Thursday, December 6, 2012

Portfolio Checklist

This checklist can serve as the table of contents. Put a check next to the items to show inclusion in the portfolio. Use as the second page to the portfolio, after the cover sheet. Where there are questions for the section, students can post the answers to the narrative there.

Number the pages with a header.

The portfolio is due between Friday, Dec. 14-Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012, 12 noon. Make certain you paste and attach the document. Include the assignment in the subject line: COA Sabir Fall 2012 Portfolio for English 1B Class code: 40009 Lec 09:00-10:50 AM TTh Sabir meets in A 200 at COA: coasabirenglish1B@gmail.com

Class Meetings: August 21-Dec. 6; Holidays: 9/3; 11/12; 11/22-25
Final Exam Week: Dec. 10-14 (Portfolios due via e-mail by Dec. 18 12 Noon)



Name ______________________________
Date ______________________________
Class including class code and semester ____________________
Address _______________________________________
Phone number __________________________________
Email address__________________________________


Portfolio Narratives (250 words each, minimally).

1. The fist narrative will look at the 18 week semester, the themes we discussed: immigration, family, assimilation, alienation, genocide, disenfranchisement, colonization, war, violence against women. . . . Talk about what you've learned and discovered about writing, college and life, which have transformed or changed you.

What have you learned about yourself this semester? What have you learned about the discipline you are studying in this class: composition and reading that you plan to carry forth into your lifelong pursuit of learning?

Please also comment on the texts and whether or not they were helpful in this process. You can also talk about the instruction, culture of the class and the teacher.

2. Use two essays as evidence to discuss your revision process. Don’t forget to include it in the works cited page. Use a scholarly source as well to talk about the revision process. I gave you two handouts at the start of class. Also use your grammar style book (Hacker, etc.) There will be at least two sources, perhaps three used for this essay.

Checklist

The checklist will list all the assignments, but you know what they are. Post the entire portfolio for each section. On the checklist include all the assignment grades. I will get the other grades to you before Friday, May 18, so you can update that part of the portfolios. If for some reason there is an outstanding assignment, just include it in the portfolio and note that it needs a grade.

All the essays included in the portfolio should be graded essays: Short Fiction, the Novel (1), The Play, Poetry, Final Essay and Presentation (student choice re: genre).

We will toss the lowest graded essay. Include it.

Presentations:

Group presentations: Poetry and individual on favorite poem and final essay. Please include the abstract for the final essay and for the others your poem and the responses received re: presentation. For group essays: Post the essay and any responses to it.

3. Other Cyber-Assignments. Divide them into freewrites and cyber-essays.

4. Extra credit. If you have written any essays this semester for extra credit they would go in this section. If you'd like to include a graded essay from another discipline you can. Include the assignment as well.

5. For all the Cyber-Assignments already included with essay portfolios, do not post them twice. This list of assignments is just a list of all that you have completed (or missed). Just a brief description of the assignment is enough.

6. After the Cyber-Assignments, type any in-class writings, such as freewrites or group work and include it here under: Freewrites and Class Assignments

7. Evaluation and Extra Credit


Essay PORTFOLIOS

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD  Essay Unit
Planning________
Outline_______
Peer Review_______
Graded Drafts (How many? What were the grades? ____________
Correction essays or narratives (How many?) _______________
Cyber-Assignments (How many?) _________
Group work___________
Peer Comments__________


GIRL IN TRANSLATION Essay Unit
Planning________
Outline_______
Peer Review_______
Graded Drafts (How many? What were the grades? ______________
Correction essays or narratives (How many?) _______________
Cyber-Assignments (How many?) _________
Group work___________
Peer Comments__________



DANCE BOOTS/Short Fiction Essay Unit
Planning________
Outline_______
Peer Review_______
Graded Drafts (How many? What were the grades? _________________
Correction essays or narratives (How many?) _______________
Cyber-Assignments (How many?) _________
Group work___________
Peer Comments__________


POETRY Unit
Poetry Related Cyber Assignments________Peer Comments_________

GUEST ARTIST: CHARLES BLACKWELL______________ (present)
Reflections and poetry writing______________

POETRY Essay Unit PresentationShare the poem(s) and your analysis____________


PERSEPOLIS Essay Unit
Planning________
Outline_______
Grade on Essay_______
Revisions _________ How many?
Revision Grade________
Narratives __________


Independent Project
Planning________
Outline_______
Abstract________
Grade on Essay_______
Grade on Presentation _________
Peer Comments_________ (how many?)


