10/7/16 Jeremy Dericks

Today in class we began the period by talking about how syntax affects clarity and then we continued to work on our intertextuality essays.  Syntax is word order and word choice and how both can be used in writing.  We did an example of analyzing syntax by looking at a picture from a clip of The Office.  With the picture, Mr. Rivers also provided us a sentence to analyze.  The sentence read "This shot shows a nervous man."  We then used the 6 interrogative verbs (who, what, when, where, why, how) to try to find a way to make the sentence more specific.  Once each group was able to craft a new and more specific sentence, we all posted our group's comments on the classroom page.  As a class, we decided that the sentence "The shot shows the office manager Michael Scott and Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company nervously biting his lip," was the most detailed. Just by using those 6 interrogative verbs we were able to transform a very bland sentence into one that offer much more detail. We then watched a clip from the season 4 opening episode of The Office in which Michael hits Meredith with his car in the parking lot. Michael then calls for a brief staff meeting where he tells everyone that "Meredith has been hit by a car, the doctors did everything they could, but she is okay." The purpose of watching this, aside from getting a good laugh, is to analyze the effect of syntax. In this sentence, the syntax that Michael used makes the people in his office think that Meredith did not make it. We then spent some time discussing how even though Michael did not tell a lie, he used syntax to beat around the bush in an attempt to hide the fact that he was the one who hit Meredith with his car. After this discussion we then took the remaining class time to continue working on our Intertextuality essays. Mr. Rivers walked around the room answering questions and making suggestions to help students who were having a tough time getting their essay going.