Watch the link to the video above. Post your opinion of the video. Questions you should ask yourself. Keep in mind the "Who, What, When, Why, How, Where, So What" aspects of critical reading:
1) How relevant is the information? What is the conflict? What is the problem?
2) Do the tourists offer reliable information? Is the information true?
3) If the information is incorrect? If not, how does this change your perception of the video and the actors in the video?
4) What information is missing from the video? What would you have changed?
5) Are the actors in the video qualified to provide this information?
6) At the end one of the actors says, "Never come here." What is your perception of this last sentence?
Friday, October 2, 2009
Descriptive-Narrative Essay: Bieke O Muerte by Marithelma Costa
Please read the essay "Bieke O Muerte: or My Encounter with the Canibales" by Marithelma Costa.
Post a comment on the blog which answers the following questions:
1) How does Costa's description affect your reading of the event?
2) In her narrative, does Costa present a problem? Does she offer a solution? If so, what does she offer?
3) Is the essay solely about Vieques?
4) Why does Costa end the essay with the Post-Script?
Post a comment on the blog which answers the following questions:
1) How does Costa's description affect your reading of the event?
2) In her narrative, does Costa present a problem? Does she offer a solution? If so, what does she offer?
3) Is the essay solely about Vieques?
4) Why does Costa end the essay with the Post-Script?
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
How Write with Style
Please click on the above title link, How to Write with Style
Kurt Vonnegut, the author, begins and ends his essay with a focus on ""having something to say". Why is this an important element for him or for the essay?
Write your comments in your notebook. We will discuss in class.
"Ön Reading and Writing", Patterns of Reflection, Pearson and Longman Publishers.
Kurt Vonnegut, the author, begins and ends his essay with a focus on ""having something to say". Why is this an important element for him or for the essay?
Write your comments in your notebook. We will discuss in class.
"Ön Reading and Writing", Patterns of Reflection, Pearson and Longman Publishers.
Friday, August 14, 2009
3103 Course Guidelines
UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO – ARECIBO
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
INGL 3103, INTERMEDIATE ENGLISH, FALL 2009
PROF. JANE ALBERDESTON CORALIN
COURSE GUIDELINES
Office: Department of English, Room 10
Office Hours: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday: 2:30 – 4:30 pm
Email: jane.alberdeston@upr.edu
Course description: Intermediate Writing explores and analyzes select readings such as essays, stories, poetry and drama. It also includes writing, grammar and the use of idiomatic expressions. The Department's course syllabus is posted on the following website: http://ingles.upra.edu/
Penfield, Elizabeth. Short Takes: Model Essays for Composition, Ninth Edition. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007.
Online reserves, UPRA Library
A college-level English dictionary, such as Merriam-Webster or American Heritage
8 ½ x 11” lined loose-leaf paper
Welcome to Intermediate English 3103!
Important Course Information
Email:
Several times during the semester, I will send email messages to your university email address. Your university email inbox should be checked frequently for important messages from me.
Office Hours:
You are encouraged to meet with me throughout the semester. I realize class, work or life schedules might not allow for multiple meetings, however, I hope you will make an effort to talk with me about your work AT LEAST twice during the semester.
Student Responsibilities
Attendance:
At the beginning of every class, I will leave an attendance sign-in sheet at my desk. Every student in attendance should sign the sheet on entering and then return to their desks. The sign in sheet will remain on the desk for ten minutes after the start of class.
Missed Work (this includes missed assignments, exams):
It will be solely your responsibility to turn in missed work after an absence. All missed work and exams must be turned in one class week after the absence to receive credit. Work cannot be accepted via email. Work not turned in will receive a “0". Exams will need to be re-scheduled, at the request of the student. Quizzes cannot be made up.
You should remember that the course involves a hefty amount of in-class assignments, group exercises and peer-instructor discussion. This work is valuable to your experience and cannot be made up.