Freewrites: (Any in-class freewrites not posted on the blog, type and put in this section. How many? _________


Semester Cyber-assignments:
These are any cyber-assignments not already posted with the other units. Don't post an assignment twice. How many? __________


Extra Credit Essay: Students can turn in a graded essay from another course if the other teacher doesn’t mind. It has to use research and MLA style documentation, so certain courses are not applicable.

Anything else?__________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________


Teacher research
Can I use your work in presentations and publications? Would you like to be anonymous? If I plan on using your essays or work in a book, I will let you know and share any proceeds.

Yes, I agree.
No, do not use my work.


Final Grade

Portfolio checklist _____________
Portfolio Essay 1_______________
Portfolio Essay 2_______________
Portfolio Grade_________

Course Grade_________

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Final

I changed my mind. Bring a copy of your final essay to class on the day of the final to leave with me. Include the Initial Planning Sheet and outline. I will email you a grade by Thursday. Include the grade with the essay in the portfolio.

Prepare an abstract for the presentation. Bring one copy per student. I think 10 copies should be enough. Post the abstract here as well.

Our final is Tuesday, Dec. 11, 8-10 AM. We will meet in A-200. If anyone wants to coordinate a potluck brunch/breakfast let me know.

For guidelines for writing an abstract here is a link: http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/abstracts/
An abstract is a concise or brief summary of the key ideas you plan to present.
Yesterday in class we read all of the Persepolis essays, which were for the most part outstanding, especially those students who revised essays read last week. There was a marked improvement.

We will have a final next week. The date is Tuesday, Dec. 11, 8-10 AM. I will host a portfolio assembly workshop on Monday, Dec. 10, 9-12 and 1-3 in A-205. Drop by with your work and I will look it over.

We looked at portfolios. Tomorrow we will work on Portfolio Narratives and Revisions of essays. Bring your Independent Topic Essay to class tomorrow for a peer conference.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Today the class was small (3). We read John's paper and then students worked on either writing the Persepolis paper, revisions, or writing the Independent Research paper which is due next week. The presentation is next Thursday. Here is a link on the elements of a comic strip: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_comic_strip_unit_called

Also in Hacker, Seventh Edition, see page 83: Guidelines for Analyzing a Text: "Visual Texts."

Tuesday bring in the Initial Planning Sheet, outline and 3-5 sources in MLA. The final draft isn't due until Dec. 14-18, 12 noon. (This a flexible due date period.)

For Thursday, students will present their research for discussion and critique. After the presentation all students will comment on what worked best in the presentation (cyber-assignment). The presenters will all have to submit a self-reflection on what worked well, what he or she learned from the experience and anything they will change in future presentations.

Make the presentation interactive. You can use film, music, posters, PowerPoint, etc. Keep the presentation to 5-10 minutes. 

All presenters will give classmates an abstract which lays out the argument, a brief summary of key points and anything else we need to know. For examples of abstracts visit the librarian and ask for assistance. You can also see: http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/abstracts/

If you want me to make a copy of your abstract, give it to me Tuesday. We will share abstracts and you can print a copy for me in class.

All papers which did not receive a passing grade should be resubmitted by Friday, no later than Monday, Dec. 3.

Note:
I spoke to choreographer, Alonzo King about your reading his program note. He was pleased and asked what you thought about it (smile).

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Persepolis Cyber-Assignment

Today we developed thesis sentences for Persepolis using the 3-part thesis form. Post your thesis sentences here.

Although the novel Persepolis by Marjane Sarapi uses graphic to tell her story, once inside the novel one loses oneself in the "colorful" illustrations often wishing for a more traditional narrative style, because the form interferes with one's ability to ignore or forget the perils and tragedy of Marji's war.

