Professor Sabir's Posse

Is a complete revolution possible? Can one turn herself completely around or are only partial eclipses possible?

Afeni Shakur, in conversation with Jasmine Guy, shares a lot of her life with us. Students reflected on this now that we have completed the journey. Students developed questions they'd like to ask Afeni. They also wrote essays questions.

Bring the essay questions along with completed Initial Planning Sheets and Outlines to class (A-232). We will spend the first hour writing the essay.

Choose citations you'd like to include to illustrate or support your claims. We will start the essays. Students will then have an opportunity to take the essay home to complete. You will turn a copy of the essay into me.

I returned most of the Pidd Sentence Punctuation Essays today. I still have three to correct. Pidd is about details. In Essay 1, many students did not follow the templates; other students did not paraphrase the definitions in the introduction.

I will give you a quiz on Thursday as well. We will review the exercises and start Essay 2. Bring Dyson to class on Thursday.

Post your freewrite here. Students had a choice, either to reflect on Evolution or to choose a poem from Rose. The reflection was to be three paragraphs. Students were to use quotes from the text: free paraphrase, short citation and a long citation or block quote.

http://web.peralta.edu/foundation/scholarships-and-grants/

I did not post the assignments for today--Students were to complete Essay 1, Sentence Punctuation and read in Evolution up to Chapter 7 "Song of Sekyiwa" (144). Complete the book, pages 145-209 over the weekend.

For Tuesday, complete the exercises in SPHE up to 85. If we get to the essay today, then students can complete the templates for the body paragraphs (86-97).  Students can complete the essay, if desired.

Next week we will look more at summarizing and paraphrasing using Evolution and Rose. This is in SPHE 339-380.

We will talk about essay topics and essay questions as well next week. Bring in ideas.

Today is the anniversary of Tupac's passing (June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996). There are two poems at the end of Rose where Tupac says goodbye. Choose one of the poems and reflect on the theme in a 3-paragraph essay. Use a citation in each paragraph: 1 free paraphrase; 1 shorter citation, and one long quote for homework and post here.

We will watch Tupac perform his song: How Long Will They Mourn Me. If I can find it (smile). Here is a link to the song performed by Thug Life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6Ihto_Bui0

We talked about the song, located its thesis and supporting evidence. Post a 100 word reflection on the song here. Use one citation from the song to support your argument.

Your Works Cited section for the song:

Shukur, Tupac Amaru. "How Long Will They Mourn Me?" Thug Life: Volume 1. Out Da Gutta/Interscope/Amaru, 1994.

2. Pidd Essay 1. We will review the paragraph templates in groups, along with the introduction and conclusion.

3. Type the essay. Print it.

4. Lit Circles

5. Keep reading and keep going in Pidd.

I had to run this afternoon. Here is a recap of what we did and assignments.

In three (3-4) paragraphs reflect on the research process and include three examples of why research is important. Post your response here.

How does asking questions help us clarify our topic and what we want to say about it?

Today I was happy to see so many of you at the Library Orientation with Professor David Sparks. Students were attentive and took notes. Afterward we took a brief tour of the upstairs Academic Labs and found out what how these services could make your performance at COA that much more exemplary.

Today in class students read five poems: "Family Tree" (115), "Or My Soul" (117), "When Ure Hero Falls" (119), "A River That Flows Forever" (125), "Tears of a Teenage Mother" (129). Post your response to one of the poems here. Include a citation within your response. Include a works cited section of the post.

I think we reviewed this last week. Just in case . . . here it is again.

Shakur, Tupac. "Poem's title in quotes." The Rose That Grew from Concrete. New York: MTV/Pocket Books, 1999. Print.

From Google Books. You will note there is a lot missing:

href="http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Rose_that_Grew_from_Concrete.html?id=dbz23kIVWSQC">

http://books.google.com/books/about/Afeni_Shakur.html?id=gcxOSBYZ6iMC

Today in class there were many students who were not able to participate because they did not have their materials. The Rose That Grew from Concrete worked for many students as the poems were on-line as well, but Evolution of a Revolutionary is not on-line, nor is Stewart Pidd Hates English.

There were about seven students who were prepared today for a discussion and others, who brought their books and used the time to catch up on their reading. At about 2:40 we all got together and completed quite a bit of SPHE chapter 1, Confused Words. '

Homework is to complete the exercises in SPHE (this assignment was given last week.) We will write the essay next week: Punctuating Sentences. Next week is also the first meeting between 9:30-10:30 on Mondays of the Writing Workshop in the space outside my office D-219 (D-214). Bring Pidd so you can get ahead.

Reading
Students were encouraged to read ahead. Read the Chapter 2 for Sept. 6; Chapter 3 for Sept. 10-13. Again, bring all your notes to class.

The students who were not prepared will be assigned Literature Circles on Thursday after our Library Orientation.