Homework for Tuesday, 9/29, and Wednesday, 9/30

First things first: Those of you who have not acquired a journal must do so by your next class or your section will lose points.

Now, look at the assignment schedule to the right. You will see that you have about ten words to look up in addition to reading the essay and completing the guided writing exercise. Please record the vocabulary words in your journal, but type and print (or neatly hand write) the guided writing exercise. Here are the situation and audience for the guided writing exercise:

The New York Times has asked you to update Lee's article because you are an up-and-coming young writer. So, for an adult audience (say, your parents' age and older) unfamiliar with IM abbreviations, write an essay titled "I Think, Therefore IM." You may find it helpful to adopt a more personal voice than Lee uses in her essay. Still, try to follow the structure and strategies described on p. 21.

Once again, I am interested in seeing you commit a good ninety minutes to the whole assignment. Finishing it in forty-five minutes gives you a good amount of time to improve it; not finishing it in ninety minutes also gives me a good idea of how much you can accomplish within a certain amount of time.

Clarification of the homework due 9/22-9/23

For Tuesday and Wednesday's homework assignment, you need to do one each of the Building Vocabulary and Guided Writing exercises. So, if you do the Building Vocabulary exercise for "Farewell to Summer," you need to do the Guided Writing exercise for "Camping Out," and vice versa.

Also, I want to give you an audience for each Guided Writing exercise. For "Farewell to Summer": Your favorite magazine has approached you to write an essay on "Farewell to ______" because it knows you are an expert on it. You might want to focus on a month or a season, or perhaps even a place that you know intimately and think you can describe in detail.

For "Camping Out": Because your "Farewell" essay was such a success, the monthly magazine Live Right Teens! (which you've never heard of) has contacted you to write an essay on how to do something wrong, and how to do it right--going on vacation, looking for a job, fishing, or whatever.

If these assignments are not clear, don't hesitate to get in touch with me.

In most classes, we also discussed the "impermissible errors." Sometime this weekend, these will be posted in the column to the right in the "Assignments and Syllabus" section.

Have a good weekend!

Addendum (9/21): Some students have asked about the length of the guided writing exercise. Rather than length, think in terms of the time you spend on it. I don't expect you to spend more than about ninety minutes on your homework. Some of you may need more time, others may be able to complete everything in forty-five minutes to an hour. With this particular assignment, I think most of you could finish reading both essays and do the vocabulary exercise within half-an-hour, which leaves you an hour to do the guided writing exercise.

And away we go!

I am very excited to start the school year. To the right, you will find the syllabus as well as a few "handouts" that explain items mentioned in the syllabus.

Please remember to acquire a journal by next Tuesday (Day 1) or Wednesday (Day 2), whichever day you have class. It must be clothbound, and can be just a plain composition notebook.

During the first class, I mentioned that each section is competing for the glorious English Ten Cup. Just as each house at Hogwarts is named after a great witch or wizard, I have named each section after a great American writer. Each of these authors has been writing since our school was founded; there is one novelist, one poet, one short story writer, and one playwright. Although I have assigned a name for each section, if someone in your section can name one of the four "founders," your section will not only earn its first points of the year, but it will also carry that founder's name. Three of the sections will have their chance to guess on Wednesday and Thursday; the section that met first block on Day 1 will have their chance on Friday.