Although Iranian heroine Marji begins her story with a certain naivete, son she comes to realize neither God nor Uncle Anoosh or Grandmother is going to save her, she has to save herself, because Persepolis is falling.

We then took one of the thesis sentences and developed a 3-part essay: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Post this here as well.

Lastly, we read aloud another student essay. Bring your Persepolis essay to class on Thursday to share with the class. Bring a paper copy--I want to make copies for your classmates.

Make sure you include the outline and the Initial Planning Sheet.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Persepolis

Homework was to read Persepolis up to "The Soup." Today we will talk about themes.

In class locate three sources: a book review, a scholarly article from the COA Library Database, and an article about the author. Suggestion, choose an article that looks at the genre "graphic fiction" or "the graphic novel."

Put in MLA format. Call me over to see the list once completed, then post. We will share sources today.

Homework for Nov. 27: Complete the book Persepolis and bring in three essay questions. Use the three-part thesis format (handout).

Happy Holidays!

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Poetry Unit Continued

Today we shared poetry which spoke to various elements identified in Writing about Literature. Each students shared a poem or two or three. Most used other sources, although John took his from Indivisible. The comments on were insightful as we listened or read aloud.

I shared poetry from Indivisible as well, a few poets whose work I like, such as M. Hajratwala's Angerfish (46-50); and his Miss Indo-American dreams (51); Generica (52) and America (52-53); Chitra B.D.'s Yuba City School (54-56; Indian Movie, New Jersey; Sejal Shah's Everybody's Greatest Hits (62-63); Independence, Iowa (64-65); Maya Khosla's Oppenheimer quotes The Bhagavad Gita is also great (16-17). I like all her work. Tanuja Mehotra's Song for New Orleans is interesting (25-29); Sasha Kamini Parmasad's Burning (91-92); Ro Gunetilleke's Spirited Away (100-101); Amitava Kumar's Mistaken Identity (102-105) and Against Nostalgia (106-110); Sachin B. Patel's In the Business of Erasing History (111-112); and his The Blacktop Gospels (112-116); Busra Rehman's At the Museum of Natural History (118-119) and The Difference (119); Shailja Patel's Shilling Love (120-124); and his Love Poem for London (128); Sudeep Sen's Jacket on a Chair (131-132); Aimee's Fishbone (134-135).

I stop at Faisal Mohyddin.

Bring your book Indivisible to class on Thursday. Also bring Persepolis.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Poetry Circle Today postponed

We will have our poetry circle next week, Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012. Bring your poem(s) in to share that illustrate the concepts mentioned in Writing about Literature: Speaker, Listener, Sound and Sense, Form, etc.

Develop an activity based on one (1) of the elements you can share with the class. It can be a quiz or a writing exercise. Be creative. Keep the activity short (5-10 min.). You will give me a copy of your presentation.

Indivisible is a resource you can use for examples, if you like.

For the activities, make enough copies for everyone.

Watch the film: Persepolis. It is in the Oakland Public Library (multiple branches).

Work on your independent project.


Don't forget to VOTE!

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Cyber-Assignment from Indivisible

Post the short essay response here from Indivisible (250-500 words). Chose a poem and using explication, talk about the poem: form, content, themes. State at the start of the essay, what you plan to explore in the poem, that is, the question or thesis.

This is a graded assignment.








Howl by Allen Ginsberg

FreewriteRespond in 3 paragraphs minimally.  Look at Writing about Literature (82-87).

Grab a line or a theme, a character or a concept. Look at the form and how it serves the theme or topic. Discuss Ginsberg's Howl. Why was it banned? What was so controversial about it?

Look at the language and imagery. Talk about poetic devices.

