Weeds and Roses!

Transferable Ideas!!

Weed #1—Respond to the prompt

Let’s reread the prompt:Then write an essay in which you evaluate

what F. Scott Fitzgerald’s argument is in his novel The Great Gatsby.

What must be the focus of the essay? Of what text should you probably use a

plethora?

ROSE!! Notice the adept plucking and plopping

“To achieve this dream he carries out an affair while still being married: ‘So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York—or not quite together, for Mrs. Wilson sat discreetly in another car” (Source A).

“Gatsby joins Wolfsheim when they ‘bought up a lot of side street drug-stores…in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter’ (Fitzgerald 133) to earn money and impress Daisy.”

What does the use of text do for the writer? For the paper?

Weed #1—Respond to the promptPlucking and plopping

The author will say it better than youAvoids summaryDisplays knowledge of the textStrengthens argument as you SHOW rather

than TELLAbout ¾ of your CD should be in the form of

quotes—bare minimum!Mr. Burnett’s theory

Weed #2—Make and Introduction!

Weed #2—Introduce all sources“Gatsby died quietly. Had he realized his

dream of Daisy’s love, his life would have eventually gone out with a bang, a sparkling satisfactory way to end his life. This is not how his life ended, though. ‘I did love him once—but I loved you too’ (Fitzgerald 132).

What is confusing about this quote?

Weed #2—Introduce all sources

1.Introduce author/text2.Introduce context3.Introduce speaker

It only takes a few words/phrases to introduce

Introduce BEFORE you provide the quote

Introducing each of these is not always

necessary, especially if you have

previously noted author/title. But, an

introduction of some kind is usually

needed.

Weed #2—Introduce all sourcesHow does this feel?

ROSE!!!!“The very person

themselves loses all admirable intentions and their world becomes lost. ‘This is the dead land/this is the cactus land’” (Source C).

“The very person themselves loses all admirable intentions and their world becomes lost. T.S. Eliot perfectly describes this land in his poem, “The Hollow Men:” ‘This is the dead land/this is the cactus land’” (Source C).

Weed #2—Introduce all sources

“What should be ephemeral [his dream] turns into something that controls Gatsby’s life. His dream, ‘remained largely a set of deeply held ideals rather than a checklist of goals for entitlements’” (Source D).

“What should be ephemeral [his dream] turns into something that controls Gatsby’s life. His dream, as David Kamp says, ‘remained largely a set of deeply held ideals rather than a checklist of goals for entitlements’” (Source D).

ROSE!!!!

Weed #3—Punctuate ProperlyLet’s get this bad boy down: When you juxtapose a comma next to the end

quotation mark, the comma goes INSIDE the quotation:

“…Fitzgerald argues that no matter how much one

may long to live the ‘American Dream”, achievement is impossible because it is full of greed.”

“…Fitzgerald argues that no matter how much one

may long to live the ‘American Dream,” achievement is impossible because it is full of greed.”

Weed #3—Punctuate ProperlyOnly specialty punctuation ends

up OUTSIDE the quote:

........ in Kamp’s “Rethinking the American Dream”: “Hail ye O, whale” (78).

Kamp’s “Rethinking the American Dream”; and the alternate is also....

What about Kamp’s “Rethinking the American Dream”?

......and he remarked on “Kamp’s ‘Rethinking the American Dream’” (43).

Regular punctuation ends up inside the quote:

......from Kamp’s “Rethinking the American Dream.”

In Kamp’s “Rethinking the American Dream,” the author.....

ROSE!!!!“The perfect house, the best television, the

latest gadgets, the fastest car, the most attractive spouse—these ideals are what the American Dream has become.”

What works here?

ROSE!!!!“No matter how many parties it takes, no matter how

many silk blouses he buys, and no matter how many expensive bottles of wine collect dust in his cellar, Gatsby will never have enough until he can achieve his lifelong dream: winning the love of Daisy Buchanan. ‘Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…And one fine morning—’ (Fitzgerald 180). This last passage of the novel sums up Gatsby’s character and the essence of this timeless story. He clings to the hope of gaining Daisy’s love until that hope is ripped from him by a bullet. Gatsby risks his reputation, his relationships, and his life to win Daisy over and save her from her abusive husband. Though Gatsby encourages Daisy to be unfaithful, he knows that this infidelity will also be her salvation.”

ROSE!!!!“In this way, hope will inevitably die. Hope cannot live in

false pretenses, which means that Gatsby also cannot. Just like The Hollow Men, Gatsby's ‘eyes are not here…in this valley of dying stars/in this hollow valley’ because it is shrouded with the idea that he will obtain his love (Source C). In between West Egg and East Egg, hope is suffocated by the ‘Valley of Ashes.’ Hope cannot be found existing between ‘grotesque gardens…men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air…[and] obscure operations (Fitzgerald 23). Gatsby, and Hope, are blurred by all of the other things that lead up to their dream. It is a hazy could in which their eyes are of no use. The protagonist forces himself to use externalities—money, deceit, materialist items—all based on one single, incapable fragment of hope. The poor mad is blinded by the ashes that conceal reality. And so, as Eliot puts it, ‘This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper’ (Source C).

ROSE!!!!

“Then Gatsby took initiative to meet his love, one nerve-wracking meeting later, shirts, everywhere, and Daisy re-loves Gatsby. It is in this moment when Daisy cries, ‘I have never seen such—such beautiful shirts before’ (92) that Gatsby passes from the desert of the hollow men into the redeemed realm of the full men.”

RER—Reflection, Editing and Revision

Will pass out tomorrowDue Monday!You’ll probably need a Gatsby book