Welcome to English 150

Composition One
Mr. Harmon
 The Writing
Composition I Overview
Process
The Descriptive
Essay
The Narrative
Essay
The Persuasive
Essay
The Personal
Essay
Assign Textbooks
The Writing Process
Lesson 3
 Writer’s Prompt:
• Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the
world.
– Albert Einstein

• What is your reaction to this quote? Why do you

agree or disagree? Journal your reaction and
response.
 Assignments for Next Class
• Read Chapter 2 in the Little Brown Handbook
• Do Handout 2.6 for next class
Review of Last Class Assignment

• Exercise 1.3, page 9 (New Little Brown) or

Exercise 3, page 8 (Old Little Brown)
The Writing Process
 Writing as a process
– an overview

• Think of writing as a process: a set of activities

you go through to produce a finished product.
• This process has three distinct stages:
1) Planning and Shaping
2) Drafting
3) Revising and Editing
 Lesson 5
Drafting and Revising
 Writer’s Prompt:
• What would you do if you knew you would
never fail when doing it?
 Assignments
• Read Chapter 28, “The Comma” in Little,
Brown Handbook
• Do Handout 28.1 Punctuating linked main
clauses
 Assignment Review
• Exercise 3.9 (NEW) or Exercise 9 (OLD) in The
Little, Brown Handbook
 Writing the First Draft

• Remember: The first draft is not for keeps

• Write freely
• Be yourself
• Let your inner writer take over
• Ease into it

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All

The writing process - 14
rights reserved.
 Writing the First Draft
• Make writing a habit
• Respect your deep mind
• Get physical
• Use affirmations and visualizations
• Hide it in your drawer for a while

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All

The writing process - 15
rights reserved.
 Lesson 7
Common Writing Mistakes
#2
 Writer’s Prompt:
•The positive aspects of legalized gambling far outweigh
the harmful side effects that occur.
–What do you think?
–What evidence do you have to support your
position?
 
 Assignment
• Read the introduction to Descriptive Writing in
Great Writing pages 10 - 17
• Read “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia
Woolf in Great Writing page 42
– Answer question #2 under Meaning and Idea on
page 44
Common Writing Mistakes
Lesson #2
 Examine the following:
Transmitting radio signals by satellite is a way of
overcoming the problem of scarce airways and
limiting how they are used. This task is one of the
promises of the Obama administration.
 Examine the following:
Before Mary Grace physically and verbally
assaulted Mrs. Turpin, she was a judgmental woman
who created her own ranking system of people and
used it to justify her self proclaimed superiority. It
was common knowledge that she had no clue as to
the truth.
The Thesis Statement

Lesson # 4 Thesis Development

 Writer’s Prompt:
• Describe in one or two paragraphs, one or two
things you would like to see President Obama
achieve during his first year in office.
 Grammar Grappler:
• Their is know piece in this town.
• What grammar term is being utilized in the
above sentence?

• Homophone
• More – one/won; eye/I; need/knead; buy/by;
hi/high
 Assignments
• Read Chapter 3 – “Drafting and Revising” in
The Little, Brown Handbook
• Do Exercise 3.9 (NEW) or Exercise 9 (OLD) in
The Little, Brown Handbook
 Assignment Review
• Handout 2.6 – Shaping the thesis
The Thesis Statement
A Road Map for Your Essay

Int ESS
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AY
The ion
sis
S ta
tem
Bo d ent
yP
ara
gra
Bo d ph
#1
yP
ara
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B od ph
#2
yP
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#3
 Lesson 8
Descriptive Essay Introduction
 Writer’s Prompt:
• Describe a room in your home in explicit detail
– Bedroom
– Bathroom
– Living room
– kitchen
 Assignment
• Read in Great Writing “Wuthering Heights” on
page 31.
• Answer questions:
– Meaning and Idea
• #3
– Language, Form, Structure
• #2
 Assignment Review

