Background Information about O. Henry

O. Henry (William Sidney Porter) is one of my favorite American writers.  Utilizing his quick wit, dexterity with vocabulary and quirky sense of plot construction, O. Henry is a master of the short story.  Although he lived a less-than-exemplary life, his colorful experiences were the "stuff" from which he got material for his stories.

Below are some links with more information on him and on his writing.
O. Henry (Wikipedia)
Brainy Quotes from his writings
Themes, Styles, and Techniques of O. Henry
Austin, TX, O. Henry Museum

Writing 1 Class Notes -- February 20 (Week 6)

Greetings!

Another good class this week.  I handed out some postcards and asked them to pretend they had been on a vacation to the place on the card.  For the Quick Write, they were to write a message to someone about their "vacation." Most of the postcards were from our summer trip to the North Shore, so they didn't have any exotic destinations to work with.

Our Latin phrases for this week were:

ad perpetuam rei memoriam -- for the perpetual remembrance of a thing (This was a common introit for papal declarations)

adsum -- I'm here or "Present"  (young Roman students responded with this when attendance was taken)

ad verbum -- to the word or verbatim (We discussed the connection of the the Latin word for "word" is verbum and our word "verb" which is the action word of a sentence.  Sometimes, the discussion of vocabulary and grammar can become a little philosophical)

advocatus diaboli -- the devil's advocate

Continuing with our study of the comma, we looked at how to use a comma in a series.  One wouldn't think that any type of controversy could arise in grammar, but you can find passionate users of the Oxford or serial comma; you will also find those who firmly eschew the final comma before the word "and" in a series.  (E.g. "I ate eggs, bacon, toast, and cheese for breakfast." uses the Oxford/serial comma following "toast.")  I explained to the class that many purists prefer the serial comma, and therefore I am teaching them to use it.  Those who are not strict adherents to its use, choose to use it only to avoid potential confusion, but otherwise feel that it unnecessarily breaks up the flow of a sentence.  Who knew that such a small bit of punctuation could be so news-worthy -- see Wikipedia, The Falmouth Institute,  or this grammar blog.

We have finished our reading of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  We discussed the themes of identity, reputation, good vs. evil, and split personalities.  Their next essay is either a Character Analysis or Theme Analysis Essay.  The students have been filling in charts with information about one of the characters or one of the themes; these will serve as their research and note-taking for this essay in which they write about literature.  Their rough drafts are due the next time we meet.

Since we are done with one book, we're ready for the next, a book of short stories by O. Henry.  We finished our first book a week early, so I will be adjusting the syllabus for the second half of the semester.  They are to read 2 stories and fill out 1 side of the worksheet that I handed out for each story.

We do not have class next week.  Our next class is March 6.

Assignments for March 6

-- Write your Character or Theme Rough Draft

-- Read "The Gift of the Magi" (p. 1) and "After Twenty Years" (p. 21)

-- Finish the Comma Worksheet

This week's blogs

-- Class Notes

-- Information about O. Henry

Enjoy your week without classes!

Mrs. Prichard

Character Essay

Character Essay

Definition

            The purpose of a character analysis is to provide information and understanding about a character from a piece of literatures.  Writers use supporting details from the book to back up their opinions and evaluations about the character.        

Thesis Development

            Your thesis should state a stand or opinion about the character you have chosen.  Your thesis can be concerned with the character’s weaknesses or strengths, primary motivations, inner qualities, interactions with others,

Organization

            Your essay should follow the standard structure with an introduction, body, and conclusion.  In the body, the paragraphs should cover the points that you will use to support your thesis.

Tips on Prewriting

·         Survey all the details you have collected and group them in clusters that reveal some similar qualities.

·         In a single sentence, sum up what the character is like.  This summary can be the thesis or controlling idea for your entire essay.

·         Select the details that help support, explain, and illustrate your thesis.

·         Pull from your chart with material you’ve collected.  Use effective quotes and examples.

·         Plan your introduction and conclusion.

