Literary Paragraph Sample

I wrote this paragraph just now to provide a model for you of a literary paragraph.


As you read it,  please consider these aspects of it:

*   topic sentence (& controlling idea)
*   support   (including quotes)
*  conclusion
*  grammar and vocabulary

AP5 Section 2
Paragraph Assignment
30 Jan 2012


A Critical  Decision

In the short story, “The Lady or the Tiger”, the accused is faced with a dilemma. Should he trust the princess whom he loves and open the door on the right she has gestured towards, or should he open the other door?  One door hides a deadly tiger and the other door holds a beautiful lady.    Based on the characterization of the princess in the story, the accused should choose the other door.    If the princess wishes not to lose her lover to another woman, she will direct him towards death via the door behind which hides a tiger.   If she loves him selflessly, she will also lose him, but to another woman rather than death. The story did not delve sufficiently into the love between the princess and the accused, so it is difficult to know how deep the love is.  However, the writer has certainly given us glimpses of the princess’s  jealousy and power as when he describes her as “possessed of more power, influence and force of character than anyone … “ (13) and that in relation to the lady behind one door “with all the intensity of savage blood transmitted to her through long lines of wholly barbaric ancestors, she hated the woman who blushed and trembled behind that silent door “ (14).    This princess is the daughter of a semi-barbaric king and so we can suspect that much of his blood and character will be in her.  She will not allow herself to lose her lover to another lovely woman.   The accused will know which is stronger,   the princess’s jealousy or her love, and should choose appropriately.

281 words

Student Learning Support

It is important to use these resources outside of class time to develop areas of your English that are weak.    For example, some of you definitely need to work on your pronunciation, which the learning centre can help you with.    Most of you need to improve your writing.  For some of you, your weak writing will prevent you from passing this course.   Get some help.

Learning Center

Monday 11:00 – 3:00  

  Tuesday 11:00-3:30     

 Wednesday  12:30-5:30     

   Thursday 11:00-3:30    

Learning Centre Writing Support

          Monday                       Tuesday                          Wednesday                     Thursday

Joy 10:30-2:30 255/282	Ian 10:30-12:30 255/105	Closed	Ian 10:30-12:30 255/105
	Mary Jane 1:30-2:30 305/474	Mary Jane 1:00-4:00 305/474	Closed

       

Mondays and Tuesday/Thursday mornings are on a drop-in basis, but students can sign up for Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons through mywconline. 

International Academic Writing Support  (In the Library)

Monday Closed 

  Tuesday  Suzy  10:00-12:00;    1:00-3:00    

Wednesday Closed

      Thursday     Suzy  10:00-12:00;  1:00-3:00  

     

  

At the end of week 3

Wow!  Three weeks have passed quickly.   You seem to be getting deeper into all this stuff.   I hope by deeper this means increased understanding, not deeper confusion.    If you are perplexed, please raise your hand and ask a question.     What makes studying literature interesting is all the uncertain answers and varied interpretations.    We are all different and so how we see the world and the stories (narratives) that it is comprised of will be similarly different.   The important thing is that you are able to justify and explain (in English via speaking and/or writing) why you believe something is so.

I think that many of you are still stuck in translating mode -- back and forth between your first language and English.    This will hamper your progress.      You need to develop your vocabulary so that this is not necessary and shift your thinking so that you consciously avoid or minimize it.

Here is a very good website where you can assess your vocabulary knowledge.

Try the following vocabulary tests to assess your vocabulary knowledge.  Read the instructions carefully.
Do not think too much or use a dictionary.  When you are done, click 'score' in the left hand column. Do not click 'reset'.  Note down your score.   You should score very highly.

Level 1000 Vocabulary Test

When you are done, click 'score

Then go  to


Other Levels Vocabulary Tests

and take all the tests (level 2000, level 3000, level 5000, university word list, level 10,000).  When you are done, click 'score' in the left hand column. Do not click 'reset'.  Note down your score.       

 At AP5,  you should have mastery (85%+) of the first 3000 words,  and a fair bit (50-70%) of 4000-5000 words, plus the academic words.    This is vital for entering into academic studies.

For more vocabulary pages,  visit this page on my  ESL website.



Finally,  your homework for  next Tuesday.

1.   Don't forget that the outline plus summary of the money lecture from COC is due from each group.

2.   Start studying the next 10 academic words (erode --> mature)

3.   In Style & Substance --  Do exercises "Style and Literary Devices" pp.48-49; "Imagery and Symbolism"
      p.50;  "Vocabulary Development" p.51-52 ; Do Exercise 5 pp.289-290   and   Read & annotate (no
      exercises) pp.178-181.