Assignments:
All work written outside of class must be typed and submitted in hard copy, Times New Roman, 12 font, with one inch margins all around. I will not accept any electronic submissions.
All typed essays must have your name, date, class number and section, and assignment title. Essays without this information will not be accepted and will receive a “0.” Please follow the format below:
Paulina Rubio, Intermediate English, 3103-ME5
November 24, 2007
Assignment: Essay 3: Classification
Handwritten work will be limited to in-class writing assignments. In-class essays must be neatly handwritten, double-spaced on lined paper, with one inch margins all around. Your name should appear in the upper-right hand corner of each page. If the paper does not meet this format, the paper will be returned with a reduced grade.
Significant Revision:
Because revision is a vital part of becoming a strong writer, all essays will revised.
‘Significant revision’ will be the only revision accepted. All significant revisions must be turned in with the original graded essay. We will discuss significant revision early in the semester.
Electronic devices: Cell phones, PDAs and pagers MUST be turned off during class. If an electronic device rings during class, I will ask you to leave for the remainder of the class time. Additionally, please leave your laptop computers closed.
Classroom Behavior:
Your classmates and I expect you to conduct yourself in ways that create a safe learning and teaching environment, free from violence, intimidation, and harassment. This space is created by mutual respect.
I expect you to take full responsibility for your own learning, As an active (rather than passive) learner, you should ask relevant questions, share your insights, participate in small and large group discussions, take notes, and complete assignments. You should do your best to accomplish these goals without interrupting others or being physically or verbally abusive. I expect you to work collaboratively with other students to support their learning; when you do this, your own learning will benefit as well.
Academic Honesty:
If you use words or ideas from another source (a book, friend, relative, website, etc.) without crediting that source in your paper, you are committing plagiarism, which is a form of academic dishonesty. Typical penalties range from being asked to redo an assignment to failing the course. Further discussion of plagiarism and the proper ways to cite sources will come during the semester, but if you have doubts or questions, please ask me at any time during the semester.
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
INGL 3103, INTERMEDIATE ENGLISH, FALL 2009
PROF. JANE ALBERDESTON CORALIN
COURSE GUIDELINES
Office: Department of English, Room 10
Office Hours: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday: 2:30 – 4:30 pm
Email: jane.alberdeston@upr.edu
Course description: Intermediate Writing explores and analyzes select readings such as essays, stories, poetry and drama. It also includes writing, grammar and the use of idiomatic expressions. The Department's course syllabus is posted on the following website: http://ingles.upra.edu/
Penfield, Elizabeth. Short Takes: Model Essays for Composition, Ninth Edition. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007.
Online reserves, UPRA Library
A college-level English dictionary, such as Merriam-Webster or American Heritage
8 ½ x 11” lined loose-leaf paper
Welcome to Intermediate English 3103!
Important Course Information
Email:
Several times during the semester, I will send email messages to your university email address. Your university email inbox should be checked frequently for important messages from me.
Office Hours:
You are encouraged to meet with me throughout the semester. I realize class, work or life schedules might not allow for multiple meetings, however, I hope you will make an effort to talk with me about your work AT LEAST twice during the semester.
Student Responsibilities
Attendance:
At the beginning of every class, I will leave an attendance sign-in sheet at my desk. Every student in attendance should sign the sheet on entering and then return to their desks. The sign in sheet will remain on the desk for ten minutes after the start of class.
Missed Work (this includes missed assignments, exams):
It will be solely your responsibility to turn in missed work after an absence. All missed work and exams must be turned in one class week after the absence to receive credit. Work cannot be accepted via email. Work not turned in will receive a “0". Exams will need to be re-scheduled, at the request of the student. Quizzes cannot be made up.
You should remember that the course involves a hefty amount of in-class assignments, group exercises and peer-instructor discussion. This work is valuable to your experience and cannot be made up.
Assignments:
All work written outside of class must be typed and submitted in hard copy, Times New Roman, 12 font, with one inch margins all around. I will not accept any electronic submissions.
