Portfolio Details

As you pull together the contents of your portfolio, here is a reminder of how to put it together. Here is the porfolio rubric which will be used to assess your work. Many of you can really use a boost in your semester grade and this assignment is exactly where you can get it. Both your portfolio and research paper will combine for 40% of your semester grade. Here are a reminder fo the guidelines for submitting:

Guidelines

1. Assemble all items in a bound folder or binder with pockets.
2. All items must be typed and in the standard format (margins: 1” trbl font: Times New Roman, 12 point line spacing: dbl).
3. All portfolios must have a cover page with a title, name, class, and date.
4. All final portfolio items should be listed on a table of contents, following the cover page.
5. Include all drafts and work that has led to the final product. Please arrange it so that all prior drafts follow each final draft in the bound portfolio (final – roughs, final – roughs, final – roughs, etc.)

Good luck!

Boxing Footage

Recently ESPN compiled a list of the 50 Greatest Fighters in History. Both Roberto Duran (6) and Sugar Ray Leonard (12) made the list.

For those that are interested in seeing some footage of either or both fighters here are some links to ESPN's clips for both:

Roberto Duran
Sugar Ray Leonard

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a lot of video on the web of their two legendary fights, but you can see each of their skills in either of these and imagine what they were like.

Senior Portfolio Deadline

All senior portfolios are due Tuesday, May 15.
All other portfolios are due Friday, June 1.

Here is the rubric by which it will be assessed.

Sports & Literature Portfolio Requirements

Below is a list that includes many of the pieces that you have developed over the term. For this portfolio you will complete the following:

• choose six (6) of the selections below and prepare them for final submission [seniors choose five (5)]
• any previously submitted pieces must be further developed, revised, and refined (*)
• write a paper that identifies your best piece of writing from the semester, explaining why you think it is your best piece

This will give you a total of seven (7) pieces that demonstrate your ability over the entirety of the semester [seniors six (6)].

Piece Selections:

1. A descriptive and narrative representational piece that uses cumulative sentences *
2. An interview with a Hopkinton sports figure *
3. An fully developed analytical essay on a theme in Friday Night Lights *
4. A fully-developed essay based on any open response from Fever Pitch *
5. A feature sports article selected from feature story idea list
6. A column related to Hopkinton sports
7. Reflective paper honestly appraising both your strengths and weaknesses as a writer
8. Paper on your favorite sports book, using any format you like, tell me why it is your favorite

To earn a passing grade, you must complete all required pieces. The completed portfolio will be treated as 40% of your term grade. Strive for craft and elegance in your writing and you can earn a higher grade.

Notes on the Fever Pitch Open Responses

Having read all the open response pieces for Fever Pitch, generally the second effort seemed to be significantly better than the first, regardless of what the scores might indicate. Overall, many of you are showing great signs of improvement, especially under time-pressured situations. However, there are a few of you who have exposed your lack of close reading and in a few instances lack of any reading.

Nevertheless, a few patterns are emerging related to crafting a thesis and overall development of the body. On the thesis front, there are improvements. Almost everyone is at least half way there. Some of you are getting significantly better at getting all the parts down and establishing a loose point while writing under pressure, which is laudable. In the timed open response format the thesis need not be perfect, but a number of you are pulling together a working version that guides the body of your response. The goal is to get everyone to that level.

Those of you that are faltering a bit still are doing so on two major fronts. One, many are still missing the inclusion of a point and settle for a broad topic sentence like statement, which doesn’t quite cut it as a thesis anymore. Two, when some of you have honed a point and establish a nice angle on the material, there is a lack of any indication of where you are headed in the body of the work. By declaring the elements with which you will be concerned you essentially begin to hint at the why and how of what is to come, also providing the reader with a preview. Usually it is item one or two that is the struggle. There are very few individuals that are missing both, which is definitely progress. We just have further to go. Most often prewriting will assist you in tackling these issues and can be crucial in pulling together a working thesis statement.

On the topic of prewriting, there simply is not enough evidence that people are actually doing it. Despite the limited time, engaging in some prewriting is actually significantly more efficient use of that time. It allows you to spill some beginning ideas down on the page, see them, and can assist you in the selection of your evidence. More importantly, it gets the wheels in your head turning and it not only opens the door to much better thesis development, it can become the foundation of some of your commentary and analysis, which is another area that needs improvement. Finally, it provides you with visual artifacts of your thinking, which helps you organize your thoughts when you begin the actual writing of your response. A number of you are gathering great evidence and making great connections, but the response is all over the place.

