Last Minute MLA Reminders

 MLA Formatting from Purdue OWL


MLA Work(s) Cited from Purdue OWL


Complete MLA Format Guide from Purdue OWL

Final Revisions

As you gear up for the final revision of your essay of choice, remember the advice that I gave you in class this week when choosing which essay to revise: pick the essay that has the most potential, not necessarily the essay that received the best grade OR the one you "liked" the best.

Make sure you approach your revisions logically (recalling that your efforts account for 33% of your final grade), focusing on the global revisions first and the sentence-level revisions last.  Your Bedford Handbook provides these suggestions when making global revisions (2b & 2c):

Revision Guidelines

Global Revisions

Sentence-level Revisions

SHARPENING THE FOCUS (Purpose) Look for opportunities to clarify the introduction (especially the thesis) to delete text that is off the point IMPROVING THE ORGANIZATION Look for opportunities to add or sharpen topic sentences to move blocks of text to reparagraph and perhaps to add headings STRENGTHENING THE CONTENT (Development) Look for opportunities to add specific facts, details, and examples to emphasize major ideas to rethink your argument or central insight CLARIFYING THE POINT OF VIEW  (Language) Look for opportunities to make the point of view more consistent to use a more appropriate point of view ENGAGING THE AUDIENCE (Language) Look for opportunities to let readers know why they are reading to motivate readers to read on to use a more appropriate tone

STRENGTHENING SENTENCES (Usage) Look for opportunities to use more active verbs to prune excess words CLARIFYING SENTENCES (Usage) Look for opportunities to balance parallel ideas to supply missing words to untangle mixed constructions to repair misplaced or dangling modifiers to eliminate distracting shifts INTRODUCING VARIETY (Language) Look for opportunities to combine choppy sentences to break up long sentences to vary sentence openings REFINING THE STYLE (Language) Look for opportunities to choose language more appropriate for the subject and audience to choose more exact words

Revision Checklist

Global Revisions

Sentence-level Revisions (Usage)

FOCUS (Purpose) Does the introduction focus on the main point? Is the thesis clear enough? (If there is no thesis, is there a good reason for omitting one?) Are any ideas off the point? ORGANIZATION Does the writer give readers enough organizational cues (such as topic sentences or headings)? Should any text be moved? Are any paragraphs too long or short for easy reading? CONTENT (Development) Are there enough facts, examples, and details to support major ideas? Are the parts proportioned sensibly? Do major ideas receive enough attention? How might the argument be strengthened? POINT OF VIEW (Language) Is the draft free of distracting shifts in point of view? Is the point appropriate? AUDIENCE APPEAL (Language) Does the draft accomplish its purpose to inform us, to persuade us, to entertain us, to call us to action (or some combination of these)? Does the opening paragraph make us want to read on? Do we know why we are reading? Is the tone appropriate?

GRAMMAR Sentence fragments Run-on sentences Subject-verb agreement Pronoun-antecedent agreement Pronoun reference Case of nouns and pronouns Case of who and whom Adjectives and adverbs Standard English verb forms Verb tense, mood, and voice ESL problems PUNCTUATION The comma and unnecessary commas Quotation marks End punctuation The semicolon The colon The apostrophe Other punctuation marks MECHANICS Abbreviations and numbers Italics (underlining) Spelling and the hyphen Capital letters

Adaptations Presentations . . .

The first video adaptation of this semester is Alyssa Cheeseman's adaptation of "A Rose for Emily":

In Ten Play Festival @ 7:30 in E Auditorium

Thursday, Friday, & Saturday; attending and writing a reaction for each play can earn you up to five (5) extra credit or make-up reactions.

Cancelled Thursday Classes, Poetry Drafts, & Presentations

Cancelled Thursday Class

For those who were NOT in class on Tuesday or in case you forgot, remember that we will NOT be having class tomorrow.  Instead, I encourage you to be working on your Poetry Essays and your Adaptation Projects.  Consider going to the writing center for help during this time.