Tips on Writing the Introduction

·         The opening paragraph of your essay should introduce who this character is, briefly explaining what his/her role is in the story and why you have chosen to analyze this personality. 

·         Define your character in terms of whether he is the protagonist (hero), antagonist (villain),  supporting player or a catalyst.  A catalyst character often does not participate directly in any of the action, but instead fulfills the role of inspiring the lead character.

·         Possible information to include in your introduction:

–   Make some general comments about the subject matter of the thesis.  Give background information.

–   Mention personal experiences and attitudes you and your readers might share about the character.  Do you think other people have the same opinion about this person.

–   Include thoughts about the author.  Does his life give any clues to this character?

–   Write a few general sentences about the story.

Using Quotations

·         This type of paper requires that you use quotations from the story to support your points.  Be sure that you quote accurately and that your reason for quoting is clear.  Be careful not to use long quotes for your essay will merely repeat the words of the story.

Writing the Conclusion

·         The final paragraph should not introduce a new idea because it cannot be developed.  The conclusion should smoothly bring the reader back to the thesis of the essay.  It is the final comment you make and is your last chance to drive home your main idea

Essay Guidelines

– Due dates:  Pre-Write due 2/20;  Rough Draft due 3/6; Final Draft due 3/20.

– Essay length:  600 – 900 words (between 3 and 5 pages)

– Rough drafts can be typed or hand-written, but must be double-spaced.

– Final draft format:

– Typed (if this is not possible, please let me know)

– 1 inch margins

– Name and date on the upper right hand corner

– Number the pages on the lower right hand corner

– Title centered above the text of the essay

Theme Essay

Theme Essay

Definition

The theme is the major idea the author is trying to “get across.”  The theme of a literary work is its underlying central idea, or the generalization it communicates about life. At times, the author’s theme may not confirm of agree with your own beliefs, but even then, if it is skillfully written, the work will still have a theme that illuminates some aspects of true human experience.  A Theme Essay explores these ideas and helps the reader gain a greater understanding of the book as a whole.           

Remember that there may be various themes in any one piece of literature.  The following are mechanisms by which a theme may be revealed:  direct statements of the author, direct statements by the characters, dramatic statements by characters, imagery, characters representing ideas, and the entire work representing ideas.

The body of the essay will center around “your objective, which is (1) to define the idea, and (2) show its importance in the work.” 

Questions for Theme Analysis

–  What important idea or theme does this literary work convey? Think about the topics of some of your journal entries. What questions do the journal prompts raise about human nature?

–  What do characters do that helps illustrate this idea?

–  What do characters say that helps to illustrate this idea?

–  What events take place in the work that help to illustrate this idea?

–  Are there any recurrent images or clusters of images? Do these images support the idea or theme that you find in the work?

–  What does the narrator say that helps to illustrate this idea?

Writing your Essay

            First, pick one theme to write your analysis.  Next, you need to form your thesis statement. After deciding on a thesis, you need to form a rough outline using the provided example. You will need to provide a number of examples from the book to illustrate the theme, which will be the components of your three body paragraphs. You will need three quotes per body paragraph, so nine quotes all together. Don’t rely on the quotes to explain themselves. You need to lead into the quote, and also comment on the quote after you quote it. You need to effectively show how the quote helps to prove your point.

Essay Guidelines

– Due dates:  Pre-Write due 2/20; Rough Draft due 3/6;  Final Draft due 3/20.

– Essay length:  600 – 800 words (between 3 and 5 pages)

– Rough drafts can be typed or hand-written, but must be double-spaced.

– Final draft format:

– Typed (if this is not possible, please let me know)

– 1 inch margins

– Name and date on the upper right hand corner

– Number the pages on the lower right hand corner

– Title centered above the text of the essay

Writing 1 Class Notes -- February 13 (Week 5)

Greetings!

As always, we had a good class this week.  We began the class with our Quick Write.  Each week it seems that this activity could take more time than I give it.  And that's a good thing.  One of the best ways to become a good writer is simply to write a lot.  This week our Quick Write assignment was to either 1) Write a literary love letter; or 2) Write about your Lenten plans.  For the love letter, the students could choose an author, a book, a character, a bit of punctuation, a part of speech, a literary device, etc.  

