Driving Home Your Point

Illustration. That's an interesting word. For  me, the word immediately conjures an image of pictures in a child's storybook. Those pictures help the young reader understand what the words mean. Basically, that's what the writing style of illustration does -- it uses an experience, a story, and specific details to enhance the reader's understanding of a point the writer is trying to make. 

Your writing assignment: Select either #5, #7, or #13 to use as the topic sentence of an illustration paragraph (p. 80). Be sure to use appropriate transition words or phrases.

My response:

     A sense of humor can make difficult times easier to bear. Take this academic year, for example. I was hired to teach at a high school just one week before school began. That meant packing up my classroom at the middle school where I had been teaching for the past ten years, making numerous trips from Lantana to Loxahatchee with my SUV stacked and packed. My goal was to set up my new classroom (and my 1200 book library) before students arrived while simultaneously simultaneously attending pre-school meetings and coming up with lesson plans for the week. I was barely up and running on the first day of school, and I have felt like I was behind schedule all year. The stress of being at a new school with new rules  and trying to adapt to a completely new grade level built up so greatly that I forgot to have fun. The self-imposed pressure to live up to my previous successful performance levels with my students only added more stress. On top of that, I, unbelievably, expected my high school students to be better behaved than my middle school students had. Ha! I finally lost it in February. The event caused me to take a hard look at myself, and when I did so I realized I had abandoned my sense of humor.  Those same issues still impinge on my daily duties as a teacher; however, now I find something to laugh about in each class and at lunch, thereby relieving a boatload of stress upon the waves of laughter.

Your turn: Post by the 17th at 5:00 p.m., please.

Welcome Summer A Students

Well, the pistol has been fired and we are off and running! I hope you will come to enjoy these blog postings as much as my other students have. I think the part that really fascinates everyone is being able to read other students' postings. That having been said, let's get started.

Your writing assignments: This week we will be mainly looking at coherent paragraphs and introductions to essays. Coherence involves logical order as well as making sure to repeat key words so you and the reader stay focused on the topic.  The use of transitional words and phrases are important to coherence as well.  Introductions, on the other hand, are the glam and glitter that entice the reader and gets him or her to keep reading. Without a doubt, the most important ingredient in an introduction is the thesis statement, which should be the last sentence of your introduction. We'll be discussing the thesis statement more fully next class. Meanwhile, be sure to refer to your textbook chapter on introductions and conclusions for helpful hints on how to complete the blog assignment. 

My response:  

p. 61, Writing Assignment 5, Paragraph 1: 

My favorite form of relaxation is reading a good book. What constitutes a good book? Well, it is one that has an exciting and unusual plot line and which also contains enough beautifully constructed images and sentences to captivate the artist in me. The thing that makes a good book relaxing is its ability to transport me to a universe different from my daily experience, thereby freeing me -- albeit only temporarily -- from worries, demands, and responsibilities. Now, what page was I on?

p. 205, Writing Assignment 1:

     My mother-in-law has been hospitalized at least twice a year each year over the past five years. It's not always the same condition that sends her there; sometimes a troublesome medical problem will send her to the Emergency Room, while other stays have been scheduled operations. Either way, these frequent hospital stays have often become a discouragement. These illnesses, however, usually transform themselves into surprising blessings, such as new friendships and the opportunity to minister to others in the hospital, patients and staff alike.

     The economy certainly has had a negative impact on life in the United States. The nation's continued involvement in "The War on Terror" has cost untold billions. And, while recent reports show small by steady quarterly increases in the number of new jobs, there are still far too many unemployed Americans. Foreclosures still continue to be a significant problem in many states. While space exploration is generally seen as a positive venture, the nation's financial woes do not warrant continued expenses in this area.

Your turn: Please post your writing assignments as soon as possible. We can fudge the deadline a little as we are all trying to adapt to these requirements.

Give it Up!

Sometimes life requires us to make a sacrifice. We have to give up something in order to get some other thing we really want (or think we want). The costs can be large.  

Here's your topic for this week: Write about something important that you gave up and explain why you did so. 

My response: There was a time when my daughter was a young teenager that I sacrificed her trust in exchange for our safety. She was away visiting my sister when my husband received a phone call from someone who mistook him for my ex-husband. My hubby went along with the mistake and learned that my ex had met the caller in jail and had convinced him it would be easy to burgle our home. They continued talking and agreed to talk again to disclose the address. When we tried to get assistance from the police department, we were told we were on our own because a crime hadn't been committed. Needless to say, we were extremely uncomfortable for our safety and the safety of our daughter. Since the caller didn't have our address, we decided to change the phone number to hopefully prevent any other action. When my daughter found out we had changed our home number without consulting her, there was no excuse we could give that would assuage her anger. It wasn't until many years later -- and many conversations about this issue -- that her feelings of having been ignored were healed and our trust was restored.

Your turn: Remember to post before midnight on Tuesday the 12th.