Poetry Essays

The drafts for the Poetry Essays are due Sunday night at 11:55pm.  MAKE SURE that you focus on how your selected poem(s) relates to YOU.  The thesis/body should NOT be telling the reader what the poem means or how it applies to the rest of the world; this is YOUR relationship with the poem and how it affects or relates to your own life.  You can (in fact are encouraged) to include experience from your own life, which mean use of narrative.

Adaptation Projects

Beginning Tuesday, we will be watching the presentations in class.  If you are making a video, either upload it to YouTube for easy access or bring it on a flash drive.  The instructions are relatively simple, but remember that you must "present" for five minutes, either through the actual adaptation or an explanation of the process that you went through to create it.  This assignment is an easy A if you follow the minimum requirements.  Forgetting the assignment is a guaranteed zero (not an F, a zero); so make sure you are a participant!!  We will be going in the order of volunteers then random selection, so make sure you are ready to go!!!!

Useful Guide for Reader Response

If you missed either Tuesday's or Wednesday's overview of the upcoming Reader Response Poetry Essay, see this Sample Reflective Response Essay.  Although the writer is using a song for this response, you can see a strategy for setting up your analysis.  The one thing you do NOT need to do is use the headers (the instructor is using these to show the role of each paragraph in the essay, but the transitions at the start of each paragraph should provide the logical connection, suggesting what that paragraph is doing in the essay).  This is a somewhat informal essay, but that is fine because you are using first-person perspective.  

Warning: This essay is incomplete, so it does not actually get into the full analysis.  Make sure that in working your way through the poem, you do NOT just give the equivalent of a synopsis--simply retelling the reader what the poem says--literally.  It should be your REACTION to the poem and its various elements that make up your analysis, with a general overall assessment of the poem as it applies to YOU, not me, not students, not scholars, but YOU.

Friday Office Hours & Monday/Tuesday Homework

Friday Office Hours

I am having extra office hours tomorrow (Friday) from 9 to 2pm for anyone who want to go over drafts or have me look at your annotated bibliographies.

Homework

The reactions for Monday/Tuesday are a little different for your LAST homework assignment of the semester.  Read T. S. Eliot's "Love Song for J. Alfred Prufrock" in the poetry readings for class discussion, and do a line-by-line assessment of all of the elements of poetry that you can find.  This is simply an identification exercise, which we will discuss in class.  The purpose of the assignment is twofold: 1) it will help prepare you for doing the same with your poem of choice for your reader-response Poetry Essays, and 2) it will prepare you for the Poetry Quiz (I can guarantee you will do well on the quiz if you correctly identify all of the "parts."

Adaptation Projects

Don't forget to think about what you will be doing for your adaptation project the last week of classes. As I suggested in class, you can kill two birds with one stone if you use the same poem for your Poetry Essay for your adaptation.  As I have stated earlier in the year, this project is meant to be fun and you should be able to earn an easy A, but you MUST follow the basic criteria in the Adaptation Projects folder in the Assignment section of Lessons.  You should be posting a proposal to the Instructions & Proposals for Your Adaptation Projects to make sure that you are on the right track.  We will discuss these further in class next week, but READ the instructions!

Citations for Texts Supplied in Course

Based on many of the texts that I supply in the course web site, it is important to know WHAT is included in a citation and why.  Note that all of this information is identical to the guides in your handbook or Bedford's guide for works cited pages. However, you will not see a specific example that will match with these texts.  Learn to ADAPT your entries based on the information you know about a source.  I have added publication dates and information for all of the fiction in the Fiction Readings folder. Here are two examples of how to cite texts provided in the course with explanations:

Faulkner, William. "Barn Burning." Harper's Magazine. June 1939. Ed. Randolph Handel. ENC1102 Writing About Literature. Course home page. Spring 2012. Dept. of English, Santa Fe College. Web. 1 April 2012.

Crane, Stephen. "Experiment in Misery." New York Press. 22 April 1894. Ed. Randolph Handel. ENC1102 Writing About Literature. Course home page. Spring 2012. Dept. of English, Santa Fe College. Web. 1 April 2012.

