Equanimity is a perfect, unshakable balance of mind.
–Nyanponika Thera
Welcome back! Here's hoping you had a peaceful and productive week, and enjoyed yourself.
What will the day bring? It is a question I ask myself each morning, and whether I am feeling dreadful or pretty darn good, I can never fully anticipate the answer. Life is never truly routine, never without a multitude of things to wonder and marvel at. As John O'Donohue writes, "If you could imagine the most incredible story ever, it would be less incredible than the story of being here. And the ironic thing is, that story is not a story; it is true." It is exciting to watch the world unfold, to witness the grand parade of things that pass before the eye of consciousness, to note the details, large and small, as one image, one thought, one feeling quickly passes on to the next! We ride the waves, sometimes on a crest, sometimes in a trough, but always we are in the realm of consciousness. . . . For me, meaning is found in the striving to become more aware of the life within and around us. If we can avoid getting caught up in our thoughts, the weight of which can at times be enormous, then we can connect with ourselves and others in that other space out of which all things flow and to which all return, and perhaps there find a goodness otherwise hidden. Behind the mask of appearances, there is a source, a cosmic sea of sorts; and instead of thrashing about in the waves as if at any moment we might drown, we might perchance learn to swim in harmony with that sea. Whether you paint, draw, play an instrument, sing, dance . . . you know the freedom and spontaneity that one taps into at times. For me, painting and dancing are forms of play that take me away from the everyday, for I see things in the paint, feel drama in movement. Likewise, in writing we become, I believe, more conscious of what we feel, think, see, hear, and so on, for in our mind we look at things, turn them over, bring them close, take a step back, listen more intently . . . in short we find connections between thoughts and feelings and images that might have escaped us had we not stopped to contemplate the show.
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Before we go on to our next assignment, we'll practice the sentence, specifically, describing the structure, and then on to the additive or cumulative structure, if we have time. Last week we reviewed saw that English syntax consists fundamentally of a grammatical subject, verb, and object. The subject is typically a noun or noun phrase or a verbal functioning as a noun. The verb is the base of the predicate and operates as a linking mechanism (no action: I am a teacher) or designates the action put in play by the subject, which we can think of as an actor or agent. The direct object is usually a noun or noun phrase following the verb and that receives or takes the action of the verb.
Bill struck a match. I lit the cigarette. We smoked it together.
Here is a poem that expresses the relationship (sort of) between syntax elements:
One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
An adjective walked by, with her dark beauty
The nouns were struck, moved, changed.
The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.
– Kenneth Koch, "Permanently" (referenced in Stanley Fish's How to Write a Sentence)
Words exist in logical relationships with each other, and discovering those relationships will help you understand syntax better, and the sentences you create.
Here's Lewis Carroll's opening lines in "The Jabberwocky":
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Can you find appropriate, logical substitutes for the nonsense words used above?
Not all verbs take an object, but for now we will play with the basic structure and build ever more layered sentences by adding predicate elements, modifying words, phrases, and clauses to the first simple sentence (independent clause), as in the following examples, in which the main clause is italicized:
A customer shot me a dirty look, long and low, as if I had in some way offended her deeply, though I could not but think myself innocent, and unjustly vilified.
1.The women whispered late into the night,
2. their voices rising and falling softly,
3. while I,
4. a mere six years old,
5. dreamed of a time when I, too, would have a world as rich as theirs seemed to me then.
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Before we go on to our next assignment, we'll practice the sentence, specifically, describing the structure, and then on to the additive or cumulative structure, if we have time. Last week we reviewed saw that English syntax consists fundamentally of a grammatical subject, verb, and object. The subject is typically a noun or noun phrase or a verbal functioning as a noun. The verb is the base of the predicate and operates as a linking mechanism (no action: I am a teacher) or designates the action put in play by the subject, which we can think of as an actor or agent. The direct object is usually a noun or noun phrase following the verb and that receives or takes the action of the verb.
Bill struck a match. I lit the cigarette. We smoked it together.
Here is a poem that expresses the relationship (sort of) between syntax elements:
One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
An adjective walked by, with her dark beauty
The nouns were struck, moved, changed.
The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.
– Kenneth Koch, "Permanently" (referenced in Stanley Fish's How to Write a Sentence)
Words exist in logical relationships with each other, and discovering those relationships will help you understand syntax better, and the sentences you create.
Here's Lewis Carroll's opening lines in "The Jabberwocky":
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Can you find appropriate, logical substitutes for the nonsense words used above?
Not all verbs take an object, but for now we will play with the basic structure and build ever more layered sentences by adding predicate elements, modifying words, phrases, and clauses to the first simple sentence (independent clause), as in the following examples, in which the main clause is italicized:
A customer shot me a dirty look, long and low, as if I had in some way offended her deeply, though I could not but think myself innocent, and unjustly vilified.
1.The women whispered late into the night,
2. their voices rising and falling softly,
3. while I,
4. a mere six years old,
5. dreamed of a time when I, too, would have a world as rich as theirs seemed to me then.
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Narration: basic elements of story: character; plot, with conflict at the center of action/events/scenes; setting, bringing a clear sense of time and place; characters; narrative point of view; and theme.
Graded Writing Assignment #3: Construct a multi-paragraph essay (no less than three paragraphs) that narrates an experience or event that reveals something about you or others or the world we live in. It may be descriptive, too, of a place, a time, a person, an object, or an idea. You may use first-person voice, the familiar "I" that we use in conversations about ourselves, or you may third-person narration, referring to other using nouns and third-person pronouns. We may get time to work on it in class; nonetheless, you will revise and bring it to class week 3. Make sure to double space the lines, to use 11 point type in Times font, and to indent the first paragraph (and all paragraph beginnings). Try for 350-500 words. Underline in text the explicit thesis idea or write at the bottom of the page the implicit thesis idea. Bring this essay to class week 3.
Narration: basic elements of story: character; plot, with conflict at the center of action/events/scenes; setting, bringing a clear sense of time and place; characters; narrative point of view; and theme.
Graded Writing Assignment #3: Construct a multi-paragraph essay (no less than three paragraphs) that narrates an experience or event that reveals something about you or others or the world we live in. It may be descriptive, too, of a place, a time, a person, an object, or an idea. You may use first-person voice, the familiar "I" that we use in conversations about ourselves, or you may third-person narration, referring to other using nouns and third-person pronouns. We may get time to work on it in class; nonetheless, you will revise and bring it to class week 3. Make sure to double space the lines, to use 11 point type in Times font, and to indent the first paragraph (and all paragraph beginnings). Try for 350-500 words. Underline in text the explicit thesis idea or write at the bottom of the page the implicit thesis idea. Bring this essay to class week 3.
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