1. 10.23.08 | In Cold Blood [day8] Schedule: 1.Attendance & Questions? 2.CollectIt 3.Support paragraphs and the paper at large. 4.Workshop outlines. 5.Discussion 6.HW – write and submit paper 1; finish 3 goposts; read Hemingway; presenters’ posts. Goal[s]:  Analyze ways in which blurring line between fact and fiction influences experiences as well as theories of immersion.  Brainstorm areas of interest in preparation for paper writing.

2. USING COLLECTIT

3. 7 Support Techniques. 1.Personal experience. 2.Statistics. 3.Emotion. 4.Detail. 5.Supporting opinion [secondary source]. 6.Logic. 7.Examples.

4. Paragraph elements. There is no ideal order, but a paragraph should accomplish the following goals: – State the purpose/point/objective of the paragraph, including an explanation of how it relates to the paper’s claim. – Provide evidence for in support of the objective, usually in the form of quotation. – Set the quotation in context of the story and your argument as a whole. – Hit the point home. – Transition to the next paragraph.

5. Quotation Sandwich. The meat needs to be supported by bread. [again, all these elements, but not necessarily in this order] – Set up the quote by telling us where it comes from in the book and why you are drawing our attention there [as opposed to anywhere else] – Give the quotation – Tell us what it says. Literally, just how do you read it. You can’t trust the reader will read it exactly as you have if you just drop it in there. Tell us how to look at it. – Explain what it is we are supposed to be seeing and why we should be looking at it. This is the “so what?” Answer beforehand your reader’s question of why they had to spend time reading all that.

6. Which brings us back to stakes. Remember that a lot of the work of your papers is putting observations into a larger discussion. When you identify the stakes of the claim you are making for discussion of immersion, you want to highlight how each paragraph relates to those stakes. The work you do with these texts is, to some extent, only as good as how you present it. – That doesn’t mean be theatrical. – Rather, the simplest observations are made great by showing why they are important.

7. The 5-Paragraph Essay Intro. – Thesis. Support P 1 Support P 2 Support P 3 Conclusion – Restated thesis. You may have written papers in this format before. It is very popular in secondary education because it is a very flexible structure. However, no professional writes in 5P format. While we may start with this base, a good goal to have is to move past this form into a more open structure you can adapt to fit your argument and supports. This is achieved by concentrating TRANSITIONS. The 5P tends to think of paragraphs in isolation. The way to get out of that form is to write in a way that they are interrelated, building on each other to get further than the individual points. We do not have much time to work on transitions now, but I wanted to bring it up for you to think about as you are putting your papers together. Do your points build or are they isolated? Have you explained a relation between them that extends beyond your grouping them together here?

8. Workshopping Hopefully people brought more fleshed out claims and even outlines today. Get into small groups and help each other improve your outlines. – Does the outline include all the elements cited today? [topic, evidence, explanation, transition] If not, can you help the outliner fill those elements in? – Are the topics clear, related to the claim, related to each other? – Does it progress logically? Convincingly?

9. Discussion 1.What do you remember from reading about the Clutters? Details? Impressions? Emotions? Make a list. 2.Go back to the text and compare what you remember with what is there. 3.Any significant observations? 4.For immersion? On page 287 Mrs. Hickock becomes upset and is lead out of the courtroom by “…a woman reporter, the only one present.” We then get a page and a half of what she said. I made an assumption that the female reporter is Harper Lee. As I read this section I found myself imagining the actress who portrayed her in the film Capote. There have been two films adaptations of the book as well as two films about Capote writing the book. Have you seen any of them? Did this effect how you imagined the events? What about the book itself? Way back on p. 165 Dewey frightens his wife when he shows her pictures of Perry and Dick. She says “Think of those eyes. Coming towards you.” These same eyes appear on the front and back cover of all copies of the book. Did this influence your immersion? Did the picture on the cover influence how you pictured Holcome? How much does you prior knowledge or preconceived notions affect your ability to immerse yourself in the text?