On the issue of developing commentary and analysis, almost everyone needs to push for more of it. Aside from sheer volume, it is the depth and detail of commentary and analysis that requires more of you. Almost everyone has mastered the English class gimmick of finding an array of quotes that will help you answer the question, but without real commentary and analysis on your part it remains just that, a formulaic gimmick. The quotes you choose will never make the case for you or completely support your claims. Only you can do it, by providing context and explanation to make sense of your chosen evidence. Don’t be in such a hurry to drop another quote into a paragraph. Examine the first piece of evidence you use fully. Look at all the implications that are suggested by that piece of evidence. Make sure that you are addressing the how and why it is important and relates to the overall point you are trying to support. Draw on your inferences from reading and make connections that demonstrate how deeply you understand the material and how to illuminate it.

Finally, I left more detailed feedback on the first of the two responses that you wrote. The second one is simply scored. The reason being, that while the second set was better, the same issues were generally present. I will review the scoring with you they are returned. Do not lose these pieces once they are returned to you. Also, review the individual comments. The one point you should all understand is that it is highly unlikely that you can achieve a five out of six in topic development, on the rubric, without a strong working thesis. This means that you need to solve the thesis issue to have a chance of getting an “A” on any of these kinds of assessments.

Interview Notes

Overall, the interviews were decent. Considering that this may have been the first time doing something like this, consider it successful. That being said, some were definitely better than others. The ones that proved to be better were made so by one central point, there was a hint of why their subject was interesting and worthy of an interview. However, even in the best cases this was more of an implicit statement, rather than made explicitly clear in your writing. This includes some of the pieces that included really strong writing technique. Moreover, many of you are really developing some cleverness in your writing that was not immediately present in the first few samples I read.

Rest assured, you will be afforded an opportunity to improve these and your overall grade.

As discussed, there were a handful of challenges that were experienced in the development of these pieces:

• Establishing importance of the subject
• Finding an angle or point on your material
• Preparing quality questions to get good material from your subject
• Adapting your questions during the interview to get stronger material
• Using evidence in the form of quotes or stats to support your angle, point, or claims

The trick with any interview is to clearly establish the subject’s importance within the first ten lines or so of the piece. You can have a great, creative introduction, but if that is not followed by a statement that makes it clear why anyone should care to know anything about your interviewee everything starts to unravel. Moreover, to use a fishing term, you use a flashy lure but you still haven’t “set the hook” to ensure that you will be able to land (caught) your fish, in this case the reader.

The questions issues are particularly unique, mainly because you haven’t been asked to do this kind of thing often. Defining really strong questions that will illicit great responses is a skill that takes time to develop. Everyone gets better at by doing it and, like so many things, there are no shortcuts. Consequently, your preparation may have let you down a little. What’s more you may have felt unable to make adjustments during the interview to really get a lot of material, particularly if you had an interviewee that may not have been terribly colorful. Plus, everyone at some point (whether it is for an interview, research paper, whatever) goes through their notes only to discover, “I don’t have anything really good here!” Usually followed by something on the order of “What am I going to do now?!” You can always ask the person some more questions informally and let them know that you need to add to your interview.

Another factor missing in a lot papers was the use of statistics to help support any claims that the athletes were any good. Although, keep in mind the statistics do not make the case alone, you need to provide context in the form of commentary and analysis. For instance, in the major leagues a pitcher that wins twenty games has become a rarity, making that individual an increasingly more valuable individual. However, in high school a benchmark of similar quality is merely seven, considering how many fewer starts they get and the length of the season. You cannot assume that anyone knows these kinds of details, especially if they do not play the sport at the high school level. Therefore you need to wrap your evidence and support with some explanation to back up your claims. In that way it is similar to writing an essay, but be clear an interview is not an essay.

Please remember, there were a lot of good things happening in your work and this was the first time that many of you had to do something like this. Writing is always a process and requires revision and refinement. Hang on to your work and begin revising it. I will give you the details of how you can improve your grade after the break.

Fever Pitch Reading Schedule

Here are the deadlines for reading. There will be a brief reading quiz on the days listed below, covering the assigned section.

