Welcome!

Welcome to JCJC if you are a new student. Welcome back if you've been around a while. Class announcements and helpful tips will be posted on this page from time to time, so keep checking back.

For now, we just need to make sure everyone has accessed the course syllabus.

Composition 1

World Literature

I look forward to working with each of you. Drop by my office or call or email any time if you have questions or feel like you need a little extra help. I'll be glad to see you.

Poetry Explications

Poetry explication sample

Poetry explication sample

Poetry explication tips and guidelines

Poetry Links

The next assignment in comp 2 is a poetry response paper. For this, you need to pick out either a contemporary poem or song lyrics that you like and think you can make a point about.

Here are some links to places that places that provide good, contemporary poetry online:

Poetry Daily

Academy of American Poets

Poetry Magazine

Poetry 180

The Internet Poetry Archive


Browse around until you find something you like, then print it out and bring it to class. Enjoy!

Sample MLA Paper

The sample research paper we discussed in class is available online here.

Lead-in Verbs

Remember to vary your lead-ins to your sources. Also remember to always attribute information to your sources both in the wording of your sentences and in the parenthetical citations. Never stick quotes in a paper without telling where they came from. Although the citations are necessary, they are not enough. You must also blend the quotes into the paper by using proper transitions or introductions.

For a list of lead-in verbs, look on page 591 in the Harbrace book. You can also find suggested lead-in verbs here or here. These will help you properly attribute your information to your sources without repeating "says, says, says" over and over or "according to, according to, according to."

Research Checklist

Research papers are due April 11 for Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes and April 12 for Tuesday/Thursday classes.

Before turning in the paper, go through this checklist to be sure everything is in order.

Conferences

All comp 2 students need to have an individual conference with me during the week of April 4-8. The conferences will take place in my office, 113 Academic Support.

Bring a copy of your completed research paper rough draft with you along with your sources and your corrected works cited page. Be prepared to ask specific questions about your paper.

Appointment schedules will be posted outside my office door after Wednesday, March 30.

Failure to attend the conference will count as one absence from class.

Typing Outlines

If you want to avoid that thing Microsoft Word does when it messes up your outlines as you are typing them by trying to format them for you, follow these steps:

1) Go toTools.
2) Click AutoCorrect.
3) Click AutoFormat as you type.
4) Click off the check mark next to automatic numbered lists.
5) Click OK.

That should do it. If it doesn't, go back into AutoCorrect and turn off ten or twelve more things while you yell at the computer. :)

Citing Radio Transcripts

Here's a sample MLA citation for a transcript of a radio broadcast found in Newsbank.

Paraphrase and Summary Assignment

Assignment handout.

Paraphrase format handout.

Summary format handout.

Acceptable Paraphrases

Corning Community College offers tips on correct paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing is one of the most likely places that accidental plagiarsim might occur. Be very careful to learn how to correctly use your sources.

Types of Plagiarism

Plagiarism.org has a good handout on various types of plagiarism.

Remember that plagiarism can be either intentional or unintentional. While deliberate plagiarism is a greater crime, even accidental plagiarism is a big problem and can cause anything from failure in school to legal trouble.

Citing Sources from Ebsco and Newsbank

If you've lost your copy of the Ebsco handout, it is posted online here.

All other samples should be in your research book. Make sure you stick to the MLA chapters, however. If you are looking in the APA chapters, you will do the whole thing incorrectly.

If you have a source that you cannot find in your textbook, ask me about it. I'll look it up for you in the MLA Handbook.

Never, ever try to make it up or guess. As many papers as I've done in MLA format myself, I still ALWAYS look up how to cite it before I put it on a works cited page. That's what the book is for. You aren't expected to memorize citation formats. You're just expected to follow the examples in the book.

Tiresias

World lit students--

Tiresias is the blind prophet of Ancient Greece who shows up in at least two of our reading assignments, The Odyssey and Oedipus the King. He's also one of the most interesting characters in Greek Mythology.

Read about Tiresias here and here.

Opposing Viewpoints

Comp 2 students--

Our library subscribes to a series of books called Opposing Viewpoints. The books divide general topics, like gun control and civil rights, into a compilation of articles on opposite sides of the issue. Students often use these books for research papers. In fact, they are so popular that it's often difficult to actually find them on the shelf during research paper season.

Now the Opposing Viewpoints company is providing many of the same articles online, and we have access to those articles through MELO.

To get to the Opposing Viewpoints articles, go to this page and type in the same password that gets you into Magnolia and NewsBank. Hit proceed, then at the bottom of the next page, click on Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center.

