Some notes on the first paper of the year…

Remember: it doesn’t count much.

OK, so we’ve had our first taste of each other. I’ve seen your writing and you’ve seen my feedback. Where do we go from here? Let’s see: you could curse my name and damn me to an eternity of listening to rap music, or you could try to figure out what the heck I was talking about in my commentary. On the off chance that you’d prefer the latter to the former, I thought I’d spend a few minutes framing what you ought to know about my feelings and thoughts as I read these papers.

Titles:

I read them aloud in class, so you know how utterly generic and lame some of them were. I’m not worried. I’m certain that the next batch will show off your creative talent. J

Opening lines:

Let me give you a few random samples. (I’m eliminating titles and abbreviating her name to ED as expedients so that I can type these faster; wherever there is an “x” or “y” there was actually a title.)

ED is one of the founders of what we know today as American poetry.
The poems “x” and “y” by ED have a lot of differences and a little in common.
ED’s “x” is a dismal view of the martyr’s impact on the world.
The two ED poems that I chose to compare both share similar themes, which is why I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast them.
ED is a unique poet.
Arguably one of the most renowned poets of the nineteenth century, ED has written a plethora of influential and significant poems.

OK: what do we see here? Here’s what I see: #1 and #6 seem like little more than appeals to the English teacher: “Hey, Ms K, I think this poet is the greatest thing since Disneyland!” #2 says nothing at all. #4 says nothing at all in a whole bunch of words. #5…says ED is unique, which is certainly true but doesn’t exactly focus the paper. Only #3 here seems promising in its language and information, though it makes me wonder whether the comparison/contrast element will be present in the paper. Here’s another:

Throughout the poems, “x” and “y” written by ED, they can both be compared and contrasted even though they are separate poems.

As I said to the author: you can’t really compare or contrast them if they were the same poem, could you? This is just careless writing. You are not saying what you intend to say because you are not taking the time to compose it clearly.

Want some very good opening lines? Try these:

Through her writing, ED shows a view of the world through the eyes of a woman who has exiled herself from the world, dreaming of nature and what it must look like, sound like, even feel like.
ED may have spent most of her adult life in her home, but nevertheless was talented enough to stretch her mind beyond the walls of any room that contained her.
An apparent fascination with death and its potential consequences fuels ED’s poems “x” and “y.”

The first two contain similar themes and are clearly pointing the way toward a strong CI (though maybe the first is a bit awkward in a couple of places), and the third very clearly and in interesting phrases states the CI.

Opening lines are very important. Like titles, they set the stage for the reader’s journey through the paper. They are a chance to grab our interest and our attention and start to argue your points. Don’t throw them away!

Central Ideas:

The last example above is a very strong example of a CI. Unfortunately, far too many of you used as a CI some variation on “These poems both differ and are similar in certain ways.” Um…well, yeah, but that’s not just vague; it’s downright empty! Come on! Be clear, be specific, be interesting, be focused: whatever your CI is, state it forcefully and inventively and make it utterly impossible for the reader not to know what the paper is arguing. And don’t be generic!

Repetition:

How many times do you think you have to say the same thing in a short paper? Let me give you a clue: once. Build on it, expand it, rephrase it, develop it, expound upon it, twist it, reshape it, invert it, do whatever you want to it…but don’t repeat it.

Superlatives:

I have, like all English teachers, a mental alarm that goes off whenever I read sentences like “Her writing changed the world of literature forever.” I call it my “BS meter.” It sounds most loudly when someone is saying things to sound erudite or impressive and especially when someone is praising an author we are reading as a “genius” or a “master” or some other such nonsense. Of course they are brilliant authors; why else would we be studying them? But you really are not yet schooled enough to judge their relative merit, so please please please don’t do it. Avoid superlatives about authors. They add nothing except decibels to the alarm in my head.

Organization:

So you have a good opening line, a strong and forceful CI, and a couple of nice mapping statements; where do you go from here? Here’s a subtle hint:

ORGANIZE!!!!!

I don’t know how many of you outline your work, but I strongly suspect more of you should be doing that. Know in advance what points you want to make and how they relate to your CI. (Keep that in mind always, along with how they relate to each other.) The worst thing you could do—well, not as bad as matricide or marrying a frog, but bad enough—is to write a long, rambling, disjointed essay full, as Macbeth would say, of sound and fury but signifying nothing. Keep it focused. Keep it organized. Maintain a constant connection to the CI.

And what about Quotes?

Use them.

Period.

You simply can’t find any better way to support what you are saying. And you have to support what you are saying. When you do use them, please know how to punctuate them: the quotation mark, in American English, always comes after the comma or the period. This is not dependent on usage or position in the sentence or anything; it is one of the few absolute rules in the language. Obey!

Conclusions:

Um…write one? And write one that does more than merely repeat; we’ve already discussed the little value there is in that, haven’t we? J You’ve built to a conclusion; don’t go back to the start. Haven’t we learned something new from reading what you’ve written?

OK, that’s enough to chew on for now. Think about all of this. Now: Go to the Rubric. Sift through the various lists of what makes good writing. And score your essay in all categories. On Wednesday, bring in your scores. Be ready to explain them.