Extraordinary Eighths

Authors of books, poems, essays have fascinating lives.  Why did they write what they did? How did they come up with the ideas how did they complete their work? How did their lives influence their what they wrote and how did their writing influence their lives?

Pre-write Read Writer’s Inc text, purpose 245, thesis statement, 249

Thesis statement=subject + a stand, feeling, or feature.

Write a thesis statement about your author to be included in your introduction paragraph

Writing Plan- 100 points

Suggested topics to cover but your may mix up the order or merge some of these categories. You may also discover that your author needs a new category or topic so feel free to add to this list. This is merely a starting point.

1. Introduction includes the thesis statement
2. Birth/Death
3. Childhood
4. Family
5. School
6. Education/Training
7. Jobs – Experiences
8. Why writing?
9. Books/Essays/Poems
10. Awards
11. Legacy – what can you tell us about him/her based on your research?
12. Conclusion Restate the thesis statement.

Authors/Writers/Poets: Authors Who Shaped World History

Choose an author from the list below. Conference with me about your reasons for choosing this author and at that time you will receive final confirmation.

1. Aesop  620-565 BC
2. Homer 850-? BC
3. Miguel Cervantes 1547-1616
4. William Shakespeare 1564-1616
5. John Milton 1608-1674
6. William Blake 1747- 1827
7. William Wordsworth 1770-1850
8. James Fennimore Cooper 1789-1851
9. Victor Hugo 1802-1885
10. Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804-1864
11. Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882
12. Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849
13. Charles Dickens 1812-1870
14. Charlotte Bronte 1816-1855
15. Mary Shelley
16. Emily Bronte – 1818-1848
17. Elizabeth Barret Browning
18. Harriet Beecher Stowe 1811-1896
19. Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862
20. George Eliot 1819-1880
21. Walt Whitman 1819-1892
22. Herman Melville 1819-1891
23. Fyodor Dostoevski 1821-1881
24. Jules Verne 1828-1905
25. Leo Tolstoy 1828-1910
26. Emily Dickinson 1830-1886
27. Louisa May Alcott 1832-1888
28. Louis Carroll 1832-1898
29. Mark Twain 1835-1910
30. Robert Louis Stevenson 1850-1894
31. Lyman Frank Baum 1856-1919
32. O. Henry 1862-1910
33. Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936
34. HG. Wells 1866-1946
35. Laura Ingalls Wilder 1867-1957
36. Robert Frost 1874-1963
37. Jack London 1876-1916
38. Carl Sandburg 1878-1967
39. Virginia Wolfe 1882-1941
40. James Joyce 1882-1941
41. Sinclair Lewis 1885-1951
42. Agatha Christie 1891-1976
43. Pearl Buck 1892-1973
44. F. Scott Fitzgerald 1896-1940
45. Ernest Hemingway 1899-1961
46. John Steinbeck 1902-1968
47. George Orwell 1903-1950
48. Toni Morrison 1931
49. Tom Clancy
50. Langston Hughes
51. Nikki Giovanni
52. CS Lewis
53. Stephen King
54. JRR Tolkien
55. Maya Angelou
56. Rita Dove
57. Ann Rice
58. Alice Walker

Taking Notes – 100 points

Take notes in a numbered list careful not to copy the information directly. Use your own words but keep the information. You should have 80-130 notes depending on your style of writing. Email me the notes and I will give you point credit.

To help organize them you may want to put them in categories according to your writing plan above. For example, if you have notes about the author’s childhood, put them all together under the subheading #3 CHILDHOOD. This will make your writing easier.

For example: Notes on Edgar Allan Poe

1. Birth and Death 1809-1849
2. Poe is one of the greatest writers in the US.
3. “Father of the Macbre”
4. First person to include psychological elements in his stories.

Writing a Draft, Revising, Editing  – 100 points + 50 points

Hooks – ideas to begin your research paper

• One word
• Question
• Interesting or shocking fact
• Anecdote – a little story
• Sound
• Quote from the author’s work
• Quote about the author

For example a good hook would be, ” Edgar Allan Poe had a difficult childhood because he did not really get along with his step father (interesting fact). His birth parents were actors who traveled the country but they died before he was two…”

Write a draft in Word. Save it to your file. Use Google docs to share it with your draft with your team and me. I will give you credit for this draft and make comments.  All teammates will do the same and get credit for the revisions they do so keep me in the collaborator loop.

I will be looking for a research paper that is rich with good information, sophisticated language and insight into the author. It’s not enough to say that Edgar Allan Poe was a good writer. You must state the reasons why. After you have done research, you will be in a good place to analyze the person and to make some bold statements about him/her. So if you tell me that Edgar Allan Poe was a master at strange and disturbing story telling because he had so many tragedies in his life and lost so many people who were close to him, then I will determine that you used your research to draw interesting conclusions about your author.

Writing partners should revise the research with these elements in mind

• rich detail
• sophisticated language
• insight

Writing partners should edit the for MLA style (see Writers Inc 259-284).

Citations – Use Citation Machine to generate a list of sources.

Go to http://citationmachine.net

When you have made all of your edits, format the document in Word as described in the Writers Inc text, then print it out with a cover sheet and citations and submit it to the tray.  Post your research on your blog.

Creating a Project/Website using your Author Research  – 100 points

Create a website dedicated to your author. To get started we will use  webs.com.  View the tutorial and decide these key elements before you enroll:

1. Name of your website  example: The Edgar Allan Poe Project
2. URL or web address. You may need to submit several versions to get a new site. Example: edgarallanpoe.webs.com
3. Add you first name only and no personal information
4. Create a business/organization website and check education for a title
5. Set it up using pages for categories.
6. Add content from the web including links to videos, pictures and text from your paper.
7. Make the site visually interesting and organized.
8. Allow for others to comment.

http://istwilightyourbrandofheroin.webs.com/

Author Research Projects/Website Criteria

• interesting and informative information
• use of colors and graphics
• organized text and pictures
• lists of books/writings/awards
• use of links for sources
• use of video links when available
• thought provoking
• website set up for others to comment

Presentation – 100 points

• good use of projection of website
• good explanation of author
• strong voice
• length of presentation enough for understanding
• ability to answer questions on the topic

Grades = 550 Points with extra credit for creativity.

Timeline:

• Notes and research- March 3-19
• Draft March 22-24.
• Revise March 25-26
• Edit and final due March 29
• Project/Website March 30-April 1
• Project Finals due April 14
• Presentations April 15-16

The first thing that I think of is family.  My three sons, Will, Nicholas and Alex. My father and mother. My friends. So many wonderful friends.

Beyond that though I believe that every day matters. Time matters. What I do with my time, how I spend my time is of paramount importance to my life and my goals. A life worth living is a life that is balanced with learning, work, exercise, relaxation and fun. My weeks are full of cycles of these elements, my life is a carousel that revolves through the seasons, the years the times of my life.

Everyone wrote an essay about what to do if they were in a building other than a home and it caught fire. Please post your fire prevention essay below in the comment section. Don’t forget to remove your last name.

How would you escape a fire in a building other than your home?  Write an essay to explain. Follow these writing steps:

1. Prewrite
2. Draft
3. Revise
4. Edit
5. Publish

Use this structure for your essay:

• Introduction – with a thesis statement
• Body – Topic 1
• Topic 2
• Topic 3
• Conclusion with a restatement of the thesis