We began class Tuesday with an exercise designed to help fix run-on sentences. We split into groups of two or three, and worked on sentences pulled from our previous essays. Then, each group shared one of the sentences and explained why it was either run-on or a fragment. The main causes of run-on sentences were punctuation surrounding the word, “however,” and the integration of quotes.
After spending thirty minutes on grammar, we shifted into a discussion comparing James Patterson’s Invisible with Weiner’s Good In Bed. We focused mainly on the book covers, noticing that Invisible looks more masculine and serious from the big bold text, and colors. Good In Bed looks more appealing to women with its light colors and image of a woman’s legs crossed.
Invisible was co-written with author David Ellis; so we pulled up his blog and read excerpts from it. Ellis said that Patterson (and his own) writing style is focused on pure entertainment. They don’t miss an opportunity to insert drama if possible. Through this style, Patterson and Ellis focus mostly on their method of conveying content, (the act of writing) over the content itself. This scope makes the narration in Invisible more aimed towards the reader’s experience. We then talked about Weiner’s writing style in Good In Bed, and deemed it more focused on the ideas and content itself over the way it’s conveyed. Weiner has a goal with her book: to “change world” and help women of size, whereas Patterson and Ellis just want to entertain the reader with drama.
After talking about Invisible, we divided the class into two and compared the characterization of Los Angeles vs. Philadelphia in Good In Bed. The class divided into two, half focusing on Los Angeles and the other half on Philadelphia. Everyone picked one sentence to share with the class while Professor Bergren wrote on the board what these sentences say about either city. The consensus was that Los Angeles was associated with wealth, beauty, and value of appearances, while Philadelphia was normal, safe, homey, calm, less sophisticated, and focused on food over exercise. After creating this list, we related the characteristics of these places to the plot that occurs within them. In Los Angeles, Cannie lives an “unreal” life where she attends parties, has access to wealth, and makes out with a celebrity. In Philadelphia, she lives a normal life where she works, cooks, and takes care of her dog. Maddie pointed out that upon her return from Los Angeles, Cannie is confident, which leads to her confrontation with Bruce. Although this interaction is important for Cannie to have, it leads to her accident where she almost loses her baby, posing the question of which place is actually safer.
We concluded class by getting with partners and sharing our guilty pleasures for fifteen minutes. Alex and I talked about music, since we have chosen Taylor Swift and Kesha. These artists make good topics for guilty pleasures, but it is challenging to find good reviews of their albums.
Thursday’s class was dedicated entirely to peer review of our first drafts. Instead of being in groups of three, we worked in pairs to better familiarize ourselves with the one essay we had to read. This enabled more thoughtful feedback. We read each other’s essays three times, focusing on different aspects for each read. For the first read, we focused on content as a whole, specifically thesis and structure. The second read was geared towards paragraph content. We looked at the topic sentences, and made sure the paragraphs stick to one idea. For the third read, we made sentence level revisions. I was paired with Ryan and we both gave each other good feedback as to where to take the essay.