Last Week (Thursday & Friday)

Besides reviewing grades and the results from portfolios, we wrote our first writer's notebook entry for the semester, entitled, "Witness," in which students described something he observed or experienced, but without inserting themselves as narrator in the work. We also read the essay "Chocolate Equals Love" and discussed the content and writer's style. For homework over the weekend, writer's wrote a short essay describing a favorite snack food.

Monday, February 3

Discussion of your food essays written in response to essay question #1 from the Short Takes essay, "Chocolate Equals Love" on page 105. HW: Identify an ideal passage that would work as a "short takes"-like selection from your memoir.

Tuesday, February 4

Writers' workshop. If we don't get to Maddy's in class today, we will start with it on Wednesday. HW: Reading and preparing for David, Ryan and Charlie's autobiographies. All this week, you should be reading and finishing your memoir. You will want to finish it by next Friday.

Wednesday, February 5

Analysis of Jack Hitt's essay, "Toxic Dreams: A California Town Finds Meaning in an Acid Pit." We will brainstorm for both stylistic convention and content, and then write a long in-class journal, answering the question, "What can we say about Hitt as a writer, and about 'Toxic Dreams' as an essay." This is a practice exercise for the content and stylistic reviews on your memoir that you will work on tomorrow. HW: Working on this week's journal entries in your writer's notebooks.

Thursday, February 6

In the library to research what's been written about your author and the memoir you've read independently. HW: Begin drafting your review of the memoir, and your analysis of your writer's technique.

Friday, December 7

Meeting in lab 377-N to work on writing both your review of the memoir and your stylistic analysis. Also, bring clean copies of your selected text. It may well be that we can OCR that copy in the lab. HW: Complete the memoir assignment. Remember, it should have three components a) review of entire memoir; b) review of author's stylistic technique; c) selected text from your memoir.