Howl
http://www.openculture.com/2012/06/allen_ginsberg_reads_his_beat_classic_poem_howl.html

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15308 (text of poem)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howl


Here are other Ginsberg poems:

Sunflower Sutra
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/ginsberg/onlinepoems.htm

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A_tDB7t5eg

America
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/america.html




America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for
murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over
from Russia.
I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie
producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.
Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and
twentyfivethousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underprivileged who live in
my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his
automobiles more so they're all different sexes
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they
sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party
was in 1935 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother
Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have
been a spy.
America you don're really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take
our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers.
Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.
1. Grade Narratives for Short Story Essay

2. Poetry Reading, Sharing

3. Poetry Group Projects

4. Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012 Guest -- Charles Blackwell

5. Independent Essay

6. Questions?

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Art as Life

Today we read Alonzo King's essay introducing his current season "Shadow Dispersing Clarity," (17, 19, 21). See http://www.linesballet.org/company/alonzo-king/ The essay was originally published in the Spring, 2011, Mission at Tenth, Vol. 2: The Hieroglyph Issue, a publication of the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

Homework is to identify an argument or several arguments and engage his views in a short essay. Tie this into, if you can, the film, Women Art Revolution. I think both King, choreographer, and Lynn Hershman Leeson, director, agree--how does art make us more authentically human? How does art make one visible, especially the women profiled in WAR?

How does art act as a vehicle for one's truth to both move and engage others, whom King says are just aspects of self?

If you do not want to combine the conversations, leave them separate, and respond separately to each in 250 words. See http://womenartrevolution.com/about_filmmakers.php

Before you start, visit the websites and read about the artists in question. Also read the essay, which I have given you.

Email these responses to me and paste here. I'd everyone to respond to at least one post.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Short Story Essay Assignment & Updated Essay Assignment Due Dates English 1B


Tuesday, October 23, 2012, students will write their short story analysis essay. Bring in a short story of your choice—I made recommendations last week, and prepare to write a three page essay during class.  Bring in an outline and any notes plus the story. You will submit this as well.

Email the essay to me: coasabirenglish1B@gmail.com

Note the new assignment dates:

Homework:


1. Read the section in Writing about Literature on poetry as well as the introduction to Indivisible by Tuesday, Nov. 6. We reviewed the chapter in class last week, Thursday, October 18. Bring the anthology to class next week as well.

2. Start reading your book for the independent essay assignment.

3. Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8faRwFvqLHU

Optional:
To listen to an interview I conducted with two editors visit: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2011/04/01/wandas-picks

Thursday, Nov. 1, come on time. I am going to see if I can get Charles Blackwell or Mary Rudge to come to class this Thursday or next Tuesday to talk about poetry and lead a writing workshop for us.

We will spend next Tuesday and Thursday on the Poetry Unit, and come back to Persepolis. There will be a group poetry presentation on Tuesday, Nov. 13. The poetry essay will be written in class on Thursday, Nov. 15. You will have an hour and a half or 90 minutes to write a 2-3 page or 500-750 word analytical essay. After the essay is written, students will read other student essays and respond in a narrative grade. Both will be emailed to me.

Nov. 20 we will talk about Persepolis and watch the film. Start reading it Nov. 15. We will explore themes and topics Nov. 20. Complete the book by Nov. 27. The essay is due Nov. 29 for a peer review. The essay is due the same day.

Final essay:
Initial Planning Sheet and outline due, Dec. 4. We will review the portfolio today.

Essay presentations, Dec. 6. The final portfolio is due electronically Dec. 14, 2012 by 12 noon.  Send to coasabirenglish1B@gmail.com Make sure you send it correctly. Look for my response as well.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012



Today we watched a film about Grace Paley www.gracepaleythefilm.com

At the library orientation students were told about various literary databases. Use at least one of them to get more information about Paley.

Homework is also to visit the film website. Read about the film and the director. Respond to the following questions in 500 words (2 typed pages). Bring a copy of the essay to class. Also bring in a Paley short story or a poem or two, maybe three to share Tuesday.

Essay assignment due at next meeting:

Who is/was Grace Paley? How did she integrate writing and activism: the writer as social change agent? Use examples from the film and from one scholarly article about the writer. Use the COA library database. Sot there are three sources: Grace Paley: Collected Shorts, directed by Lilly Rivlin, one scholarly article, and your Paley poem or story.

If you missed the film you can still complete the assignment. You'll just have to do a bit more reading about the writer and her work.

Homework is to visit the film website. Read about the film and the director. Respond to the following question in 500 words (2 typed pages). Along with your paper, bring in a Paley short story or a poem or two, maybe three. We will share out loud, so if you get nervous, practice in advance.



