Freshmen: We began the chapter 1-3 vocab review. Chapter 5 from Elements is due next block period. Your typed essay is due Monday.
Sophomores: We discussed the essays your read on the This I Believe website. Chapter 12 from The Power of One is due Monday.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
October 9
I was out today... I am sure you missed me terribly. Nevertheless:
Freshmen: Today we took a vocab quiz and an Elements quiz. For Monday, you need a typed, finished draft of your essay. Chapter 5 from Elements is due next block period.
Sophomores: We took a vocab quiz. For Monday, chapter 12 is due from Power. Your essay is due next Thursday, in one week. Stay well.
Freshmen: Today we took a vocab quiz and an Elements quiz. For Monday, you need a typed, finished draft of your essay. Chapter 5 from Elements is due next block period.
Sophomores: We took a vocab quiz. For Monday, chapter 12 is due from Power. Your essay is due next Thursday, in one week. Stay well.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Leads and Conclusions to Try
Some leads to try…
1. Anecdote: A brief story that captures the essence of the issue or situation, either factual or imagined.
It’s 3 AM, and the stillness of the White House night is shattered by the ringing of the red phone. President John McCain, rousing himself from a deep sleep, turns on the light and picks up the receiver. A US Embassy in a Middle Eastern country, he is told, has been blown up, and al-Qaida is taking credit.
McCain takes a deep breath. “Character counts, my friend,” he says. “Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb Iran.”
-Harold Meyerson, “Would You Sleep Well With John McCain Answering the Red Phone?”
2. Quote: A voice not your own that speaks to or exemplifies the issue.
“This is the new face of hunger,” said Josetta Sheeran, director of the World Food Program, launching an appeal for an extra $500 million so it could continue to supply food aid to 73 million hungry people this year. “People are simply being priced out of food markets… We have never before had a situation where aggressive rises in food prices keep pricing our operations out of our reach.”
-Gwynne Dyer, “Warming and Biofuels: Here Comes a Food Catastrophe”
3. Announcement: The writer takes a strong stand on an issue.
The national outpouring after the Littleton shootings has forced us to confront something we have suspected for a long time: The American high school is obsolete and should be abolished.
In the last month, high school students present and past have come forward with stories about cliques and the artificial intensity of a world defined by insiders and outsiders, in which the insiders hold sway because of superficial definitions of attractiveness, popularity and sports prowess.
-Leon Botstein, “High School, and Institution Whose Time Has Passed”
4. Background: The writer gives a brief history of the issue or situation.
When I was in the fourth grade, I moved from a small Lutheran school of 100 to a larger public elementary school. Lincoln Elementary. Wow. Lincoln was a big school, full of a thousand different attitudes about everything from eating lunch to how to treat a new kid. It was a tough time for me, my first year, and more than anything, I wanted to belong.
Many things were difficult: the move my family had just made, trying to make new friends, settling into a new home, accepting a new stepfather. I remember crying a lot. I remember my parents fighting. They were having a difficult time with their marriage… Despite all this, the thing that I remember most about the fourth grade is Tiffany Stephenson.
-Bjorn Skogquist, “Tiffany Stephenson - An Apology”
5.News: The writer gives the reader the who-what-when-where-why of a situation or issue.
Ninety percent of American smokers started as teenagers. There are several reasons for this scary statistic: peer pressure, parents who smoke, and, most significantly, because of the billions of dollars spent by the tobacco industry on ads that target kids.
-Jack Sherman, “Stop the Tobacco Companies from Targeting Kids”
Some conclusions to try…
1. Anecdote: A brief story that captures the essence of the issue or situation.
2. Admonition or instruction: The writer tells the reader to take a particular action.
What forward-looking communities see is a chance to to get in on the power production boom, not as consumers of dirty, increasingly expensive coal-fired power, but as produces of their own clean power.
There is a solar silver lining in our present environmental mess. It’s a chance to reinvent ourselves. Let’s do it right this time.
-Ed Firmage, Jr. “Revolutionary Solar Technology is Set to Transform Energy Generation.”