Sample AP5 Student Literary Essay

This piece of AP5 student writing provides an excellent example of what a literary essay should look like.

You can learn a lot by looking at the content and structure of this essay.     It may help to zoom in (increase the viewing size) in order to read it.

 

Active Reading

Many of the strategies you employ (or should employ) in listening,  you can also employ in reading.   Good reading is active reading that engages the brain,not just the eyes.



Here are some useful tips for active critical reading from Harvard Library  
 

A key strategy is called 'annotation', which can be done with a pencil or pen, or even digitally on tablet computers or smartphones.      As the Harvard Library tips note,  and I agree,  throw away your highlighter.
Remember that reading is a dialogue between you the reader and the writer of the text.    I will show you in Thursday's class how I annotate and therefore how I recommend you annotate when you read.

Watch for more information about reading in this post or other blog posts and in a forthcoming page on the course website (or my website).

What is listening and how can it be improved?

What exactly is listening?   How does the process occur?   How can we improve our listening?

These are important questions to consider as it is estimated that 40-50% of the time we are engaged in listening of some type or other.

The first point to understand is that we listen with our brain, not our ears.   If our brain is turned off or only engaged in a limited way, then our comprehension will be similarly limited.   Good listening is active listening.

This relates to the concept of processing (the mental bit) the sounds that enter our ears (the physical bit).    We engage in two types of processing:


1.   top down processing -- using our previous knowledge of the topic the words are concerned with;   having a purpose for listening;   predicting what will be said;  here we use a lot of ‘chunking’

2.    bottom up processing -- this is very inefficient and we all do it to varying degrees -- we attend to the individual sounds and words;


Comprehension, which can range from 0% to 100%,  occurs as a combination of the two processes.     

So why on a listening test do you maybe only score 50%?

(Of course, this may be partly due to poor reading or test-taking skills, but that is besides the point of this page.)

The biggest barriers to listening comprehension are:

1.  poor vocabulary -- if we don’t know the important (and common) words, then we are stuck.

2.  poor pronunciation -- if we don’t know how words are supposed to sound, then we can’t recognize them.   Spoken correctly, they may not be as we say them and hence believe  they should sound like.

3.  poor accommodation strategies:

1.  words are spoken in connected strings  -- they are often slurred and said quickly whereby they blend together ( ex.  for getting vs.  forgetting; watchagonnado?)
2. we often don’t catch bits of what we hear, but we can guess or infer what we miss based on context -- like filling in a puzzle

 4. unfamiliarity with different speaking formats

5.   weak knowledge of the world and its many different domains



If you want to improve your listening, then you must attend to the weaknesses just discussed.

As you listen, you should be interpreting what you hear.   People create understanding of oral input in different ways because people are all different.   As you listen, you should be making a story and hence meaning out of the various strings of sounds/words.


Here are the top ten macro strategies to improve your listening ability.

1.   Listen to stories --  this develops the top down processing skills.

2.   Practice cloze and dictation activities -- this develops the bottom up skills

3.   Do extensive listening -- on many different topics; from many different voices; from varied  
formats    (ex.  news; interviews; lectures; songs)

4.   Immersion -- surround yourself with English -- minimize L1 oral input; minimize translation

5.   Improve your vocabulary -- first the top 3000 words; then the top 5000 words; then the top 8000
words

6.   Study the English sounds -- productive and receptive phonetics

7.   Interact in English -- have a friend with whom you must speak English; speak to homestay
     family frequently

8.   Listen and make a summary -- then check with someone else

9.   Practice listening activities with a partner

10.  Use the many different listening resources on the Internet



Here is a list of many micro strategies: (from Listening and good language learners; Goodith White in Lessons from Good Language Learners, ed. Carol Griffiths.  Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. 2008)


1.   Cognitive strategies:   mental activities learners use to remember and develop language
     and enhance comprehension

• predicting what a piece of listening will be about, or what language/information will come next;
• drawing inferences when information is not stated or has been missed;
• guessing meaning of unknown words
• using intonation an pausing to segment words and phrases;
• other micro-strategies to do with processing language -- identifying stressed words, listening for markers, listening for structures, etc.;
• using schematic and contextual information (top down) together with linguistic information (bottom up) to arrive at meaning;
• visualizing the situation they are hearing about; piecing together meaning from words that have been heard.

2.  Metacognitive strategies:  these are activities learners use to organize, monitor and   
    evaluate how well they are understanding.

