policies ENGL101 Writing Rhetorically
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LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 [email protected] www.leetorda.com |
Fall 2017 Office Hours:
T/R 11:00-12:00 M 12:30-1:30 and by appointment. Need to make an appointment? Click here: https://goo.gl/3CqLf |
Torda's In-Class Writing (reading if you want; don't if you don't)
Book Club Introduction: Sample Book Club Journal
"Inheritance"
I start with the title--Inheritance. My natural question is what is being inherited? And by whom. It would appear, I assume the writer and the speaker in the poem are of the same gender, and I am going to do that, that the writer is using second person “you” to indicate he is talking to himself about an inheritance and, at the most basic of levels, he seems to have inherited a house. It seems like he wanted the house at some point--”the place you always sought” “finally inside.” And yet the poem is drenched is the sense that he doesn’t really feel like he deserves it. He says that the only gaiety that exists is the gaiety you (the speaker) brought with you and how little you had to bring.” There is also a good bit of the poem devoted to how he now views the house--that it seems ostentacious, like someone who bought a really fancy car and is now embarrassed to have to show it to friends who don’t and can’t ever afford a car like that: the “bougainvillea . . . that wants constant praise” The “exposed beams . . . now feel pretentious.” He talks about how he will be judged by others: “the paintings you hang, the books you shelve” having to explain the wallpaper. And in all of that it seems like he is sad that whatever the house suggests about him will either be wrong or it will say he is actually better than he actually is or mad that people will judge him.
Then there is the Gatsby reference. He is Gatsby (the speaker), hoping for a Nick Carroway, hoping to bring his Daisy. Except of course we all know how Gatsby turned out. So that sucked.
Added after class: It's the last stanza that everything seems to hinge on. There is that line that moves away from the speaker and out beyond himself--for the first time in the poem--to consider what other people might be thinking: He writes,
"Why not just try to settle in,
take your place, however undeserved,
among the fortunate? Why not trust
that almost everyone, even in
his own house, is a troubled guest?"
So the first part is, still, about him--sort telling himself to get over his imposter syndrome. But the next part is about everyone. It's about how aren't we all feeling underserving? Troubled guests in our own lives--unsure if we deserve what we've inherited. I think that is the thesis of this poem. Something like that.
Favorite Family food memory
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Villa lately, my uncle’s old pizza place. When I was a kid, we used to have to go there every friday night because ,wait for it, my parents went bowling on a league every friday. We had no money growing up. We weren’t poor but we just didn’t have spare money so if a relative wasn’t baby sitting for us, we went with my parents. And anyway, they bowled with my Aunt and Uncle and my other aunt and uncle so it was like a family outing anyway.
My uncle’s place was like a movie set version of a pizza place and to this day I have never ever found pizza as good as my Uncle’s. I get how that is part nostalgia, but it is a lot true too. My favorite villa pizza was a small mushroom pizza light sauce. That’s my order at cape cod now too. It’s pretty good, but they don’t get how to make a crust.
What I remember most is being in the back room with my mom and dad. The back room was actually the bar. We’d sit at a long table with my aunt virge and uncle mike and my aunt harriett and my uncle sonny. And they would drink and smoke when you were still allowed to do both of those things together in public. And they’d order their pizzas--my uncle ate his without sauce and I would order mine. And we’d be allowed behind the bar to fill our own glasses with coke and because we knew, even then, how to make our parent’s drinks. Scotch on the rocks. Seven and Seven. Rum and coke with a lime. And Mike Lehett, this old guy who just seemed to always be at the bar would load my sister and I up with quarters so we could play video games until all hours. And we did play all hours because my parents didn’t leave until like 2 in the morning or later. We’d eventually sleep on a bunch of coats on a table pushed up against the wall.
Free Write/Summary & Thesis of "Dinner at Uncle Boris's"
In this essay, we encounter a family over the course of a meal. The star of the meal, besides the endless parade of food is Uncle Boris himself. And over the course of the meal, of the night, we learn about Uncle Boris and about his family. Our narrator is, we presume, the author. We understand him to be of a younger generation than Uncle Boris. It’s also very male centered--there is an Aunt who brings in the food and eventually goes to bed to leave these fools to their own doing, but we never even get her name.
The central form of communication among the four men (Uncle Boris, the narrator, the narrator’s brother and father) is argument. They argue over politics. They argue, it seems, over everything. That section of the essay (Barry Goldwater, Nixon, Bobby Kennedy, Communism, J.Edgar Hoover), that identifies a time period. The middle sixties about. And Uncle Boris has grown conservative in his old age and his nephew, the younger generation, our author, is more liberal. That feels like a kind of split any family might encounter. There is a mini-crescendo here where the author and Uncle Boris almost come to blows over politics. Boris threatens to call the FBI, though he doesn't (a point I want to return to).
