Day 4
Wed. Aug. 31
Share scenes from Short Cuts and Here Is New York
Share scenes based on micro-poems
Intro to concrete & abstract
Homework
➤ Rewrite a scene
Choose a scene from your Portrait of a Place essay, and rewrite it. Try to make it better by adding to it, or removing things from it, or changing the order in which you present the details in that scene. Don’t just cut-and-paste the sentences; write a new paragraph from scratch.
Copy the original scene, and the rewritten scene, onto a single Word document and upload it to the folder “Rewritten scenes from Place Essay” in our SharePoint folder.
➤ Readings
Read Yiyun Li’s “Orange Crush” and Rick Bragg’s “Savoring a Sweet Taste of Southern Summers.”
(Note that “Southern Summers” requires a VPN, and there are annotations, which I highly recommend you read. If you can’t view them, please consult the screenshots I’ll share in our WeChat group. If you hit the New York Times paywall, use the login I will share in our WeChat group as well.)
As you read, notice contrasts. Be ready to share some examples of contrasts next class.
➤ Give titles to “micro-poems”
For each “micro-poem” on your section’s list in the SharePoint folder, give it a title that is abstract. Try to think of a title that either perfectly captures the feeling of the poem, or adds a new layer of meaning to it.
Upload the poems with the titles to gave them to our SharePoint folder, in the folder called “Titles for micro-poems.” (Please copy the Word document and add your titles to the poems, so that we can see the title above each poem.)
➤ Think of an object
Read the instructions for Essay 2: Essay on an Object.
Think of an object, larger than a thimble and smaller than a refrigerator, that you associate with the place you grew up or the culture of the place you consider “home,” however you define it. Be ready to tell us what it is next class (if we have time).