1) This is the main publication entry and should be done according to whatever format is called for with the original publication. In the cases above, you know that the Faulkner short story is from a magazine and the Crane story is from a newspaper, so you provide all of the information that you know. However, you sometimes might only know the publication date, in which case you put down as much as you can and leave the rest. Essentially it is up to the web publisher to supply all relevant publication information from the original. YOUR job is to simply repeat that information in the proper format and then adequately cite the web publisher as part of your source (see 2 below). 

2) This is the information for the web publisher--which in this case is the course web site itself.  If you have used anything from the databases, you will notice a similarity, but with some significant additions. Although some online-based courses might have editors outside of a course, most of the time it is appropriate to use the instructors name for the editor.  Following my name in this citation is a) the name of the course, b) its function, c) its publication date (in this case, the semester that you are taking or accessing the course), d) the department from which the course is given, and finally e) the college where the course is offered.

3) This should be familiar; it is the medium where you accessed the information.  MOST of your entries are likely coming from the web, but if you consulted a book or a had copy of a magazine, then you should be using "Print."  And if you end up revising your Macbeth essay for the revision and included sources from film or a DVD, your medium should reflect that.

4) This too should be familiar; it is the access date, and ANY source coming from online should include this because you are basically informing the reader that on THIS date the information was there, even if it is removed the next day.

Wednesday/Thursday Reminder

Reactions for a different Billy Collin's poem and adaptation than you did the first part of the week is due at the beginning of class.  Remember that you CANNOT choose the poem that we discussed in class after the group work ("The Dead" for 11am Monday and 12:30pm Tuesday, and "Walking Across the Atlantic" for 11am Tuesday). While doing your reactions, think about the various elements of poetry that we identified during class and apply them to the second Collin's poem.

This exercise will help prepare you for writing your third and final portfolio essay, which is a Reader Response explication of a poem of your choice (ideally from one of your bi-weekly reactions).  The main difference between a standard explication and this assignment is the focus on your own, subjective reaction and analysis rather than a more objective analysis. To help you anticipate that essay, here is the assignment, which can also be found in Portfolio Assignments folder:

Write an essay which focuses on your personal interaction with a poem (i.e. reader response), analyzing WHY you think the poem works the way it does for you.  In order to support this analysis, you will need to incorporate the various Elements of Poetry to help explain the reaction that you had from the poem (simply stating "it made me feel happy" would be too vague and nondescript).  Break down the language to understand specifically what caused your reaction, essentially providing a personal explication of the poem. IF you happen to have looked up any information about the poet, poem, etc. discuss how that effected your initial interpretation, if relevant.  The MAIN thing to consider in this essay is the creation of a cohesive argument, not simply a random collection of disconnected interpretations; in essence, what was the overall impact on you (e.g. the imagery brought back memories of playing baseball with your dad)--then explain in detail why by using the elements for support.

Extra Credit?

Have you missed reactions and home work assignments--or peer reviews--throughout the semester?  (These are the no-brainer points that you should NOT have lost, but you did for various reasons.)

OR

Do you want an extra boost to help you in the end when your final revision of your essay of choice counts for so much?

Take advantage of the following extra credit assignments:

• Extra Credit Peer Review for the Fiction Essay (Do an extra peer review for one more credit) DUE: April 10th @ 11:59 pm
• Five (5) Extra Credit Peer Review for the Historical Context Bibliography
  DUE: April 10th @ 11:59 pm
• Five (5) Extra Credit Reaction Assignments for Reviewing In Ten Play Festival Performances April 18-20. (For each play you review/react to, you will receive a reaction credit.  These should be full paragraphs addressing issues of drama and not some of the sentence reactions I have been seeing lately for homework). DUE: April 22/23 in class
• Extra Credit Peer Review for the Poetry Essay (Do an extra peer review for one more credit) DUE: April 23rd @ 11:59 pm
• Three (3) Extra Credit Peer Review for Final Essay of Choice
  DUE: April 30th @ 11:59 pm

MLA Quiz

The MLA quiz SHOULD be available now to be completed by April 21.  The main goal of the quiz is for you to solidify your knowledge of MLA style for your essays and annotated bibliography.  You can take the quiz as many times as you want before April 21st in order to get a 100.  I encourage you to do so because it means you will be able to apply that information before you submit your subsequent assignments, especially your revised Fiction Portfolio II essay and your Annotated Bibliography.

