Wednesday, July 23rd, 2014--7:15 pm

Greetings!

Below you will find the following:
1. a copy of the handout distributed Wednesday on how to critically read an essay.
2. assignments for Packets 7 and 8 for next week.

***********************

English 5—Summer Bridge Academy--2014

C. Fraga

How to Critically Read an Essay

Educated adults exist in a delusional state, thinking we can read.

In a most basic sense, we can.

However, odds are, some of us cannot read, at least not as well as we would like.

Too many college students are capable of only some types of reading and that becomes painfully clear when they read a difficult text and must respond critically about it.

Intelligence and a keen memory are excellent traits and most students have learned to read in a certain way that is only useful for extracting information. Thus, students are often fairly well skilled in providing summary.

However, the act of reading to extract information and to read critically are vastly different!

The current educational system in American primary schools (and many colleges) heavily emphasizes the first type of reading and de-emphasizes the latter.

In many ways, THIS MAKES SENSE.

Reading to extract information allows a student to absorb the raw materials of factual information as quickly as possible. It is a type of reading we all must engage in frequently.  However, each type of reading calls for different mental habits. If we do not learn to adjust from one type of reading to another when necessary, we cripple our intellectual abilities to read critically.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN READING TO EXTRACT INFORMATION AND READING CRITICALLY.

1. They have different goals.  When students read to extract information, usually they seek facts and presume the source is accurate.  No argument is required.  On the other hand, when students read critically, they try to determine the quality of the argument.  The reader must be open-minded and skeptical all at once, constantly adjusting the degree of personal belief in relation to the quality of the essay’s argument.
2. They require different types of discipline.  If students read to learn raw data, the most efficient way to learn is repetition.  If students read critically, the most effective technique may be to break the essay up into logical subdivisions and analyze each section’s argument, to restate the argument in other words, and then to expand upon or question the findings.
3. They require different mental activity.  If a student reads to gain information, a certain degree of absorption, memorization and passivity is necessary. If a student is engaged in reading critically, that student must be active!!! He or she must be prepared to pre-read the essay, then read it closely for content, and re-read it if it isn’t clear how the author is reaching the conclusion in the argument. 
4. They create different results.  Passive reading to absorb information can create a student who (if not precisely well read) has read a great many books. It creates what many call “book-smarts.”  However, critical reading involves original, innovative thinking.
5. They differ in the degree of understanding they require.  Reading for information is more basic, and reading critically is the more advanced of the two because only critical reading equates with full understanding.

ULTIMATELY, WHAT WE WANT IS THE CONSCIOUS CONTROL OF OUR READING SKILLS, SO WE CAN MOVE BACK AND FORTH AMIDST THE VARIOUS TYPES OF READING.

FIVE GENERAL STAGES OF READING

1.      Pre-Reading—examining the text and preparing to read it effectively (5 minutes)

2.      Interpretive Reading—understanding what the author argues, what the author concludes, and exactly how he or she reached that conclusion.

3.      Critical Reading—questioning, examining and expanding upon what the author says with your own arguments.  Skeptical reading does not mean doubting everything you read.

4.      Synoptic Reading—putting the author’s argument in a larger context by considering a synopsis of that reading or argument in conjunction with synopses of other readings or arguments.

5.      Post-Reading—ensuring that you won’t forget your new insights.

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PACKET 7
"A Place to Call Home: What Immigrants Say Now"
http://www.publicagenda.org/pages/immigrants


PACKET 8 (Q & C #4 due for this packet)
(this TED Talk focuses on the devastating topic of human trafficking)

http://www.ted.com/talks/sunitha_krishnan_tedindia.html

Monday, July 21st, 2014--SECOND POSTING FOR TODAY--8:30 pm

Hello again,

just a quick note.

I will be returning your graded out of class essay #2 tomorrow. If you submitted a revision of out of class essay #1 today, I will be returning that to you tomorrow as well.

If you choose to revise out of class essay #2, the first revision is due no later than next Tuesday, July 29th.

Remember to follow the instructions on how to submit a revision which can be found on your syllabus. 

(for essay #2, if you revise, you need not submit all the peer evaluations--just the original with my commentary is needed.)

