Monday, 1 April 2019, "How I Learned To Read" (no April Fooling)

4/1/2019

Good Morning Everyone--

Happy short day of classes. I can’t be there today due to other obligations, so you are on your own to complete this work. Here are step-by-step directions.

Read the short essay “How I Learned to Read.” Funny story: this guy grew up in my neighborhood in Cleveland.
In the groups that you were put into last week (the ones where you had to match up the super-heroes, sports people, movie characters, etc), Come up with three different “Top Five Books that Explain . . .” for this piece of writing. I know it’s not just about one book, but let’s just imagine that this is one, top five entries for some imaginary student’s paper. What would the TITLE and, thus, the THESIS of this person’s essay be? Yes, I seriously want you to try to come up with three of them. REMEMBER: a specific thesis is an easier thesis to prove and yields a better paper.
POST YOUR THREE TITLES TO OUR CLASS BLOG here.
WITH YOUR REMAINING TIME: use the time left in class to write another scene for your Top Five paper. The better use of your time in class the easier it will be to have a draft ready for next week. This paper is due a week from Wednesday. We will have a workshop next week Monday, and the paper will be due the following Wednesday. That means you have about a week to work on a draft. Hold on to the writing you do in class today. We will use it in class on Wednesday.

See you then.

10 Comments

Ashlee

4/1/2019 07:27:48 am

-The top five books that explain the reason why I flunked English classes but loved to read
-The top five books that made me fall in love with reading but not focus on my core English classes
-The top five books that made me feel apart of the world inside but not the reality I was stuck in.
-Thesis: The thesis for this paper would overall be why he didn't really love the core classes during high school even though he was an excellent reading and spent most of his time reading. Although he was a good student, he found his place at a college that focused on books and reading them, then assignments and tests. Reading gave him a better understanding of his own life then the classes did.
-Tite: Why books gave me a better understand than high school classes ever did.

4/3/2019 07:26:00 am

-The top five books that explain the reason why I flunked English classes but loved to read

-The top five books that made me feel apart of the world inside but not the reality I was stuck in.

Both of these are pretty good titles/thesis statements for an essay where this would be a scene, but I particularly love the second one because it is specific, but it really gives the writer space to write about what is important about reading and how it has affected his life. It's a great idea for a thesis.

One thing: remember the title of your essay HAS TO BE The Top Five whatevers that explain. . . .

Brayden Bustin, Kayla Lafleur, Zaraq Khan

4/1/2019 07:28:02 am

Top Five Books about why I hate High School.
Top Five Books why I like Saint Johns better than High School.
Top Five Books why work gave more opportunity than school.

4/3/2019 08:51:13 am

So iM not too sure about one and 3. Honestly I don’t see how you get a whole essay idea out of his job at KFC. And the first title only lets you talk about one thing—how much he hates high school. A great thesis let’s you talk about all the things you need to talk about.

Sara,Laura,Barbara, Nate, Ethan

4/1/2019 07:28:39 am

1. Top five books that explain my love and hate relationship with reading.

2. Top five book that gave me the best of friends I have.

3.Top five books that changed my mind about reading, and made it so fun.

4/3/2019 08:52:54 am

I dinMt know if we can safely make an argument that this guy didn’t like reading. He didn’t like reading for school but the short essay tells us he loved to read nearly anything else. Maybe the one about friends could work. I see both of those things in the essay.

Tajaun,Tyjaya,Dylan,Jayden

4/1/2019 07:29:44 am

Top five books that explains how school wasn’t a huge impact in my life.
Top five books that allowed me to see through a romantic lense in life,changed my aspect of school.
Top five books that shown me how how life gives you the absolute of what of what you put in

4/3/2019 08:58:40 am

The last one is a total cliche. I think that I sort of see where you are going with it I’d rather you not be so hall mark card about it and more specific to his experience. I don’t know that you can say school didn’t have a big impact on his life. I think you can say high school had a bad influence but one that sent him to college which had huge great impact on his life. So maybe more Top Five Books that explain how school had an impact on my life in good ways and in bad ways but always in powerful ways. I’m not sure I get the middle one.

alex, taylor, deirdre

4/1/2019 07:43:39 am

Top Five Books That Explain How I stoped Being an Ignorant Worker at KFC and Strived to Become a Prospering Student in College.

book 1. Donald Trumps Autobiograph
Donald Trump’s autobiography is about how he went from “nothing” to where he is today. Scribona has started as a student with nothing with a disatachment to books. He feels like he can’t succeed at life and is stuck working at KFC.

book 2. “An American Childhood”
This is the first book the narrator took an interest in by writing it on his bedroom door. The narrator’s childhood was a peculiar one where he did not take any interest in his education, the “American Childhood” helped him realize that he was a lost cause.
book 3. Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species
Darwinism is the belief that nature will evolve and learn to survive a changing environment. The narrator has evolved and changed to fit a college environment.

4/3/2019 09:02:45 am

You guys did something different. You identified what the five books in his essay might be. And I can see how this is interesting—you could see how some of these choices would demonstrate some of the thesis statements that the writers above noticed. How some of these books were books he read to jot do other high school work and how some of these reading experiences are about how his world view changed because of a book. So what would the thesis be?

One thing: your emphasis here is in the books and what they are about, but in your essays you want it to be your experience that is privileged.

Monday, 1 April 2019, "How I Learned To Read" (no April Fooling)

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