Formula for Awesomeness

I have made it a point to assign Journal topics to my students that are both interesting and useful. I hate writing on boring topics, so I assume my students do as well.

In keeping with this, last semester I began using the artwork of Ric Stultz as one of ENG 120's journals. Students choose a painting, spend some time thinking about it, its meaning, and its impression on them as viewers, and then write about it. Easy peezy and they love his artwork. ::Pats herself on back::

I assign this journal now (3rd week of the semester) while we are rehashing what it means to write a strong thesis statement. I teach thesis statements with the Formula for Awesomeness (Overall Topic + 3 Main Points), and this is when I remind students that their language (or diction) should indicate the essays' purposes: inform, persuade/argue, or analyze.

The exercise that I use in class involves this photograph:



I tell students they have 5 minutes to look at the image (which I project from the overhead projector) and prewrite. They can prewrite however they would like. Some freewrite, others cluster or brainstorm, and many simply write bullet points. I encourage them to talk to their classmates during this time and I feed them thoughts like, "Is this a real place?" "What could this place be?" "Could it be a Photoshopped image?" "Consider a narrative that would take place here."

ENG 120 students will read a chapter on writing a Narrative for Wednesday, so this gives me a good starting point to introduce both Narrative essay-writing and Description.

I then give the students a few more minutes to create thesis statements based on their scribblings. When asked to share, most melt into their seats and suddenly find themselves unable to meet my eyes, but a few brave souls offer up their attempts at thesis statements and either receive the praise of, "Yes! Exactly!" or "Ok, so that would make a great attention-getter at the beginning of your introduction, but it's not a thesis statement." Eventually, my students learn that when they volunteer their work, they get the benefit of individualized help during class time, so they volunteer more.

Only after we have moved through a few thesis statements do I tell them that this image is a photograph of part of the interior of a Public Library in Stockholm, Sweden, home to over 4 million books and designed and built in the 1920's. ::She swoons--all those books!::

Week 1

Monday, January 9th: 85% of my registered students attended the first day of class. We went through the usual motions of going over the syllabus and I went through my usual speech about having ZERO tolerance for plagiarism and the necessity of attending class (and owning the textbooks).

Wednesday, January 11th: All ENG 120 students are writing their "Diagnostic Essay" in class today. Two sections of the course meet on MWF, so the classes only meet for 50 minute sessions. This means I will receive a batch of largely unfinished essays; I'm okay with this as I'll be grading them and handing them back for revision anyway.

Friday, January 13th: At the moment, the plan is to field any questions about our Blackboard page (I am piloting the new version of Blackboard Learn for all my classes this semester), their blogs (instead of handing in typed, printed journals each week, my students are keeping a blog this semester), or any other housekeeping issues. Once that is taken care of, I'm going to split the class into groups for a series of short "Getting to Know You" activities built around language and vocabulary. I have a few I'm considering right now, but I haven't decided yet which ones I'll really use (Stand by!).

On a slightly different note, I receive an email every day with a quote by an author from Goodreads.com. Today's quote:

After all, reading is arguably a far more creative and imaginative process than writing; when the reader creates emotion in their head, or the colors of the sky during the setting sun, or the smell of a warm summer's breeze on their face, they should reserve as much praise for themselves as they do for the writer - perhaps more.

- Jasper Fforde (author of The Eyre Affair)

I found this rankled me a bit--but only just a bit. I do believe that reading is a creative process, and as I read, I follow a sort of mental cinema, complete with color, voices, accents, fashion, etc. I truly feel sorry for those who do not experience this vivacity when reading. However, as an English Composition professor, I must insist that this same creative, sensory process is necessary for writing (I doubt anyone would debate that). The problem with many students (and adults) today, I would posit, is that they never learned how to read with this level of engagement and commitment, hence, they also cannot write in vivid, real language. This can't be allowed to continue!