Ok, so...

1. Homework from last week should be emailed to me by tomorrow at 4pm. You can keep hold of your visual of a controversial art piece (and paragraph too, if you are in honors) til next week. Bring to class.
2. Outstanding papers are due to me by tonight at 7pm. Email them. Katrina and Oksana, you are the only two I am missing now.
3. We will be going over active voice and sentence focus in class next week. Prior to that, I want you introduced, so read over these sites:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_actpass.html

http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/CCS_actionverb.html

http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/CCS_expletive.html

http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/CCS_vaguenouns.html

Now try to rewrite this paragraph with active voice and better focus in sentences. Bring your rewrite to class.

There are many people who think that there needs to be a better justice system. Currently prisoners are put away by the system when sometimes they aren't even guilty. This is a concern in the area of equal rights and predujice since the majority of convicted criminals are poor or ethnic minorities. There needs to be a solution to this problem or not only the prisoners but also society at large will never be given real justice.

--

4. In keeping the theme of art as controversy, take a look at the section from Maus on page 1007 in Short Story and Its Writer. Maus is a graphic novel about the Halocaust, and the father mouse you see in the cartoon is a Holocaust survivor. Next, read over Persepolis on page 1008-1009 (Short Story). This is a segment from a graphic novel about the Taliban taking over in a young girl's country.

Questions:
a) what might the author get out of turning these serious issues into cartoons?
b) do you think it is disrespectful to put such serious issues into an art format or do you think this works as a way of educating people?

5. Read The Things They Carried, pg 608 in Short Story. Write for two minutes after you read, just reacting to the story.

6. Read "On Tim OBrien's Things They Carried," pg 885 in Short Story.

Questions:
a) How does Mason say O'Brien makes a profound impact? Do you agree?
b) How does O'Brien's story work as both a piece of art and as a controversy?


7. Now, changing topics but staying in the theme, write down your opinion of grafitti: is it art or is it a crime, or both?

8. Read this article:
http://www.graffiti.org/faq/stowers.html

questions:
a) Look at the name of the author. Does that lend credibility to or take credibilty away from his thesis? Why?
b) What is his thesis?
c) How does he prove it?
d) Do you agree or disagree after reading this work?

9. Visit this link:
http://www.dougweb.com/grlinks.html
Surf some of the links there.

questions
a) what are the anti-grafitti movements main reasons for being against grafitti?
b) do they prove their points well with these links and info?
c) do you agree or disagree with their points?

10. Go to: http://images.google.com/
Type in "graffiti" and surf until you find a work that either repels you or that you fall in love with. Either print out the piece or simply note the URL and then write a short description of the work.

questions
1. WHat about the piece caught your eye?
2. How is this work both art and controversy? Can we learn anything from this piece?

---
Bring your answers to class next week, Oct 15, for credit then. Also bring the example of controversial art I asked you to find on Oct 1.

See you, with your graded papers (!) in class on 10/15!