2. Me versus Myself
Me
• Me is an object pronoun, which
means that it refers to the
person that the action of a verb
is being done to, or to which a
preposition refers.
• They want me to study more.
• Tell me a story.
• Between you and me, he's right.
• Carol wants to meet with John
and me tomorrow.
• The book was written entirely by
me.
• Please call Hillary or me with
any questions.
Myself
• Myself is a reflexive or stressed
pronoun, which means that,
generally speaking, it should be
used in conjunction with the
subject pronoun I, not instead of
the object pronoun me.
• I bought myself a car.
• I myself started the company.
• I did the laundry by myself.
• I feel like myself again.
• Tired of waiting, I just did it
myself.
3. I versus Me
• John and me/I went to the store
• Me went to the store
• I went to the store
• John and I went to the store
• Maria went to the store with Chase and I/me.
• Maria went to the store with I
• Maria went to the store with me.
• Maria went to the store with Chase and me.
4. AGENDA
• In Class Writing: Indicating Significance
• Presentation: Essay #2 Review and questions
• Group Work/Discussion: Bragg: “Analyzing Writing
Strategies #1 p 36: Comparing
• In-Class Writing:
• Similes and Metaphors
• Time Transitions and Verb Tenses
• Integrating quotations MLA style
• Preparing the complete draft: SMG 52-53
6. • Show that the event was important
• Dramatize the event so readers can understand your
feelings about it.
• Show scenes from your point of view so readers can
identify with you.
• Tell us that the event was important
• Tell how you felt at the time of the experience
• Tell how you feel about it now, in reflection.
The Goal: Indicate the Event’s Significance
7. Before the opening ceremonies, Katniss meets with her stylist, Cinna, to prepare. Cinna
presses a button and a fancy meal of “Chicken and chunks of oranges cooked in a creamy
sauce laid on a bed of pearly white grain, tiny green peas and onions, rolls shaped like
flowers, and for dessert, a pudding the color of honey” appears (65). Katniss thinks about
how difficult it would be to get a meal like this in District 12:
What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press
of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for
sustenance if it were so easy to come by? What do they do all day, these people in the
Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of
tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?
I look up and find Cinna’s eyes trained on mine. ‘How despicable we must seem
to you,’ he says. (65)
Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement, but she agrees in her head. “He’s right,
though. The whole rotten lot of them is despicable” (65).
Although our world does not really consist of a Capitol and many districts, there are still
some people who live more comfortably than others. For people like me who live in privilege,
life is easy. Food is readily available if I want to eat. Outside of school, I don’t really have
many responsibilities. I don’t have to worry about how I will survive day to day. My family
has told me on many occasions to think about how lucky I am to live the way I do. In other
countries, life is hard. In Africa, children starve to death as a result of famine and poverty.
People my age in some countries are working more than my parents do. Katniss’s disgust
for the extravagant Capitol is similar to the disgust I felt for myself when I listened to
an account of one man’s visit to factories in China.
8. The Strategy: Recall Feelings and Thoughts
Answer these questions:
1. What were your expectations before the event?
2. What was your first reaction to the event as it was happening and right
after it ended?
3. How did you show your feelings? What did you say?
4. What did you want the people involved to think of you? Why did you
care what they thought of you?
5. What did you think of yourself at the time?
6. How long did these initial feelings last?
7. What were the immediate consequences of the event for you
personally?
Reread what you have written then write another sentence or two
about the event’s significance to you at the time it occurred.
9. The Strategy Continued: Explore Your Present Perspective
Answer these questions:
1. Looking back, how do you feel about this event? If you understand it differently
now than you did then, what is the difference?
2. What do your actions at the time of the event say about the kind of person you
were then? How would you respond to the same event if it occurred today?
3. Can looking at the event historically or culturally help explain what happened?
For example, did you upset racial, gender, or religious expectations? Did you feel
torn between identities or cultures? Did you feel out of place?
4. Do you see now that there was a conflict underlying the event? For example,
were you struggling with contradictory desires? Did you feel pressured by
others? Were you desires and rights in conflict with someone else’s? Was the
event about power or responsibility?
Pause to reflect on what you have written about your present perspective. After
reflecting, write another sentence or two, commenting on the event’s significance as
you look back on it.
