On the other hands,

Learning with Joy and Humor

...what students learn with joy keeps a long time in their minds and is hard to obliterate from their memories. - Jim Cheng, Senior 2

Least but not last... - Michael, Senior 2

He [Frank McCourt] would never deceive his students and no doubt, he was honest. - Bill, a student who cheated on this assignment, Senior 2

In response to the writing assignment for Frank McCourt's memoir “Typhoid Fever” from the novel Angela's Ashes

Requirements

You are required to write a minimum of 3 pages to 5 pages in this essay. If you want to write more than 5 pages, that is acceptable. I encourage students who want to take the AP Language and Composition exam to write more pages. The first draft of the essay is due on Monday, December 26, 2011. A first draft means that this essay will have mistakes. You will be expected to correct the mistakes in the first draft and write a second draft after I return your paper. The writing processing is about revising and rewriting multiple times.

For the essay, you must read and understand the short story “Typhoid Fever” and the “Meet the Writer” information on page 234 in addition to the article “The Education of Frank McCourt” by Barbara Sande Dimmitt on page 235.

In the essay, you are required to use one key passage from the story “Typhoid Fever” and one key passage from the article “The Education of Frank McCourt” to support your ideas. You may use more than one passage from EACH story, but one is the minimum. The reason that we annotate the story and article is so that we can become better readers and writer and use our annotations to help us generate ideas for our essays.

If you plan to take the AP English Language and Composition exam, I would advise you to work with more than just two sources in your essay. If you want to take the exam, you should be reading four or five sources about Frank McCourt and using the information from them to write your paper. I will send you additional sources if you plan to take the AP exam.

The questions for the essay are as follows. Choose one.

1. (question 11 on page 238) Explain why you would- or would not- want Frank McCourt as a writing teacher.

2. Compare your view and idea on writing with Frank McCourt’s view. Explain why you agree or disagree with his view of what good writing should be.

As always, if you have questions, ask me.