Saturday Update

First, I put a composite list of virtues associated with chivalry on a quick post yesterday.  Please check it out--your book DOES cover most of these somewhere or other, but they are scattered through several different places.

Second, in case by any chance you have lost your review sheet, here it is again:
Jan2013 Semester Final Review Sheet

Third, I intended to also link the specific preparation instructions for the on-the-test essay to Google Drive.  Unfortunately, I apparently saved that only to the school desktop rather than to the server, so I'm reconstructing from the out-of class instructions for last year, and I hope I covered most of it right!!  If you DO have your own sheet from class, please just use that . . .

The Concept of Knighthood—A Comparison/Contrast Essay

          Knights were featured in four of our texts, though not every question requires all four:

§  from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales—both the knight in General Prologue and the knight in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale

§  the Pearl Poet, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight  (questions will involve Gawain)

§  Sir Thomas Malory, excerpt from Le Morte d’Arthur

SAMPLE PROMPT--the one we worked with in class (reviewing general traits, practicing how to change the general "Discuss . . ." into a working thesis.  You couldn't refine and strengthen the thesis, probably, until actually gathering all the hard-core "data" from the texts and shaping the deeper ideas for an essy.)

 Discuss the view of knighthood by comparing and contrasting Sir Gawain, the knight from the General Prologue, and the knight from The Wife of Bath’s Tale

CHOICES FOR YOU TO PREPARE--REMEMBER, YOU WILL NEED TO PREPARE TWO, BECAUSE i WILL PUT ONLY THREE OPTIONS ON YOUR ACTUAL TEST.  YOU WILL NEED TO HAVE TWO PREPARED IN CASE I LEAVE OUT THE ONLY ONE YOU WORKED WITH.

1) Discuss the role of a challenge/proposition/deal/game (you pick which term you like) by comparing and contrasting what happens in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (remember there are 2 games) and in The Wife of Bath’s Tale.

2) Discuss learning a lesson by comparing and contrasting Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Wife of Bath’s Tale.

3) Discuss deception (and appearances) by comparing and contrasting Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Wife of Bath’s Tale.

4) Discuss violations of the code of chivalry by comparing and contrasting Le Morte d’Arthur and EITHER Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or The Wife of Bath’s Tale.

Ground Rules:

§  Although each prompt begins with the general word “discuss,” you must create an appropriate THESIS for your essay. 

§  As a comparison/contrast paper, your essay must utilize a point by point or subject by subject organizational style and NOT an overview of similarities and differences.  [This is the part we addressed in class on Friday using the cat/dog comparison-contrast.]

§  Your actual on-the-test essay will have a shortened intro paragraph--just a get us started sentence that probably includes the works and some sense of focussing reader attention, and then your actual thesis (already written on the prep sheet, though you will be free to "tweak" it on your exam paper).

§  You must have at least eight (8) quotations from the texts, fairly evenly distributed among your body paragraphs.  What people say is fine, of course, but so are passages of description or author commentary.These should be fluently integrated into your writing, and it is fine--often even preferably--to cite only partial sentences from the text.

§  In-text citations:  Use line numbers for the poetry and page numbers for Le Morte d’Arthur.  For the sake of simplicity I am allowing you NOT to include a Works Cited page for this paper.

§  Use standard academic style 

Fourth, because 5th period will have their test on Wednesday, I went ahead and gave them the two 

sheets for writing down their basic structure and quotes for the two essay preps.  Everyone else will get 

those on Tuesday.  I didn't actually WANT you to have them, because I want to reinforce the idea that

planning, thinking, being thoughtful and reflective about what you are claiming and how to support it are all the key things now.  Do that on scratch paper.  You can list out quotes in shortened form, or where to find them.  BUT ABSOLUTELY KEEP TRACK OF THE LINE NUMBERS (pages for LeMorte) because you MUST have them in the essay your write in class.