Dear Class,
I hope you had a nice weekend, and you are ready to tackle your schoolwork with zeal today.
Please read the Notes from Sister Bowen / Q&A
today, in preparation for the work ahead of you this week. I've posted a
spiritual discussion in the Q&A board, and I would love to see your
thoughts in there!
Also, I have graded
everything everyone has submitted so far and I need to issue a voice of
warning: as discussed in my Notes from Sister Bowen this week, students
are going to be marked down for failing to write summaries that follow
instructions. I'll begin docking points for summaries that don't meet expectations during Lesson 6,
and I'll keep docking points for the rest of the semester for any
students who ignore summary requirements. So let's review the
requirements for strong summaries, and review some sample summaries:
Requirements: If the summary is intended to stand alone, it should identify:
•the author
•the author's credentials
•the title
•the author's purpose
•the author’s main point --all of this should happen in the first sentence!
Here is a sample topic sentence in a summary. Can you see how it achieves all the above-listed requirements?:
In
her essay “Clashes and Compromises in Pride and Prejudice,” Laura G.
Mooneyham, professor of English at Trinity College, argues that the key
to the popularity of Austen’s novel is the equality of its main
characters, Elizabeth and Darcy.
Also, summaries should be brief and objective. This is what our summary PowerPoint has to say about being objective: "A good summary is objective. Leave out your own opinions and focus on reporting the author’s important points. Write in third person. Use pronouns like he, she, they, and nouns like the writer, the researcher. Avoid pronouns like I, we, and you."
There
are other great points made regarding summary writing in the
PowerPoint, so please take notes on the things you want to remember when
you review the PowerPoint for Lesson 5.
Now, let's look at a sample student summary and see what is working
well, and what needs revision: Here's the topic sentence for the
summary:
In his paper, "How to Mark a Book" Mortimer Adler, the founder of the Great books program implores us to actively mark and read our books in order to take in their meaning and truly learn from them, instead of absentmindedly passing through them.
We know that the
opening sentence should identify the article's title and the author’s
name, credential, purpose, and thesis. So, does the topic sentence
achieve those goals? Yes! Is the first sentence objective? Well, no.
Look at the highlighted words in the sentence. So, let's change the
first sentence (to strengthen the punctuation) and make it objective:
In his paper, "How to Mark a Book" Mortimer Adler, the founder of the Great books program [insert comma] implores readers to actively mark and read their books in order to take in their meaning and truly learn from them, instead of absentmindedly passing through them.
Is
the revised sentence objective now? Yes! Here is the rest of the
summary, with first-person language highlighted in the text.
Too often we start a book just to get to the end in order to say that we have read it. By marking a book's pages we
can stay active and focused, not only on the story being told but the
underlying lessons to be learned. Critics may say it is wrong to write
in a book because it ruins the book and takes away from it's value. The
full value of the book is not found in that which is written but in that
which is learned and helps us to change ourselves for the better.
Do
you know how to convert the highlighted, first-person voice language
above into objective third-person voice? If you do not, please email me!
That's
it for now! Good luck this week, and know that I am praying for you, I
am here if you need me, and I expect your very best work.
Love,
Sister Bowen
