Berks or Wankers

Your assignment for next class is to write an 800 word essay on some kind of grammar, spelling or punctuation issue, such as the ones we talked about in class. The question you want to answer with your essay is why this kind of thing matters (or doesn't matter). Are you a berk or a wanker? For inspiration, use the Lynn Truss piece or check out these links:

Has Modern Life Killed the Semi-Colon

Grammar Vandal

Lost Art of the Letter

Text Speak in Academia

No more Scribbler pieces. As much as I enjoy reading them, I'd rather you concentrate on your last two assignments (start thinking about your writing experience in this class and at La Salle in general for your final assignment) and your revisions.

Remember, Mon is the last class to hand in any revisions for further comments. After Monday, save all your revisions for your final portfolio.

Poe assignment

For next class, please read two Edgar Allan Poe stories:

"The Masque of Red Death"

and

"Hop-Frog"

You can read them online at the links above or in any volume of Poe you may have. Please bring a copy of each story (either in a book or printed from an online source) to Monday's class for discussion.

Be prepared to talk about the stories, analyze them, etc. So it would be a good idea to take notes, underline, etc. We'll also be watching the Roger Corman movie version of "Masque," which also incorporates "Hop-Frog," released in 1964 and starring Vincent Price. You can watch a trailer on YouTube here.

Your Scribbler for next week is 200-250 words on the Phillies.

Discussion Questions for Eats Shoots and Leaves

Questions for the Eats Shoots and Leaves excerpt:

What's the difference between prescriptive and descriptive grammarians?

Which is Truss, prescriptive or descriptive?

Which are you?

Why has Truss written a book about correct punctuation? What do you think are her motivations and goals for this book?

How does she achieve her effect of getting the reader to identify with her cause?

What do you make of her analogy between "good manners" and punctuation?

Are you a berk or a wanker?

Is punctuation important? Why or why not?

The Zombie Apocalypse

George Romero has made four movies dealing with what happens when the dead rise and attack the living. In his version, it's a disaster for society. The end of the world. Most zombie movies and books take this approach. All four of Romero zombie films, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead are available at the Connelly Library.

Other resources you might use:

Zombie CSU by Jonathan Maberry
World War Z by Max Brooks

Some websites that are devoted to Zombies:

National Center for Reanimation Prevention and Control

Zombierama

Zombie Survival and Defense Wiki

Assignments for Oct 27

For your next Scribbler assignment: 200-250 words (although you may write lots more for this one) on your best or worst Halloween costume experience.

Your next assignment is to write 1500 words about the Zombie Apocalypse. Imagine a world in which the dead come to life and eat the living. Society collapses and chaos reigns. You can write a story about what happens when the dead come to life. Or you can write an account of how you'll survive (or perish). A news account of how it all happened. Funny. Serious. Anything goes. Be imaginative (and entertaining). Remember, we're writing about George Romero zombies, not the Voodoo ones. The best one will receive a prize, an authographed copy of Zombie CSU: the Forensics of the Living Dead by Jonathan Maberry. Maberry himself will read the pieces and be the judge. So bring two paper copies to class on Monday night, one for me to read and mark up for revision and one for our guest to read. Prize will be awarded on Nov 3.

And a reminder that horror novelist and writing teacher Maberry will be our guest for the second half of class on Oct 27.

A little later I'll post some helpful links for the Zombie Apocalypse assignment.

Also, for next class, read and be prepared to discuss the excerpts from Lynn Truss' Eats Shoots and Leaves. I'll post some questions for you to consider.

Conference schedule

Here are the dates and times we will meet next week for a little one-on-one conferencing. If for some reason you can't make your conference, try to let me know ahead of time (email or phone).

Mon Oct 13 after class:
Colin
Kearston
Andre
Brendan
Sal
Natalie

Tue Oct 14
Noon Ivy
12:15 Matt
12:30 Marianne

Thu Oct 16
12:15 Liz
12:30 Lauren

Assignments for Oct 13

Your TV review assignment: 800 words in the style of a professional newspaper review of a TV show or series. You can review an entire season of a past show or the beginning of a current season. Feel free to consult newspapers online if you are having difficulty in structure.

Your Scribbler assignment: 200-250 words on anything that Greg Frost talked about in class on Monday night. Give me your impression or reaction to an idea/topic that he mentioned. DON'T just give me a synopsis of his talk. I want your thoughts.

Assignments for Oct 6

For your Scribbler assignment, write about your Writing Space. 300 words (note this is longer than your usual Scribbler pieces).

You might find useful these Guardian profiles of Writers' Rooms.

For your other Assignment, please write 800 words or so on a personal encounter with a work of art. For this piece, you need to visit a museum and look at an original artwork (no reproductions) and then write a personal reaction to it. Your essay could be emotional, intellectual or philosophical. Just make it personal. And please include some background on the work beyond its title. Do a little research onthe artist, genre, the story of the work itself. Just a short paragraph explaining the work's provenance.

You might find interesting the Art Blog by Bob. The posts here are all first rate. And he has lots of useful art links, as well.

pendigestatery interludicule

For your Scribbler assignment, please come up with word histories for five of Blackadder's words missing from Johnson's Dictionary. Pick any five of these eight words/phrases:

contrafribblarities

anus-peptic

phrasmotic

compunctious

pericombobulation

interphrastically

pendigestatery interludicule

velocitous extramuralisation

Be as detailed as the examples of word histories that I read in class. Also, have fun with it.

Some more examples of real word histories:

World Wide Words' Weird Words

Fun with Words

or try looking looking up some books on Etymology, Word Origins or Word Histories in the library. The Connely Library has books by Charles Earle Funk and Wilfred Funk and Michael Quinion among many others.

book review links

For Monday night, could you also read this piece by Steve Wasserman in the Columbia Journalism Review. It's a long piece and you don't have to read the entire thing, but read the beginning, maybe skim the middle and read the ending. We'll talk about it on Monday night. You don't have to bring a print a copy of it, but do jot down some notes from it.

And for your edification:

Here is the Steve Weinberg guide to teaching book reviewing and here are John Updike's rules for reviewing that I read to you in class.

You may also find useful some of the links in the left column (just scroll down) of Critical Mass, the NBCC blog, including

George Orwell on book reviews.

On reviewers' notes.

this Q&A with my former editor at the Inq, Frank Wilson, opens by mentioning Heaney's poem "Digging."

this week's assignments

Hope you are all finished or have finished your books for review. By Sunday at noon, please email to me:

1) the opening paragraph of your review and
2) your review notes (a page or two of notes about what you will include in your review)

Don't be late with this. I need to prepare which ones we're going to use for class on Monday night. And I consider this AN ASSIGNMENT, meaning if you don't have these things to me by Sunday, I'll think you'll have lost your mind and you could fail the course. You are not allowed to miss assignments.

Please bring paper copies of this assignment to class, as well.

Also, your Scribbler assignment is to write about the Seamus Heaney poem, "Digging." A personal reaction, an analysis, anything you'd like. 200-250 words.

Assignments due Sept 15

For Monday night, please complete

Assignment #2 The Philly Columnist. Write a piece as if you were a columnist for a Philadelphia newspaper. Approx 900 words.

Scribbler piece: 200-250 word reaction to the Samuel Johnson quotation, "Invent first, and then embellish."

Read the book reviews linked in the previous blog post. Print them out, bring them to class and be prepared to talk about them. How are they put together?

You should also try to finish the book you are going to review, as that will be the next piece you write.

Dancing ON the Stars

For those of you who are Eagles fans, meet my new hero, Charlie Croasdale.

Scribbler piece

Your 200-250 word Scribbler piece for next week is a reaction to, or rumination on this quotation from Samuel Johnson:

"Invent first, and then embellish."