10. Emphasizing the significance of your
event
• Readers do not expect you to begin your narrative essay
with the kind of explicit thesis statement typical of
argumentative or explanatory writing. If you do decide to
tell readers explicitly why the event was meaningful or
significant, you will most likely do so as you tell the story,
by commenting on or evaluating what happened, instead
of announcing the significance at the beginning. Keep in
mind that you are not obliged to tell readers the
significance, but you must show it through the way you tell
the story.
11. The Strategy
• Review what you wrote for Reflecting on the Event’s
Significance, and add another two or three sentences, not
necessarily summarizing what you already have written but
extending your insights into the significance of the event,
what it meant to you at the time, and what it means to you
now.
15. Metaphor: a literary figure of speech that describes a
subject by asserting that it is, on some point of comparison,
the same as another otherwise unrelated object.
All the world’s a stage
Simile: a figure of speech that directly compares two
different things, usually by employing the words “like” or
“as.”
I’ve been working like a dog
16. Bragg: “Analyzing Writing Strategies #1 p 36
• In your groups, review “Analyzing Writing
Strategies” #1.
• Locate the comparisons in paragraphs 1, 3,
7, 9, 13, and 16.
• Discuss the strength of metaphors and
similes and how you might use them in
your own writing.
17. • Formulate 5-7 metaphors or similes
appropriate to your essay.
19. Writers use a variety of different ways to indicate time
in a narrative. Some easy ways to indicate time are
to refer to the calendar, date, season, a holiday, or to
the time on a clock. Dawn, dusk, or other references
to the sun or the moon are also effective.
It’s especially important to use a time marker at the
beginning of a new paragraph when the narrative
shifts to a different point in time.
Writers often situate the event in terms of the date
or time. Brandt, for example, establishes in the
opening paragraph that the event occurred when
she went to the mall for “a day of last-minute
Christmas shopping.”
20. Use temporal transitions combined with appropriate verb
tenses to help readers follow a sequence of actions.
Temporal transitions such as after, before, in the
meantime, and simultaneously help readers keep track of
the sequence of actions:
When I got back to the Snoopy
section, I took one look at the
lines. . . . (Brandt, par. 3)
In this example, when signals
that one action followed another
in time: Brandt did not take a
look at the lines until she got
back to the Snoopy section.
21. • Here’s another example of
a simple one-thing-and-
then-another time
progression:
• We all spread out, banged
together some regular
snowballs, took aim, and,
when the Buick drew nigh,
fired. (Dillard, par. 7)
In this example, the word
when together with a series of
simple past-tense verbs
indicates that a sequence of
actions took place in a
straightforward chronological
order: they took their
positions, made snowballs,
aimed, the Buick came near,
they threw their snowballs.
22. Look for a paragraph (or paragraphs) in your essay that tells a
part of the story that relies on order. Add temporal words to help
the reader understand when events happened.
After, afterward, before, then, once, next,
last, at last, at length, first, second, etc., at
first, formerly, rarely, usually, another, finally,
soon, meanwhile, at the same time, for a
minute, hour, day, etc., during the morning,
day, week, etc., most important, later,
ordinarily, to begin with, afterwards,
generally, in order to, subsequently,
previously, in the meantime, immediately,
eventually, concurrently, simultaneously
23. Vocabulary Bonus Opportunity
• Select up to five of the words you got
wrong or left blank on the first
vocabulary test.
• Use each of these words correctly in
a sentence in your narrative.
• Underline the word when you submit
your final draft.
• For each word you use correctly and
appropriately in your essay, you get
one point back on your test.
25. You must introduce your quotation
• So, you have your long quotation, and you are all ready to
jump off of it to start your narrative portion of the essay.
There is a bit of a trick here, though. You can’t just begin
your essay with a quotation from the book. You have to
introduce it to the reader.
• There are a number of ways to do this. One way is to
briefly introduce the novel and the author. Another way is
to summarize the context of quotation before you present
it. Then after it, you can do a brief explanation of how it
connects to your own story. Or, you can use another
introduction, but you must have your own words before
you insert a quotation from the novel!
• Take a moment and write a brief introduction to your
quotation.
26. According to the St. Martin's Guide, there are three
main ways to set up a signaling phrase:
1. With a complete sentence followed by a colon.
• The effects of Auld's prohibition against teaching Douglass to read were
quite profound for Douglass: "It was a new and special revelation" (29).