• focusing attention, concentrating and clearing the mind before listening;
• applying an advance organizer before listening (I think the topic is going to be … so …);
• going in with a plan (I’m going to listen for … words I know/key words);
• getting used to speed and finding ways of coping with it;
• being aware when they are losing attention and refocusing concentration;
• deciding what the main purpose of listening is;
• checking how well they have understood;
• taking notes;
• paying attention to the main points;
• identifying listening problems and planning how to improve them.

3.   Socio-affective strategies: activities in which learners interact with other people in order to
     help their comprehension and encourage themselves to continue listening.

• asking for clarification;
• checking that they have got the right idea;
• providing themselves with opportunities for listening;
• motivating themselves to listen;
• lowering anxiety about listening;
• providing a personal response to the information or ideas presented in the piece of listening;
• empathizing with the speaker and trying to understand the reason for a particular message.

Your listening ability will not improve overnight, but an organized and effective strategy implemented over many months can indeed have dramatic results.  

Recommended movies

If you want lots of context and sources for discussing and analysing literature, you can't go wrong with watching good movies.    A good movie has excellent characterization, setting and plot with many of the elements of literature you are studying.

Here are some:    (click the picture or title to link to information about the movies)




  

Gladiator







The Housemaid

 (This 2010 Korean thriller is an excellent example of conflict.  You can watch it on Netflix on your computer, smartphone or ipad or even linked in TV.)







Planes, Trains and Automobiles  

 (This is one of my favourite comedies.   The setting changes a lot.  You see dynamic characterization clearly in this funny story.  It can be seen on Netflix as well.)
                                                   

This is an excellent multimedia resource for movies and tv shows.  Unlimited viewing for $8 per month.

Learning about the main elements of literature

Remember the 7 main literary elements?  SPCT SPN     Setting - Plot - Character - Theme (the first four) and
Style - Point of View - Narrative.

Style and Substance gives a good overview of these elements and they are reviewed as they are applied to the many stories and poems in the text.  But it is not enough for you to fully understand them.  Don't forget that these will apply to your own first language's literature.  You may have studied these 7 elements already in your native language and with your native literature.

For the purposes of English,  it is helpful to do a little more reading in English about these elements.  This will help you to speak and write about them in English.  This is quite easy to do now via Google.  Just Google, for example,  "literature  theme"  or "literature plot"  and you will get many results, some good, some not.

Here are some useful websites to further elucidate these main elements.


Theme:

Theme in Literature   (a slideshow)

What is a theme in literature

101 Common Themes


Setting:


What is setting?    (a very good website about the other elements as well)

The Use of setting in literature    (a slideshow)

How to analyse setting in literature


Plot:


The basic plots in literature

Plot Diagram   (try the neat activity on this page)

Plot in literature  (a detailed power point presentation)


Character:


A short article on characterization

Another short article about character

A quiz on characterization terminology


A Glossary of Literary Terms:     Here


There is never enough time to learn everything there is to know about what we want to to know about.   A good learners goals should be to:

*  achieve sufficient understanding
*  improve understanding
*  gain new ideas and insights
*  connect what you learn to your life and the world

For Tuesday

I've added a listening page to my ESL website -- look here

Some of you were absent on Thursday, so here is the homework you should do for Tuesday:

1.   Study AWL Sublist 9 -- first 10 (accommodate --> coincide), and second ten (commence --> distort)

2.   Prepare sentences on AWL New Words worksheet  (attainable --> coincidental) : 8 sentences

3.   Complete Vocabulary in Context exercise in S&S (#11-20; pp.40-41)

4.    Write a paragraph -- S&S p.41 Wrap Up Activity #1
       I recommend you use a computer as it will be easier to read plus fix any spelling errors.

5.   Read S&S pp.282-289

Student 30 second introduction videos available to view/download

Your 30 second introductions on video are now available for you to copy onto a memory card to view at home or watch on a computer on campus.      It is very important to know how you present yourself in speaking and body language as you will be making numerous speaking presentations in AP5 and you need to know your strengths and weaknesses.

To find them,  open  My Computer and find Network Drives -- watershed on "discovery".  It should already be mapped for you.    This is a share drive for students and teachers.   Anyone with a student number can upload or download files to this drive.   But, it gets erased every Friday.   Of course,  your videos are in the file folder entitled AP5.


These are .mov files, which means that you need Quicktime or a media player like VLC Player to view them.
MS Mediaplayer will not work.   They are free programs you can easily download.

