topic-Traditional ethnic food

here are some sentences that i wrote to help me write my paragraph.

Topic sentence:
               A traditional ethnic food for Sheboygan, Wisconsin USA is the bratwurst.

Supporting details:
                      A bratwurst is a spicy, fatty pork sausage which is served on (bread) with ketchup, mustard, onions and pickles.  I prefer pickles and ketchup.  The bread is a roll which is crunchy. 

Picnics are a great place to serve these sausages, many people serve baked beans and/or potato salad with these sandwiches.

Brats are typically cooked on an outdoor grill.  Some people prefer to par boil them, or partially cook them in butter, onions and beer before finishing them on the grill.

Many meat markets and sausage companies have their own version of the bratwurst.

Every summer our city has a festival celebrating the cooking and eating of this sausage.

Concluding sentence:
     The bratwurst is celebrated by families in Sheboygan, WI, USA.

A minimum of 15 sentences???  That is not a paragraph that is more like one half of a composition.

I just re read the assignment for my writing class.  They want a minimum of 15 sentences... Never heard of a paragraph that long...

Title: Bratwurst

Topic sentence:  A traditional ethnic food for Sheboygan, WI, USA is the bratwurst capital.


Supporting sentences:  (already explained what it was and how it can be cooked).

Bratwurst are also used as a fund raiser for many people as they are very popular..  People will eat them all the time.

Bratwurst are also served at local football and baseball stadiums.  They are easy to eat.

Other toppings can be added to bratwurst, which include: sauerkraut, fresh or fried onions, yellow or brown mustard, pickle relish, sweet pickles or dill pickles, some people might like peppers or other vegetables. My favorite is dill pickles and ketchup.

Bratwurst is made with spices specific to a meat company.  One meat company's product may not taste the same as another meat company's. because of the recipe and % of pork, beef and fat.  It may also have different spices in the sausages.

Bratwurst are also called "brats", with a long 'a' sound.

Last assignment in Writing class is writing a paragraph using one of five topics.  I will not be posting this online today... it may come later in the week.

I need adverb clauses, and adjective clauses.

1. which keeps the city warm... (adjective)

2. who tries to get things done... (adjective)

3. which is connected.. (adjective)

Apparently, I got these.  Now, for the adverbs.  which I am missing...


1. Because the neighborhood is so close... (adverb)

2. After summer ends, the tourists go home. (adverb)

3. When you need to go somewhere (adverb)


For the disadvantages, I need to make sure there are phrases, let me see what I have.

Noun phrases...

1. unless you work in a nursing home.

2. in a nursing home

3. Because the neighborhood is so close (not sure...)


Verb phrases (guess i got this.. now I have to put everything together)

1. to buy

2. to visit, to get

3. visiting, buying, shopping, knowing, knew,

Practice with phrases and clauses 2

Disadvantages of living in my town

Because the neighborhood is so close, everyone knows everybody's business.

It is hard to get a job, unless you can work in a nursing home, hospital, fast food restaurant or manufacturing facility.

It has two Wal-Marts which have taken business away from smaller shops.  The smaller shops which would encourage specialty shops cannot exist because there is no one to buy from them during nine months of the year.  Tourists mainly visit in the summer months.

There are too many restaurants and bars for the locals to visit so many of them don't last very long.

Practice with clauses and phrases 1

Advantages of living in my town.

The buses can take you almost anywhere.   It is located near Lake Michigan, which not only keeps the city warm in the winter, but cool in the summer.

Everyone in your neighborhood knows you.

People have easy access to the mayor, who tries to get things done.

There are several shopping areas where people can visit different types of stores including: grocery, clothing, department and maybe several specialty stores for clothing, games, or food.

It is not far away from major shopping, and two bigger cities are within a two hour driving distance.

It has a large local library which is connected to several smaller libraries.  There are many different and various religions.

Module 2 Writing Activity

In your journal, continue your observations of the scene observed in journal 1.  Note several vivid action verbs that you have already used. Revise some of your sentences using action verbs and/or write 2-3 new sentences with action verbs. Try not to use any of the forms of “to be” (is, are, was, etc.).  Underline the action verbs in your sentences. Again, you will want to keep all of these sentences at hand as you do the peer reviewed writing at the end of the unit.

this is the scene that I was using... looks like I have to work it over a bit.

As I stared into deep brown eyes of my dining companion, I was unaware of the hustle and bustle going on around us.  Servers were getting orders and visiting with their customers.  The hostess showed more customers to tables around us.  My companion and I spoke to our server and ordered. The server was efficient and the food served quickly.  We dug into the deep fried fish, I had perch, while my companion ate cod.  The plates were filled with French fries, coleslaw and rye bread.  