2. With an incomplete sentence, followed by a comma.
• Douglass argues that Auld's prohibition against literacy for him was a
profound experience, saying, "It was a new and special revelation" (29).
3. With a statement that ends in that.
• The importance of Auld's prohibition to Douglass is clear when he states
that "It was a new and special revelation" (29).
27. Using Signal Phrases:
• One common error a lot of people make when they include a
quotation is that they tend to put the quotation in a sentence
by itself. Unfortunately, we cannot do this. We need to use
what Diana Hacker calls a signal phrase to introduce the
quote and give our readers a context for the quote that
explains why we are taking the time to include it in our
paper.
28. Take, for example, this section from a student
paper:
Incorrect: Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement, but she
agrees in her head. “He’s right, though. The whole rotten lot of
them is despicable” (65).
Correct: Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement, but she
agrees in her head: “He’s right, though. The whole rotten lot of
them is despicable” (65).
Or
Correct: Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement. However,
she thinks, “He’s right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is
despicable” (65).
29. Long quotations
• For quotations that are more than four lines of prose,
place quotations in a free-standing block of text and omit
quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, with
the entire quote indented one inch from the left margin;
maintain double-spacing. Only indent the first line of the
quotation by an additional quarter inch if you are citing
multiple paragraphs. Your parenthetical citation should
come after the closing punctuation mark. When quoting
verse, maintain original line breaks. (You should maintain
double-spacing throughout your essay.)
30. The classroom was noisy as the MUN students filed in[. . .] Mr. Mustard
began in the middle of the program, and the room quieted down as we strained
to hear the narrator’s voice:
I look up at the buildings, these immense buildings They are so
enormous. And along the edges of each enormous building are
the nets. Because right at the time that I am making this visit,
there has been an epidemic of suicides at the Foxconn plant.
Week after week, worker after worker has been climbing all the
way up to the tops of these enormous buildings, and then
throwing themselves off, killing themselves in a brutal and public
manner, not thinking very much about just how bad this makes
Foxconn look. Foxconn's response to month after month of
suicides has been to put up these nets. (Mr. Daisey and the
Apple Factory)
For example, when citing more than
four lines of prose, use the following
example:
Hanging
indent for
long
quotation: 10
spaces
31. When citing two or more paragraphs, use block quotation format, even if
the passage is fewer than four lines. Indent the first line of each quoted
paragraph an extra quarter inch.
Katniss thinks about how difficult it would be to get a meal like this in District 12:
What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food
appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I
now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy
to come by? What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol,
besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new
shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?
I look up and find Cinna’s eyes trained on mine. ‘How
despicable we must seem to you,’ he says. (65)
Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement, but she agrees in her head:
“He’s right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is despicable” (65).
Although our world does not really…..
Indent 12.5
Indent 12.5
33. The Essay: The Beginning
• Do I have my quotation?
• Have I introduced my quotation?
• Have I explained it?
• Do I have a transition to my own story?
• Have I aroused readers’ curiosity?
• Can my readers identify with me? Should I tell them
a few things about myself?
• Should I do something unusual, such as beginning
in the middle of the action or with a funny bit of
dialogue?
34. The Story
• Should I follow strict chronological order? Or
would flashback or flashforward make the
narrative more interesting?
• Do I have narrative action and dialogue that
intensify the drama?
• Can I add description to detail or dramatize the
story?
• Do I have a climax that builds appropriately?
35. The Ending
• In my effort to conclude with some reflections on meaning,
have I tagged on a moral? Do I sound too sentimental?
• If I want readers to think well of me, should I conclude
with a philosophical statement, as Wolff does? Should I
end with a paradoxical statement like Dillard? Should I be
self-critical to avoid seeming smug?
• Have I emphasized the events continuing significance in
my life? Have I contrasted my remembered and current
feelings?
• Have I framed the essay by echoing back to my long
quotation? Do I give readers a sense of closure?
36. HOMEWORK
• Read: Catch up on HG (You should be through chapter 12).
• Write: Revise your draft of Essay #2, including:
• Endeavor to format it MLA style
• Make a works cited page for your essay.
• Blog Prompt #6: Post two versions of your conclusion: one that
shows the significance of the event and one that tells the reader
directly.
• Study: Vocabulary (1-7)
• Bring: Two clean, complete copies of your draft; SMG