Period 3 - finish section one (9-88): Thursday, April 5
Period 3 - finish section two (91-164): Thursday, April 12
Period 3 - finish section three (167-247): Tuesday, April 24

Period 5 - finish section one (9-88): Monday, April 9
Period 5 - finish section two (91-164): Thursday, April 12
Period 5 - finish section three (167-247): Tuesday, April 24

Making Sense of English Club Football in Hornby's Fever Pitch

Here is a short list of some sites that might be of interest to you with relation to Fever Pitch. Using these sites can help you understand just about everything that seems foreign to you about the book, aside from the occasional non-Arsenal player reference. Some of the links give you some general information and others much more precise and telling bits. In any case, they can be quite helpful as you make your way through the text.

• Fever Pitch Glossary – A glossary for nearly all that is included in Fever Pitch
• Arsenal Football Club – The source of the obsession
• Map of Top Tier English Football Club Stadiums – Interactive map of all UK Football Clubs with links to the sites of individual clubs
• English Football Club Stadium Attendances – An attendance table for teams in the Premier League
• English Football Club Stadium Distance Maps and Mileage Table – A mileage table to give you a sense of how far apart teams in the Premier League are currently
• Arsenal Land: by Gooners, for Gooners – Arsenal fan site created by and for people like our friend Hornby
• Footballsite UK: Facts & Figures – A site packed with all the historical results you could ever want, by club
• Premier League Team Nicknames – A brief description of the Premier League Clubs and their nicknames
• Fever Pitch: Student Review – A fairly interesting collection of short writings on Fever Pitch by a German student
• Wikipedia: Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK – Wikipedia article of Hornby’s hometown in the Home Counties (Berkshire) of London
• City of London Boroughs Map – An interactive map of the boroughs of London

Big Time College Athletics

Having examined a longer work focused on high school athletes, Friday Night Lights, we will briefly discuss athletics at the collegiate level and the complexities presented primarily by the NCAA. Download and listen to the podcast (9400 kb ≡ 32 minutes) of John Merrow’s interview of Frank Deford regarding the current state of big time athletics and education in America’s colleges and universities. Additionally, you may want to view the transcript of the interview, for notation purposes. My suggestion is that you read the transcript, marking the text, as you listen. Be ready to react and respond to Deford’s comments in class Thursday/Friday (3/29 - 3/30).

Friday Night Lights on FX

The feature film of Friday Night Lights is getting its cable premiere telecast on the FX network this evening for those of you that are interested. It starts at 7:30 PM.

Interviews

Period 3 - Due: Monday, April 3 (700 words)
Period 5 - Due: Monday, April 2 (600 words)

Remember, the key aspect of writing your interview is establishing why your subject is important and worthy garnering someone's attention. Answering that question establishes your purpose. Also, make sure that you have an angle on your subject that helps you present them in a meaningful way. The easiest way to get an angle on your subject is related to your purpose and consider the following elements:

• Prominence – a well known Who
• Importance – a big What
• Human Interest – an unusual What
• Timeliness – an urgent or noteworthy When
• Proximity – a nearby or well-known Where
• Meaning – a How or Why that is illuminating

While not all of these may apply to your selected person, combining more than one will deepen and enrich what you have to say, as well as what you learn from your interview. Plus, keep in mind that all of these elements are relative since you are working within the local high school sports world.

Having read the Heinz interview of Red Grange, continue to look for little tools and tricks that you might be able to incorporate into your own writing. What's more, it would be an extremely good idea to look at some models of current athlete interviews or profiles from the newspaper or publications like Sports Illustrated and ESPN the Magazine. While the scope of your interview is narrower than a full feature length article, you can still pick up a technique here or there from a good one.

Friday Night Lights - Study Guide

As you prepare for the test on Friday Night Lights you should revisit the text and focus specifically on the characters, themes, and style of the work. You will need to be able to identify characters from descriptions that have been selected directly from the text. Characters that have been identified as potentially important include:

• Boobie Miles
• LV Miles
• Mike Winchell
• Ivory Christian
• Bryan Chavez
• Tony Chavez
• Chris Comer
• Don Billingsley
• Charlie Billingsley
• Jerrod MacDougal
• Trapper O'Connell
• Joe Bob Bizell
• Daniel Justice
• Shawn Crow

Thematically, you should be able to elaborate on analytic questions related to themes present in the story, using relevant and specific evidence from the text to support your answer. You will be assessed on the development and thoroughness of your answer. You should be able to answer questions like the folowing:

• How is the town corrupt and how long has it been that way?
• To what extent does Boobie and Brian's ambitions and experiences prepare each of them differently for life after football?
• What specific examples does Bissinger cite of the roles of fans, coaches, teachers, parents, and school administrators in the treatment of high-school football players?
• How do the father and son relationships of football players reveal values of the players and town?
• What conclusions concerning Odessa might be drawn from the fact that its high-school football program is valued more highly than the town's history?
• How is the concept individual sacrifice in the service of teamwork encouraged?
• How is the issue of racism in Odessa explored in the text?