Thursday, October 11, 2012

Today we spent the class reflecting on the characters. I call them "Femme Fatale or Heroines," not that one character cannot encompass both. This is a continuation of the conversation we had Tuesday.

Many students are behind, so it's hard to have a conversation when most of the class has not read the material. We will continue the Writing Workshop on Tuesday.

If writing is a process, this means that each writing task is an opportunity to improve. None of the students in this class come to my office hour, which I presume means that everything is going well (smile). If there is confusion, we can definitely clarify issues and concerns there. We can also go over essays in greater detail. Students can take any position on a topic they like, I do not have to agree. All I am looking for in the writing is clarity and specificity--be clear and use details. Let the characters speak, especially when it is something negative about another character.

The MLA should be perfect. This is the second transfer level course. If you do not remember how to set up you paper, we reviewed this repeatedly in August and part of September. Buy a Writing Style book and read it. I recommend Diana Hacker's Rules for Writers.

If you are attending Hamlet on Thursday, October 18, 1:30 PM, I need the $20 on Tuesday. I have to pay for all the tickets in advance to reserve our seats. Visit http://www.calshakes.org/v4/ourplays/2012_Hamlet.html

We decided to move the next paper, The Dance Boots to October 23. Bring in a completed essay. Students will grade each other paper with a narrative.













Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Dance Boots Query or Questions to think about from Tuesday, February 21, 2012

A Few Questions
Today we met in A-232 again. We will meet here for the rest of the semester unless someone reserves the room (smile). I passed out a lot of handouts to help students with "Invention" strategies which is the technical term for developing ideas to write about.

We listed topics or themes on the board after practicing mapping the word: "abuse." We also looked at a sample outline, one a handout, the other one I wrote on the board. Each assigned essay needs to include: a completed Initial Planning Sheet, an outline and a peer review using Microsoft comment and including a response to a set of questions (another handout).

In Writing about Literature we looked at Feminist Criticism as a lens to use when discussing this first book. Step out on a limb and try something new with this first essay. It might not work, but perhaps the experience will prove instructive (smile).

Again, I suggest students find a motif, a theme and follow it across the terrain of a few stories or a symbol and look for deeper meaning as you note the style, tone and imagery the author uses, along with characters to explore a specific theme or an overriding theme or thesis you set out to prove
Is the author telling the same story over and over again through a variety of lens? How adept is she at portraying male characters? Are there any male characters who are more symbol than flesh and blood? What is the point of this creation?

How many main characters are there in The Dance Boots? How many stories are there? What makes one story or character unique? What character(s) make you want to know more? Does the author deliver?

How is The Dance Boots a hero's story? Who are the heroes or heroines? Is the hero or heroine without flaws? What good is their super power, if they can't protect themselves from the enemy or if the hero cannot even save its young?

What do you think about Stan when his back story is revealed? Louis? Other characters who have such promise as children and then life happens and this potential is stifled, interrupted, killed or maimed.

Is there any hope offered in The Dance Boots? What is this hope? Who holds it? Who embodies it? Are there any characters who disappoint the reader with their choices? Are their any who blow their chances at a better life or is this a dream rather than a reality?

Linguistically and perhaps culturally The Dance Boots only allows readers so much access. How does this effect one's reading of the text and its interpretation? Is access difficult? Let's say LeGarde Grover intends to make her audience work, what are the benefits and/or disadvantages of an uneasy or inaccessible work?

Is mystery one of the residual outcomes? Are questions another outcome? What are your questions? Do you raise them when the answers are not evident or do you raise them and then locate the answers? Are unanswered questions okay?

To what end?

As an outsider looking in, what does this distance between the reader and the work allow to happen in the eventual interpretation of the work.

When one writes a book that has a historic context, does the reader feel compelled to do research into the era or time period? What happens when readers resist? Is the reading then shallow?

Homework

Read in Writing about Literature the section on Feminist Critique. Bring in a completed Initial Planning Sheet and an outline. Look at outlines in Hacker under "The Writing Process."

Freewrite: Ain't I a Woman

We listened to Avery Sharpe's Sojourner Truth "ain't I a woman?"  Visit http://averysharpe.com/
http://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/truth.htm

1797-1883

Aint I a woman?