Monday, July 21st, 2014--3 pm

Hello,

Below you will find the link to the Q & C with the filmmakers of Daughter from Danang, as well as the choice of prompts for the in class essay tomorrow.

http://www.daughterfromdanang.com/about/qa.html


Think about and prepare to respond to one of the three prompts below:

1. Why did Heidi have the experience she did when she returned to Vietnam? Is there any way her experience could have been prevented? Be specific

2. A documentary film is usually considered successful if it sparks the viewer's interest and emotions. Do you think this film is successful or not? Explain specifically.

3.  Our definition of home is usually based on our experiences. What do you think Heidi's defintion of home was before her trip to Vietnam? Why? Upon her return, how do you think Heidi would now define her home? Why?

2nd posting for Tuesday, July 15th, 2014--6 pm

Hello again,

below you will find:

1. a short synopsis of the film we will view in class on Thursday this week.

2. discussion questions to help guide you as you view the film in class. You will not be answering these questions as an assignment to submit; however, you will want to become familiar with them before you view the film. And while you are viewing the film, you will want to jot down possible answers. These will be very helpful when you write your in class next week.

Daughter from Danang--brief synopsis of film

In 1975, as the Vietnam War was ending, thousands of orphans and Amerasian children were brought to the United States as part of "Operation Babylift." Daughter from Danang tells the dramatic story of one of these children, Heidi Bub (a.k.a. Mai Thi Hiep), and her Vietnamese mother, Mai Thi Kim, separated at the war's end and reunited 22 years later. Heidi, now living in Tennessee - a married woman with kids - had always dreamt of a joyful reunion. When she ventures to Vietnam to meet her mother, she unknowingly embarks on an emotional pilgrimage that spans decades and distance. Unlike most reunion stories that climax with a cliché happy ending, Daughter from Danang is a real-life drama. Journeying from the Vietnam War to Pulaski, Tennessee and back to Vietnam, Daughter from Danang tensely unfolds as cultural differences and the years of separation take their toll in a riveting film about longing and the personal legacy of war.

DAUGHTER FROM DANANG--DISCUSSION QUESTIONS---THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. One reviewer describes the film as a “gut-wrenching examination of the way cultural differences and emotional expectations collide.” Would you agree this is an accurate description? Why or why not? Explain specifically.

2. Were there parts of the film that made you feel uncomfortable? If so, what were those parts and can you articulate why they made you feel uncomfortable?

3. Heidi acutely feels that she has been rejected by two mothers: her birth mother who gave her up and her Tennessee mother, whose cold, untouching demeanor drove a wedge between them. How does this fact impact Heidi and what she ultimately experiences when she returns to Vietnam?

4. The film is considered a very powerful one by many other small filmmakers as well as many reviewers. In your opinion, what makes this an effective or ineffective film? 

5. What preconceived ideas about home are proven inaccurate after viewing the film?

6. In an interview with the filmmakers, they admit that when they decided to film Heidi’s return to Vietnam, they assumed that the reunion would be a healing story, a kind of full circle coming home. The war in Vietnam was long over and they felt they could create a film that would ease the collective pain that is still connected to the war. Instead, what they did discover?

7. Some viewers have condemned Heidi for representing an aspect of American culture that they believe is selfish and individualized. What do you think and feel about Heidi’s reaction for the family’s request for money?

Tuesday, July 14th, 2014--5:45 pm

Hello,

A quick note to let you know about a change I am making to the syllabus.

I have decided to give you more time to complete out of class essay #2.

I will be returning your rough drafts tomorrow, but I am moving the due date for the final draft of out of class essay #2 from this Thursday, July 17th, to MONDAY, JULY 21ST.

USE THIS EXTRA TIME WISELY. :)

Monday, July 14, 2014--8:45 pm

Greetings,

Below you will find a few reminders as well as the assignments for Packet # 5 and Packet #6.

REMINDER:
Please bring four copies of your rough draft of Essay #2 to class tomorrow, collated and stapled.

SPECIAL REQUEST:
Attention:  SYLVIA, KIANA, ELI, MARIA:  If these four students read this blog entry in time, could you please bring FIVE copies of your rough draft, instead of four? If you do not read this in time, we will figure something else out. Thanks! (This request is JUST for the four students listed above.)


