Journals
For each journal, you will have two entries. There are two types of entries: free writes of around 500 words each, and copy and compose exercises. Each journal should be written in Google Docs. Please title each journal with your name and the number of the journal (i.e., Greg Graham Journal 1). Share the journal posts with me by the deadline for each.
Free Writes
Each journal entry should be approximately 500 words long (about a page of typed text in a word document).
The purpose of the journal that will be due in Week Three is to get you started thinking about what you will write for your first essay. You should be practicing the particular concepts you identified in the first discussion board for the class. In other words, if you identified that you want to work on building specific characters, you can use your journals to practice writing character sketches of individuals that you might want to include in your longer essays.
These journals will be evaluated for completion only, so feel free to experiment and write freely in this area. I will be the only person who has access to your journal other than you, and information in this area of the course will not be shared with others.
Copy and Compose Exercises
As writers, we should always be reading with an eye toward style as well as content. In this class, I would like you to pay attention to particular passages of each reading that strike you as particularly lyrical. The passages do not necessarily need to be elaborate; they can be simple and direct but forceful. However, you should have a mixture of shorter and longer passages to practice a variety of styles.
The copy and compose exercise should include:
- A copy of the passage, word for word, including the source, author, and page number.
- A description of how the language in the source works to build a particular effect.
- A version of the passage in your own words that replicates the rhythm of the passage involving the subject of the essay that you will be writing for essay one.
EXAMPLE:
1. Copy of Passage: "There were about four hundred exploded armadillos, too, but I got used to them. They were real, and real dead. The alligators weren't real or dead, but they may have been after me. I'm running away from running away from home." "Out There" by Jo Ann Beard, pg. 3
2. Description: What strikes me in particular are the repetitions of words for effect. "Real" and "dead" are repeated to create a sense that 1) not all is, perhaps, as it seems in this essay and 2) this author is in trouble in some way. The repetition in the last line lets us what the author is doing and at the same time lets us know that she isn't really ok with it.
3. My version: There were more reasons to not have a child, too, than to have a child. The reasons were serious, and seriously silly. The reasons weren't serious or silly, but they were both to me. I was a child trying not to have a child.
You might find out that you don't like your sentence that much in the end, and that's just fine. The point of these activities are to practice imitating those styles that you find appealing in order to internalize structures in the language of others to add to your own style.