Exercises — Week 27: Week 27 — Personal Essay: Observation and Digression (Woolf, Hoagland)
2 hands-on tasks. Do them in order; each one feeds the Canvas item it names.
35 min · analysis
1. Woolf and Hoagland Structural Analysis
- Read Woolf's 'The Death of the Moth' and the opening three paragraphs of Hoagland's 'The Courage of Turtles' (both widely available in anthologies).
- For each essay: identify the opening observation; trace the first digression or associative move; locate where the essay makes an implicit claim about something larger than the surface subject.
- Write one sentence for each essay explaining how the structure serves an argument without announcing it.
Turn in / bring: Two-part analysis with opening observation, first digression, and implicit claim labeled for each essay, plus one-sentence structural explanation per essay.
30 min · written
2. Observation-and-Return Draft
- Begin with one closely observed specific detail — an object, a creature, a gesture you have actually seen.
- Write paragraph 1 about the detail with no thesis and no claim.
- Allow your attention to move to one associated memory or idea — this is your digression. Write paragraph 2.
- In paragraph 3, return to the opening detail. The return should feel different than the opening because of what the digression revealed. Do not state the difference explicitly — let it emerge from the description.
- After writing, add one sentence identifying the implicit claim you believe the essay produced.
Turn in / bring: Three-paragraph draft with a post-draft implicit-claim note. This companion enhances — it does not replace — Mr. Gray's instruction.