A WRITER'S JOURNAL should be both a record of a writer's experiences and a source book. We started last week with journal writing three of the five days, and also completed some brainstorming of the verb essay as one of the outside-of-class journals. We read and mock-workshopped two verb essays, models of what former SWS students' work. We read a circa 1990 interview of Clarence Page, published in Studs Terkel's Race. We ended the week completing the cumulative sentence exercises at the end of chapter seven of BGS. The sentence diagramming exercise for this week was the first sentence from chapter ten, Why Homer Matters.

Monday

Collecting the sentence diagrams. We will scan these and compare the diagrams, and you'll have the opportunity to revise your diagram. Reading "The Coming of John" from W.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk, an essay selected by a former student in SWS.
HW: Continue drafting the verb essay.

Tuesday

Starting class with a journal. Discussion of yesterday's reading. Looking at the essay through the writer's lens. Time permitting, we spend a few minutes drafting your verb essay.
HW: Continue drafting your verb essay.

Wednesday

Re-capping the discussion from yesterday's class. Journal entry on photo. We will spend the second half of class writing your verb essay.
HW: Have a working rough draft of your verb essay in class tomorrow.

Thursday

Small group workshops of rough drafts. Whatever drafts you have completed, you should bring at least four hard copies for feedback circles.
HW: Drop off copies of your essays at my desk no later than noon tomorrow. I will have hard copies made for the entire class at the start on Friday.

Friday

Because we were missing essays, we did not start workshop. Rather, we began reading, "Tales of the Tyrant," up through the middle of page 280. If you missed class, you should do that.
HW: Since we do not have essays to read, finish reading the essay, "Tales of the Tyrant."