Exercises

Exercise #1: Directions: Describe both what the topic of the previous paragraph was and what the topic of the current paragraph is in the following transitional topic sentences:

1. Similar to the idea of finding the right line through a mogul run, finding the right line through a boulder field in a kayak is equally challenging.

2. As George Orwell's foreshadowing prefigures the protagonist's death in 1984, the reoccurring image of rats in his nightmares adds to the intensity of the final moments of the protagonist's life.

3. Because the tone of the poem "The Road Not Taken" is so overblown and sarcastic, the platitude "(a)nd that has made all the difference" in last line of the poem is read with skepticism.

Exercise #2: Directions: Rewrite the topic sentence of the second paragraph of this narrative so that it is a transitional topic sentence:

Jon's new boat has been a source of trouble to him form the day he bought it. As soon as he took possession of the craft, he discovered, for one thing, that the new engine,an engine the previous owner swore only had two hours on the clock, turned out to have almost 900 hours of hard use without even the most grudging maintenance. When he had the boat hauled out for engine replacement, he noticed that one of the propeller blades was seriously dinged and that there was major collision damage under the waterline. Apparently, the boat had collided with a wing dam in the recent past. The worst, though, awaited Jon when he used the toilet while out on Buck's Lake. Just as he flushed, the rotten through-hull fittings gave way and hundreds of gallons of water flowed in before he could stop the hole. This soaked his new carpets and shorted out his new engine.

Jon's new boat allowed him to undergo a spiritual rebirth. On his first successful overnight outing after the repairs, Jon was stunned by the wildlife on the lake. Seeing the loons and ospreys drove him back to his bird books and to a reawakened interest in the whole outdoors. Also, Jon began writing poems about his experiences alone on the lake. A few successful publications gave Jon confidence, and now he owns a small publishing house and bookstore in Quincy, California.

Exercise #3: Directions: Create a transitional topic sentences for the second analysis paragraph:

4. Thesis: In Tim O'Brien's modernist story "The Things They Carried" the author focuses on the selfishness and disenchantment of the protagonist, Lieutenant Cross, and how he becomes a better leader by resisting his wandering thoughts. Through looking into Cross' mind and his reaction to a fellow soldier's death, we see that imagination is a killer for soldiers at war.

Plan of Attack: This essay will explore the effects of character development, verbal irony, and third person omniscient point of view upon the story's theme that imagination and fantasy are killers in war.

1st paragraph: The verbal irony in the story underscores the importance of the unweighed fear on the soldiers. This unweighed emotional baggage is the reason why Lavender was shot. Describing the weight of what the soldier's carried, Tim O'Brien writes, "Dave Jensen carried empty sandbags that could be filled at night for added protection. Lee Strunk carried tanning lotion. Some things they carried in common. Taking turns, they carried the big PRC-77 scrambler radio, which weighed thirty pounds with its battery. They shared the weight of memory." (O'Brien 6). In this passage, the speaker (Cross) states many of the small, insignificant things they carried, and goes into great detail about them. At the end of the passage he states, "They shared the weight of memory" a short simple sentence about the heaviest of all the things they carried. By understating this fact, the author actually puts emphasis on it. The soldiers pushed this weight of memory to the back of their minds, because in war, imagination is a killer. The literary device in the passage is verbal irony, and more specifically understatement. The author goes into great detail about the things, the physical things they carried, but makes a short comment about the emotional things they carried. By doing this he brings emphasis to these paralyzing emotional thoughts.

2nd paragraph: (Insert transitional topic sentence here):

The third person omniscient point of view plays a key role in our understanding of the way Lt. Cross and his men feel and act towards each other. We see what Cross is thinking when the narrator states, "Lieutenant Cross gazed into the tunnel. But he was not there. He was buried under white sand at the Jersey shore. They were pressed together, and the pebble in his mouth was her tongue. He was smiling" (O'Brien 5) At this point in the story, Lt. Cross is overwhlmed by his longing for his girlfriend. From this passage we can obviously see into Cross's thoughts. The reader can see that Cross is daydreaming and that he forgets about his duty. Shortly after that sequence, Lavender is shot while on his way back from pissing. Cross's imagination gets the best of him, and, as a result, someone dies. Without the omniscient point of view, we would not have known that Cross was forgetting about his duties. This point of view allows us to see into Cross's mind and shows how his imagination is a killer.

Exercise #4:

Thesis: In John Keats' letters and poems he argues that the beauty of nature and inspired expression come from the same spiritual source.

Plan of Attack: This essay will explore how John Keats celebrates all aspects of nature and human experience in his poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and how his letters articulate the notion that the expression of this celebration must seem natural to the reader.

1st paragraph: John Keats' definition of beauty is simple and subtle. Writing in his "Ode on a Grecian Urn", John Keats states that "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'--that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." (lines 49-50). This definition is so broad that it is almost impossible to understand until one looks at what it means. It is saying, in the simplest form, that whatever is true is beautiful. Thus, anything in its purest, and most natural state - be it power, fury, or simply a soft flowing creek - is beautiful beyond words. Keats is saying that he would trade a walk through a pastoral countryside for a voyage through a furious deluge and the other way around if it meant witnessing nature in its "truest" form. It is this ideal that allows Keats's definition to be viewed as being the most important in all of Romanticism. Keats is willing to accept even the most ferocious and terrible thunderstorms and hardships as incredibly beautiful because of a simple word with a complex meaning - truth. It is this idea of truth that gives us the deepest idea into the very reason of why the Romantics would find beauty in things so terrible, harsh, and awe-inspiring. It is the absolute truth of what they are seeing - no humans no buildings, and no dams - that attracts the Romantics. The wild places on earth are uncontrolled by what can be interpreted as the "lies" of man. If truth is beauty, then even the most rugged and terrible terrain is more beautiful in the eyes of the Romantics than the ordered and manicured that has been in a sense "tainted" by the presence and attempted control by mankind.