The quotation in context from Boswell's Life of Johnson:

"[I]n the labour of composition, do not burthen your mind with too much at once; do not exact from yourself at one effort of excogitation, propriety of thought and elegance of expression. Invent first, and then embellish. The production of something, where nothing was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or decoration of the thing produced. Set down diligently your thoughts as they rise, in the first words that occur; and, when you have matter, you will easily give it form: nor, perhaps, will this method be always necessary; for by habit, your thoughts and diction will flow together."

Book reviews

Here are a couple book reviews to print, read and prepare to discuss next week. Both are my own (I haven't found any from the papers this week that I like):

http://bibliothecary.squarespace.com/my-book-reviews/2008/4/29/varney-the-vampire-by-james-malcolm-rymer.html?printerFriendly=true

http://bibliothecary.squarespace.com/my-book-reviews/2008/2/24/sheppard-lee-by-robert-montgomery-bird.html?printerFriendly=true

I'll keep looking for a couple more, so keep your eyes peeled to the blog for another update.

Beware Google Chrome

Ed Champion, a great book critic and litblogger, has revealed that using the new Google browser, Chrome, may be hazardous to your intellectual property:

So Google has released a new browser called Chrome. But I’ll never use it. And it’s because Chrome’s EULA wishes to take anything that I type into my browser window (which would include, ahem, this blog entry, any email I access through the Web, and just about anything else involving the Internet) and give it to Google for them to use for any purpose

Read Ed's entire post here.

A few more book recs

Here are some more mystery/crime novels you might enjoy reviewing:

The Evil That Men Do by Dave White is a PI thriller that reads like a Die Hard movie crossed with a classic hard-boiled noir novel

Deception's Daughter by Cordelia Biddle, a historical mystery set in 1840s Philadelphia

Savage Night by Allan Guthrie, one of the best new Scottish crime writers, blood phobia, blood lust, katana swords and severed heads in Edinburgh

The Black Tower by Louis Bayard, a historical mystery featuring the legendary French detective Vidocq taking down the bad guys in 1818 Paris

Book Recommendations

If you are looking for a book to review for our class, here are some recommendations. Most of these authors are friends of mine and some may be visiting our class:

Severance Package by Duane Swierczynski, fast-paced thriller, cross between an office comedy, spies and a slasher flick. Author is a La Salle grad and a former editor of the Collegian.

Freezer Burn by DH Dublin (Jonathan McGoran), third book of a forensic series set in Philadelphia (think CSI: Philly)

Zombie CSU by Jonathan Maberry, actually a non-fiction book in which the author has interviewed doctors, police, homeland security and many more officials about what would happen if there really was a zombie attack. This book is a lot of fun.

Bad Moon Rising by Maberry, third book of a horror trilogy set in a small town (modeled after New Hope) near Philly.

Shadowbridge by Gregory Frost, fantasy/sci-fi novel. Check it out here.

Lord Tophet by Frost

Standing Still by Kelly Simmons, a dark literary novel about kidnapping.

Perec and Lipograms

For your edification, here are some links you may enjoy:

Georges Perec at The Modern World

Georges Perec: A User's Maual

Lipogram at Word-A-Day

More lipograms

Prof's lipogrammatic first post for Fall 08 Composition

Salutations to my pupils.

Your first tasks for this class:

1) 250 words on any past writing of yours in which you outdid or did vanquish all
prior trials OR 250 words on your worst writing task

2) 200-250 words on any topic that omits a symbol, fifth in actuality, of that ABC grouping of writing marks. To wit, you will carry off a task akin to this lipogrammatic book, although your work will contain only 200-250 words.

3) Look at handouts by CM and PD, columnists of Philly journals, and plan to talk about particular ways in which said authors did form said works and how CM and PD's work draws on urban Philly as inspiration.

4) Pick a book that you will form an opinion about for an upcoming class.

5) Pay your $10 instructional amount at bursar's or bookshop.

Hand in all work at our upcoming Monday class.