Lying

Everybody lies -- or do they? Do you lie? Is there a difference between a "white lie" and a more harmful lie? Are there circumstances when it is acceptable to lie? How do you feel when someone lies to you and you discover it?

Your task: Write a paragraph (7-10 sentences) in which you discuss some aspect of lying. Your paragraph could be a personal experience with lying. Perhaps you would like to explore how our culture may (or may not) encourage lying. Your stance on the topic is up to you. Be sure to use correct capitalization and punctuation.  Respond by midnight Tuesday, April 5, 1011.

My response: I have never been a good liar. When I was young, I would try to cover up my misdeeds by telling a lie, but it was easy to see right through me. I can clearly remember one incident in which I was confronted by my mother in the bathroom. My mother was standing in front of the toilet, the brightness of the sink's strip light shining  on her as if she were purposely spotlighted to enhance her authority. I stood in semi-darkness as she accused me of lying to her. As I proceeded to tell that untruth, the palms of my hands began to sweat profusely. Wiping my hands on my pants, I knew I was stumbling and stammering over my explanation.  All the while, I repeatedly wiped my sweaty hands on my pants. The incident about which I was lying has long since fled my memory; its importance was overshadowed by my realization that I was a bad liar. I am grateful for that realization and its resultant humiliation --  it has made me scrupulously honest, even when it is personally embarrassing. In my mind it is better to tell the truth than to be caught in a lie.

Narrative Writing: The Power of Memories

www.quotegarden.com prominently displays this telling quote about memories:

     "Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose"  (from the television show The Wonder Years).

Memories are powerful. Certain foods and certain scents trigger delightful memories for me. Other memories are painful and I want to bury them.  Whenever I hear the Beatles' tune Hey Jude, I can't help but be transported back to a time I would much rather forget. Whether my memories are positive or negative, they are, as the above quote says, "ways of holding on." 

Your task: Tell the story behind one of your memories. You decide if you want to relate a positive or a negative memory. Remember that details count. Your  work should show that you have a firm grasp of grammar mechanics in your response. Preview your response and make the necessary changes before you hit the "publish" button.

My response: The smell of gardenias reminds me of my paternal grandmother. Her name was Josefina. Abuela took care of me and my sister when we were young girls. She lived with my Titi Marta and her two sons, but she ruled that house as if it were her own. Her bedroom was at the end of the hall, opposite the Master Bedroom. Outside of her bedroom window was a gardenia bush. The heady fragrance of those flowers would penetrate the closed jalousie windows nearly all year. I can remember lying on her bed in the middle of the day, secretly reading her crime magazines, the smell of those gardenias intermingling with mouthwatering smells wafting down the hallway. To this day, the best food I remember ever eating was made by Abuela. In fact, I have spent my life trying to approximate her undisclosed recipe for pasteles. Whenever I spent the night, I had to sleep with Abuela. I always did my best to fall asleep before she did, otherwise her rumbling, thunderous snores would keep me up all night. Today, I have a gardenia bush outside my front door and I work hard to emulate her piquant cooking. Maybe one day my grandchildren will hold on to fond memories of me as well.

Post your response no later than midnight, March 22.

Description: The Art of Showing

Everyone has heard that showing is better than telling. Haven't we been told repeatedly that "a picture is worth a thousand words"? I think the allure about showing as a writing technique is that the reader gets to put the pieces together and draw their own conclusions about the information given. It's a puzzle to be solved and though we may get stumped, we really enjoy the challenge of figuring things out. Hopefully, this perspective will give some depth to your attitude about description.

Your task: Describe someone’s hands so we know what he or she does for a living (without you telling us).

My response: Her hands were broad and sturdy. Her squat fingers were gently bent like young saplings that had seen too much of an eastern wind. They were rough and calloused, the nails cropped short for her everyday work. Those dull and unadorned nails, naked to the elements, hid hints of cinnabar and turquoise in the cuticles and surrounding ridges of her knuckles. She looked at them in despair, knowing that no one-time application of Shea butter would make those worn hands presentable for the night's exhibition.

I know this is a late blog posting. Please forgive me as I was consumed with activities from my daytime job. So, because it is late, you have until 6 p.m. on Thursday, March 17, to post your response. Have fun with this assignment!

The Creative Spark

Children love to explore. They are unhampered by thoughts of messing up or failing to do something just right. Coloring outside the lines looks just as good as coloring inside the lines to a child. Pablo Picasso said that "every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” What is YOUR art, and what are some of the challenges you face that prevent you from allowing your childhood artist to emerge?

Remember you should post no later than midnight on 3-15-11.

Here's my response: My art is writing. When I was a child, I would cut pictures out of magazines and paste them on pieces of construction paper. Underneath the pictures, I would write a story that tied all the pictures together. I would bind the pages together, create a title page, and present these books to loved ones. It is my desire to become a published writer, but one of the things that holds me back is a lack of time. There are so many other things I let impinge on my time that I don't feel I have adequate time to write. However, if I just sat down at a certain time every day and wrote for even half an hour, I would get closer to letting that child artist within come peeking out.