Language Arts 9 assignment
Due Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Mrs. Marston

Choose one. Writing assignments must be handwritten and may be illustrated.
Essays - by Rosa Parks
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: The Creativity of Black Women in the South (1974) by Alice Walker
Just Walk On By by Brent Staples

H - 1. WRITE: We have read personal essays by Rosa Parks, Alice Walker and Brent Staples. Write about the African American experience as expressed in these writings (choose one or more). Write about:
Characters you have learned about (and have been inspired by and why);
Actions they have taken or would like to have taken; and the outcomes or consequences of the actions;
Settings you have learned about that help us understand the experience of the African Americans;
Themes the authors have explored.

H - 2. WRITE: In her essay, “In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: The Creativity of Black Women in the South” (1974) Alice Walker uses the metaphor of her mother’s garden to explore the experience of black women in America. Write how you understand the image of the garden as a symbol of that experience.

3. WRITE: It is late at night. You are walking home alone through an affluent neighborhood in the city. Someone is also walking. You notice he is 6’2” and black.
Write what you are feeling. Write what you are thinking. Write what you do.
Use the vocabulary words from Brent Staples’s essay “Just Walk On By.”
victim, impoverished, discreet, uninflammatory, billowing, menacingly, unwieldy, insomnia, stalking, wayfarer, accomplice, indistinguishable, ghetto, encounter, perceived, dicey, elicit, avid, taut, extol, warrenlike, perpetrators, solace, lethality, retrospect, consummation, intimidate, bravado, perilous, ad hoc, posse, flailing, labyrinthine, cursory, prone, congenial, berth, pedestrian, constitutional, steely

4. WRITE: It is late at night. You are walking home alone through an affluent neighborhood in the city. A young woman is also walking. You are an affluent educated male journalist 6’2” and black. Write what you are feeling. Write what you are thinking. Write what you do.
Use the vocabulary words from Brent Staples’s essay “Just Walk On By.” (see above)

5. WRITE: In his essay “Just Walk On By” Brent Staples portrays himself as an “outsider.” Write about what you have learned from your experience as an “outsider” or your observations about the way our society creates and treats “outsiders.”

Writing tips:
Make the paragraph the unit of composition Use the active voice.
Put the statements in positive form. Use definite, specific, concrete language.
Omit needless words. Avoid a succession of loose sentences.
Express coordinate ideas in similar form. Keep related words together.
In summaries, keep to one tense. Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end.