Notes for Chapters 1-3

Chapters 1-3Literature and the Writing Process

Chapter One - Composing
Read to write
Make predictions
Note changes in characters’ behavior
Look for patterns (repetitive images)
Mark memorable passages
Note symbols, scenes, language oddities
Underline phrases that seem particularly meaningful

Read to write:
Compare the selection to other things you have read or seen on TV or in a movie
Look away from the text periodically
Jot down reactions in your journal
Describe the work to a friend or relative
Immerse yourself in the universality of the themes/characters/human condition

Prewriting Process

Reasons to write:

Express your feelings
Entertain your audience
Inform
Persuade (argument)

Reading Critically
Analyze – examine parts or elements of the text. Ask questions such as: What is the conflict? What are the subplots and how do they counterbalance the conflict/theme?

Inferences – conclusions you can draw from your own analysis. Implications of various elements such as: connecting threads, identifying patterns, drawing conclusions. Ask questions such as: Who is the main character? What changes, if any, does the character make? Why?

Reading Critically
Synthesis – Create a new why to understand the text based on your analysis and inferences.
Questions include: What is the central idea (theme) of the selection?
Evaluation- Make a judgment and defend your ideas about your analytical work. Questions such as: Is the main character a tragic character? Is the work classified as a tragedy or other type of literature?
Discovering and Developing Ideas

Use techniques such as:
Directed freewriting
Problem solving
Clustering

Prepare a thesis:
Relate some aspect of the work to the meaning overall.
What insight can you glean from reading the text?
Remember, a thesis is NOT a topic

Writing Process C. 2

Elements of a Good Argument
Claims-proposition, premise, hypothesis
Evidence-examples from text, and outside sources
Reasoning-explain how you arrived at your interpretaon
Refutation-address the opposition, counter their argument (or point) with authoritative facts
.
Effective Argument
Introduce your subject, with a context for your approach
State your main point or thesis.
Provide evidence and reasoning to support your claims.
Respond to opposing viewpoints, logically, authoritatively, reasonably.
Sum up the argument by solidifying the truth of your thesis.
Arrangement of ideas

Choose between these organizational strategies:
Logically (point by point)
Chronologically (if applicable)
It can be very effective to begin with your weakest point and end with the strongest.
Develop the details from the plot.
Embed quotes and include page numbers in parentheses as documentation.

Organization

Introduction (You do not have to write this yet)
Thesis
Your points
Opposing point (Some critics may contend….)
Counter opposition with logical points.
End with a relation to the theme of the story.
Write an emphatic final sentence (p.53)

Chapter Three - Rewriting
Revision means looking again at your work (not just mechanics such as: spelling)
Use peer review
Outline after the first draft
Rearrange, read it out loud and listen to the “sense” of your writing.
Look at sentence patterns

“Eveline” by James Joyce

Characters:
Eveline Hill- passive, helpless, selfless, prays to know what her duty is, wants to escape, but wants to keep her promise to her dying mother to keep home together.
Father – violent, drunkard, manipulative, threatens, money issues
Brothers – Ernest (dead), Harry (out of picture, decorating churches) – note Father does not threaten the brothers.
People from Eveline’s work – Miss Galvan (judgmental, rude)
Frank – boyfriend, she has not know him for a long time, sailor, want to take her out of the country and “marry” her.

Images in text
Images of the past: dust, words “used to” in story many times, yellowing photographs, references to long time ago, dead people (such as her mom who was a semi-pitiful creature, saying pleasure is pain, demanding, even in death)

Conflict? Theme?