Our Latin Phrases for this week were as follows:

ad hoc -- "for this purpose" refers to a group or activity that is for a specific, limited reason

ad infinitum -- "for infinity; never-ending" refers to something that goes on and on and doesn't seem to end

ad litem -- "for this suit/case"  is a legal term that is usually used in regards to a guardian ad litem, which is a person who is assigned to help a minor is a legal situation

ad nauseum -- "to sickness"  Like the term ad infinitum, this refers to an activity that continues to the extent that you feel bodily sick.  Literally,nauseum means seasickness.

As we continue in our reading of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, we looked this week at the aspects of Stevenson's writing that lends a mysterious dynamic to the story.  Many time we finish a chapter with more questions and fewer concrete answers.  Next week we will discuss chapters 9 & 10.

For their next writing assignment, they are to write either a Themes Essay or a Character Essay.  As they have been reading the novel, they had charts for filling in details about a character and one for details about one of the many themes.  This information will help them with the supporting details for their papers.

We're still working to develop a "Comma Expertise," and we worked on a worksheet on appositives and parenthetical expressions.  Next week, I'm planning on having the students give mini-grammar lessons that I will record as videos.  I'd like to put them on our class blog, but I want to make sure that I have permission from parents.    Let me know if you DO NOT want any videos of your child posted.

On the class blog, I posted a video of Dr. Ben Carson's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast.  While this is not specifically writing-related, I was impressed by his forthrightness and integrity and wanted to share it with my students and their families.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read chapters 9 & 10 of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde.

-- Answer 4 questions from the options for those chapters

-- Continue to fill out the Character Worksheet, the Themes Worksheet, and the Vocabulary         Worksheet 

          -- These will be due at the same time that the essays are due.

-- Pre-Write for the Character or Theme Essay

This week's blogs:

Class Notes

Dr. Ben Carson speech

Grammar Worksheet about Appositives & Parenthetical Expressions

Have a great week!

Mrs. Prichard

Commas -- Appositives & Parenthetical Expressions

1.6 – Appositives

An appositive renames the noun or pronoun it follows.  If omitting the appositive would change the meaning of the sentence, then do not set it apart with commas.  If the “renaming” does not change the meaning, then use commas.

1.7 – Parenthetical Comments

Parenthetical comments are those which can be left out but are included to add color or personality to the sentence.

Exercises:

Insert the commas for the appositives.

1.       Pride and Prejudice a book by Jane Austen is one of my favorite novels.

2.       Houston the largest city in Texas was named after Sam Houston.

3.       The speaker who had risen from his chair to begin his talk fell off the platform.

4.       The athletes for whom the party was given broke into singing the school song.

5.       The dog that ran under the chair was the one who had eaten her shoe.

6.       The truck that changed around the corner finally broke down across the street.

Insert commas for the parenthetical phrases.

1.       Believe it or not I haven’t been home a single night this week.

2.       I know Susan was at the party I spoke with her myself bu she may have left early.

3.       Then I thought oh dear I’ve lost my wallet.

4.       I have an idea let’s call Robert and Jill and take them out for dinner.

5.       Your mother called an oh yes she said you left your history book at home.

Misc. Sentences

1.       The clock which had been ticking very loudly burst a spring and flew off the wall.

2.       Down in the valley where the grass is greener than it is anywhere else you can see the men on tractors and other equipment.

3.       My friends Hannah and Rebecca whom I haven’t seen for six years are coming to visit me this week.

4.       The old car that sat in the driveway all winter was finally hauled away.

5.       The man who broke into our house while we were away was arrested.

Dr. Ben Carson at the National Prayer Breakfast

Many homeschoolers know who Ben Carson is.  He's one of those success stories that we love to give to our children to encourage and inspire them.  Our family has read a couple of biographies and seen the movie Gifted Hands.  We even had the opportunity to hear him speak at a college in our town.

