John Lennon
Estimados Estudiantes,
Today I encourage you to make a QUOTE SANDWICH for your essay – the added information you provide will help your reader better understand and appreciate your quote. ( See Jay's John Lennon model below.)
- A quote sandwich may look great in your intro paragraph.
- A quote sandwich may look great in a support paragraph.
- A quote sandwich may look great in your conclusion.
Below I try to model a quote sandwich I plan to use in my essay about Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Band album – the greatest album ever?
Here is what I did:
- Choose a quote:
- “We’re more popular than Jesus.”
( Jay’s Note: Choose an INTERESTING quote. Choose a quote that you can discuss. Choose a quote you can explain. I’m looking for a 200-word quote sandwich. This is a quote from Beatle John Lennon that was misunderstood… There is plenty to discuss.)
- Create a quote sandwich
- Introduce it!
- Quote it!
- Explain it!
Here are the three parts my sandwich:
- TOP – Introduce your quote – 100 words
- Answer these questions: Who? What? Where? When? How?
- Provide your readers some background.
(Jay’s Sample): In 1966, the Beatles were at the top of their game and at the end of their rope. Beatlemania was in full force. Everywhere the band went, the fans became louder and crazier. No one had ever heard music like the Beatles before. No one had ever seen a band like the Beatles before. To accommodate their fans, The Beatles were forced to play before huge crowds in baseball and football stadiums.
- MIDDLE – Quotation
- Use a signal phrase or reporting verb
- Keep it short and sweet.
- Be careful of your punctuation.
- Include an attribution tag.
- Wherever there’s a quote, there’s a citation! Like this (Boyle 75).
( Jay’s Sample): At one point, the band’s leader John Lennon joked in an interview, “We’re more popular than Jesus now” (Borack 80).
- Bottom – Explain it – 100 words
- What do YOU think it means?
- How does the quote connect with your thesis?
( Jay’s Sample): Of course, John’s words created a huge controversy. Not so much back in England, but in the United States religious groups began to organize massive protests against The Beatles. This is when all Hell broke loose. Radio stations across the South began public burnings of Beatles records. Anonymous death threats came flooding in. The Ku Klux Klan turned up at Beatles Concerts to cause trouble. John felt that his words were misinterpreted, but he apologized anyway. He feared someone in his bad getting hurt. Very soon after, the Beatles stopped touring. They were making better music than ever, but the screaming was so loud, they could not even hear themselves sing.
This is what it looks like when I copy and paste everything together:
In 1966, the Beatles were at the top of their game and at the end of their rope. Beatlemania was in full force. Everywhere the band went, the fans became louder and crazier. No one had ever heard music like the Beatles before. No one had ever seen a band like the Beatles before. To accommodate their fans, The Beatles were forced to play before huge crowds in baseball and football stadiums. At one point, the band’s leader John Lennon joked in an interview, “We’re more popular than Jesus” (Borack 80). Of course, John’s words created a huge controversy. Not so much back in England, but in the United States religious groups began to organize massive protests against The Beatles. This is when all Hell broke loose. Radio stations across the South began public burnings of Beatles records. Anonymous death threats came flooding in. The Ku Klux Klan turned up at Beatles Concerts to cause trouble. John felt that his words were misinterpreted, but he apologized anyway. He feared someone in his bad getting hurt. Very soon after, the Beatles stopped touring. They were making better music than ever, but the screaming was so loud, they could not even hear themselves sing.
This is going to be great. You will see.
Paz,
JL