Due to a series of meetings that I need to attend next week, we will not meet as a class on Wednesday, November 18.  I will post information on earning that day’s attendance hours, and we will discuss that in class on Monday.

This week’s participation credit is an easy one: email Essay 5 to me at rdturner@cnm.edu by 5pm this Friday, November 13.  Graded essays will be returned by next Thursday.

If your team won Monday’s game of sentence slam, then you have already earned this week’s one-hour participation credit.  If you were not on a winning team, then you will need to do the following:

Revise this sentence, which is grammatically fine but stylistically a mess.  Post your revision here as a comment by 5pm Friday, November 6, to earn this week’s one-hour participation credit.

For Wednesday, please do the following:

• Download your graded Essay 4 (I returned this earlier today)
• Read “Two Ways to Belong in America” (Models for Writers page 126), “The Magic of the Family Meal” (Models for Writers page 208), “Childhood” (Models for Writers page 222), and “Why and When We Speak Spanish in Pubic” (Models for Writers page 511)
• Look over the notes for this week

Here are some materials related to next week’s discussions of how to create and revise effective sentences.  Please look over these as you prepare for next week:

1. Style notes for Monday
2. Sentence Revision notes for Wednesday

For Essay 5, write an essay in which you explore ways in which groups shape a person’s sense of self. Base your topic on some of the readings we have looked at recently, including “The Magic of the Family Meal” by Nancy Gibbs and “Childhood” by Alice Walker. Feel free to use your own experience in discussing the topic, but be sure to both refer to a text you have read and make larger claims about how people in generally are shaped by their groups.

Your essay needs a clear main idea—presented in the opening paragraph—that sets forth the topic and the argument you are making about group affiliation and identity. Refer to examples from the reading and your own experience as part of a group.

We will hold a workshop in class and lab on Monday, November 9, and in class on Wednesday, November 11. Essay 5 is due to me via email by 5:00 pm on Friday, November 13. Essays submitted on time will be graded and returned via email by 8:00 am on Wednesday, November 18.

I will grade Essay 5 on how well you organize and support your main idea, as well as the manner in which you construct your paragraphs and sentences. This will include an emphasis on the style of your writing. Graded essays can be revised and resubmitted via email at anytime.

For this week’s one-hour participation credit, I want you to write four sentences.  The first will have one independent clause, the second one independent clause and one dependent clause, the third two independent clauses, and the final two independent clauses and one dependent clause.  (Review the sentence materials posted here if you need help with these terms.) Post your sentences here as a comment.

Sentences posted by 5pm Friday, October 23, will count for this week’s one-hour participation credit.