2nd paragraph: (Insert transitional topic sentence here):

John Keats wrote a letter to John Taylor, dated February 27th, 1818 about truth and poetry . In this casual letterKeats developshis idea that beauty in nature embodies truth because it embodies an unaltered window into the mind of the creator of beauty or God. Speaking about his definition of poetry, Keats says that:

Its touches of beauty should never be half-way, thereby making

the reader breathless, instead of content. The rise, the progress,

the setting of Imagery should, like the sun, seem natural to him,

shine over him, and set soberly, although in magnificence,

leaving him in the luxury of twilight. But it is easier to think

what poetry should be, than to write it - And this leads

me to another axiom - That if poetry comes not as naturally

as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.

(Keats 471).

Keats is showing the reader once again his ideals involving the importance of truth. He believes, in accordance with these principles, that the beauty of a poem should come not only from the truth of its subject matter, but from the truth of the very poem itself as well. He states that if poetry does not come naturally it should not come at all and implies that a contrived poem is in fact a lie from the poet to the reader and, as a result, detracts from the beauty of the poem itself. If the poem, however, is written in the purest and "truest" manner by the poet, in which "the rise, the progress, the setting of Imagery" are simply and truthfully laid down on the paper as they come to the poet, the poem itself will achieve a state of truth and purity that make it beautiful beyond comparison. If a spontaneous or unexpected twist suddenly comes to the poet, Keats says that it would be a variation of the truth if this twist was varied or forgotten and would, therefore, detract from the beauty of the poem. Thus, Keats does not only aim for beauty in his poetry by describing the "truest" natural phenomena, but also writes his very poems themselves in accordance with his idea of the truth. Thus, if there is spontaneity or the unexpected is in the moment than it should be in a poem. Thus, an orderly, rigid, and linear poem is, in Keats' eyes, a lie which only serves to remove all beauty the poem ever had.

POSSIBLE ANSWERS:

1Exercise #1:

1. Similar to the idea of finding the right line through a mogul run, finding the right line through a boulder field in a kayak is equally challenging.

1. 1st paragraph=mogul skiing

2nd paragraph=kayaking

2. As George Orwell's foreshadowing prefigures the protagonist's death in 1984, the reoccurring image of rats in his nightmares adds to the intensity of the final moments of the protagonist's life.

2. 1st paragraph=foreshadow of Winston's death

2nd paragraph=image of rats increase instensity of climax

3. Because the tone of the poem "The Road Not Taken" is so overblown and sarcastic, the platitude "(a)nd that has made all the difference" in last line of the poem is read with skepticism.

3. 1st paragraph=tone of poem is insincere

2nd paragraph=platitude dismissed as insincere

Exercise #2:

Transitional Topic Sentence:

Although Jon's new boat was full of problems, trouble, and mishaps, it allowed him to undergo a spiritual rebirth. On his first successful overnight outing after the repairs, Jon was stunned by the wildlife on the lake. Seeing the loons and ospreys drove him back to his bird books and to a reawakened interest in the whole outdoors. Also Jon began writing poems about his experiences alone on the lake. A few successful publications gave Jon confidence, and now he owns a small publishing house and bookstore in Quincy, California.

Exercise #3:

2nd paragraph: Transitional topic sentence:

As the perponderance of understatements enhance the reader's understanding that fear paralyzed the soldiers, the third person omniscient point of view plays a key role in our understanding of the way Lt. Cross and his men feel and act towards each other. We see what Cross is thinking when the narrator states, "Lieutenant Cross gazed into the tunnel. But he was not there. He was buried under white sand at the Jersey shore. They were pressed together, and the pebble in his mouth was her tongue. He was smiling" (O'Brien 5) At this point in the story, Lt. Cross is overwhlmed by his longing for his girlfriend. From this passage we can obviously see into Cross's thoughts. The reader can see that Cross is daydreaming and that he forgets about his duty. Shortly after that sequence, Lavender is shot while on his way back from pissing. Cross's imagination gets the best of him, and, as a result, someone dies. Without the omniscient point of view, we would not have known that Cross was forgetting about his duties. This point of view allows us to see into Cross's mind and shows how his imagination is a killer.

Exercise #4:

Thesis: In John Keats' letters and poems he argues that the beauty of nature and inspired expression come from the same spiritual source.

Plan of Attack: This essay will explore how Keats celebrates all aspects of nature and human experience in his poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn," and how his letters articulate the notion that this celebration must seem as natural to the reader as night following day.

2nd paragraph: Transitional topic sentence:

Similar to the way in which John Keats wrote about the truth implicit in natural beauty in his poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn, he also wrote a letter to John Taylor, dated February 27th, 1818 about true expression coming to a writer as naturally as the sun moves across the sky or as leaves come to the tree. In this casual letter Keats developshis idea that beauty in nature embodies truth because it embodies an unaltered window into the mind of the creator of beauty or God. Speaking about his definition of poetry, Keats says that: