English II Honors - 30 September 2010

1. English II Honors - 30 September 2010 Homework • Read “The Medieval Period” pages 43 – 54 (Due Tuesday) • Vocabulary Unit 3 quiz tomorrow • Independent reading

2. Tips to a successful paper • Begin by pulling out assignment, outline, rubric and book. • Save early and often (to your network) • Use the present tense • Each body paragraph must have specific support from the text. • Cite this specific support in MLA format • The French girl said, “It’s a good thing those Germans is gone because I’m in love with Mr. Kelly” (Remarque 24).

3. Introductions

4. Purposes of an Introduction • To introduce your paper, duh. • Grab the attention of your intended readers. • Introduce the works/topics you are using for your argument. • Clearly state your argument (thesis)

5. Components of an introduction • Attention Getter • Bridge • Background information • Thesis

6. Attention Getter • You want your reader to read all three to four pages of your paper. Your reader doesn’t want to waste her time. Grab her attention in the first line of the first paragraph.

7. Types of attention getters • Question • Quote (make sure reference who the quote is by and why he/she is important • Anecdote • Interesting fact • Description • Anything at all that will get your audiences attention!

8. Sample Attention Getters • “’Any one of nature’s most celebrated wonders’” will at first disappoint the visitor, wrote Mark Twain during a trip to Kilauea volcano in 1866, “but on better acquaintance will swell and stretch out and spread abroad, until it finally…becomes too stupendous for his comprehension.” • “Red Hot Hawaii” National Geographic October 2004

9. Sample (cont.) • “Let a raven drop a bone onto he ice or the aromas from a hunter’s cook tent waft from a mile away, and a small white shadow will soon materialize to investigate-an arctic fox.” • “Winter Ice” National Geographic Oct. 2004

10. Samples (cont.) • It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV “storm teams” warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. • “Gone with the Water” National Geographic Oct 2004

11. What I don’t want to see: • Webster’s Dictionary defines… • Mr. Kelly smells like an elephant’s butt. • Have you every wondered what fighting in a trench is like? • Have you every wondered what bureaucracy means?

12. Bridge • The introduction begins to narrow from the broad attention getter to the argument at hand. This is usually where you would introduce the author and the title.

13. Background information • Any information you would not use as evidence but you feel is important for your reader to know. • Make sure this is short, succinct and to the point.

14. Thesis statement • Hands down, the most important component of not only your introduction, but of your entire paper. • This is the argument you set out to prove and each paragraph should specifically help argue this point. • May or may not be a three pronged thesis.

15. Samples • War deifies commons sense. • (3-pronged) War defies common sense because it gives men power who don’t deserve it, it doesn’t solve problems, and it ruins generations of me. • The army rewards stupidity.

16. Sample Thesis • “Theocracy led to the downfall of Salem because the strict justice was the perfect instrument to disunifythe community.” • “The people of Salem believed in their faith so much they had become blind to common sense.” • “Human’s ability to judge and their constant search for self satisfaction can often overpower common sense.”

17. SAVE: • Be sure to save onto your network drive – the one with your id number • If you want to continue to work at home, be sure to email the file to yourself. • Oh, we’ll talk more of MLA citations, but for now, just use the title (since it’s author is unknown) and the line #. (Beowulf 345 - 360)