Collins' Poem Reaction Reminder

Remember to read one of the poems by Billy Collins from the "Collection" in the "For Class Discussion" folder inside the "Poetry Readings" folder.
, write a reaction, then watch a video adaptation of that poem, and write a second reaction in which you respond to the adaptations interpretation as compared to yours.

Unique Adaptation Project?

If you were thinking of adapting something into a film for your adaptation project and you can tie it to the issue of sustainability, you could win some money in the process.

Go to the Sustainable Santa Fe Student Film Competition website if interested in entering a film.  Deadline is April 2.  Ask me for further details if interested.

Extended Deadline on Papers & Quiz

Due to a potential glitch in Turnitin, I have extended the due date of the Drama Portfolio revision until Sunday, March 10th.  If you have yet to turn in this assignment, make sure that you do in order to receive credit.  If you fail to submit your paper, you WILL lose around 7% of your final grade; this is practically a guaranteed letter-grade drop.

If you HAVE turned in your essay, you can revise again before the deadline.

However, keep in mind that even when the due date passes, you can still submit; so claims of Turnitin not accepting papers are dubious at best.

Both of the quizzes have been extended as well.

A Note on Revisions

Keep in mind that the goal on revising your essays should be to make significant changes that affect the overall impact of your argument.  You should not just be trying to fix comma problems and misspelled words.  Though important, those usage problems make up only 20% of the writing process.  Significant changes mean rewriting your thesis (assuming you have one), reorganizing your essay, adding new paragraphs to develop ideas (or deleting ones that get off track), and adding transitions and other aspects of effective style to help the flow of your writing.  Although I have stated that a percentage change in your writing is somewhat arbitrary, it suggests the amount of effort that you have put into your revision.  The goal I have set for everyone is a 15% change, which means you should have an originality report of 85% or less in Turnitin.  Notice how the three reports below show how one person did a significant amount of change (hopefully for the best) whereas the other two did little at all.

The argument can always be made that your essay is as good as it gets, but you should be ready to defend why.  Simply stating that your peer reviewers found no problems, so you did not know what to change, means you are not engaged in the writing process.  You are being a passive writer/student and not systematically going through and looking for problems in 1) purpose, 2) organization, 3) development, 4) language, and 5) usage--all of the things addressed in the self-assessment and the peer reviews.

To get an overview of the rubric which I use to grade or assess you for the assignments, click on the rubric icon in Turnitin.



PS to the Procrastinators: If you missed the deadline for either the essay or peer reviews, your should still submit a draft prior to the revision deadline to avoid missing MORE points (5% of your grade is based on revision--which is equal to half a letter grade)

Assigned Historical Context Reports

Scrolled down and check below to make sure you have been given the correct report; if you thought you signed up for a different report, send me an email immediately (there was some confusion in the 11am Tuesday class).  If you were not in class or signed up for a slot already filled with TWO reports, I assigned you to a different report.  We are pretty much set for the week's reports following Spring Break, so make sure you are prepared before class.  To prepare for your report, see the Guide to Researching Your Topics.
.

Guide to Researching Your Topics

In preparation for the fiction section and the historical context research, you will need to have some basic research skills beyond just going to Google or asking Wikipedia.  You should follow the basic leads given for your assigned report in the Historical Context Assignments to start your research, which includes locating peer reviewed articles through a Google Scholar search that usually must accessed through the college's database. but then utilize the discussion begun in Wednesday's or Thursday's class and then walk through this guide:

• Research Help from Modesto Junior College's Library

This can seem overwhelming at a glance, but if you think of this as a textbook, there are very few pages AND this is your primary learning objective for the next few weeks.  Furthermore, this information needs to be implemented for your final annotated bibliography and your fiction essays.  So take the time to process the information.