I would say that another thing we learn over the course of the essay is that this family is Serbian and that they emigrated to this country sometime after, I’m guessing, World War II. I say this because of two scenes--the one with the apples and the guard where the author says he remembers the guard taking them from one prison camp to another and letting them stop to eat apples at the road side, and then the one with the list of nationalities where the narrator's father talks about how taking different sides in the war made everyone miserable. The apple scene seems particularly important to me because this is an essay where food is plentiful but in this scene food is very scarce. There is another moment in the essay sort of like this--where Uncle Boris and the narrator's father go to a restaurant and eat well despite having no money. I think from both of these scenes and understanding the left Europe after WWII, we can surmise that the family has survived very difficult times.
I’m not really done with my summary. I haven’t talked about what we actually learn about Uncle Boris--the first thing we learn is that Mother Teresa, the saint of all saints, would want to clobber him with a baseball bat, which is to say that I think that we should assume is sort of a pain in the ass. We know he sings opera. We know he sings it badly. We know he has a lovely smile. We know that he can woo people with that smile and with his demeanor (he looks like a proper English Gentleman). We have that whole elaborate story about him fooling his family with the wine from the gas station attendant in Brooklyn. And we have that lovely little scene when his nephew kisses him on the head to end the argument, and it works. And he smiles his lovely sheepish smile, and he decides not to call the FBI on him (though we are to understand that he is joking--because he is a joker, Uncle Boris). He is a lover of good food and much of it. He is a lover of wine. I think sometimes that this might be as result of the whole family being deprived of it during the war years (see what I say above). We understand that their time in Europe was not a wealthy time.
So why am I dwelling on all this, because to me, this is where the thesis lies. We understand Boris to be difficult and lovely and a faker and a hard worker who lived a tough life. And we are to understand this about his family too (again, they survived WWII). I’m trying to write this fast so you can see how not hard this is to do, really, or how informal this can be, but it’s worthwhile to focus on these two stories about World War II. These people survived the War in Europe. They were in prison camps by the nazis. These people, this family survived. That is more than most families have to endure. Our families are similar to this family probably in some ways, but most families are not. And yet that feeling--of this mix of love and hate and arguing and smiling--it's all a part of what it means to be in a family that survives, whatever you have to survive. And, most of all, I think we can understand that this is what love in a family looks like generally: it’s not all sunshine and roses. It’s loud and it is messy, but it is still family. That’s what love looks like in real life.
If you want to see what the above looks like as an actual set of Reader's Notes, you can click on the link below. It is a slightly modified version of what I've written here (this is 840 words, the actual journal is 764--which is roughly the length of an actual reader's notes.
"Inheritance"
I start with the title--Inheritance. My natural question is what is being inherited? And by whom. It would appear, I assume the writer and the speaker in the poem are of the same gender, and I am going to do that, that the writer is using second person “you” to indicate he is talking to himself about an inheritance and, at the most basic of levels, he seems to have inherited a house. It seems like he wanted the house at some point--”the place you always sought” “finally inside.” And yet the poem is drenched is the sense that he doesn’t really feel like he deserves it. He says that the only gaiety that exists is the gaiety you (the speaker) brought with you and how little you had to bring.” There is also a good bit of the poem devoted to how he now views the house--that it seems ostentacious, like someone who bought a really fancy car and is now embarrassed to have to show it to friends who don’t and can’t ever afford a car like that: the “bougainvillea . . . that wants constant praise” The “exposed beams . . . now feel pretentious.” He talks about how he will be judged by others: “the paintings you hang, the books you shelve” having to explain the wallpaper. And in all of that it seems like he is sad that whatever the house suggests about him will either be wrong or it will say he is actually better than he actually is or mad that people will judge him.
Then there is the Gatsby reference. He is Gatsby (the speaker), hoping for a Nick Carroway, hoping to bring his Daisy. Except of course we all know how Gatsby turned out. So that sucked.
Added after class: It's the last stanza that everything seems to hinge on. There is that line that moves away from the speaker and out beyond himself--for the first time in the poem--to consider what other people might be thinking: He writes,
"Why not just try to settle in,
take your place, however undeserved,
among the fortunate? Why not trust
that almost everyone, even in
his own house, is a troubled guest?"
So the first part is, still, about him--sort telling himself to get over his imposter syndrome. But the next part is about everyone. It's about how aren't we all feeling underserving? Troubled guests in our own lives--unsure if we deserve what we've inherited. I think that is the thesis of this poem. Something like that.
Favorite Family food memory
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Villa lately, my uncle’s old pizza place. When I was a kid, we used to have to go there every friday night because ,wait for it, my parents went bowling on a league every friday. We had no money growing up. We weren’t poor but we just didn’t have spare money so if a relative wasn’t baby sitting for us, we went with my parents. And anyway, they bowled with my Aunt and Uncle and my other aunt and uncle so it was like a family outing anyway.
