“HOW TO” Packet: Summer Reading

Critical Lens Writing for Smarties

  1. Read the directions and the quote.
  2. Explain what the quote means in your own words.
  3. Agree or disagree with the quote. (Make sure you agree or disagree based on the books you can think of that will support the quote one way or another.)
  4. Decide what two books/works of fiction you will use.
  5. Decide what literary terms you will discuss.
  6. Brainstorm for examples.
  7. Outline your essay.
  8. Begin writing.
  9. Revise your essay for ideas.
  10. Revise your essay for style.
  11. Edit your essay.

Guidelines (Checklist):

Be sure to (did you…)

Mention the title and author? (intro)

Explain what the quote means in your own words? (intro)

Agree or disagree with the quote? (intro)

Support your opinion using examples from the story? (body)

Make specific reference to literary terms (for example: theme, characterization, setting, point of view, irony, etc.) to prove your point? (body)

Organize your ideas in a four-paragraph structure? (intro, body, conclusion)

**Tip – start your introduction off with the quote!

What does the quote mean in your own words?

Agree or disagree with the quote and explain why. Keep the why part general to the world (not about the book yet.)

Critical Lens Quotes:

"Good people... are good because they've come to wisdom through failure."
"All literature is protest. You can't name a single literary work that isn't protest."
"Knowing about the life and times of an author is irrelevant to appreciating the full meaning of a literary work."
"A work of literature must provide more than factual accuracy or vivid physical reality... it must tell us more than we already know."
"Good literature appeals to our intelligence and imagination, not merely our curiosity."
"A writer should aim to reach all levels of society and as many levels of thought as possible, avoiding democratic prejudice as much as intellectual snobbery."
"If the literature we are reading does not wake us, then why do we read it? A literary work must be an ice-axe to break the frozen sea inside us."
"I am interested in making a good case for distortion because I am coming to believe that is the only way to make people see."
"A work of literature is limited by the dominant attitudes and ideas of the period in which it is written."
"If literature is nebulous or inexact, this inexactness is the price literature pays for representing whole human beings and for embodying whole human feelings."
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." ~George Orwell
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” ~Philip K. Dick
“Humankind cannot stand very much reality.” –TS Eliot
“’Reality’ is the only word in the English language that should always be used in quotes.”
“Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.” –Jules deGaultier
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” ~SorenKierkegaard
“The purpose of the writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” ~ BernardMalamud
“History repeats itself; that's one of the things that's wrong with history.” ~ClarenceDarrow
“When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers therefore are the founders of human civilization.” ~Daniel Webster (1782-1852)
"The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill." – Barbara Tuchman
“The world is beautiful, but has a disease called man." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“The ultimate security is your understanding of reality.” ~H. Stanly Judd
“The truly educated man is that rare individual who can separate reality from illusion.”
“The real hero is always a hero by mistake…” ~Umberto Eco
“…it is the human lot to try and fail...” ~David Mamet
“Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right using of strength….” ~Henry Ward Beecher
“For what does it mean to be a hero? It requires you to be prepared to deal with forces larger than yourself.” ~Norman Mailer
“To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.” ~Bernadette Devlin
All that is literature seeks to communicate power...” ~Thomas De Quincey

Brainstorm: Do a quick freewrite, list, etc. to decide what books/works of literature you will use.

  1. Start by writing right on the essay booklet. Write anything and everything you can think of for 30 seconds-1 minute.
  2. Decide which two works of literature, which two-four literary terms, and which four examples (two per work of fiction) you will use.

Brainstorm: (Use a T-Chart)

  1. Make the T-Chart:

Text #1:Text #2:

Literary Term:Literary Term:

Example #1:Example #1:

Example #2:Example #2:

Connection:Connection:

Notes: This T-Chart should only take you another 1 ½ to 2 minutes to complete. Do not toil. Just give yourself something to write about. You can hash it out when you begin writing.

Introduction Paragraph:

Intro Fill-In the Blank:

(Introduce quote)______states, “______

______.”

(Interpret quote)In other words, ______

______

(Agree/disagree with quote)This is a (true or false) statement because ______

______

______

(Thesis Statement [connect the text to quote])For example, this can be seen in______

(literary terms) found in ______by ______and ______

______by ______.

Example 1:

John Knowsville states, “Readers can learn just as much from the villains in literature as from the heroes.” In other words, a reader can learn a lot about life from the actions of the bad characters as he/she can from the actions of the good characters. This is a true statement because the way the character behaves can teach one a lot about how to live his/her life. For example, this can be seen in the characters found in the short stories, “The Veldt,” by Ray Bradbury, and “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson.

Example 2:

Body Paragraphs:

Rules:

  1. Have more than one body paragraph. (2 pieces of literature = 2 body paragraphs)
  2. Outline your body paragraphs on scrap paper before beginning.
  3. Use specific details from each story/novel/play to support your ideas. I must be able to tell that you have read and understood the story you are talking about!!!
  4. The last 2-3 sentences need to answer SO WHAT? Make the connection to the quote.

Body Paragraph One (8-10+ sentences): Literary Element One with Examples and Evidence

  • Topic Sentence: In ______(title of one of the pieces), one can see

______(connect to the quote).

  • Ex.
  • Statement: ______

______

  • Ex.
  • Example/Evidence:______

______

  • Ex.
  • Explanation:______

______

  • Ex.
  • Connection to the quote: ______

______

  • Ex.
  • Statement: ______

______

  • Example/Evidence:______

______

  • Example/Explanation: ______

______

  • Clincher/Connection:______

______

  • Ex.

Body Paragraph Two (8-10+ sentences): Literary Element Two with Examples and Evidence

  • Topic Sentence: In ______(title of one of the pieces), one can see

______(connect to the quote).

  • Statement 1: ______

______

  • Example/Evidence:______

______

  • Example/Explanation:______

______

  • Connection to the quote: ______

______

  • Statement 2: ______

______

  • Example/Evidence: ______

______

  • Example/Explanation: ______

______

  • Clincher/Connection:______

______(connect to the thesis/quote).

Concluding Paragraph:

Be sure to:

Restate titles and authors

Add the Critical Lens and explanation

Wrap up your essay with a new thought.

Example:

Instead of: The characters’ behaviors in each of these pieces of literature suggest to the reader this warning about how to live.

New thought: If it wasn’t for the villainous characters in these two stories, the lesson to be learned at the end would not be the same

  • Restate quote: ______

______

  • “Echo” the thesis without simply repeating it (restate the texts used, the author, & elements): ______

______

  • Include a detail or example from the introduction to “tie up the essay.”: ______

______

  • Ex.

Revisions:

Ideas:

  • Used colored pens.
  • Make sure every paragraph has a statement + evidence + explanation + connection x 2= well-supported paragraph.

Style:

  • Conciseness- Read through the essay to see if you can eliminate words and combine sentences.
  • Continuity- No more than two sentence openers in a row.
  • Consistency- Keep verb tenses consistent. Use present tense verbs when discussing literary characters. Make sure your subjects and verbs agree.
  • Banned Words- Don’t use said, thought, go, went, and first person personal pronouns (I, you, your, me, mine, we, us, our, them, their).

Edit:

  • Use your Fix-it Grammar Checklist.

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