Make sure that you scan through ALL sections, including the short, but helpful videos, but pay CLOSE attention to sections that are especially relevant to researching your reports, such as these six areas:

2. What Are the Different Types of Information? in Understand Information
3. What Types of Sources are There? in Understand Information, including the link to Selecting Sources from the University of Texas, Arlington Libraries

2. Find Books in Find Useful Information
3. Find Articles in Find Useful Information
4. Find Web Resources in Find Useful Information

• Note that all the references to databases and catalogs are for Modesto Junior College.  See the links below for Santa Fe Library's links for literary and historical research resources.  If you are NOT sure which resource to use after going through the guide above, come see me.
•  Some of the research assigned topics are based more on the literary aspects of a work, so you should consult the ENC1102 Library Guide for an overview of
• Literary Criticism Databases 
• Literary Criticism Books 
• Many of the research topics are based on US History, so consult the library's guide for AMH2020
• If you have never used any of the online library resources, make sure you view the short video Tutorials

and finally, before you settle on using something, make sure it is credible by reading MJC Library's

Evaluate Your Sources, including the cheesy but useful link to Credible Sources Count! from Vaughan Memorial Library

Although you should have a working bibliography prior to presenting your findings to the class, a formal ANNOTATED bibliography needs to be submitted to Turnitin by the end of the fiction section.  Instructions for what to prepare can be found in the Criteria for Historical/Cultural Context Research.

Quizzes, Proper Documentation, Revisions & Readings

Drama and Film Quizzes 
Make sure you take the drama and film quizzes located in the Section Quizzes + Syllabus Quiz folder (both due by March 5, see note in post below).  Remember what I noted earlier in the semester; these are not intended to "test" your knowledge of this material as much as they are intended to make sure you are comfortable using the terms in your writing.  Print out all the material you think is necessary before taking each quiz and use it during the test (you have 30 minutes, but it should not take that long if you are familiar with the material); the real goal is that you take the quizzes BEFORE you finish your drafts to make sure you have all the information necessary to fully develop your analysis of your chosen scene and adaptations.

Documentation of Primary & Secondary Sources

As you revise your drafts for your final graded submissions (due Tuesday, March 5 by 11:59), remember to include a secondary source from one of the three article is the Macbeth textbook, as well as an accurate Works Cited page.  For an overview of what will be/was covered in class this week, especially the integration of quotes into your own writing, see these various topics from the University of Richmond Writing Center's page on Using Sources:

• Introduction to Using Source Materials
• Creative Use of Sources
• Effective Direct Quotations
• Incorporating Quotations
• Using Paraphrases
• Sources: Past Tense? Present?
• Titles: Underline or Quotations?
• Quotation Marks

Also see the Research & Documentation Online link from Bedford (or look in your handbook), for models of how to cite your sources.  

Revision of Drafts 

The revision of your drafts obviously should contain both the content covered in the drama and film quiz as well as a substantial use of documented sources from the original play, the adaptations, and the secondary sources; however, that is not the only thing you should be considering.

Keep in mind the five areas that I focused on during the conferences (purpose, organization, development, language, and usage) because this is also what I will be grading you on.  I will have already left some feedback in your drafts by Wednesday evening, mostly concerning MLA format, missing or incorrect documentation, use of at least one secondary source from the textbook, and effective use of titles.

Also remember to address the purple ETS feedback in Turnitin, remembering that it is not always correct.  Your job is to assess if it is wrong or right, and correct accordingly.  If you cannot figure it out, come see me, shoot me an email, or visit the writing lab.

For some quick overall guidelines to revising your drafts, consider the Global (2a) and Sentence-Level  (2b) checklists from the Bedford Handbook (which can also be found in "Writing & Documentation" folder of the Class Readings).

The final minimum requirements for your REVISED drafts is an essay of at LEAST 750 words with an originality report of 85% or less. This means there should be at least a 15% change between your original draft and your revision.  This is easy for those who wrote short, barely developed essays--but you have a lot more to work on.  Those with more developed essays will likely find that 15% is not hard to obtain.  If you are worried or find that you miss the mark, send me an email explaining why it fell short (assuming you feel it is a well-written essay).