Because we are doing current events topics, you may not find an Opposing Viewpoints subject that directly corresponds to your research paper. However, you might find some articles you can use anyway as background information. It's worth a look.

Google News

Comp. 2 students--

Because we are doing current event topics for the research papers, a good idea for keeping up to date with your topic is to go to Google News and sign up for News Alerts.

Plagiarism

Learn how to avoid it.

Plagiarism is sort of like driving someone else's car without permission. It can land you in a world of trouble. Don't assume you know what's acceptable and what's not when using sources for papers. Look it up, and ask a lot of questions.

Louise Gluck

Louise Gluck is a contemporary poet who wrote a series of poems based on The Odyssey and on Greek Mythology.

You can read some of her poems here.

Be sure to read the ones that have Circe or Odysseus in the title. How do the poems reflect Gluck's interpretation of the story and of these two characters? How does the Circe in the poems compare to the way you viewed Circe after reading The Odyssey?

Why We Love Epics

Whether you know it or not, you too love epics. People have always loved epics and always will. They are exciting. They bring us adventure of the sort we’ll never see in real life. They have suspense. They have drama. They have romance. They have violence, seduction, poetry, magic, and everything else the human heart responds to for the good or the bad.

Epics are, at their core, stories of the adventures of heroes. They have to be larger than life in some way. There has to be something massive at stake in the success or failure of the hero. And the adventures all have to tie together toward a common goal. If it’s got all that plus suspense, excitement, and so forth, it’s an epic.

Mostly we think of things like The Odyssey and Beowulf when we hear epic. Those are the stories everyone reads in school. There’s a reason for that. Those ancient epics like Gilgamesh, The Iliad, and The Aeneid, are where it all started, and what they contributed to the world of literature has remained, throughout all the centuries, the biggest crowd-pleaser of any literary form ever.

Think about some of the epics of our own time. The Ancient World contributed written language to the generations to come, and the 15^th Century gave us the printing press, but the 20^th Century made its mark in film, and that is where we find many, many modern day epics. Remember, the epic is high entertainment as much as it is high art. We don’t get too many parties these days with a hired bard sitting in the corner reciting the history of our people in dactylic hexameter, but we sure do love to gather in big groups to watch the movies.

Case in point, the Star Wars movies represent classic epics of our time. Check it out. Go read the characteristics of the epic and the epic hero and see how many of them sound like Star Wars. That is exactly what George Lucas intended to create, and he said so himself.

Another set of beloved movies, which were actually beloved books long before they made it to the big screen, is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Epic, epic, epic. Aragorn is the closest thing you’ll find to Odysseus since the days of the Roman Empire. He’s brave, cunning, noble, favored by the gods (or Elves as the case may be), and the fate of the world rests with his success, as it does with Frodo’s.

Then there are the Harry Potter books/movies, proving that epics aren’t just for adults (and Harry Potter isn’t just for children). Not only does HP have all of the characteristics of the epic, the stories are also chop full of allusions to Greek Mythology and to ancient epics. The scar on Harry’s forehead is in the shape of a lightening bolt, the symbol of Zeus’s power. Minerva is the name of one of Harry’s teachers. It’s also the Roman name for Athena who is the Greek goddess of wisdom and justice in war. Athena just happens to be Odysseus’ patron. She looks out for him, and it is no coincidence that she appears as a character in Harry Potter. Then there is Hermes, the owl, who shares his name with Hermes, the messenger of the gods. And Fluffy, the three-headed dog, who bears amazing resemblance to Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards the gates of Hades and who can also be lulled to sleep with music. Hermione, Harry’s friend, is the namesake of Hermione, the daughter of Helen and Menelaus. There are many, many more of these likenesses. Read The Odyssey. Then read Harry Potter. You’ll be astounded by how alike they are.

Indiana Jones is an epic. Spiderman is an epic. The Wizard of Oz is an epic. The Matrix is an epic. The list goes on and on.

Two recent films that were directly based on The Odyssey are Cold Mountain and Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? The book Cold Mountain, a Civil War novel, won the National Book Award and made the bestseller list too. That just shows that a good epic, even in our own time, wins both respect and popularity. Oh, Brother is an adaptation of The Odyssey into Depression Era Mississippi. If you haven’t seen either of these movies, I highly recommend both. But with Cold Mountain, you should read the book first.

The point is that epics appeal to the human spirit at all levels. They have something to teach. They have thrills to offer. They play on our emotions. Most importantly, they inspire.