My uncle’s place was like a movie set version of a pizza place and to this day I have never ever found pizza as good as my Uncle’s. I get how that is part nostalgia, but it is a lot true too. My favorite villa pizza was a small mushroom pizza light sauce. That’s my order at cape cod now too. It’s pretty good, but they don’t get how to make a crust.
What I remember most is being in the back room with my mom and dad. The back room was actually the bar. We’d sit at a long table with my aunt virge and uncle mike and my aunt harriett and my uncle sonny. And they would drink and smoke when you were still allowed to do both of those things together in public. And they’d order their pizzas--my uncle ate his without sauce and I would order mine. And we’d be allowed behind the bar to fill our own glasses with coke and because we knew, even then, how to make our parent’s drinks. Scotch on the rocks. Seven and Seven. Rum and coke with a lime. And Mike Lehett, this old guy who just seemed to always be at the bar would load my sister and I up with quarters so we could play video games until all hours. And we did play all hours because my parents didn’t leave until like 2 in the morning or later. We’d eventually sleep on a bunch of coats on a table pushed up against the wall.
Free Write/Summary & Thesis of "Dinner at Uncle Boris's"
In this essay, we encounter a family over the course of a meal. The star of the meal, besides the endless parade of food is Uncle Boris himself. And over the course of the meal, of the night, we learn about Uncle Boris and about his family. Our narrator is, we presume, the author. We understand him to be of a younger generation than Uncle Boris. It’s also very male centered--there is an Aunt who brings in the food and eventually goes to bed to leave these fools to their own doing, but we never even get her name.
The central form of communication among the four men (Uncle Boris, the narrator, the narrator’s brother and father) is argument. They argue over politics. They argue, it seems, over everything. That section of the essay (Barry Goldwater, Nixon, Bobby Kennedy, Communism, J.Edgar Hoover), that identifies a time period. The middle sixties about. And Uncle Boris has grown conservative in his old age and his nephew, the younger generation, our author, is more liberal. That feels like a kind of split any family might encounter. There is a mini-crescendo here where the author and Uncle Boris almost come to blows over politics. Boris threatens to call the FBI, though he doesn't (a point I want to return to).
I would say that another thing we learn over the course of the essay is that this family is Serbian and that they emigrated to this country sometime after, I’m guessing, World War II. I say this because of two scenes--the one with the apples and the guard where the author says he remembers the guard taking them from one prison camp to another and letting them stop to eat apples at the road side, and then the one with the list of nationalities where the narrator's father talks about how taking different sides in the war made everyone miserable. The apple scene seems particularly important to me because this is an essay where food is plentiful but in this scene food is very scarce. There is another moment in the essay sort of like this--where Uncle Boris and the narrator's father go to a restaurant and eat well despite having no money. I think from both of these scenes and understanding the left Europe after WWII, we can surmise that the family has survived very difficult times.
I’m not really done with my summary. I haven’t talked about what we actually learn about Uncle Boris--the first thing we learn is that Mother Teresa, the saint of all saints, would want to clobber him with a baseball bat, which is to say that I think that we should assume is sort of a pain in the ass. We know he sings opera. We know he sings it badly. We know he has a lovely smile. We know that he can woo people with that smile and with his demeanor (he looks like a proper English Gentleman). We have that whole elaborate story about him fooling his family with the wine from the gas station attendant in Brooklyn. And we have that lovely little scene when his nephew kisses him on the head to end the argument, and it works. And he smiles his lovely sheepish smile, and he decides not to call the FBI on him (though we are to understand that he is joking--because he is a joker, Uncle Boris). He is a lover of good food and much of it. He is a lover of wine. I think sometimes that this might be as result of the whole family being deprived of it during the war years (see what I say above). We understand that their time in Europe was not a wealthy time.
So why am I dwelling on all this, because to me, this is where the thesis lies. We understand Boris to be difficult and lovely and a faker and a hard worker who lived a tough life. And we are to understand this about his family too (again, they survived WWII). I’m trying to write this fast so you can see how not hard this is to do, really, or how informal this can be, but it’s worthwhile to focus on these two stories about World War II. These people survived the War in Europe. They were in prison camps by the nazis. These people, this family survived. That is more than most families have to endure. Our families are similar to this family probably in some ways, but most families are not. And yet that feeling--of this mix of love and hate and arguing and smiling--it's all a part of what it means to be in a family that survives, whatever you have to survive. And, most of all, I think we can understand that this is what love in a family looks like generally: it’s not all sunshine and roses. It’s loud and it is messy, but it is still family. That’s what love looks like in real life.
If you want to see what the above looks like as an actual set of Reader's Notes, you can click on the link below. It is a slightly modified version of what I've written here (this is 840 words, the actual journal is 764--which is roughly the length of an actual reader's notes.
| sample._readers_notes._engl101e.docx |