Though this video is not about literature or writing, I felt Dr. Carson was so eloquent about values and about education that I wanted to share it my students and their families.  Follow this link to my personal blog for the C-SPAN video.

Writing 1 Class Notes -- February 6 (Week 4)

Greetings!

We began our class with a discussion about the story behind Groundhog Day.  According to folklore, if a groundhog sees its shadow (in other words, it's a sunny day), he will be frightened and go back into his hole, and winter will last another 6 weeks.  If the day is overcast and the groundhog sees no shadow, we'll have an early spring.  Of course, this is all a moot point in Minnesota where winter sometimes lasts until May!

For our Quick Write, I asked the students to choose an animal and create a national holiday that revolves around that animal.  We had days dedicated to bears, gerbils, hamsters, and monkeys.





Below are our Latin phrases for today.  Since we've done a few of these, some words were a bit familiar.  They are also getting the hang of recognizing derivatives and cognates of the Latin words.  I gave them extra credit if they knew any of the words in the phrases.

acta est fabula -- literally means "the act is the story;"  used as a "The End" for open air plays; related to the words fable and fabulous
a Deo et Rege -- from God and King;
Adeste Fideles -- literally "come faithful ones;" the Latin title for "O Come all ye Faithful."
ad gustum -- to (ones) taste; a term used in old cookbooks

I handed back the rough drafts of the Narrative Essays.  As a combined Grammar and Writing lesson, we discussed common errors in the papers.  We spent quite a bit of time talking about active and passive sentences.  Sentences written in passive form usually use more words to say the same thing than one written with an active verb.  These sentences are not incorrect, but most young writers have to be careful about bogging down their sentences.



The final drafts of their Narrative Essays are due next week.  In addition to including their rough drafts, on a separate page I would like them to write the thesis statement for this essay and the reasons for 5 corrections made from the rough draft.  IF they make corrections/improvements that I didn't mark, they should make mention of those and I will give extra credit.

We started our The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde discussion with small groups.  One table discussed the questions from Chapter 5 while the other one discussed the questions from Chapter 6.  We followed with a whole class discussion of these sections.  They were alert, involved, and insightful.  I'm enjoying their ability to think carefully about literature.  They are to read the next 2 chapters and answer 5 questions from the study guide from either or both sets of questions.

A note on assignments:  Sometimes circumstances keep students from handing in assignments in on time.  Computer and printer issues are pretty common problems.  Busy schedules and illness also play a role.  Since we only meet weekly, it's important that students not get behind, especially with assigned essays.  If a student cannot hand in a paper at class time, I would like them to e-mail their papers to me as soon as they can. In the case of rough drafts, I can then get them corrected, scanned, and returned. However, if assignments are too late, they will not be counted.


Assignments for Next Week:

-- Final Draft of the Narrative Essay

     -- Include rough draft, thesis statement, 5 reasons for corrections

-- Read Chapters 5 & 6

-- Answer 5 questions, choosing from the sets for the two chapters.

This week's blogs:

Class Notes

Passive/Active Sentence Resources

Have a great week!  Stay warm & make wise choices.

Mrs. Prichard

Active and Passive Voice

As young writers work to make their thoughts into sentences that combine into clear essays, they often have a tendency to use too many words in the process.  A common mistake that they make is using passive verbs and writing weak, wordy sentences.  Briefly, in an active sentence the subject of the sentence performs the action of the verb.  In a passive sentence, the subject of the sentence receives the action of the verb.




Examples
Active:  Mrs. Prichard ate lunch.  (The subject is doing the action of the verb.)
Passive:  The lunch was eaten by Mrs. Prichard.  (The verb is receiving the action of the verb.)

Active:  The dog chased the cat.
Passive:  The cat was chased by the dog.

Below are some other on-line resources for further explanation
Purdue's Online Writing Lab
English Club --- has some nice charts
Grammar Girl -- a longer article which addresses stylistic characteristics of active and passive voice.
Wheaton College Writing Center --- includes a section on when to use passive voice.

Writing 1 Class Notes -- January 23 (Week 3)

Greetings!