A found poem from Sojourner Truth's most famous speech, adapted into poetic form by Erlene Stetson click here to see the full text of the speech, in non-poem format.

That man over there say

a woman needs to be helped into carriages

and lifted over ditches

and to have the best place everywhere.

Nobody ever helped me into carriages

or over mud puddles

or gives me a best place. . .


And ain't I a woman?

Look at me

Look at my arm!

I have plowed and planted

and gathered into barns

and no man could head me. . .

And ain't I a woman?

I could work as much

and eat as much as a man--

when I could get to it--

and bear the lash as well

and ain't I a woman?

I have born 13 children

and seen most all sold into slavery

and when I cried out a mother's grief

none but Jesus heard me. . .

and ain't I a woman?

that little man in black there say

a woman can't have as much rights as a man

cause Christ wasn't a woman

Where did your Christ come from?

From God and a woman!

Man had nothing to do with him!

If the first woman God ever made

was strong enough to turn the world

upside down, all alone

together women ought to be able to turn it

rightside up again.


A Biography of Truth, from Stamp on Black History collection.

The Truth Memorial statue page

From a Women's Studies collection


(The following is quoted from an editor's note in the anthology where this poem is found)

"There is no exact copy of this speech given at the Women's rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1852. The speech is adapted to the poetic format by Erelene Stetson from the copy found in Sojurner, God's Faithful Pilgrim by Arthur Huff Fauset, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1938)."

The poem and note, along with other great women's poems, can be found in Ain't I a Woman: A Book of Women's Poetry from Around The World, Illona Linthwaite, Editor. New York: Wing Books, 1993, page 129.

Here is another link referencing the speech and its author: http://www.kyphilom.com/www/truth.html




Thursday, October 4, 2012

Sherman Alexie on Forum Cyber-Assignment

1. We start the day listening to author Sherman Alexie speaking to Michael Krasney on Forum yesterday: http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201210031000 

http://www.fallsapart.com/ (author's website)

Reflect on the interview, especially what he says about identity. Many of the characters we are meeting in The Dance Boots struggle with identity. What is identity per Alexie? Do you agree? Use characters we have met in The Dance Boots as a part of the discourse with Alexie.

What about his comments on colonialism? Talk about the boarding school phenomena.  Where does this fit into the equation? Reservations . . . poverty . . .  disenfranchisement. . . .

Respond in about three paragraphs and then comment on a classmate's post.

2. Literature Circles.You have a lot to talk about.

3. For homework, reflect on the themes in three separate stories you've read so far. Talk about 1-3 more compelling characters. Reflect on 1-3 scenes that perplex you or that you needed more information about.
Post here.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Today we watched the film, directed by Anne Makepeace, We Still Live Here: Âs Nutayuneân. Visit www.makepeaceproductions.org

Synopsis from the website:

Âs Nutayuneân tells a remarkable story of cultural revival by the Wampanoag of Southeastern Massachusetts. Their ancestors ensured the survival of the Pilgrims in New England, and lived to regret it. Now they are bringing their language home again.


I find the study of language and culture fascinating. Can one participate in one's cultural reality if one lacks linguistic access? How do we speak about what we know, how do we know what we know and what others in our ethnic group knew or found valuable if we have no way to communicate with them via artifacts left or living history in the elders?

Is such a person culturally inept forever? What happens when languages disappear but the people don't, as is the case in so many indigenous communities?


When we read The Dance Boots, Linda LeGarde Grover uses indigenous language in the dialogue characters speak. Note how this language which we are not conversant in adds to the fullness of said characters who like the Wampanaog people were robbed of their culture.

Think about what the narrator says about converted Wampanaog, "I am pitiful. I loath myself." Why is there so much alcohol or substance abuse in such communities--colonized, assimilated, traumatized people?When I was in JHB, South Africa, I saw so many ads for alcohol and encountered so many inebriated adults, healers and medicine men, who were drunk on the job. South Africa, like America, was stolen from its people.

Essay Assignment
In a 250-500 word essay, look at a theme such as language and culture and discuss how its presence or absence affects a community either positively or negatively. Introduce the film in the introduction and then state your thesis after a brief summary. The essay should be minimally three paragraphs. How are Jesse and Artense similar?

