Getting Coffee and Other Complicated Things

ASU's fancy coffee shop in the UC

English 1301 students:

For your last blog of the semester, please submit a comment of at least two well-developed paragraphs on the following topic before Monday, December 10th, at midnight:

What is one of the pet peeves in your life that makes you feel the same way that Stanley Fish feels about fancy coffee shops, as he explains in “Getting Coffee is Hard to Do” (pp. 286-89 in our textbook). Here is a link to the article as it appears in The New York Times

As you think about your pet peeve, you might want to consider this critique of Fish's editorial by Ron Rosenbaum: "The World Op-Ed Ever Written?" 

And, just for fun, you might want to listen to the pop song to which the title of Mr. Fish's editorial alludes. Here's are links to two versions of the song, written and performed by Neil Sedaka, on YouTube: fast version of "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" and slow version of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do"  Personally, I like the slow version better, but the older, faster version is especially old-fashioned, so it seems especially relevant to the old-fashioned attitudes about coffee in Fish's editorial.

After you submit your comment, please reply in one well-developed paragraph to at least one of the other students' comments.

Happy Holidays,
Dr. K

Piecing your Essay Parts into a Whole

                           

English 1301 students:

For our Friday, November 30 blog, please submit a comment of just one well-developed paragraph about the revisions that you will do (or already have done) to your Combining the Patterns essay rough draft before the second draft workshop on Monday, December 3.

Please remember what I discussed with everyone as we wrapped up the first workshop: being there on Monday for the second workshop with your significantly revised draft is something to do for me and for your B or A grade plan, but it is just as important to be there with a truly revised draft for the sake of your workshop partner. Your partner will be asked to fill out the sheet with specific details about the revision you have done. Please do not make it awkward for her or him by coming in with an identical rough draft, the same exact one that he or she already has read.

After you submit your comment, you do not need to reply to any of the other comments. Instead, you can use the extra time to get right to your revisions!

Please make sure to use MLA format. If you have any questions about this format, here is a link explaining it: Purdue OWL

And, again, here is a sample first page showing you how to type your name, professor's name, course name, and date above the centered title:



Please note that only your last name and the page number should be in the header, and it should be in the top right corner of each page. Your name, professor's name, course name, and date should be typed at the top of the first page, and it should not appear on any page but the first.

Reminders for next week: The final draft of Essay #5 is due at the beginning of class on Wednesday, December 5.

Next Friday's blog will serve in place of the final exam. We will discuss the topic of the final blog in class on Wednesday.

Have a great weekend,
Dr. K

Happy Thanksgiving!

                 

English 1301 students:

Friday of this week is part of the holiday break, so we do not have a blog.

Have a fun time off!

-Dr. K

What a Shame!

 
                

English 1301 students:

For our blog on Friday, November 16th, please submit a comment during class time, 12:00-12:50 or 2:00-2:50 p.m. depending on your section, of at least two well-developed paragraphs. (One well-developed paragraph is 8-10 sentences, so your whole comment should be about 20 sentences.) 

In your comment, please answer #2 in the "Vocabulary Projects" section on p. 683 about Barbara Ehrenreich's "The Shame Game" (pp. 680-684). In your comment, include some examples from your own experience, in addition to some of Ehrenreich's examples. 

After you submit your comment, please submit a reply of one well-developed paragraph to at least one of the other students' comments. Please reply thoughtfully to the selected comment (rather than just stating that it is a good comment).

Reminders: Please read pp. 685-691 in our textbook before class on Monday, November 19th. And please bring your textbook to class with you that day. Also, please keep in mind that the first rough draft of Essay #5 is due on Wednesday, November 28th, when we will have the first of the two draft workshops for our last essay of the semester. Over the Thanksgiving break, be sure to work on your draft so that you have plenty of time to finish it.

Have a great weekend,

Dr. K

Classification Essay Revisions

              

English 1301 students:

For our Friday, November 9 blog, please submit a comment of just one well-developed paragraph about the revisions that you will do (or already have done) to your Classification essay rough draft before you turn in the final draft at the beginning of class on Monday, November 12.

Remember that you have to do significant revisions to your draft to fulfill the contract requirement that would qualify you for an A or a B grade. So think big! Don't just comment that you plan to change a few words here and there. Instead, as we talked about on Wednesday at the workshop, explain how you will redo your categories to make them unconventional (i.e., explain the new creative categories that I either discussed with you in class or that you have thought up), to add an entirely new section, or to do something else equally substantial.

After you submit your comment, you do not need to reply to any of the other comments. Instead, you can use the extra time to get right to your revisions!

For class on Monday, please read pp. 655-79 in Chapter 15, “Combining the Patterns,” of our textbook, in addition to having your final draft printed out, along with your clustering invention pages from your notebook (done in class on Monday, October 29), your rough draft, and your workshop sheet (filled out by your partner) to turn in.

Please make sure to use MLA format. If you have any questions about this format, here is a link explaining it: Purdue OWL

And, again, here is a sample first page showing you how to type your name, professor's name, course name, and date above the centered title:



Please note that only your last name and the page number should be in the header, and it should be in the top right corner of each page. Your name, professor's name, course name, and date should be typed at the top of the first page, and it should not appear on any page but the first.

Have a great weekend,
Dr. K

Anecdotes in Classification Essays

   
                    

English 1301 students:

For our blog on Friday, November 2, please submit a comment during our class time, 12:00-12:50 or 2:00-2:50 p.m. depending on your section, of at least two well-developed paragraphs. (A well-developed paragraph is about 8-10 sentences, so your two paragraphs should be about 20 sentences altogether.) 

In your comment, please discuss how you plan to use anecdotes in your classification essay, using Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue," on pp. 466-71 in our textbook, as a guide to using anecdotes. In your comment, quote from Tan's essay at least twice and cite page numbers in parentheses after each quotation. 

After you submit your comment, please submit a reply of one well-developed paragraph to at least one of the other students' comments. Please reply thoughtfully to the selected comment (rather than just stating that it is a good comment).

Reminders: Please read pp. 474-83 in our textbook before class on Monday, November 5. And please bring your textbook to class with you that day (and every class day 😏).

Your full-length rough draft for the classification essay is due on Wednesday, November 7. 

Have a great weekend,

Dr. K

College Pressures?

        

English 1301 students:

For our Friday, October 26, blog, please post a comment of at least two well-developed paragraphs about William Zinsser's "College Pressures" (450-459 in our textbook) and William Deresiewicz's very controversial article about elite colleges (link: "Don't Send Your Kid to the Ivy League.") Click on the article link, read it, and then answer these two questions in your comment:

1. How, according to Deresiewicz, have college pressures at Yale University and other hyper-competitive universities changed since 1979, the year Zinsser wrote his essay?

2. Citing Zinsser and Deresiewicz, discuss whether your own Angelo State University pressures fall into the same categories as the students' pressures described in the two essays or whether they fall into different categories. How do our college pressures stack up next to Yale students' pressures?

After you post your comment, please reply in one well-developed paragraph to at least one of the other students' comments.

For Monday, please read pp. 460-65 before coming to class, and please be sure to bring your textbook to class on both Monday and Wednesday.

Have a great weekend,
Dr. K