PACKET #5--(3 items)--Q & C #3 due for this Packet.
"Female Vets Navigate Post-War Stress, Home Duties"
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/30/140038335/female-vets-navigate-post-war-stress-home-duties

"Boots to Books: The Rough Road from Combat to College"
(This is an approximately 14 minute video and a short article)
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=8c310eacfeb08aba2e7f1e29411543e9

"For Many Returning Veterans, Home is Where the Trouble is"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/opinion/03mon4.html


PACKET #6
"The Magic of the Family Meal" by Nancy Gibbs
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1200760,00.html

Tuesday, July 8, 2014--9 pm

Good evening,

A few things:

1. There is a change in the syllabus schedule for Friday this week, July 11th. I will be assigning out of class essay #2 on Thursday, not Friday. Your out of class essay is still due on Friday. Instead of meeting in our usual classroom on Friday, we are meeting in the library instead--Room 2024. It is on the second floor, near the computer lab.

2.  For Packet 3, one of the readings is a short story, "A Small Good Thing," by Raymond Carver.
Two students have informed me that the link I provided in a previous blog entry did not "work."
If this is the case for anyone else, I am including another link to the story below. Please let me know if you have any trouble. (Reminder:  Packet 3 is due to be read by Thursday, and there is a Q & C due for the packet.)

http://www.essayservice.org/read/a-small-good-thing-christ-church-little-rock-865666/

Sunday, July 6th, 2014--11:45 am

Greetings!

I hope you are thoroughly enjoying the last hours of your weekend! :)

Reminders:
1. rough draft of essay #1 due tomorrow
2. bring your stapler to class (and in fact, you will want to have it with you in class for the rest of the semester)

PACKET #4 ASSIGNMENT (due on Monday, July 14)--(3 items total)

"Becky Blanton: The Year I was Homeless"
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/becky_blanton_the_year_i_was_homeless.html
(this is a video which is a little over seven minutes)

"Homelessness and Hungry with No Excuses" by Rich Linberg
http://www.cdobs.com/archive/syndicated/homelessness-and-hungry-with-no-excuses/

"Down & Out in Fresno and San Francisco"
http://www.esquire.com/features/down-and-out-0709

Second Posting for Tuesday, July 1, 2014--7 pm

Greetings,

Below you will find the following:
1. Packet #2 (due next week, Wednesday, July 9th.)
2. Packet #3 (due next week, Thursday, July 10th. A Q & C is also due with this packet)

PACKET #2 (two items)
"Arturo" by Maria Mazziotti Gillan

http://www.pccc.edu/home/cultural-affairs/poetry-center/maria-mazziotti-gillans-poems2

     ************************

“Flies” (a prose poem)
By: Donald Hall

A fly sleeps on the field of a green curtain. I sit by my grandmother’s side, and rub her head as if I could comfort her. Ninety-seven years. Her eyes stay closed, her mouth open, and she gasps in her blue nightgown—pale blue, washed a thousand times. Now her face goes white, and her breath slows until I think it has stopped; then she gasps again, and pink returns to her face.

Between the roof of her mouth and her tongue, strands of spittle waver as she breathes. Now a nurse shakes her head over my grandmother’s sore mouth, and goes to get a glass of water, a spoon, and a flyswatter. My grandmother chokes on a spoonful of water and the nurse swats a fly

In the Connecticut suburbs where I grew up, and in Ann Arbor, there were houses with small leaded panes, where Formica shone in the kitchens, and hardwood in closets under paired leather boots. Carpets lay thick underfoot in every bedroom, bright, clean with no dust or hair in them. Nothing looked used, in these houses. Forty dollars’ worth of cut flowers leaned from Waterford vases for the Saturday dinner party.

Even in houses like these, the housefly wandered and paused—and I listened for the buzz of its wings and its tiny feet, as it struggled among cut flowers and bumped into leaded panes

In the afternoon my mother takes over at my grandmother’s side in the Peabody Home, while I go back to the farm. I nap in the room my mother and my grandmother were born in.

At night we assemble beside her. Her shallow, rapid breath rasps, and her eyes jerk, and the nurse can find no pulse, as her small strength concentrated wholly on half an inch of lung space, and she coughs faintly—quick coughs like fingertips on a ledge. Her daughters stand by the bed, solemn in the slow evening, in the shallows of after-supper—Caroline, Nan, and Lucy, her eldest daughter, seventy-two, who holds her hand to help her die, as twenty years past she did the same thing for my father.

