these slides deal with some of the grammatical and stylistic issues that my students faced in writing timed (22 minute) essays on Julius Caesar for practice in class this week. Each pair of slides consists of a student sentence, followed by a slide showing an expanded or clarified version of the same idea.

1. Improving Caesar
Papers
5 November 2009

2. Past Tense:
“the Senate kills him.”

3. Past Tense:
“The Senate killed Caesar in 44 BC.”

4. Clarify Causes
“In political way, Caesar called a senate
to the meeting and they attended.”

5. Clarify Causes
“In politics, Caesar called the senate to
a meeting and they attended — because
Caesar had hundreds of troops to escort
the senators to the meeting.”

6. Contrast
“Caesar wanted more power and the
Senate rejected him, so he began a
revolution more than a civil war.”

7. Contrast
“Caesar wanted more power but the
Senate rejected him. So he began a
revolution more than a civil war. He
didn’t destroy his country, but only its
government.”

8. Broaden Vocabulary
“...and used his powers in a bad way.”

9. Broaden Vocabulary
“...and used his official powers to
intimidate civilians, corrupt military
officers, and bribe public officials.”

10. Clarify motivations
“The senators knew Caesar was right,
but they were afraid of Pompey.”

11. Clarify motivations
“Some senators supported Caesar’s
efforts to reform the government. Yet
they feared Pompey would make trouble
for them if they spoke in Caesar’s favor.
Other senators saw Caesar as a threat
to their own political careers.”

12. Take Yourself Out
“I think that if anyone is a traitor it
would have to be Brutus, the Caesar’s
murderer.”

13. Take Yourself Out
“The real traitor in this tale is Brutus,
Caesar’s former friend and murderer.”

14. “My conclusion’s that...”
“My conclusion is that Caesar is a
traitor because he did many bad things
for Rome and he took very bad
decisions.”

15. “My conclusion’s that...”
“Caesar is a traitor because he fought
Rome and he overthrew his own elected
government.”

16. Simplify
“The senators were afraid to work in
Caesar’s administration because they
thought that if they didn’t do what
Caesar asked they would get tortured
and killed.”

17. Simplify
“Senators refused official jobs in
Caesar’s administration because they
believed Caesar would torture and kill
them for disobedience.”

18. Rename
“Senators refused official jobs in
Caesar’s administration because they
believed the dictator tortured and killed
disloyal subordinates.”

19. Word Choices
“Speaking of money, Julius Caesar had a
plentiful pocket of cash, not to mention
an army, and he was smart.”

20. Word Choices
“Julius Caesar was one of Rome’s
wealthiest citizens, and he was an
intellectually gifted leader. Now he also
had command of an army.”

21. Nonsense
“Over all Caesar struggled a lot in his
years of dictatorship. I think that he
just wasn’t prepared for what he was
facing. He should have asked people for
assistance.”
(agreed, caesar was a traitor).

22. Nonsense
“Caesar overthrew his government for
power, but his four-year-long dictator-
ship was challenging. There were few he
could trust to share his power. ”

23. Motive
“I don’t think that he really knew what
he was doing when he became dictator.”
(agreed, Caesar was a traitor.)

24. Motive
“Caesar worked to overthrow the
government, but had no clear plans for
after he became dictator.”
(agreed, Caesar was a traitor.)

25. Repetition
“He didn’t want to attack because he
was planning. He was carefully
planning how he was going to get into
power.”
(disagreed, Caesar was not a traitor.)

26. Repetition
“Caesar wanted to win power through
election, not through overthrow of his
government. Pompey and his faction
illegally prevented Caesar’s lawful
ambitions.”
(disagreed, Caesar was not a traitor.)