For Thursday's class

To enter the full companion website for Style and Substance, you need to go to this website:

Style and Substance Companion Website  and enter the user name and password from inside the front
cover of your textbook.

Don't forget to explore the companion website for College Oral Communication 4
here


Homework for Thursday:

1.   COC -- to end of page 23 -- Do exercise 9; preview exercise 10
      It is expected that you will have read all the pages up to this and
      done your thinking and annotation.

2.   Academic Word List -- think about and begin to apply the 10 vocabulary
      study methods I showed you.    For Thursday, understand the meaning of
      the first ten words (Column 1 of Sublist 9 -- accomodate --> coincide),
      perhaps including synonyms/antonyms,  knowing other common word forms,
      and be able to use the words in a sentence.

3.    S&S -- you should have already finished p.36 -- for Thursday you must do
       p.37 (#1-4); p.38  (#2-8); p.39 (#1-5)

In Thursday's class,  you will become experts at the story, "The Lady and the Tiger"
plus listen to a lecture on CD and take notes.    We will spend about 30 minutes
about the academic word list words.

On Thursday, I you will need to return your Red Riding Hood essay and diagnosis,
plus your reading test.

See you all then.

Literary Terms from "Style and Substance"

Here is the list in a spreadsheet format which you may find helpful for studying.

Literary Terms


And here is the list in graphic form.  (Sorry, my ipod couldn't take a clearer picture.)

Thanks to JoJo for reminding me to put this up on the blog.  I hope you have a bit of time to review it before bed.

A tremendous story of success and failure within a historical context that all people interested in things great and noble should be aware of.

Pericles was a great statesman who used his gift of words to create a great city.   Words and deeds worked together beautifully.

Homework for Tuesday

1.   Prepare for Literary Terms Test -- review elements of literature in S & S (pp.2-14)

2.   Read S&S pp.16-17; 30-36

3.   Read COC pp.9-11

4.   Look at the Academic Word List (Sublists 9 & 10)   You can find them here

Thinking about symbolism -- colours

Colours connote stuff.   What does this mean?   It means that they imply or suggest feelings and ideas.
Colours are an integral element in visual media such as marketing and movies.   A good writer will employ colours in story to support his theme.  


It is important to consider context when using or discussing the meaning of colours as they can vary across cultures.


Here are some useful websites that provide information on the symbolism of colour within a Western cultural context:


Colour Symbolism and Culture

Colour Meaning

Colour Meaning and Symbolism Charts    (This provides detailed vocabulary associated with colours)

How to annotate (aka scribble in the margins)

Here is a classic example of annotation.  I believe this was the director's original annotation of the script for the movie, "The Godfather".     (http://twitpic.com/829mvk)

Class Rules (student generated)

1.   Use 100% English (except sometimes with your dictionary).

2.   Be on time ("5 minute exception").

3.   Be respectful of each other (teacher included).

4.   No phone calls or texting.

5.  Complete and submit assignments on time.

6.  Don't cheat.

7.   No sleeping in class!

   

AP5 Homework for Thursday's class

Hello students.

I made an error on the whiteboard.   Your reading homework is Style and Substance pages 2 - 14 (not 2 - 4).

Don't forget to complete and e-mail me the survey by 8 P.M. Wed.

And there will be a "Name & Noun" quiz on Thursday.   Make sure you know your classmates names and the nouns they associated themselves with today.

Student Survey Assignment

Please complete the student survey here by one of two ways (you choose) --

1.   copy, paste and complete in the body of an e-mail  or

2.   copy, paste and complete as a word processing document and attach this document to an e-mail


E-mail this survey to me at the e-mail address on the course outline.   I will send a reply once I receive the e-mail.   If you don't receive the reply, it means you screwed up somewhere and I didn't get your e-mail.

Welcome to AP5 - 2 Day with Les Barclay

Welcome students to what is hopefully your last ESL class before entering academic university studies.   I know many of you already and you know me, so there won't be big surprises.  

The four main thrusts of this 2-day part of the course are:
*  Listening
*  Speaking
*  Literature interpretation and analysis via reading and writing
*  Vocabulary -- mastery of 90 words from the academic word list

It is a very challenging course that will focus on getting you to think and analyse.   You will be refining many of your skills rather than learning something entirely new, although some of you may not be familiar with literary analysis.  

I encourage you to engage in dialogue with me both in class and in cyberspace.   It is essential that you understand what you are doing.

Also, I highly recommend signing-up for/joining these two internet websites/newsletters:

vocabulary.com     and   about.com:ESL


Good luck.  Enjoy the journey.