Then her breath slows again, as it has done all day. Pink vanishes from cheeks w3e have kissed so often, and her nostrils quiver. She breathes one more quick breath. Her mouth twitches sharply, as if she speaks a word we cannot hear. Her face is fixed, white, her eyes half closed, and the next breath never comes.

She lies in a casket covered with gray linen, which my mother and her sisters picked. This is Chadwick’s Funeral Parlor in New London, on the ground floor under the I.O.O.F. Her fine hair lies combed on the pillow. Her teeth in, her mouth closed, she looks the way she used to, except that her face is tinted, tanned as if she worked in the fields.

This air is so still it has bars. Because I have been thinking about flies, I realize that there are no flies in this room. I imagine a fly wandering in, through these dark-curtained windows, to land on my grandmother’s nose.

At the Andover graveyard, Astroturf covers the dirt next to the shaft dug for her. Mr. Jones says a prayer beside the open hole. He preached at the South Danbury Church when my grandmother still played the organ. He raises his narrow voice, which gives itself over to August and blue air, and tells us that Kate in heaven “will keep on growing . . . and growing . . . and growing”—and he stops abruptly, as if the sky had abandoned him, and chose to speak elsewhere through someone else.

After the burial I walk by myself in the barn where I spent summers next to my grandfather. I think of them talking in heaven. Her first word is the word her mouth was making when she died.

In this tie-up chaff of flies roiled in the leather air, as my grandfather milked his Holsteins morning and night, his bald head pressed sweating into their sides, fat female Harlequins, while their black and white tails swept back and forth, stirring the flies up. His voice spoke pieces he learned for the lyceum, and I listened crouched on a three-legged stool, as his hands kept time strp strp with alternate streams of hot milk, the sound softer as milk foamed to the pail’s top. In the tie-up the spiders feasted like emperors. Each April he broomed the webs out and whitewashed the wood, but spiders and flies came back, generation on generation—like the cattle, mothers and daughters, for a hundred and fifty years, until my grandfather’s heart flapped in his chest. One by one the slow Holsteins climbed the ramp into a cattle truck.

In the kitchen with its bare hardwood floor, my grandmother stood by the clock’s mirror to braid her hair every morning. She looked out the window toward Kearsarge, and said, “Mountain’s pretty today,” or, “Can’t see the mountain too good today.”

She fought the flies all summer. She shut the screen door quickly, but flies gathered on canisters, on the clockface, on the range when the fire was out, on set-tubs, tables, curtains, chairs. Flies buzzed on cooling lard, when my grandmother made doughnuts. Flies lit on a drip of jam before she could wipe it up. Flies whirled over simmering beans, in the steam of maple syrup.

My grandmother fretted, and took good aim with a flyswatter, and hung strips of flypaper behind the range where nobody would tangle her hair in it.

She gave me a penny for every ten I killed. All day with my mesh flyswatter I patrolled kitchen and dining room, living room, even the dead air of the parlor. Though I killed every fly in the house by bedtime, when my grandmother washed the hardwood floor, by morning their sons and cousins assembled I the kitchen, like the woodchucks my grandfather shot in the vegetable garden which doubled and returned; or like the deer that watched for a hundred and fifty years from the brush on ragged mountain, and when my grandfather died stalked down the mountainside to graze among peas and corn.

We live in their house with our books and pictures, writing poems under Ragged Mountain, gazing each morning at blue Kearsarge.

We live in the house left behind; we sleep in the bed where they whispered together at night. One morning I wake hearing a voice from sleep: “The blow of the axe resides in the acorn.”

I get out of bed and drink cold water in the dark morning from the sink’s dipper at the window under the sparse oak, and fly wakes buzzing beside me, cold, and sweeps over set-tubs and range, one of the hundred-thousandth generation.

I planned long ago I would live here, somebody’s grandfather.

PACKET #3 (two items)
"A Family" (a short story by Guy de Maupassant)
http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/Afamily.html

"A Small Good Thing" (a short story by Raymond Carver)
http://astoryeveryday.com/2011/10/13/raymond-carver-a-small-good-thing/