Connection Exercise

Directions: Provide the connection to the thesis analysis sentences for the following paragraphs. The thesis will be provided for each new paragraph.

14. Achieve paragraph coherence:

All paragraphs should have:

-a topic sentence (see transitional topic sentences: Rule #15),

-linking sentence or phrase,

-one concrete detail (quote),

-two comments on the concrete detail

Nonfiction Paragraphs: 1 concrete detail (cd):: 2 comments (2cm): for every concrete detail (fact, example, specifics) in description in narration or description, there should be two comments. The first comment should espouse an opinion or reflection and the second comment should develop the detail's significance to the controlling purpose or dominant impression of the essay.

Controlling Purpose of the Nonfiction Essay :

To show the value of the wilderness experience.

For example:

The wilderness experience helps engender humility in humans and reverence for nature. (Topic Sentence) For example (linking phrase), on a hike to 14,000 feet up Mount Harvard in Colorado I could see the curvature of the earth and the geological processes of plate shifts that formed the peak.

(Concrete Detail) The view expanded my temporal and spatial awareness of nature. (1st comment) At that moment I became aware that I am only a small part of vast processes that form and sustain the world and stood in awe of the grandeur of the wilderness. (2nd comment)

1st comment: Does it express an opinion about the fact?

2nd comment: Does it connect the fact and opinion to the controlling purpose,

dominant impression or thesis?

-Analysis: 1 concrete detail (cd):: 2 comments: for every concrete detail (quotation) in analyses of any text, there should be two comments. The first comment should establish the context of the passage in the larger work and the second comment should develop the quotation's significance to the essay's thesis and / or the text's meaning.

Thesis: Wilderness preservation is justified by addressing the intrinsic value of nature.

For example:

After the frontier closed in 1890, Americans began to make the transition from abhorring the wilderness to perceiving thewilderness as valuable to itself and us.(Topic Sentence) There was a crisis created by the census bureau's declaration that the frontier in America was a thing of the past. Many believed that American individualism would be lossed with this "fromtierless" America.(Linking Sentences) Writing about the value of the frontier wilderness in his essay "Why Wilderness?," Roderick Nash argues that "(w)ilderness is not the enemy of civilization, but a necessity if that civilization is to live up to its potential as a human habitat." (Nash 76) (Intro to Quote and Concrete Detail) Nash is trying to answer the question: Why save wilderness areas? In the paragraph in which this quotation occurs, he is making the point that since the frontier closed in 1890 we need to make the transition from thinking of wilderness as the enemy of civilization to thinking of wilderness as a necessary component of our as well as nature's survival. (1st comment: context) This is his most valid justification for wilderness preservation for he recognizes that nature has intrinsic value, for its existence is necessary to sustain itself and its existence is necessary for us in "civilization" to live.(2nd comment: connection to thesis)

Exercise #1: Directions: Create a coherent, nonfiction paragraph from the following prompt. That is, follow the model of for each concrete detail connect it to the thesis or controlling purpose of the essay. The prompts include both the topic sentence and the controlling purpose of the essay.

1.. Controlling purpose of essay: The transition from Middle School to Upper School is a transition toward the responsibilities of adulthood.

Topic Sentence: One of the responsibilities I have been held accountable for in the Upper School is an increase in work load.

1..

2. Controlling purpose of essay: In the 1980's Americans were inundated with bad hairstyles, bad music, and bad clothing.

Topic Sentence: One of the worst hairstyles has to be the mullet.

2.

3. Controlling purpose / thesis of explication essay: The theme of Robert Frost's poem "Fire and Ice" is that passion or hatred could easily destroy the world.

Topic Sentence: Frost's speaker develops revealing symbols in the first two lines of the poem "Fire and Ice" in order to represent human emotions in vivid imagery.

Quotation (concrete detail): "Some say the world will end in fire / Some say in ice" (lines 1-2)

FIRE AND ICE

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

--Robert Frost (1923)

4. Poem:

Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee,

And round it was, upon a hill.

It made the slovenly wilderness

Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around, no longer wild.

The jar was round upon the ground

And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Controlling purpose / thesis of analytical essay:

In his poem "Anecdote of the Jar" Wallace Stevens is demonstrating how human encroachment upon wilderness destroys the essence of wild places.

Topic Sentence: .By carefully selecting the language of monarchical rule in his use of the word "dominion" and by carefully employing hyperbole, Stevens emphasizes the dominating influence any human construction has upon the surrounding wilderness.

Quotation (concrete detail):

"The jar was round upon the ground / And tall and of a port in air. / It took dominion everywhere." (lines 7-9)

5. Controlling purpose / thesis of analytical essay: In Robert Frost's poem "October" the speaker laments the ephemeral nature of beauty.

Topic Sentence: In the middle of the poem "October" the speaker commands the season in an apostrophe to slow down and show how beautiful the world could be in vivd imagery if the month would not be in such a rush to get to winter.

