Underline the appositive noun, phrase, or clause below:
1. King Darling, the greatest fighter from Moldova, entered the ring.
2. My brother drives a BMW, the world's ultimate driving machine.
3. My sister, a fan of The Voice, watches too much TV.
4. A man of deep grace and respect, Mr. Manderlin gave his car to the distraught woman.
5. The smartest student on campus, Jerry finished his studies early.
6. A present handed down to me through generations, the Rolex exudes the aura of wealth and success.
7. Jerry groaned upon seeing his former girlfriend Talia at the dance.
8. Calculus, my favorite subject, gives a lot of students trouble.
9. The quiz, which the professor created from the bowels of hell, gave me a headache.
10. My grammar problems, which are an embarrassment, continue to plague my essays.
11. A huge man with bulging muscles, Tony repelled the attacking lion.
12. Tony's dessert, a mountain of ice cream slathered with chocolate fudge sauce and slivered almonds, was on display as a reward for his heroism.
13. Tony, who is a professional MMA fighter, fears no man or beast.
14. Tony, a professional MMA fighter, stubbed his toe on his way to dinner.
15. The Evil Shadow, also known as Lucky Loser, ate my peanut butter pie.
Essay That Sheds Light on the Subject of the Rising/Falling Motif
"Rhapsody in Realism" by David Brooks
Example of a Successful Introduction about the Fall Born from Concupiscence
Successful Introductions have the following qualities:
1. vivid details
2. strong, urgent writing voice
3. memorable observations
4. originality
Evisu, True Religion, G-Star, Slim Flare, Citizens of Humanity, 7 For All Mankind, Diesel . . . I found I could not sleep at night unless I recited names of fabulous jeans, jeans that cost between $200-400, jeans that boasted of denim so soft, so textured, so resplendent that they put all other jeans to shame.
The glorious name-brand jeans I am speaking of had almost supernatural powers so that simply wearing them afforded you membership to a special club, a high-brow coterie of people in-the-know, people who could not be bothered by the rest of mundane humanity. This underground designer jean society often communicated on Internet message boards, chat sites, and met monthly at swank cocktail parties where they would show-off their jeans to others whose jean expertise made them qualified to truly appreciate the way the jeans showcased your serpentine profile.
We had to know when the latest jean was on the market so we had software embedded in our cell phones so that when a new jean went on sale our cell phone vibrated pleasantly and thereby alerted us to a new consumer opportunity.
This isn’t to say that we, as members of the elite designer jean cult were absent of problems. We had some, to be sure. One is that once we put on a pair of jeans that we absolutely loved, we found it almost impossible to take the jeans off, even for showers, the beach, and bedtime, so that for many of us our jeans doubled as bathing suits and pajama bottoms. Often we’d strut across the mall, around the neighborhood, and into strange homes and do a pirouette until we were escorted off the premises or chased away by vicious attack dogs.
We couldn’t wash these jeans because every wash faded and thus diminished them. Thus we walked around in filthy, great looking denim rags, Fabreezing them, but soon, that's wasn’t enough to curtail the stench.
I suppose you can tell by what I’ve written so far that I had reached a point in life where jeans had become the focal point of my wardrobe and body image and, yes, my very existence. Knowing that my fabulous jeans allowed me to wear any tattered shirt I wanted and still be “dressed up” gave me a sense of security and smug self-satisfaction that no other clothing article could give me.
Deep down, though, I knew my jean fetish wouldn’t last forever. Deep down I knew the magical jean aura would dissipate and I’d be left with the anxiety of facing the abyss of personal emptiness and would therefore have to cling to some other consumer obsession in the area of gadgetry, automobiles, Persian rugs, fine wines, pungent cheeses, for I had found myself a slave to the dreaded disease of concupiscence.
Indeed, concupiscence drove me higher and higher up the ranks of the Designer Jean Elite, making me think I was rising in life when I was actually falling. This same scenario occurs in the compelling memoir Cooked by Jeff Henderson. The author renders his own battles with his concupiscent demons as he enjoys the materialistic trappings of becoming a savvy drug entrepreneur. Henderson succumbs to his concupiscent ways because he has no moral compass. However, his imprisonment becomes his road to redemption as he discovers how to unshackle himself from the chains of greed and concupiscence by ________________, _______________, __________________, and ___________________.
Class Activity:
Write about a misguided passion you had (or have) for something that resulted in concupiscence, how you thought you were rising when you were falling, and how your ability to free yourself from this concupisence led to redemption.
Example of an Introduction about Denial
I started shoplifting at the age of eleven. I did not steal randomly or recklessly. I was rather very specific in my targets: baseball and basketball cards, which I pilfered from a local 7-Eleven. When the fat, slovenly owner by the cash register was picking his nose and engrossed in reading his Playboys and other nudie magazines, I'd stuff the packets of gum and baseball cards down my pants or the inside pocket of my jacket. After a couple of months however I found I could no longer steal as I was overcome with a sick sensation every time I approached the 7-Eleven and came face to face with the fat store owner.
Just as I was getting out of stealing, my friends urged me to expand my shoplifting scope and asked me to join them in a shoplifting spree at a bigger store, the local Pay-Less, where their plan was to steal fishing tackle gear, mostly lures, hooks, and the like. I declined their offer and was glad I did when they were busted by the store managers who called the cops. The kids involved got grounded for a month and I was relieved that I had not joined them.
There was one boy, however, who did not learn his lesson. He continued to steal, that is, until he broke into his neighbor's house to take some liquor, but to his surprise the neighbor was home waiting for him with a shotgun. My friend was shot in the leg and he was lucky he didn't get it amputated.
