Wednesday, January 31, 2007

We went over some of the parts of an essay:

Essay means to explain
Most often, you are explaining from your own point of view, though you could certainly include other points of view (both sides of an issue).
An essay can be used to inform, teach (how to), persuade, observe (narrate)
Most high school English essays are in-class under pressure affairs; as such, they usually consist of five paragraphs (Introduction, Body paracgraphs, 1,2,3, conclusion)
The introduction most often consists of: an attention getter, introduction to the issue, a summary of other pieces of literature referred to, a thesis and a road map (main points you will try to prove)

You are Then going to read the following editorial listed below
You are then going to answer the following questions


1. What goals might the writer be trying to achieve? In order to answer this question, you need to consider the context in which the essay was written as well as what is actually stated. List all the ones you can come up with.

2. Choose one of these goals and determine what limitations are standing between the goal and the author reaching it?

3. Discuss the themes presented in this essay with your partner. Write down the ones that present themselves. Which one would you and your partner support as being the dominant one? What support is there to convince you of this? List this support.

4. How does the author get the reader’s attention at the beginning of this essay?

5. Why is tone important when writing an essay? What is the tone of this essay? What evidence is there which supports your position? Brainstorm

6. If you were to rewrite this essay (say, as an editor) what would you keep, change, or add to make it better and/or more appealing?

7. Compare your own position regarding making amends to that of the author. Have you ever felt the same types of emotions? What emotions does the author express in this essay as having experienced them?



One letter is all it took to make amends
By Dawn Adam, Editor, Spotlight

Coming home from work the other day, I did what I always do, unlock the door, assess the mess in the living room, and lecture the dog on what is and is not a chew toy. Lately, it seems my shoes, especially my leather ones, have held her attention.
After all of this, I headed into my office to check the email. This little act a couple of weeks ago put me on a path that I would never have taken on my own – that of yearbook sleuth.
There was a message was from my brother asking if I could return the yearbooks.
The yearbooks? What yearbooks? I vaguely recalled getting some handed to me at the end of each school year, but I hadn’t seen them in ages. Besides, what would he want with my yearbooks?
I wrote him back and found out it was his yearbooks he wanted. Confused, I informed him that I didn’t have them, and added in a humourous tone, that perhaps I’d used them to line a guinea pig or bird cage….
From this communication, I learned that my brother does not have the same sense of humour as myself. To put it mildly, he was on the warpath, now sure that I must have taken the books when I was a teenager, still had them and was holding them hostage.
The notion that I may have taken them was not a far-fetched one for him to reach. As the youngest child, I often stuck my nose where it didn’t belong. I was the irritating little sister, always getting into his stuff; taking his things was just part of the package. Money – yes. Cassettes? Sure, why not? But his yearbooks?
Besides concern over my brother’s state of mind (I really can’t repeat what he actually wrote due to the fact that this is a family paper), the communication left me feeling guilty. Had I, some time in the past, taken those yearbooks? Had I lost them? I couldn’t remember doing it, but he seemed so certain that it was me…. Did it really matter then, if I had taken them or not? Wasn’t it time to make amends for some of the obvious things I was guilty of doing? I decided to try to appease him and do my best to right the situation. I set out to locate copies of these yearbooks.
In order to search them out, I would have to contact people and institutions I hadn’t even thought of in years. The first order of the day was to find out which books he was looking for, and from which schools. It turned out he was missing all three of his high school books and one from grade nine.
It had been 17 years since he graduated from high school in Lethbridge; each year gone would make it all the more difficult to get copies. The first thing I decided to do was phone his old high school and see if they had any copies still kicking around. Makes sense right? School librarians most certainly must have copies of the yearbooks of their own students for just these reasons, so we can come in and look back, and perhaps copy them if we feel so inclined. They did keep them, I was told, but somewhere along the line, other previous students had stolen them.
My next step was to try and contact students from the high school who would have the yearbooks in question. I placed an advertisement in the Lethbridge Herald for four days, sure that it would get someone’s attention. Sure enough, after three days running, I received a whopping…. one call.
The call proved to be fruitless, not because the person didn’t have the yearbooks – he did; I guess I should say, he thought he did.
“They’re somewhere in my parents’ basement. I’ll look and see what I can come up with.” Alas, a yearbook thief had been tempted by his books as well. They couldn’t be located.
It seemed like I was hitting a dead-end. I couldn’t physically search them out – I lived too far away for that, and I wasn’t able to get them through paid ads or the school. That’s when it hit me: write a letter to the Editor.
I sat down and quickly composed my letter, explaining the need to obtain these yearbooks and the fact that I would compensate anyone willing to part with them for their time and effort. I sent the letter off – and waited.
A few weeks passed. By this time, having heard no reply, I assumed my search was at an end. I would forever have to put up with the glaring looks from my brother and would be shunned as a yearbook thief. Oh, the pain of it all. How would I bear it?
Last weekend, the faxes started rolling in.
“I saw your letter in the Herald and can sell you three of the books for $5 each.”
“I have the yearbooks in question and I would be glad to photocopy them and send them to you.”
These were just two of the many responses I received.
I was, and still am, overwhelmed by the response. My letter to the Editor had convinced people to help me out when a paid ad had failed. It proved to be a valuable tool to getting a message across which cost nothing more than a stamp and yet reaped a better result than any other route did.
The yearbooks are now on their way here. In a few short days, they’ll be in my brother’s hands, complete with congratulations in the back which mean nothing to him. But that’s all right. I will have made amends for something he felt I owed him.
I learned from this experience that you can right a wrong. My brother will have something back which he has wanted for some time and I will never have to worry about this issue again.
In the future, if I get an email from a family member stating I have something missing from their childhood, I’ll examine the feelings they are expressing and not simply put up a defense; after all, most of us want validation and not smug replies.