Losing It

Our culture traffics in idioms, one such expression being, "I'm losing it" or "I've lost it."

For this post, describe (in a paragraph or two) one time you "lost it."

Two More "Lost" Articles

This assignment has two parts.

1.  Read Colson Whitehead's "The Way We Live Now," and explain (in a short paragraph) how Whitehead uses symbolism to develop the essay's theme.  (To refresh, a symbol is when a concrete image represents an abstract idea, in the way that a bird can symbolize freedom or a road can symbolize travel).

2. Read Robin Kellner's "Zoe's Story," and pay close attention to how Kellner's structures her essay: both with the use of five large sections broken by dashes and with the various lengths of paragraphs, some only one sentence long and others more developed.  Choose one of these sections or paragraphs, and explain how the structure of the paragraph itself helps to convey the impact of the section's meaning.  (In other words, how does putting a certain idea into a shorter or longer section/paragraph make it more or less emphatic?).

Using Sources in a Personal Essay

The academic research paper is not the only form of writing that uses research.  Personal essays also use research to set a tone or provide background information.

For an effective example of this, read Molly Minturn's "Knight of the Swan," and notice how she incorporates material from conversations/interviews along with an article from Discover Magazine, a fairy tale, and song out of pop culture.  

For your blog post, explain (in a few sentences) how one of these references/sources contributes to the overall theme of Minturn's essay.

Three Photographs

Hello All,

For your Academic Analysis essay, you need to use at least three photographs: one from a fellow student in the class (which you can see in the earlier post) and two from the Getty Exhibit titled "Where We Live."  Again, you need to use a minimum of three photographs in your analysis, so feel free to use more than that if you'd like.

For this entry, specify the photographs you will use in your analysis.

Introductions to Academic Analysis

For this entry, you will post the introduction to your Academic Analysis.  When you are writing a formal essay, your introduction should have three components: hook, context, and thesis.

The hook (also known as the "lead" or the "attention-grabber") is used to intrigue your audience and begin your essay in a way that makes the reader want to continue reading.  Some forms of the hook include the use of a direct quote, a question, a surprising fact or statistic, or anecdote (a brief story).  You could also begin by using a definition or a description, by comparing and contrasting two things, or by dividing and classifying the types of a thing.  The key to writing an effective hook is to be interesting, original, and consistent with both topic and tone.

The context is where the writer introduces the main ideas of the essay.  The writer needs to provide the broad outlines of the different subjects so that the thesis will be effective; to do this, the writer will need to explain those ideas with definitions and other essential information.

Finally, the introduction will end with the thesis statement.  This is the specific argument the writer is making about the topic.  This thesis should be clear, concise, and insightful.

Because you are writing an academic analysis, you should avoid using any reference to yourself.  The one exception would be if you were to use an anecdote as your hook; in that case, you could use the first-person "I" to tell your opening narrative.  However, there should be no "I" in your thesis statement.

For your essay, you should respond to the following question: "What is a photograph, and how and why do people use photography?"  Consider the various contexts in which we take and present our photographs.  Your essay will use individual photographs as examples, but you should not refer to these examples in your introduction.

For this entry, post the introduction to your academic analysis.  It should be no less than three sentences and no longer than twelve or so.  

Getting Started with the Academic Analysis

How can a photograph be both an eternal, unchanging work of art and a document of change and the passage of time?

Post a quick paragraph in which you provide an answer to this seeming paradox.  Within this paragraph, use at least one direct quote from an article posted to Blackboard (by Sontag, Kracauer, Barthes, or Bazin).  Be sure to properly introduce and cite the direct quote; review the files in Blackboard titled "Using Source Material" in the "Academic Analysis" tab.