I wrote this in the past and as you can see there are many "helping" verbs and not as much action.

The sentence "servers were getting orders and visiting with their customers" can definitely be changed.

"I had perch, while my companion ate cod."

"The plates were filled with French fries, coleslaw and rye bread."  Most of this is quite bland and needs more action to show the hustle and bustle of the busy restaurant.

Quite boring and needs more work.

Writing Assignment 1 for coursera Writing class



The tall purple flowers bloom near the bird feeder in my small backyard garden.

The small blonde woman walks determinedly towards the coffee shop where she will purchase breakfast.

2nd or third attempt seems to be ok.

This is what I will turn in.

this is for the second post of journal writing

Verbs                                                                 

1. saw

2. discuss

3. have

4. was

5. hung

 6. leap

7.crawl

8. spun

Adverbs

1. suddenly

2. always

3. lovely

4. darkly

5. romantically

6. sharply

Writing journal for cousera

I am going to be using this blog for my writing journal for my current coursera writing course.

The assignment was to write nouns and adjectives describing a scene.
                                                             

1. bed
2. computer
3. printer
4. books
5. clothes
6. light
7. closet
8. walls
9. chair
10. desk

Here is a list of adjectives:

1. blue
2. messy
3. clean
4. cold
5. warm
6. green
7. light
8. dark
9. three
10. seven
11.  

March

Things are changing.

My coursera courses are almost finished.  Yea!

Snow is melting.  We actually got almost 17 inches the other.  On top of 6 or 7 from previous snowfalls, so there is quite a bit of snow that will have to melt.

Today is sunny which makes everyone feel better and think that spring is finally on the way.  However, there is still the tournaments.  Minnesota tends to get at least one more storm during Boy's basketball tournament.  I am not sure what happens in WI.  Haven't been here that long.

Camp NaNoWriMo is next month.  I may use that to rewrite Jill's story.  I know that was ok at one time, but it needs updating and an ending.

There is Writer's Digest Writing competitions in May.  I am going to seriously think about those as well.

Book club is in about two weeks.  I have finished reading the book (again).  I still want to go over what happens in each chapter so I have the story straight.

It's the end of February.  Not much has been accomplished this month.

I start my Romance book club discussions next month.

I have shoveled a lot of snow.  Today as I look out my window, we have 14.5 inches (supposedly) on the ground and it is heavy and wet.  I haven't done a lot of shoveling, but what I did was tough.  I have already been outside three times for a total of about 2 1/2 hours and still can't get from the house to the garage.  I do have the front shoveled out.

Still no job.  Been to one on-site interview this month.  Have plenty of applications out there.  Was hoping something would work out. But alas.

As for the novel, got started on forms and looking at it, but really haven't done much else.  Always seems like something else needs to get done first.  I have a bare bones book, but not much else.  Seems like I am very good at starting a project, but not so hot at finishing.

Started several more afghans and crocheted items this month.  Maybe that's the direction I should head. Still thinking.....

February

Well, I haven't done much writing.  A lot of thinking about writing and learning what not to do while writing.  I haven't even spent time rewriting.

Although I should.

Still looking for meaning ful work, however, I am starting a new volunteer position as a book club facilitator at the local library.  I am still Storyspotting for Storybird.  And I did some work for the Naval Ship Association.

So I volunteer.  I also have been taking classes through Coursera.  One on writing, one on gamification, evolution and nutrition.  I was also involved in the once Coursera class that crashed a system.  It just wasn't working.

I am reading a lot about writing mysteries and romance novels trying to figure out why my plots don't really go anywhere, (as I find out that is one way truly to be rejected).  I need to find out or rather, maybe outline where my stories are supposed to go.  My biggest problem is ending the story.  i can write dialogue and a sentence that makes sense.

My characters are flat and wooden so I need to work on that, and I need to put in more description of the setting and other parts of the story.  (Maybe it's because I have written plays and they didn't need much more that dialogue.)

Any way, my biggest thing now is trying to figure out my way in life.  Maybe this is the part of my life where I spend my time writing the trashy romance novels that I described back in 2001 or so when I had to make some comment about where i wanted to go with my life.

January starts

The good news is that I have had several interviews with companies that I would like to work for.  So far, though no one has offered me a job.  I am still looking.

The bad news is while my resolution included working on my novels and starting to rewrite, all I have really done is organize my materials in notebooks and on my computers.  But at least I have thought about it.

I am taking some free courses, as while they take up a lot of my time, I have been spending time doing things other than writing.  I am amazed that I actually was able to write 50,000 words at all this year.

I am going to take one day per week and start this week with at least reading through what I have written, then I am going to think about how I can make it better.