These experiences reinforced the lesson that it was important for me not to steal baseball and basketball cards in the stupid fashion of my idiotic friends. So from then on when I wanted something from 7-Eleven, I would prepare myself by stealing loose change from my mother's purse. To make sure I was never caught, I only did this when she lie in bed comatose from too many diet cokes laced with Vodka. Stealing in this manner, I knew I could take as much loose change as I wanted, and even pluck a few bills from her wallet when I felt the need. Clearly, I was superior to my foolish associates.
Sadly, the above account shows us the insidious power of self-denial, one of the four components of the motif that says when we think we are rising we are falling and when we think we are falling we are rising. Likewise, Jeff Henderson embarks on this motif evidenced by __________, ________, __________, and __________.
In-Class Activity
In a paragraph, write about something in your life that was bad but that you were oblivious to because of denial or because of emotional blindness.
Changing Our Definition of Success
When Jeff is able to redirect his energy from being a drug dealer to a chef, he finds redemption. All of us have a “life energy” that can be directed toward concupiscence, revenge, victimization or growth, maturity, and independence as is explained by Erich Fromm in this passage from Escape from Freedom:
It would seem that the amount of destructiveness to be found in individuals is proportionate to the amount to which expansiveness of life is curtailed. By this we do not refer to individual frustrations of this or that instinctive desire but to the thwarting of the whole life, the blockage of spontaneity of the growth and expression of man's sensuous, emotional, and intellectual capacities. Life has an inner dynamism of its own; it tends to grow, to be expressed, to be lived. It seems that if this tendency is thwarted the energy directed toward life undergoes a process of decomposition and changes into energies directed toward destruction. In other words: the drive for life and the drive for destruction are not mutually independent factors but are in a reversed interdependence. The more the drive toward life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive toward destruction; the more life is realized, the less is the strength of destructiveness.
Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life. Those individual and social conditions that make for suppression of life produce the passion for destruction that forms, so to speak, the reservoir from which the particular hostile tendencies--either against others or against oneself--are nourished.
In other words, Fromm is saying that we must flourish in a passion in order to direct our energy toward growth rather than re-direct that energy toward self-destruction such as concupiscent pursuits.
It’s only in prison that Jeff is forced to being the journey to redemption.
Redemption and Flourishing
Flourishing is the opposite of concupiscence flourishing, from the Greek word eudaimonia: means to blossom, to become who we were meant to be.
When Jeff Henderson becomes an illegal “business man” being followed by the feds, rationalizing his illegal activities, and living on easy money, he’s not the person he was meant to be. He is rather a grotesque variation. We see his misshapen character in prison when he becomes the enraged, nihilistic, disaffected victim.
Only when he learns a passion and accepts his responsibilities as an adult, does he begin to flourish and he becomes happier than he was as a concupiscent drug dealer.
Taking a Close Look at Fortitude: The strength and tenacity to push forward in the presence of ever surmounting obstacles. What are Jeff Henderson’s obstacles to starting over?
1. Jeff Henderson discovers that the world is full of “haters and dream crushers” (crabs in a bucket). These are the haters who don’t want people with good intentions to be afforded a clean, fresh start because they want everyone to share in their failure and misery.
2. Others don’t trust us. Nor do they forgive us for our past deeds.
3. Often we have an inability to forgive ourselves for our past deeds creates baggage
4. Often we lack of confidence: We fear that we may backslide into our old ways
5. Often a past label like “convicted felon” creates a stigma that is extremely difficult to erase. We see the felon. We don’t see the husband trying to support his wife and two kids.
6. Jeff Henderson has to tone down his “stroll” and his muscles with baggy clothes to remove the hard gangsta look. See page 2
7. Jeff Henderson has to remain gracious and poised when he gets pooh-poohed by Caesar’s Palace, the very place that was happy to take his money when he was a dealer “back in the day.” Now Caesar’s is playing all high and mighty.
1. He sees he’s been blind and willfully ignorant about the consequences of his selling drugs. 115
2. He develops intellectual curiosity, reading eclectic material, various intellectual and religious doctrines. He doesn’t embrace one but rather picks and chooses as he sees fit. 124
3. He becomes engaged with others vs. being disaffected. 124
4. He finds a passion, cooking, that utilizes his talents.
5. He learns the humility of starting at the bottom and not getting things “easy” like when he was a dealer.
6. He learns a hard work ethic. It’s almost impossible to acclimate from easy money to hard work with low pay. But Jeff was always a hard worker.
7. Jeff found a mentor in Big Roy and later in Las Vegas a cook named Friendly. And then Robert at the Gadsby’s.
8. Jeff experiences contrition and regret on page 146: He is among the dregs of the world, exactly where he belongs, in the lowest rung of society: hell.
9. You must have a vision of a different life. See page 147.
10. He begins to take pride in his work. 147: Speed, taste, and presentation. 188
11. He undoes his wrong by talking to teens in Vegas. 165
Your Research Paper
1. Use the 80-20 rule: 80% of the essay should be written in your words; 20 % should be quoted, paraphrased, or summarized material that refers to your research sources. You need a minimum of 3 sources.
2. Use MLA format: 12 font, Times New Roman, headers, Works Cited . . .
3. Use correct MLA Works Cited and refer to your book or my website for updated format.
Thesis Statements That Are Too General Because They Have No Mapping Components
Cooked is about the rising/falling motif discussed in McMahon's class.
Cooked shows us that when we think we're rising we're falling and when we think we're falling we're rising.
Better Thesis with Mapping Components
Cooked embodies the rising/falling motif discussed in McMahon's class evidenced by ______________, ____________, ___________, _______________, and _______________.
Class Exercise
Work on an introduction and thesis with mapping components and show me before you leave class
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