Week 7

                                                                 Art by Pablo Picasso

    Over the last several weeks we've focused on using description and narration and last week summary and direct quotation to present the contents of a book chapter.  You were to join in, so to speak, conversation on the topic and ideas addressed in P.M. Forni's book Choosing Civility, specifically one of two chapters "Think the Best," or "Speak Kindly."  In these the author discusses the goodness to come of thinking well of others, of having high expectations, for example,  and of how we can moderate our speech to reflect our care for the feelings and well being of others.
 
     Most of you were working on the first draft when class finished for the evening, and took the work home for completion.  These drafts we will review today(essay 4).  You were encouraged for further practice to identify a personal interest in reading material, whether in print or online, for a little more practice.  I have in mind to do pair or small group work involving a little personal exchange, interviews of sorts, with some note-taking, after which you write up the various interests reflected in the responses of your classmates.  The idea is to provide practice in gathering information and presenting it clearly, including reference titles such as books or periodicals (magazines), website names, and so on.


  We will do some practice with verbs, including the perfect and progressive tenses and conditional and subjunctive forms, those employing would, could, should, may, might, must, ought, and so on  We will review, too, pronoun use.
       
         Essay 6, involves a focus on verb forms and use.  You will narrate or describe in hypothetical terms a wish or desire or "What if" situation to explore how things might have gone by comparison or contrast to how they actually did; or in a future focus,  how they might go if things play out as you imagine.  In this way you will practice use of the present, past, and possibly future tenses, as well as the subjunctive verb mood and conditional verb tenses.

Ex:  I left home at 18 to make my way in New York City.  My parents were divorced and neither had gone to college and so the subject of my going never came up though many college brochures came through the mail.  I remember tossing them in the trash in the belief that college was not for me, not then anyway, and nothing I could afford.  Fours years would pass before I enrolled in college, but I think that by then I was better prepared to appreciate the education and to focus on it. Had I gone straight out of high school, missed all that happened in those four years, who knows? It wasn't in the cards!