

  

You might start in this way: 

Had I been born an only child, instead of being born the fifth child of six,

I might have got more attention than I did.  I might have been spoiled!  My parents had little time for me,
as it was, with so many to care for.

Or:

If I were sixty-five (you can fill in any future age) and to at my life, what would I want to see I had 
accomplished

Or:   If I could do one thing differently, rewrite the past, I would go back to the time . . .

Or:   If we were to walk, fly, or swim the proverbial mile in the life of (fill in whatever human,
animal or insect subject interests you) we would discover . . .

Or: If we were to travel to the ends of the earth and back, we would discover a great deal about life
on this planet, including the fascinating  . . .

Or:  If I were rich, free of all financial obligations-I would travel. 

Week 6

                      Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait in Oil

    Good afternoon, Thursday class, and morning, Friday class. Over the last several weeks we've focused on using description and direct quotation to present the contents of a book chapter.  You were to join in, so to speak, conversation on the topic and ideas addressed, in this case, in P.M. Forni's book chapter "Think the Best," in which he discusses the goodness to come of thinking well of others (essay 4).

        The midterm topics  (essay 5) will be returned today.

         Essay 6 continues with our focus on verb forms and use.  As described in last week's post, you are to describe in hypothetical terms a wish or desire or conditional situation that allows you to show use of the subjunctive verb mood and conditional verb tenses, those employing would, could, might, ought, and so on (see last week's post for the full discussion of the assignment).  We shall look at those today.

Last quarter the class took a field trip to the Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art trip week eight.  We will talk more of that this week, if you wish or have ideas for a trip, and the kind of essay to come of it.    We can decide as we review the course objectives and the time remaining to meet them.

                                                                          a Picasso  

Week 5

Today we will review the narrative work you submitted last week (#3), and I'll provide some time for  you to look over the kinds of mistakes you have made (if any), and to revise.  Then we'll continue with the draft of essay 4, due next week.   There will be a short essay midterm (#5) today after break.

Essay:  (#4)  Summary/Response and Quotation Work:  Read the photocopied chapter "Think the Best," from P.M. Forni's book Choosing Civility.  The chapter takes the form of both process (intructional) and cause/effect analysis.  Respond in summary form to the chapter ideas, the author's main idea and supporting points.   Use the format indicated right here in my instructions  to introduce chapter title, book and author. Provide a sufficient and interesting review of his major points and means of support or illustration.   Relate experience of your own or provide commentary to  "talk to" the points he makes and your imagined audience.  Quote several line(s) or parts of lines that convey his ideas particularly well.  Punctuate them as direct quotations and see that they “fit” grammatically in the sentence and paragraph in which you have placed them or set them off.  

*You can review the guidelines for using quotation marks at the following URL:  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/577/01/

Verb tense sequencing here: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/601/1/ and http://owl.english.purdue.edu/engagement/index.php?category_id=2&sub_category_id=1&article_id=39 and here:  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/07/ Appositives:  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/596/1/