Week 10




Good morning, everyone. Hope you had a good . . . two weeks! since last we met.
Today we have class time to finish the essay on The School of Life video series, by Alain de Botton.  Two of my favorites here and here, funny and smart (imo). As these are very short instructional videos designed for personal development, they differ from feature films, whose main intent is to show and tell a good story.  Of course, a little or a lot of charm is necessary in teaching, so one criteria you might use in evaluating the effectiveness of whatever selection you have made is whether the lesson is made clear and palatable (that ole spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down), and if so, how?   What are the elements that draw our attention?  How are we made to feel?  Do we laugh, feel touched, stimulated by the subject? What have we been shown or invited to consider?  What value have you or others (readers' comments section) found in the piece?  Our individual responses will be different from the next person's and that personal view/opinion is crucial to any essay.  At the start, include the film title, provenance, and author's name just as you see them above.

As always, I will return graded work and review the homework assigned and grammar exercises.  Next week is our last meeting together as a class. The final will be much like the previous assigned pieces, 350 words, titled, multi-paragraphed (introduction, body, conclusion), but it will have to be completed during class. Any makeups must be submitted by next week, also, of course.

  






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