Course Recap for Thursday January 22, 2014

We took it back to the basics in order to make sure that we establish a common vocabulary and a basic understanding of how the English language works.  First we discussed the basic parts of speech.

Parts of Speech

• Nouns are person, places, or things.
• Verbs are actions or words that express existence such as is, was, has
• Sentences are a group of word that express a complete thought via a subject and a verb.  You must have both in order for it to be a sentence.  There must be some noun doing something in your sentence.
• Paragraphs are a collection of sentences centered around a specific idea or concept called the main idea.  
• These are the building blocks of most forms of writing.

Paragraphs are typically organized using a specific text structure.  They are organized to achieve a specific goal.  Examples of text structure include:

• Description
• Narration
• Definition
• Persuasion
• Process
• Cause and Effect
• Compare and Contrast

We will be focusing on description over the next week or so.

Then we talked about genre.  Genre is a category of writing with it's own set of rules and conventions.  Often times several different text structures can be used in the same genre of writing sometimes even the same paper.  Text messages can be descriptive, narrative, and or persuasive.  News articles may include paragraphs that describe a place, define a concept, and compare and contrast two related issues, all in the same article.  You will become a more versatile writer when you can determine what text structures are appropriate for what genres of writing and how do they change from genre to genre.

Homework due by the beginning of class Tuesday

• Read "Sister Flowers" by Maya Angelou pg 87-92
• Answer Questions for Close Reading on page 92 in a Google Document. 
• Your first two blog posts are due.  No prompt for this week.  Write about whatever you want.  Remember that your Friday post is your first post for your blog (unless you already completed one, then you're ahead of the game), so you might want to introduce yourself and give your audience an idea of who you are so they can know what to expect when they read your blog.