How is film a great storytelling medium. How well does the director tell the story. Does her personal involvement in the story affect the product or enhance it?

What questions does the film raise which are perhaps unanswered? Are there references you are unaware of? If so, look them up and list them here in your response to the film.

 Link to my interview with director: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2012/01/27/wandas-picks

Homework: Respond to a classmate's essay and extend and expand the discourse. 

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Native Country

Today students are to reflect in three paragraphs to the following re: The Dance Boots:

Freewrite: Reflect in three (3) paragraphs on the story.  What do the "dance boots" represent? What does this symbol represent to Aunt Shirley? Why does she give her boots to Artense?

Memory is also a theme. How do the boots help Artense "remember by rote and teach teach by heart"?

Use three (3) citations: 1 free paraphrase; 1 shorter citation; 1 longer citation.

2. Lit. Circles

3. Revision Strategies--Reflect on your revision process and what you learned from the film, The Write Course: "Revision Strategies," Annenberg CTB Project, and the two handouts from Writing with a Thesis by Skwire and Skwire?  http://www.learner.org/


Cyber-Assignment Homework:


Respond to the query in three paragraphs. Use examples from the film and from the two handouts: "Office Hours: Revision: Help from the Audience" (Skwire 217); "Office Hours: Revision: The Psychology of It All" (Skwire 251). 

4. Homework--see handout (smile).

As students write they listen to: Shi Keyah: Songs for the People with Radmilla Cody with herman Cody (2011 Canyon Records) http://www.radmillacody.net/

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Essay Assignments for English 1B Fall 2012


The Play
To Kill a Mockingbird  Essay Unit
Peer Review: August 30
Final Draft: Sept. 7
Grade_____
Revisions_____
Final Grade______

The Novel
GIRL IN TRANSLATION Essay Unit
Planning due: Sept. 20
Peer Review: Sept. 24
Final Draft due via email: coasabirenglish1B@gmail.com Sept. 27 12 noon
Grade_____
Revisions_____
Final Grade______

Short Fiction
DANCE BOOTS Essay Unit Sept. 24-Oct. 9
Planning due with Essay Question: Oct. 11
In class essay October 16, 2012.
Students should bring in notes. If students want to bring in an introduction and conclusion, that’s fine too.  Include cyber assignments, book notes, also the IPS and outline electronically.

Email to: coasabirenglish1B@gmail.com

The Novel 2
Persepolis Essay Unit Oct. 18-Nov. 1
Planning due: Nov. 1
Peer Review: Nov. 6
Final Draft due via email: coasabirenglish1B@gmail.com  12 noon Nov. 7
Grade_____
Revisions_____
Final Grade______


Poetry
Indivisible Essay Unit Oct. 25-Nov. 15
Planning due: Nov. 13
In class essay: Nov. 15
Email to:  coasabirenglish1B@gmail.com
Grade_____
Revisions_____
Final Grade______

Poetry Group Project Nov. 20
Lesson Plan________
Activity_______
Comments from peers_______
Self-reflection on the process_________

Final Essay
Independent Project
Consultation: Oct. 25-Nov. 6
Planning due: Nov. 27
Peer Review: Nov. 29
Final Draft due via email: coasabirenglish1B@gmail.com Dec. 4 12 noon
Grade_____
Revisions_____
Final Grade______

Presentation: Dec. 4

Abstract________
Grade on Essay_______
Grade on Presentation _________

Instruction ends: Dec. 6, 2012

Course Portfolio due electronically by Friday, Dec. 14, 2012, 12 noon. Portfolio Workshop, Dc. 6, 2012. Bring all class work digitized. Send to coasabirenglish1B@gmail.com

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Translating Oneself Cyber-Assignment

What does it mean to translate into something else? Whether this is one's language and culture or something as simple as metric into the English or "imperial system," we can probably agree that there is compromise and a give and take on the part of the less powerful system to the more powerful or dominant system, such as Kim faces when leaving China as a child and coming to America.

Using Topical Invention strategies, develop four thesis sentences: analogies, consequences, testimony, and definitions in an exploration of the topic: Translation. 