All typed essays must have your name, date, class number and section, and assignment title. Essays without this information will not be accepted and will receive a “0.” Please follow the format below:
Paulina Rubio, Intermediate English, 3103-ME5
November 24, 2007
Assignment: Essay 3: Classification
Handwritten work will be limited to in-class writing assignments. In-class essays must be neatly handwritten, double-spaced on lined paper, with one inch margins all around. Your name should appear in the upper-right hand corner of each page. If the paper does not meet this format, the paper will be returned with a reduced grade.
Significant Revision:
Because revision is a vital part of becoming a strong writer, all essays will revised.
‘Significant revision’ will be the only revision accepted. All significant revisions must be turned in with the original graded essay. We will discuss significant revision early in the semester.
Electronic devices: Cell phones, PDAs and pagers MUST be turned off during class. If an electronic device rings during class, I will ask you to leave for the remainder of the class time. Additionally, please leave your laptop computers closed.
Classroom Behavior:
Your classmates and I expect you to conduct yourself in ways that create a safe learning and teaching environment, free from violence, intimidation, and harassment. This space is created by mutual respect.
I expect you to take full responsibility for your own learning, As an active (rather than passive) learner, you should ask relevant questions, share your insights, participate in small and large group discussions, take notes, and complete assignments. You should do your best to accomplish these goals without interrupting others or being physically or verbally abusive. I expect you to work collaboratively with other students to support their learning; when you do this, your own learning will benefit as well.
Academic Honesty:
If you use words or ideas from another source (a book, friend, relative, website, etc.) without crediting that source in your paper, you are committing plagiarism, which is a form of academic dishonesty. Typical penalties range from being asked to redo an assignment to failing the course. Further discussion of plagiarism and the proper ways to cite sources will come during the semester, but if you have doubts or questions, please ask me at any time during the semester.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Sherman Alexie's poem: "A Poem Written in Replication of My Father’s Unfinished Novel Which He Would Read to His Children Whenever He Was Drunk"
Having read "Superman and Me" and "Indian Education" and the poem below by Sherman Alexie, what are the interconnections between these three genres: poetry, short fiction and personal essay or memoir? What is the author telling us about his or our world? Where do the three intersect? I've also include the link to the poem's website above.
A Poem Written in Replication of My Father’s Unfinished Novel Which He Would Read to His Children Whenever He Was Drunk
Indian Summer. Leaves fallen
from government trees. They remind me of sex.
My mother and father dead.
My father fell
at Okinawa, shot by a Japanese sniper.
I do not hate the Japanese. My lover is
Japanese. She reminds me of sex.
Pregnant, my mother coughed
blood into a paper tissue.
She died two weeks after I was born.
Now my Japanese lover is pregnant. She whispers
stories to her stomach about a small island
in the Pacific where her father killed
an American soldier during the war.
My lover and I wonder aloud
if her father killed my father.
We shiver in the heat of it.
It reminds us of sex.
After my parents died, I lived
with my aunt, who had enough money
to send me to Catholic School. I was
the only Indian who went to Catholic School
on purpose. I learned to play piano.
I jitterbugged with Catholic girls
and their pale thighs.
They smelled like sex.
I fell in love with all of them.
I learned chord after chord. Sex.
Often, these days, I stand at the window
of my reservation home
while my Japanese lover sleeps alone
in the scattered bed. She is pregnant.
Her father and mother live
with the dead in Hiroshima.
My father and mother are also dead.
Piano. Chord after chord. Island.
That window. This window.
One Indian boy runs
blindly through the trees.
A shadow falls
over everything.
Sex. Leaf, Faith. Glass.
If I stand at the window long enough
I will see the long thread of history
float randomly through the breeze.
This is all I know about peace.
(Reprinted with permission from One Stick Song, Hanging Loose Press, 2000.)