Epics exist because real life isn’t nearly that exciting, and when life does get exciting, often things don’t work out very well. Epics are there to remind us to believe in the extraordinary capacity of the human spirit and the human imagination to overcome. They make us believe in heroes. They make us believe that there is something inside ourselves that can rise to greatness as the situation requires. They cheer us up. They comfort us. They give us something to dream about.

Epics perform several important functions. In ancient days when there was no written language, epics were a primary means of preserving the history and the values of a people. They also bonded nations together with a common pride in culture and heritage. They inspired people to do their duty and to work together in all of the various roles necessary to have a thriving civilization. They made people believe in the heroes inside themselves.

Not much has changed in 3000 years. People laugh, cry, love, and hope in the same ways they always have. And that is why we love epics.

Spring Graduates

This announcement came out on the email list serve. Spread the word.

ATTENTION: SPRING GRADUATES!

Students who will meet requirements for graduation in May should come to the Library Museum Room February 8th or 9th. Applications for graduation will be taken between 8:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Students must apply for graduation to receive a diploma. There is a $30.00 fee required upon receipt of the application. Students who are eligible to charge the fee to Pell Grants or who wish to use credit cards must bring documentation from the Student Accounts (Business) Office prior to completing applications. STUDENTS MUST APPLY FOR GRADUATION TO RECEIVE A DEGREE.

Students may come by the Records Office prior to February 8th to pick up the necessary paper work.

Thanks,

Student Records

477-4036

Black History Program

There's a special program, Friday, Feb.11 at 10:30 in the Home Health Auditorium. The guest speaker is Brig. Gen. George B. Price. I've heard him speak before, and it was well worth the time. I encourage anyone who can to attend. Student Services will provice attendance verifications for anyone who needs them for class.

Harry Potter and the Greek Allusions

Test your knowledge of Greek Mythology with this Harry Potter Quiz.

Ancient Greek Crosswords

Test your knowledge of The Odyssey with this crossword puzzle.

Career Report, Comp 2

The career brochures are due on February 10 for Tuesday/Thursday classes and February 11 for Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes. We will be in the computer lab on those days for the library database training session. You may not work on your brochures during the training session. They must be complete and ready to turn in when you arrive for class.

The Occupational Outlook Handbook is here if you've lost the link.

The main objectives are to be informative and to be professional. Neatness and correct grammar definitely count. Make something you'd really be willing to hand out to a crowd. Don't hand it in to me if it would embarrass you to give it to a boss (or to a classroom full of students).

Let me know if you need any help. I'll be happy to look over your brochure for you.

A Note on Form

After looking over my previous post, I'm itching to tweak a few sentences and polish the puppy up a little. I'm not going to do it, though. Now is the time to establish my game plan for how I will proceed, and it seems to me that part of the nature of the blog requires quick posts and a free-flow of thought. That's the difference in a blog and a web page. I'm not making something that will remain static but something that is supposed to be in a continual state of change. Therefore, I must post and move on without looking back. Mistakes would only make me human, right?

P.S. That excuse is not allowed on essays.

Why am I doing this?

Now that I'm here, it occurs to me that this is sort of a brave thing to try. As if students don't get enough chances to be annoyed with me in the classroom, this way they get to make fun of me and roll their eyes at me online to. At least the three or four who actually show up here will. :)

First, I'm doing a presentation on blogs at a conference soon, and I'm trying to create an example I can talk about. Next, I'm really interested in finding out how well people will respond to getting class information in this format and how many people will actually use it. Also, I think that teaching is as much about learning new things as anything else. The day I quit trying to teach myself is the day I need to pack it up and go to the house.

This guy named Donald Murray who wrote some pretty cool books about writing and teaching once said "writing is thinking, thinking is writing." It's one of those concepts that is so simple anyone can say it, which is why it is also so profound that it would probably only be said by a very smart and famous guy who writes books about writing. I believe it's very true. I also believe "teaching is learning, learning is teaching." That, my dears, is what it's all about.

That is what brought me here. I'm doing this blog to teach myself about blogging and about how English classes can benefit from blogs. I've already learned a few things. I know how to edit a template now. I added the links section in the sidebar, and I'm very proud of that because I had to type in a bunch of jiggly looking nonsense to the HTML to get it to look like that.

I've also learned that it's easy to forget how hard it is to write and how much fun it is to write. No one should ever be teaching English who isn't subjecting his or her own scribblings to the criticism of others. I'm not one of those people who subscribes to the "I've paid my dues" theory. That's just a recipe for atrophy. No matter what field we are in or how hard we worked to get there, we should always be far more demanding of ourselves than we are of others.

And there you have it. Welcome to my blog. If you see any mistakes, please feel free to let me know.

Hello, World

This is my first post to my new blog. How am I doing so far?