• Virginia Woolf 1882-1941

• Virginia Woolf was an English writer, author and novelist and a
pioneer of modernism in English literature.
• Among her most famous work are novels To the Lighthouse,
Mrs. Dalloway and Orlando and an essay A Room of One's Own.
• She was an important figure in the Victorian literary society and
is regarded as one of the greatest modernist literary personality
of the twentieth century.
• She became the innovator of the English literature with her
experiment with the 'stream of consciousness' and broke the
mold with her highly experimental language denouncing the
traditional literary techniques.
 Question #2/Meaning and Idea
• On what details about the moth’s struggle
with death does Woolf focus? What
characteristics do they come to represent for
her?
She focuses on the intensity of its struggles to cling
to life. She sees it’s last gasp in which the moth gets
back on it’s feet. Once dead, Woolf sees the moth’s
dignified acceptance of it’s fate, death. Simply put:
life and the struggle to escape death.
The Descriptive Essay
 Lesson 14
Writing the Narrative Essay
 Writer’s Prompt:
• Everyone Has Been Scared Sometime
• Everyone has been scared at some time in one's life. Think
of one of those times.
• Where did the incident take place? Remember the reason
that you were scared. What were the emotions that were
involved?
• What did you see and hear? What actions did you take?
What were the results of those actions? If others were
involved, what were their reactions? How was the situation
resolved?
• What did you do, and how did you feel after it was all over?
 Assignment
• Read “Graduation” by Maya Angelou, page 23
in Great Writing
– Answer Meaning and Idea questions #1 and #2 on
page 132
• Narrative Essay
– Rough Draft Due October 9/12
– Final Paper Due October 15/16
 Assignment Review
• Raymond Carver
• (May 25, 1938 – August 2,
1988) was an American short
story writer and poet. Carver
is considered a major
American writer of the late
20th century and also a major
force in the revitalization of
the short story in the 1980s.
 “My Father’s Life”
• Raymond Carver’s “My Father’s Life”, Page 81
in Great Writing
• (Meaning) #3
– Trace the geographic movement of Carver’s father
• (Language) #2
– What is the use of dialogue in this essay? How
does it enhance the narration?
 Answers
• (Meaning) #3
– Trace the geographic movement of Carver’s father
– Carver’s dad moved from Leola, AR to Omak, WA to
Clatskanie, OR to Yakima, WA to Chester, CA to
Klamath, CA
• (Language) #2
– Caver demonstrates the various people feelings in
personal language through the use of dialogue. It
gives the reader a more vivid sense of reactions of
others to Carver’s father.
Common Writing Mistakes
Lesson 22
 Writing Prompt:
I’ve decided to take a trip across the United
States on a pogo stick. Write a paragraph
telling me why or why not I should pursue this
endeavor.
 Read:
1. The quarter horse skipped, pranced, and
absolutely sashayed onto the track.
2. Three subjects guaranteed to cause a fight
are politics, religion, and money.
3. The car rolled down the hill, over the lawn,
and into the swimming pool.

What do they have in common?

 Answer: Parallel Structure
• All items in a series should be in parallel form
• It makes the series both graceful and easy to
follow.
• Contrast:
– The duties of the job included baby-sitting, house-
cleaning, and the preparation of meals.
– The duties of the job included baby-sitting, house-
cleaning, and preparing meals.
 Bumper Sticker Parallelism
• Children on board; parents on Valium
• Save the trees - ax the loggers
 Pairing Two Ideas - Powerful
• The pairing of two ideas is an effective use of
parallelism:
– History became popular, and historians became
alarmed. Will Durant
– We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we
do language. That may be the measure of our
lives. Toni Morrison
– Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put
an end to mankind. John F. Kennedy
 Writer’s Prompt:
• Write a paragraph persuading the Troy High
School administration to allow the use of cell
phones on campus.
 Step 3: Complete the graphic organizer.

Unfold the paper and draw a box in the

center. In the center box write a sentence
to convey your stand.
• The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable
Men and Women
The Beatles Live On
Macklin Levine
The History of “This I Believe”
 This I Believe
• From 1951–1955, Edward R. Murrow hosted This I Believe,
a daily radio program that reached 39 million listeners. On
this broadcast, Americans—both well known and unknown
—read five-minute essays about their personal philosophy
of life.

• They shared insights about individual values that shaped

their daily actions. The first volume of This I Believe essays,
published in 1952, sold 300,000 copies—more than any
other book in the U. S. during that year except for the Bible.
 Introduction - continued

• In fact, these Murrow broadcasts were so popular that

curriculum was even developed to encourage American high
school students to compose essays about their most
significant personal beliefs.
 Edward R. Murrow
• Edward R. Murrow (1908 –1965) was an
American journalist He first came to
prominence with a series of radio news
broadcasts during World War II, which were
followed by millions of listeners in the United
States and Canada.
• Historians consider him among journalism's
greatest figures; Murrow hired a top-flight
cadre of war correspondents and was noted for
honesty and integrity in delivering the news.
• A pioneer of television news broadcasting,
Murrow produced a series of TV news reports
that helped lead to the censure of Senator
Joseph McCarthy.