A Poem Written in Replication of My Father’s Unfinished Novel Which He Would Read to His Children Whenever He Was Drunk
Indian Summer. Leaves fallen
from government trees. They remind me of sex.
My mother and father dead.
My father fell
at Okinawa, shot by a Japanese sniper.
I do not hate the Japanese. My lover is
Japanese. She reminds me of sex.
Pregnant, my mother coughed
blood into a paper tissue.
She died two weeks after I was born.
Now my Japanese lover is pregnant. She whispers
stories to her stomach about a small island
in the Pacific where her father killed
an American soldier during the war.
My lover and I wonder aloud
if her father killed my father.
We shiver in the heat of it.
It reminds us of sex.
After my parents died, I lived
with my aunt, who had enough money
to send me to Catholic School. I was
the only Indian who went to Catholic School
on purpose. I learned to play piano.
I jitterbugged with Catholic girls
and their pale thighs.
They smelled like sex.
I fell in love with all of them.
I learned chord after chord. Sex.
Often, these days, I stand at the window
of my reservation home
while my Japanese lover sleeps alone
in the scattered bed. She is pregnant.
Her father and mother live
with the dead in Hiroshima.
My father and mother are also dead.
Piano. Chord after chord. Island.
That window. This window.
One Indian boy runs
blindly through the trees.
A shadow falls
over everything.
Sex. Leaf, Faith. Glass.
If I stand at the window long enough
I will see the long thread of history
float randomly through the breeze.
This is all I know about peace.
(Reprinted with permission from One Stick Song, Hanging Loose Press, 2000.)
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Barbie-Q by Sandra Cisneros
Everyone, the deadline for responding to this blog is Monday, February 23rd. Thanks for your patience. I have added a link to the author's website, in which she begins a conversation about the structure of a story. Here are the questions, which relate to setting, conflict, plot and character:
1) How does the listing of descriptive details affect your understanding of the narrator?
2) What can you tell me about the narrator's personality?
3) What conflict(s) exist within the text?
4) What is the narrator saying to you about her community or her world?
5) Is there a plot structure? If so, what is it?
Cisneros.pdf
1) How does the listing of descriptive details affect your understanding of the narrator?
2) What can you tell me about the narrator's personality?
3) What conflict(s) exist within the text?
4) What is the narrator saying to you about her community or her world?
5) Is there a plot structure? If so, what is it?
Cisneros.pdf
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
"Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid
I've pasted "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid below because there were errors in the handout I gave you in class. Remember that you will write a summary of the short story and that you also have to read the Jerome Stern short story posted under this one. We will discuss both in class.
Girl by Jamaica Kincaid
Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn’t have gum on it, because that way it won’t hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it: is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school?; always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don’t sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to give directions; don’t eat fruits on the street–flies will follow you; but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button; this is how to make a button-hole for the button you have just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming; this is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so that it doesn’t have a crease; this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so that they don’t have a crease; this is how you grow okra–far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants; when you are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well, and this way they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming; be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don’t squat down to play marbles–you are not a boy, you know; don’t pick people’s flowers–you might catch something; don’t throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don’t like, and that way something bad won’t fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man, and if this doesn’t work there are other ways, and if they don’t work don’t feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn’t fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it’s fresh; but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?
Girl by Jamaica Kincaid
Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn’t have gum on it, because that way it won’t hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it: is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school?; always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don’t sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to give directions; don’t eat fruits on the street–flies will follow you; but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button; this is how to make a button-hole for the button you have just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming; this is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so that it doesn’t have a crease; this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so that they don’t have a crease; this is how you grow okra–far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants; when you are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well, and this way they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming; be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don’t squat down to play marbles–you are not a boy, you know; don’t pick people’s flowers–you might catch something; don’t throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don’t like, and that way something bad won’t fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man, and if this doesn’t work there are other ways, and if they don’t work don’t feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn’t fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it’s fresh; but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?