We had a good, productive class this week and covered a lot of ground.  For our Quick Write, the students were to choose 1 literary character, 1 real person, and 1 place besides Minnesota and write a brief story.  Following their short writing exercise, we had some Latin phrases:  acta sanctorum (acts of the saints), ad astra per aspera (to the stars through difficulties), ad augusta per angusta (to the majestic (the holy place) through grief (the narrow place)).

Continuing with our study of commas, our Grammar lesson concerned introductory elements.  After doing a couple practice sentences, the students were assigned to do the rest as homework.  

We're discussing forming good sentences as a part of the Writing portion of the class.  Given a worksheet, they are to write a bad sentence and then improve it.  On the second half of the worksheet, they're assigned to choose 5 sentences from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and to rewrite them in a different style.  They handed in their rough drafts which I will go over this week and hand back next week.

We discussed chapters 3 and 4 of our book.  We looked at some of the descriptions of the characters and the setting.  They are to continue with chapters 5 and 6.  A reminder:  As they read the book, they are to be filling out the charts for a character and for a theme along with the first page of the vocabulary chart.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Finish the Grammar worksheet

-- Exercises 1 & 2 of the Building Sentences worksheet

-- Read Chapters 5 and 6 of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

-- Answer 2 questions for each chapter.

This week's blog entries:

Grammar Worksheet

Building Sentences Worksheet

Class Notes

Have a great week!  Stay warm!

Mrs. Prichard

Building Sentences (Rewriting Sentences)

“Sentences are alive.  We experience them in time, and we react to their unfolding as they twist and turn, challenging us, teasing us, surprising us, and sometimes boring or confusing us as we read them… Style is what the writer uses and/or what the reader reads.”

Effective writing anticipates shapes, and satisfies a reader’s need for information.  Sentences that bring ideas and images into clear focus by adding more useful details and explanations are generally more effective than those that are less clearly focused and offer fewer details.

EXERCISE #1

·         Write a vague, unclear sentence about your family’s mealtime.  Don’t worry, this can be a very bad sentence, if you like. 

·         Re-write the sentence in a simple, uncomplicated form with the least amount of details.

·         Now, add some specific words and phrases to describe the situation.

·         Finally, write 2 more sentences to accompany your rewritten one that expand the reader’s understanding about your family’s mealtime.

  

EXERCISE #2

Pick 5 sentences from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  Rewrite it in a completely different style – try making it bare and sparse, or formal and ceremonious, or lushly flowery and descriptive, or emotional.  Write the original sentences with the rewritten version following it.  Include the page number of the original.

Week 3 Grammar Lesson

WEEK 3

1.4 – Introductory Elements

·         If a sentence does not being with the subject, it may open with an introductory element that tells when, where, how, or why the main action of the sentence occurs.  Separate that introductory element from the main part of the sentence with a comma. 

·         Use a comma following phrases that begin with if, when, although, because, and similar words.

·         If the introductory element is short, and the sentence cannot be misread if the comma is omitted, you can omit the comma.  Introductory prepositional phrases are not set off by commas unless it is necessary for a clear understanding of the sentences meaning.

EXERCISES

Underline each introductory element and punctuate the sentence with the appropriate commas.  Be careful to look also for other places in the sentence that require commas. (Hint:  Not all sentences have introductory phrases, and some are compound sentences.)

1.      Discovering the book under the chair she went to the den and read until dinner time.

2.      When I couldn’t find the cookies I ate an apple but my brother ate some candy.

3.      Driving home from the party Paul and I got lost.

4.      Feeling sick Debbie complained about going to school and her mother let her stay home.

5.      Before my aunt came from Chicago we bought tickets to the community play because I was in it.

6.      Agnes gets out her skis whenever it snows.

7.      I think I will go out for dinner when Tom finishes his chores.

8.      After they finished their breakfast they took the dog for a walk and I did the dishes.

9.      Because the road was glazed with ice many cars slipped on the highway and ended up in the ditch.

10.  When I looked through the newspaper I couldn’t find the article she told me about, but I had already seen the information online.