If you happen to be someone who fails to submit a draft for the drama essay, realize that if you do NOT give me a basis for revision, you will lose even more points off the final essay grade than just the draft and peer reviews.

Readings for Class and Following Spring Break

For Thursday, read all of the Elements of Fiction and make sure you are familiar with the various topics for the Historical Context Projects, which will be the basis for reports on stories that you have signed up for and done research. We will begin the in-class reports following Spring Break.

If you are NOT responsible for a report on a given day, you WILL be responsible for handing in both the day's story reaction AND at least 1 question for the day's presenters.  Handouts will be provided in class.

Remember . . . Elements of Film

You SHOULD have already read about Film Terms in Chapter 2 from the textbook Adaptation: Studying Film and Literature, but in case you are rusty, make sure you review it.  I EXPECT that your upcoming essays will reflect some basic knowledge of film as we have discussed in our scene analyses in class.  Essentially, you should be using ON AVERAGE one film element from each category of  (1) mise-en-scéne, (2) camerawork, (3) editing, and (4) sound and how it enhances the effect of one or more dramatic elements.  And of course you need to be prepared for the open-book  film quiz.

Use the following list as a refresher:

(1) mise-en-scéne, 
Sets; Props; Costuming; Makeup
Lighting: high-key lighting; Low-key lighting


(2) camerawork, 
Shot: long shot; medium shot;close-up
Camera angle: the high angle; straight-on or eye-level angle; low angle  
Camera movement: tilt shot; pan shot; tracking shot; crane shot


(3) editing
dissolve; fade-in; fade-out; wipe; cut; jump cut; graphic match; continuity editing; crosscutting; establishing shots; eyeline matches; match on action; shot/reverse shot; disjunctive editing; montage 
 
(4) sound
diegetic or nondiegetic
Speech (dialogue); voiceover (narration)
music
sound effects: ambient sound 
silence: dead track

Old Message on Thesis Worth Sharing

This is a message and reply from a previous semester worth sharing:

Dear Professor Randolph,
I am still stuck on my thesis. I have been playing around with several ideas, and was wondering if I could have some advice. I was planning on doing the Orson Wells and Roman Polanski movies Act 2 Scene 2. I noticed that through the different clips I found on the two movies a big difference in the way Lady Macbeth speaks to Macbeth(not necessarily in this scene) . In Orson Wells version she seems to be supportive and yet strong and in Roman Polanski she seems seductive and in charge. Is this something worth writing a paper about or would it be to easy to get off track with this theme?

That is EXACTLY what you should be looking for--significant differences that merit focus.  In this case it is basically the characterization of Lady Macbeth (and likely Macbeth as well)--at a key point AFTER the killing of Duncan. Does she keep him in control or lose him (assuming she ever was in control)?  Because you are focusing on how she handles him, you will want a key passage of dialogue that demonstrates what you see (for example, the passage beginning with line 46 "Who was it that cried?" might be good, for she is lecturing Macbeth.  How does that come across in the different adaptations and why?).  An obvious passage for this would be the 1.7.47-59 passage where she "unmans" Macbeth, but I like that you are picking a different scene.  It means you can focus on other aspects that make up characterization in film, such as color, angle, sound, lighting, movement, shot, costuming, etc., At the same time you can look at how this is a great place to analyze Lady Macbeth's relationship with Macbeth because it is between the two other obvious pivotal scenes that depict their interactions (1.7 where she convinces him and 3.4 where obviously she has lost him--or not depending on the version).  You can see YOUR scene as both a follow up to 1.7 and a predictor of 3.4, but also how she handles a crisis situation.  She is, after all, the one who cleans up his mess (which, of course, she can never wash off her hands).