Regarding style, you will need to be able to break sentences down based on their levels of generality to demonstrate an understanding of Bissinger's structure and syntax. See the example below from page 5.

You will be given a sentence from the text:

He didn't seem like a high school football player at all, but an aging prizefighter who knew that if he didn't get a knockout tonight, if he didn't turn his opponent's face into a bloody pulp, if he didn't sting and jab and show the old footwork, he was done, washed up, haunted forever by the promise of what could have been.

You must rewrite the sentence showing the levels, like this:

1. He didn't seem like a high school football player at all,

   2. but an aging prizefighter who knew that if he didn't get a
       knockout tonight,

   2. if he didn't turn his opponent's face into a bloody pulp,

   2. if he didn't sting and jab and show the old footwork,

      3. he was done,

         4. washed up,

         4. haunted forever by the promise of what could have
             been.

Also, during your next block period you will be asked to write an in-class, open response essay that deals with a theme in Friday Night Lights. Your time will be limted to the duration of class period. Plan a simple five paragraph essay with a short one or two sentence opening that states a clear thesis, three fully developed body paragraphs, and a short one or two sentence conclusion that wraps-up your response. Be sure to use textual evidence in your response.

Character Sketch

Write a 350 word character sketch for your assigned character from Friday Night Lights. You have a lot of creativity in how you execute the sketch, provided you focus on the elements suggested in the handout.

Remember, the goal is to capture the essence of the character for the reader.

Some possible writing strategies the class brainstormed were:

• using narrative, either a mini-story or flashback
• using outside observation, reporter or teammate
• using dialogue, how what is said reveals character
• using point of view, first or third person

Reading Schedule

Period 3 (Level 3) should complete reading of Friday Night Lights by Wednesday, March 7, 2007.

Period 2 (Level 2) should complete reading of Friday Night Lights by Monday, March 12, 2007.

More Notes on Representative Narrative Composition

Here are some more specific notes on things to consider as you revise your pieces.
Period 5 (Level 2) - Revision due Tuesday, March 6
Period 3 (Level 3) - Revision due Wednesday, March 7

Exposition/ Explanation (How do you know?)

• Unnecessary
• Doesn’t create images
• Set-up is not action: focus on action
• Show not tell: focus on visible

Sentence Structure

• Varied lengths (short, medium, long)
• Be attentive to rhythmic changes (cumulative sentences)
• Use phrases and clauses as modifiers
• Mix up the levels and layers
• Sentences are like puzzle pieces, they come in all different kinds of shapes and sizes, some with soft edges, some with sharper ones

Vocabulary

• Using words well is more important than using “big” words
• Diction = word choice
• Factors of diction are denotation (specific meaning of a word) and connotation (associated
• meaning implied or suggested; emotional connections)

Attend to nouns and verbs

• Watch use of pronouns – be clear
• Use appropriate verb forms
• Maintain tense consistency

Notes on Representative Narrative Composition

This assignment presented a very different kind of challenge than most of you were used to writing. The goal was for you to be keenly attentive to your ability to capture what you observe, in this case a sporting moment. So the emphasis was on recording description and behavior. Additionally, you were asked to avoid any thoughts or feeling related to your subject, in an effort to force you to evoke those elements rather than state them explicitly.

The results were mixed.

Most positive was all the pieces demonstrated genuine compositional ability on a general level. Everyone was beginning to demonstrate some syntactical flair with new sentence structure models. Even though some of the attempts broke down grammatically, this willingness to engage with more sophisticated sentences is commendable and is encouraged. The structures of the models lend themselves to greater depth and detail of description.

General notes for revision and improvement all relate to clear understanding of the task and the directions. Everyone should reread the directions, as well as the model that was provided. Some understood with clarity and were able to primarily focus their writing on that which is observable with the naked eye. These pieces are rich with description and developing narration. Others fell victim to the trap of recapping a memorable moment that was steeped in nostalgia and sentimentality. Consequently, those pieces are steeped in explanation, thoughts, and emotions, rather than action. Everyone can more clearly sharpen the scope of their piece, starting right into the action without set-up or exposition.

You will be given the opportunity to revise these for an improved grade, provided that you conference with me to discuss individualized issues related to your composition.