Flash Fiction: "Morning News"by Jerome Stern
Read the short short story below (feel free to use the link, if you wish) and post a comment or response to the following questions: What potential meanings lie behind the title, "Morning News"? What kind of people do you imagine the dying man and his wife to be? Why does the dying man purchase a 60 " television set?
For discussion in class, the blog and your reader's journal, think about the tone of the short story: was it tragic, humorous, sarcastic?
Should this have been a longer story? What, if anything, was missing?
__________________________
Morning News
by Jerome Stern
I get bad news in the morning and faint. Lying on tile, I think about death and see the tombstone my wife and I saw twenty years ago in the hilly colonial cemetery in North Carolina: Peace at last. I wonder, where is fear? The doctor, embarrassed, picks me up off the floor and I stagger to my car. What do people do next?
I pick up my wife. I look at my wife. I think how much harder it would be for me if she were this sick. I remember the folk tale that once seemed so strange to me, of the peasant wife beating her dying husband for abandoning her. For years, people have speculated on what they would do if they only had a week, a month a year to live. Feast or fast? I feel a failure of imagination. I should want something fantastic - a final meal atop the Eiffel Tower. Maybe I missed something not being brought up in a religion that would haunt me now with an operatic final confrontation between good and evil - I try to imagine myself a Puritan fearful of damnation, a saint awaiting glory.
But I have never been able to take seriously my earnestly mystical students, their belief that they were heading to join the ringing of the eternal spheres. So my wife and I drive to the giant discount warehouse. We sit on the floor like children and, in five minutes, pick out a 60-inch television, the largest set in the whole God damn store.
For discussion in class, the blog and your reader's journal, think about the tone of the short story: was it tragic, humorous, sarcastic?
Should this have been a longer story? What, if anything, was missing?
__________________________
Morning News
by Jerome Stern
I get bad news in the morning and faint. Lying on tile, I think about death and see the tombstone my wife and I saw twenty years ago in the hilly colonial cemetery in North Carolina: Peace at last. I wonder, where is fear? The doctor, embarrassed, picks me up off the floor and I stagger to my car. What do people do next?
I pick up my wife. I look at my wife. I think how much harder it would be for me if she were this sick. I remember the folk tale that once seemed so strange to me, of the peasant wife beating her dying husband for abandoning her. For years, people have speculated on what they would do if they only had a week, a month a year to live. Feast or fast? I feel a failure of imagination. I should want something fantastic - a final meal atop the Eiffel Tower. Maybe I missed something not being brought up in a religion that would haunt me now with an operatic final confrontation between good and evil - I try to imagine myself a Puritan fearful of damnation, a saint awaiting glory.
But I have never been able to take seriously my earnestly mystical students, their belief that they were heading to join the ringing of the eternal spheres. So my wife and I drive to the giant discount warehouse. We sit on the floor like children and, in five minutes, pick out a 60-inch television, the largest set in the whole God damn store.
Welcome to 3104 English Forum! Outside of the classroom, this is where you will exercise your perceptions, your critical analysis and your educated opinions about literature and the worlds it represents. You will find a way to see how those worlds connect to your own through energetic dialogue between you, your classmates, the literature, the authors, and, yes, me - your professor. It promises to be a very full room.
For those of you new the blogspace, feel free to peruse the other posts, in order to get a sense of what people have written in the past semester. For those of you already versed in the blogspace, please review what you wrote in the past and think about what you'd like to change. For instance, did you hold back? What there something left unsaid? Did you represent your true analysis of the literature or were you worried about what your classmates might think?
Enjoy!
Prof. Alberdeston
For those of you new the blogspace, feel free to peruse the other posts, in order to get a sense of what people have written in the past semester. For those of you already versed in the blogspace, please review what you wrote in the past and think about what you'd like to change. For instance, did you hold back? What there something left unsaid? Did you represent your true analysis of the literature or were you worried about what your classmates might think?
Enjoy!
Prof. Alberdeston
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