More Ideas

Note that you could also focus solely upon Lady Macbeth's acceptance or challenge to gender identity and expectations.  Is she a feminist (remember our discussion at the beginning of the semester)?  Does the performance of Lady Macbeth accurately depict gender roles that match the setting of a particular adaptation?  For example, is  Maura Tierney's performance of Scotland, PA's Pat Macbeth a result of the feminist movement and sexual revolution of the sixties (remember that the film supposedly takes place in 1975).

William Carlos Williams meets Macbeth

 I have posted a "light" discussion due next Thursday entitled The Macbeth "This is just to say" Poem. For this post you just need to try your hand again with William Carlos Williams' poem "This is just to say," only this time write it from the perspective of one of the characters in Macbeth (Macbeth to McDuff or Lady Macbeth to Duncan are pretty obvious, but you could also use the comical porter from Act II Scene 3 toward any number of characters, including his own libido after drinking too much, for it "provokes the desires, but it takes away the performance").

This is a good precursor to the final Adaptation projects.  If you have yet to consider the assignment, realize we are nearing the halfway point of the semester.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth in Act V Scene v

Finish the Scottish Play
Maybe you are starting to feel like Macbeth as the play draws to a close, with the monotony of school and assignments piling up like bodies in Act V, seemingly serving no purpose or goal.  But we ARE moving into the the writing stage of the first portfolio essay, so hopefully you will not feel yourself to be but a mere shadow in the classroom.

We will finish reading the play that shall not be named because it is cursed by next week, and finish our discussion of it as well, leading the way for you to begin writing your papers (see assignment below).  If you have not done so already, you should also read the first three chapters from your textbook, In Production: Macbeth Through the Years, As Performed: By the Royal Shakespeare Company, and "Hours Dreadful and Things Strange": Macbeth in Popular Culture. These will need to be appropriately incorporated into your portfolio essay, which we will discuss the following week (2/) when we cover MLA documentation.

Post a "Working Thesis for Portfolio I-Drama Analysis (Response)"

• Post a working thesis for your Portfolio I-Drama Analysis for discussion in class on Wednesday/Thursday.  These are due BEFORE class!!!  Take into consideration the discussion of the thesis that I provide here in the blog OR if you need some supplemental information, read Rutgers University's Jack Lynch's explanation of the thesis, along with some good and bad examples.

The key to this assignment, and subsequently to your essay, is to make sure that you craft a cohesive sentence that covers all the bases of the assignment while leaving you wiggle room to explore your topic (i.e. NOT write a fill-in-the-blank 5-paragraph theme thesis). As has or will be discussed in your conference or in class, your essay needs to:

• Focus on one scene from within the play
• Address the original text/dialogue of the play
• Analyze two different adaptations of the play
• Focus on one primary element of drama (character, plot, setting and staging, dialogue, performance, theme) or a sub-category of one of the elements.
• You could also address an element of film in your thesis if relevant to your argument (though it is expected that you will address film elements in your body).

Many of you have struggled with the open-ended nature of the "What is Literature?" assignment, especially in formulating a thesis, so at least this assignment will appear to be more concrete.  However, you need to make sure that your thesis has the potential to give your essay direction from introduction all the way through to the conclusion WITHOUT falling into the trap of listing differences or simply providing a synopsis of a particular scene.  One of the best ways to write a thesis is to create a cause and effect argument.  Note the "difference" between:

When focusing on Act I Scene iii of the play, there are many differences between the settings of Orson Welles' 1948 adaptation Macbeth and Billy Morissette's 2001 Scotland, PA.

The differences in setting between Orson Welles' 1948 adaptation Macbeth and Billy Morissette's 2001 Scotland, PA demonstrate how each director targets a specific audience and its cultural background, which is especially noticeable when looking at Act I Scene iii from the play.

The first example can easily slip into a boring list of differences without much purpose, whereas the second example gives the writer much more focus and something to prove in his or her essay for each required component (the text and each adaptation).  The second example also sets up a great scenario for using both William Proctor Williams' "In Production: Macbeth Through the Years" and Douglas Lanier's "'Hours Dreadful and Things Strange': Macbeth in Popular Culture" to support the argument of the thesis--either in an introduction or somewhere in the body or the conclusion.