Quotation (concrete detail): "Retard the sun with gentle mist; /Enchant the land with amethyst. " (lines 15-16)

October

O hushed October morning mild

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grape's sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--

For the grape's sake along the wall.

Possible Answers:

3. Controlling purpose / thesis of explication essay:

The theme of Robert Frost's poem "Fire and Ice" is that passion or hatred could easily destroy the world.

Topic Sentence: Frost's speaker develops revealing symbols in the first two lines of the poem "Fire and Ice" in order to represent human emotions in vivid imagery.

Quotation (concrete detail): "Some say the world will end in fire / Some say in ice" (lines 1-2)

Frost's speaker develops revealing symbols in the first two lines of the poem "Fire and Ice" in order to represent human emotions in vivid imagery. (Topic Sentence) Instead of overtly saying that passion or hatred will end the world, he develops the images of a conflagration, a great fire, and another ice age as visual symbols of desire and hate. (Linking Sentence) Robert Frost describes the two potential apocalypses in his poem "Fire and Ice;" he writes, "Some say the world will end in fire / Some say in ice" (lines 1-2). (Intro to Quote and Concrete Detail) As the opening lines of the poem, they arrest you with their matter of fact tone and nonchalance about the end of the world. (context and condense) The poet later claims that "desire," or excessive passion akin to Hilter's nazism, could ruin the world in a balze of fire. He also later claims that "hatred," or the cold-hearted enmity between races, could "suffice" to end the world in an ice age. Debating how the world will end underscores the necessity of its ending, and this is the poem's chilling point. (connection to thesis)

4. "Anecdote of the Jar"

Thesis: In his poem "Anecdote of the Jar" Wallace Stevens is demonstrating how human encrouchment upon wilderness destroys the essence of wild places.

Topic Sentence: .By carefully selecting the language of monarchical rule in his use of the word "dominion" and by carefully emplying hyperbole, Stevens emphasizes the dominating influence any human conbstruction has upon the surrounding wilderness.

Quotation (concrete detail): "The jar was round upon the ground / And tall and of a port in air. / It took dominion everywhere." (lines 7-9)

By carefully selecting the language of monarchical rule in his use of the word "dominion" and by carefully employing hyperbole, Wallace Stevens emphasizes the dominating influence any human construction has upon the surrounding wilderness. Stevens assumes that the state of Tennessee is primarily wilderness and that placing a jar upon any hill in that state would have a significant effect on this wilderness. (Linking sentences) In "Anecdote of a Jar," Wallace Stevens describes the size and placement of the jar on the hill. He writes, "The jar was round upon the ground / And tall and of a port in air. / It took dominion everywhere." (lines 7-9). (Intro to Quote and Concrete Detail) In the beginning of the poem, the speaker tells us that he has "placed a jar in Tennessee." Now we are given the description of that jar. (1st comment: context) It is "tall" and "round" but it "takes dominion everywhere." In essence, the poet agues that the jar is the only man-made thing in Tennessee. (condense) The monarchical word "dominion" has the connotations: domination, control, ownership, rule. So, Stevens's speaker has made the jar dominate, control, own, and rule the surrounding wilderness by placing it on a hill in Tennessee. Everything in nature is now seen in relation to the jar as all aspects of a kingdom are seen in relation to the king. Stevens is underscoring the point that man's constructions have a monarchical presence in the wilderness. (connection to thesis)

5. Controlling purpose / thesis of analytical essay:

In Robert Frost's poem "October" the speaker laments the ephemeral nature of beauty.

Topic Sentence:

In the middle of the poem "October" the speaker commands the season in an apostrophe to slow down and show how beautiful the world could be in vivd imagery if the month would not be in such a rush to get to winter.

Quotation (concrete detail): "Retard the sun with gentle mist; /Enchant the land with amethyst. " (lines 15-16)

In the middle of Robert Frost's poem "October" the speaker commands the season in an apostrophe to slow down and show how beautiful the world could be in vivd imagery if the month would not be in such a rush to get to winter. (Topic Sentence) Robert Frost is concerned with the passing of time and the ephemeral nature of beauty in this world. He is particularly concerned with the loss of autumn's beauty. (Linking sentences) Commanding the season to give directives to the sun to sustain its beauty, Frost's speaker says, "Retard the sun with gentle mist; / Enchant the land with amethyst. " (lines 15-16) (Intro to Quote and Concrete Detail) In the lines leading up to these directives, Frost has asked the morning to begin slowly and the leaves to be patient in their delayed release from their branches. (context) Adding the sun to the images in October, the speaker commands the sun to "retard" and "enchant" the land by illuminating the "gentle mist" of autumn mornings and infusing the land with a purple "amtheyst" hue. (condense) This is one of Frost's finest images. Frost has preserved the beauty of the fall forever in these images and has achieved what he commands the sun to do while knowing full well that the sun cannot slow down and the season cannot fulfill the directive of sustaining the beauty of its season. So art (poetry) emerges as the great preserver of ephemera. (connection to thesis)