Blog Response #4 for April 2

Blog Response #4 (15 pts):

1) Name chapters 17, 18 and 19

2) Along with providing a name for each chapter, give a minimum 5-7 sentence explanation for each chapter name. In that explanation, provide specifics. Use names, places, specific actions.

DUE: by class-time on April 2nd. For those wanting to hand in a copy of blog instead of maintaining blog, this is fine. But response is still due at beginning of class this Thursday.

Back from Spring Break

After week 8's fun trip to the Columbia Library, you were asked to find your comparative text for Essay 2.

Hopefully, you have chosen, and will bring that text to class tomorrow, Tuesday, March 31st.

Also, some people ran off without getting the reading assignment. It will imperative (important) that you have read up to Chapter 20 of A Long Way Gone by Tuesday-ish. The homework for Thursday will involve a blog response on these chapters.

The blog response guidelines will be given tomorrow in class. 

Student Advocates Asked Us to Remind Students

The last day for students to withdraw from a class is Saturday, March 21st.

Reminder for 3/19:

1) We are at the Columbia Library on Thursday (624 S. Michigan, next to Columbia's book store). We're meeting on the 3rd floor.

2) The last two posts are important. One is Essay 2, and below that is a small strategy for having a Research Word Bank to make finding sources just a little easier.

3) Millord, Justin, class...Liam Neeson, not Ralph Fiennes. My bad. But that is Neeson with two es.

See you Thursday,

Christopher

Essay 2: Research Essay Guidelines

Essay 2: Compare and Contrast Research – Diaspora (100 pts)

Important Dates:

1) Workshop of Essay 2: Thursday, April 9th
2) Final Draft of Essay 2, due: Thursday, April 16th

Essay Prompt:

We introduced the terms “Diaspora” and “transnational” last week in class, connecting A Long Way Gone as a tale fitting into the category. You will use compare and contrast strategies to discuss two texts on Diasporas. You will first research and then connect another Diaspora or Diaspora-related tale to our main class text, A Long Way Gone.

You are required to use at least two other sources in this essay in addition to A Long Way Gone. One must be the text in which you compare and contrast Beah’s journey to another, specific tale of Diaspora (which, reluctantly, includes film).

The second research resource/text must be an academic article that will help you in analysis of Diaspora themes. There are plenty of academic articles in our Columbia library and its database that will help you in your essay.

Very importantly, understand that you are not simply identifying themes seen in both A Long Way Gone and this other text. You are pushing towards analyzing the subject of Diaspora through the comparison and contrast of these texts.

Rather than focus on “everything” that deals with Diaspora, you were already asked to find one theme/subject within the general subject of Diasporas to focus on. For instance, perhaps music plays a role in each Diaspora; you can analyze the role of music in each of the two tales, and in Diaspora as a whole.

To help out, here are some possible texts that deal with Diaspora that might interest you:

1. Blood Diamond (movie)
2. Hotel Rwanda (movie)
3. The Giver (book)
4. Exodus (excerpt given out upon request)
5. The Book of Wilson (essay given out upon request)
6. What is the What (available in the library)
7. Echoes of the Lost Boys (graphic novel)
8. Heart of Darkness (novella)
9. Things Fall Apart (novel)
10. Sierra Leon Refugee All Stars (documentary)
11. Maus (graphic novel)
12. When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine (From The Interpreter of Maladies)
13. The Kite Runner (book or movie)
14. The Grapes of Wrath (movie or book)

Requirements:

4-5 pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman; 12-pt. font; WORK CITED page, with at minimum 3 sources used (2 outside sources and A Long Way Gone)

Research Word Bank

For the library on Thursday, 3/19 it might be helpful to have done the following:

Research Word Bank: Make the Exotic Subject Familiar

Commonality. Connections. Rather than looking at a subject as completely foreign, ask and imagine how you may relate to it.

- Make a list of some of the themes and subjects that come out of your pre-writing discussions and activities

- Add to the list your answers to "What are your interests: music, art, language, TV, gender, ????"

War
Suicide
Poverty
Food source/ hunger
Language barriers
Music
Genocide
Gentrification
Lower class in new society à starting over
Education
Drugs
Alcoholism
Loss of family
Identity issues
Displacement
Civic duty
Civic death???
Technology
Religious beliefs
Slavery
Human trafficking
isolation

Homework: Blogger Response #3 and Article on Diaspora

Homework for Tuesday, March 17th: Blogger Response #3 (25 points)

Our second essay is structured to practice the following: research strategies, writing from secondary sources (books, articles, data, etc.) found during research, and also connecting ideas found in research material to both our original text (A Long Way Gone) and our personal experience and interests.

A major goal of the research process is to more clearly understand how the world operates, and how, as scholars, we can cross disciplines and cross subject material to better understand human behavior, beliefs, ideology and theories.

Also, research allows us to apply found knowledge to help un-complicate and understand the world(s) we live in.


Prompt:

1) The reading part is long this weekend. Read up until the end of Chapter 15 by Tuesday. As you read, start to consider this a tale of diaspora (as we will discuss in class).

2) Post a 3-paragraph exploration of how Beah’s journey through the war causes him to address – mentally and physically – his personal and cultural beliefs. Focus on one cultural/social change that takes place in these chapters; one that interests you personally.

What kind of “culture clash” or “loss of culture” is Beah starting (or continuing) to experience? How does Beah deal with this cultural/social change? Use textual evidence to support your interpretation.

Towards the end of your response, connect Beah’s journey to a topic you would like to research; a topic that connects in some way to diaspora. In other words, explain how Beah’s journey includes a conflict that other people might find happens to them when their culture is uprooted and they are forced to live in “another world.”

One common topic of diaspora is “language barriers.” When a people are uprooted and forced to move (or even choose to move) they most likely deal with language conflicts in some way. Whether an entirely new language, or even if one moves from the American South to NYC – language conflicts are common in diaspora.

The Next Step (also homework for Tuesday, 3/17):

3) After posting Blogger Response #3, get on http://lib.colum.edu and search the article databases for “diaspora” and your topic. So, if you wanted to look into “language barriers” type in both terms into the on-line database. You may also ask a librarian for help, if you do your work at the library.

4) For Tuesday’s class: find an article on diaspora topic you want to explore. So, it could be an article that discusses…language barriers connected to diaspora. Do one of two things:

- Bring the article to class

and/or

- Bring up a written summary of the article – title of piece, its thesis/focus, and why you are interested in the article

Workshop #2: Tuesday, March 10

This Tuesday we are going to have workshop #2, where we focus on  1) organization and 2) whether content and theme are fulfilled through the language.

In order to get credit towards your Essay 1 grade, bring in two copies of a draft that is at minimum 3-pages in length.

For those who missed class on Thursday, you may e-mail me for my comments on your last draft, or I can put it in my mailbox in the English Office (3rd floor) for you to pick up.

Sincerely,

Chris

Paragraphs: Transition from Idea to Idea

Here is a link to transitional devices you may use as part of a Revision Strategy in linking paragraphs together. 

Here are some rhetorical considerations in connecting paragraphs together:

1. "Pick up" key terms from previous paragraphs and restate them in next paragraph. 

- I like to use what I call "hinge" sentences 

(like a door hinge, which exists in two worlds), 

where I re-phrase the main idea of the paragraph I am finishing 

and the key phrase for the topic of the next paragraph in one sentence.

- I use put these "hinges" at the end of one paragraph, or the beginning of the next.

- These "hinges" rely on picking up terms and phrases, as stated above.

2. Use transitional phrases or transitional words to link (see above, and also see Purdue's OWL website)

However, using transitions is nothing IF

you don't properly organize your material.

SOME...Organizational Patterns for ordering information:

1. Chronologically (forwards or backwards) 

2. Sequencing (step by step information)

3. Compare and Contrast

4. Cause and Effect

5. Order of Importance: least to greatest; highest to lowest

- What do we need to know, and when is it necessary to know?*

- Will the reader be lost in story if I don't provide info earlier?*

*Considered a separate kind of organizational pattern, "defining" 

terms is important depending on clarity for audience . . . considering

these two questions just above.