Brush Strokes

Assignment:

1. copy/paste a chunk of prose from an old blog or old academic paper or even a new paper you’re working on into your blog.
2. copy/paste it again. Revise this second pasting (so we can see the comparison).
3. As you add in a brush stroke, please boldface the brush stroke, with the name of the brush stroke in [brackets] right after it.

In 1998, Rolling Stone assigned David Lipsky to write about West Point. He originally planned to stay for a couple weeks, but ended up spending the next four years writing his book, Absolutely American. Students who pick up his book will have a similar experience. They may expect a quick read-through, but will become engrossed with the characters in much the same way the author became attached to the military academy. Absolutely American should be added to the English 110 course syllabus, not merely because it resonates with college students, but because of the text’s compelling nature and relevance to contemporary society.

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In 1998, Rolling Stone, a magazine named for the 1948 Muddy Waters song of the same name [appositive], assigned David Lipsky, a writer of both fiction and nonfiction [appositive], to write about West Point. Lipsky originally planned to stay for a couple weeks, but ended up spending the next four years writing his book, Absolutely American. Students, black and white [adjectives out of order], who pick up his book will have a similar experience. Reading while simultaneously checking their Facebook and blogging [Participle], students may expect a quick read-through, but will become engrossed with the characters in much the same way the author, a graduate of Brown University [appositive], became attached to the military academy. Absolutely American, chocked full of imagery and characterization of our military which few civilians ever see [Absolute], should be added to the English 110 course syllabus, not merely because it resonates with college students, but because of the text’s compelling nature and relevance to contemporary society.

The Ramblings of a Backlogged Blogger

One of the things we talked about today in class was varying sentence lengths, and I think this is another form of creating voice in our writing. We vary the length of our sentences naturally while speaking. It’s just one of those things we do without thinking when we talk, but writing, it takes a bit more of a conscious effort to remember to vary the length of your sentences.

I took a creative writing class last semester, and one of the strategies the teacher spoke of was of varying sentence lengths to create a particular mood in your reader. For example, if you want the reader to feel overwhelmed, create a sensory overload the same way you do it in real life: with way more information than the reader can digest. Make your sentences long, run-on, and full of visual information. Bombard your reader with sentences that bleed into each other to create a frenetic pace.

If you want your reader to pace themselves, create sentence breaks more often, and this will make them at ease. That’s the way our professor explained it, at least.

Concerning the session on commas with Shannon and Stephanie, I thought they did a great job! Only use commas for compound sentences. And put in the comma before one of the FANBOYS. The key, though, is to only do it for compound sentences. I appreciated Barbara’s e-mail afterward alerting us of this, too.

I also appreciated Barbara’s postponement of our first checkpoint for the grammar scrapbooks. It’s just tedious looking for these errors. But perhaps it will give me an excuse to spend tonight just reading sports illustrated. I wonder how many errors the swimsuit edition has?

I first thought the scrapbook was a waste of time, because guys don’t do scrapbooks. And the jury is still out. However, with the use of swimsuit models as a background to my scrapbook, I’ve become a huge fan of scrap booking.

I felt like our time in class this week was particularly productive. Using the time to work together in groups and look for errors in the Evergreen gave me a few examples from in class that I can use in my scrapbook, and made our next checkpoint less intimidating.

I guess my question this week will pertain to the scrapbook. Does anyone know whether or next checkpoint will just be ten examples, or will it be 20 examples (since it’s technically our second checkpoint)? Perhaps a compromise of 15 would be more fair?