2. Peer Review using Microsoft Comment

3. The Dance Boots: Reading Strategies

4. Revision Strategies

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Girl in Translation Cyber-Assignment

Today we completed the book, and with the completion of any task there was a certain amount of notalgic sorrow (smile). In a three (3) paragraph essay response, reflect on the journey with Jean Kwok. You can discuss the ending and any dangling threada which might make for a great sequel.

You could write a scene where you have Kim confront some of her demons still roaming around, especially regarding her fatherless son. Write a scene where Kim tells her son about his dad. Write the showdown when her son demands that his mother introduce Matt to him and what happens at that first meeting. Is it a "we are family" reunion party.

Have Kim reflect on her options as a single parent and choose another one where Matt is not left out.

Look at the women in the novel as perhaps archetypes, each an aspect of Kim's maturation into the fine determined woman she is by the end of the story. See Writing about Lit. 148-149.

Is Kim a super hero?

How would one position this book using a feminist lens? See Writing 144-145.

2. In Lit. Circles discuss the book using a variety of lens. Talk about essay topics and possible ways to approach a critique of the book. See "Writing Common Writing Assignments" (43). Also see "Writing about Stories" (57).

Our next book is The Dance Boots.  Bring to class Tuesday. It will be a fast read--not really, but we will read it quickly.  Keep reading logs.

3. Homework--Read "Writing about Stories" if you have not already done so (Gardner 57). Write the essay. Bring to class. We will meet in A-232 for a peer review. It can be a fast draft. The polished draft will be due electronically on Thursday, Sept. 27. I will try to get it back to you sooner than the essay on Mockingbird. I will be showing you a film either Tuesday or Thursday about Native American culture.
 


Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Cyber-Assignment and Calendar of Events

Today we had a library orientation with Professor Steve Gerstle. Reflect on the notion of academic research and what you learned today that will help you with your pursuits in higher education. Was anything demystified?

For me, I finally understand, thanks to Al's question the use of the asterisk in research (smile).

For homework: If you haven't already done so, complete the book. We'll look at themes and characters and develop tentative essay questions as we close this chapter on Kim.

The San Francisco Latino Film Festival is continuing through this weekend. Farai Chideya is in town interview Judith Jamison, former Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Company. The Tuva throat singers are also in town with a new CD: Ancestor Call at The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco Friday night; there is a benefit for the Cuban 5 at Brava Thursday and a meet and greet at La Pena tomorrow (smile).

The Monterey Jazz Festival is this weekend too. I moderate a discussion on jazz and social movements at the Humanist Hall Saturday afternoon at 5ish. The day starts about 12 noon with a series of organizing workshops. I'd wanted to go to the jazz festival--maybe next year (smile).

Tonight, former US poet laureate Robert Hass reads from his latest book at the Hillside Club in Berkeley at 7:30 p.m. It's a benefit for KPFA radio. Tonight there is also a free film screening of Half the Sky at the San Francisco Main Library on Larkin, 100 Larkin followed by a panel discussion.

The film screens on PBS October 1-2, 2012. Check local listings: http://www.halftheskymovement.org/

I have to run. I am going to try to make it to the panel discussion (smile).

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Freewrite Cyber-Assignment

Today we talked about the character Aunt Paula in Girl in Translation. The freewrite is to profile this character using examples from the text. Why does Kwok assign Aunt Paula redemptive characteristics? Is this typical in a super hero story?

Start looking more closely at Kwok's writing.


Homework:

Think about essay questions for this book. Continue reading. Do you have any questions for and of the characters? Make a list. Do you want to say "stop" to Kim, slap Aunt Paula or shake Ma? Why?

This is a chick book or fem fiction. Are there any strong male characters? Who are they? Is Kwok just as good as writing these characters as she is at writing her female characters? Make a list, compare and contrast these characters.


Announcement and reminder:

We meet in the COA Library Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012 for an orientation. Bring your essay questions and any research questions you might have to discuss.

We listened to an interview with Jean Kwok on my radio show. It was taped in May 2011 when the author was on tour. She is the third interview into the show: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2011/05/04/wandas-picks-radio-show