Body Paragraph Revision

Revision Checklist

There are only four strategies to play with a sentence.  For example:  He loved the earth for its beauty.

Add:  He loved the earth for all its beauty, of course; but most of all he loved the way it set his mind to wondering and questioning the mystery of every little thing.

Subtract:  He loved the earth.  He loved beauty.  He loved.

Rearrange:  For its beauty he loved the earth.

Substitute:  He loved that blue marble ball for all its mystery.

Add

• Highlight your claims—anything that is a statement of interpretation.  Add evidence of some type to support every one of those claims.
• Next, highlight the good stuff—places where the points you make and the evidence you use is excellent, strong, well-put.  Look at the places not highlighted—what do they need?
• Look at paragraph lengths.  In a well-written academic essay, your paragraphs should all be roughly the same length.  Where are your short points?  Further develop them.  Go deeper in your analysis and add more evidence.

Subtract

• Subtract the junk—in every sentence, experiment with pulling out words you don’t need.  Begin with words like “which” and “that.”
• Read one sentence at a time—get rid of repetition:  words, phrases, ideas.  Use the Find feature to help you find repeated words.
• Look at paragraph lengths again.  Where are your long paragraphs?  Is there content you don’t need?  Repetition?  Fluff?  Stuff that doesn’t support your thesis or topic sentence?  If so, get rid of it or change it so it works.

Substitute and Rearrange

• Look at your long paragraphs again.  Could you split them into two separate paragraphs?  Each making its own part of the larger point?
• Notice where you tend to use passive vs. active verbs.  Find “am,” “is,” “are,” “was,” “were.”  Rewrite those sentences with action verbs.
• Find “you.”  Do you mean something else?
• Find “I.”  Is first person effective for your purpose and audience or would 3^rd person be better?
• Where can you combine and condense?  Where do you have a point made in two or three sentences that could be made in one or two?  Where do you have simple sentences that could be combined into complex sentences?
• Where could your word choice be more precise and specific?  More interesting?  More fresh?  Don’t replace using the thesaurus—actually rewrite your sentences.

1st Semester Independent Reading

We've talked about the classics, the canon, your summer reading books, Nabokov, and Calvino.  Now it's time to choose another independent reading book that fits into that "great literature" category that you can practice your critical reading and analysis skills on.

This quarter we'll be reading and discussing poetry in class.  Next quarter we'll work with short stories and get to some short novels right before Christmas.  Between our short story unit and our short novels, we'll have some time for you to present a verbal analysis of your independent reading book.  It will ask for all of the same things you're currently working on in writing (theme, aspect of the book to analyze, structure and evidence to support your interpretation) but you won't have to write it.

More details will come later, but for now, here's what you need to know and do:

• Pick a book you're interested in reading--it should be British if you didn't read a British author for your summer reading
• Find a copy and begin reading it
• Keep a reading journal, perhaps structured like your summer RJ, to make note of important details to remember, significant quotes that may be good evidence later, or to collect your thoughts on various aspects of the book and the author's overall point.

I have managed to work in 6 independent reading days in class between now and the middle of November.  The first one will be Sept. 28 so make sure you have your book with you that day to make best use of your class time.