3. Prediction: The writer comments on how the situation might be different.
Somehow, we have to make our children understand that they are intelligent, competent people, capable of doing whatever they put their minds to and making it in the American mainstream, not just in the black subculture.
What we seem to be doing, instead, is raising up yet another generation of young blacks who will be failures - by definition.
-William Raspberry, “The Handicap of Definition”
4. Quote: A voice not your own that speaks to or exemplifies the issue.
Well, it’s off my chest; and it feels good.
I will no longer make excuses for my musical tastes. Not when millions are being made by performers exhorting listeners to “put your hands in the air and wave ‘em like you just don’t care.”
Compare that with the haunting refrain of Reba McEntire’s “I Think His Name Was John,” a song about a woman, a one-night’s stand and AIDS: “She lays all alone and cries herself to sleep/ ’Cause she let a stranger kill her hopes and her dreams/ And in the end when she was barely hanging on/ All she could say is she thinks his name was John.”
-Lena Williams, “A Black Fan of Country Music Finally Tells All”
Echo: The ending links back to the beginning - an idea, an image, or a word or phrase.
5. Strong, punched statement: The writer concludes with strong stance, perhaps a one sentence paragraph.
Cohabiting does not necessarily equal the tragic end of a relationship, but couples who do marry after living together have higher rates of separation and divorce. The lack of commitment in such a relationship plays a large role in the scenario. If a couple wishes to have a successful marriage, they should show their commitment to each other from the beginning. If they trust each other enough not to cohabit before marriage, their marriage already has a higher probability of success.
-Denise Leight ”Playing House”
1. Anecdote: A brief story that captures the essence of the issue or situation, either factual or imagined.
It’s 3 AM, and the stillness of the White House night is shattered by the ringing of the red phone. President John McCain, rousing himself from a deep sleep, turns on the light and picks up the receiver. A US Embassy in a Middle Eastern country, he is told, has been blown up, and al-Qaida is taking credit.
McCain takes a deep breath. “Character counts, my friend,” he says. “Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb Iran.”
-Harold Meyerson, “Would You Sleep Well With John McCain Answering the Red Phone?”
2. Quote: A voice not your own that speaks to or exemplifies the issue.
“This is the new face of hunger,” said Josetta Sheeran, director of the World Food Program, launching an appeal for an extra $500 million so it could continue to supply food aid to 73 million hungry people this year. “People are simply being priced out of food markets… We have never before had a situation where aggressive rises in food prices keep pricing our operations out of our reach.”
-Gwynne Dyer, “Warming and Biofuels: Here Comes a Food Catastrophe”
3. Announcement: The writer takes a strong stand on an issue.
The national outpouring after the Littleton shootings has forced us to confront something we have suspected for a long time: The American high school is obsolete and should be abolished.
In the last month, high school students present and past have come forward with stories about cliques and the artificial intensity of a world defined by insiders and outsiders, in which the insiders hold sway because of superficial definitions of attractiveness, popularity and sports prowess.
-Leon Botstein, “High School, and Institution Whose Time Has Passed”
4. Background: The writer gives a brief history of the issue or situation.
When I was in the fourth grade, I moved from a small Lutheran school of 100 to a larger public elementary school. Lincoln Elementary. Wow. Lincoln was a big school, full of a thousand different attitudes about everything from eating lunch to how to treat a new kid. It was a tough time for me, my first year, and more than anything, I wanted to belong.
Many things were difficult: the move my family had just made, trying to make new friends, settling into a new home, accepting a new stepfather. I remember crying a lot. I remember my parents fighting. They were having a difficult time with their marriage… Despite all this, the thing that I remember most about the fourth grade is Tiffany Stephenson.
-Bjorn Skogquist, “Tiffany Stephenson - An Apology”
5.News: The writer gives the reader the who-what-when-where-why of a situation or issue.
Ninety percent of American smokers started as teenagers. There are several reasons for this scary statistic: peer pressure, parents who smoke, and, most significantly, because of the billions of dollars spent by the tobacco industry on ads that target kids.
-Jack Sherman, “Stop the Tobacco Companies from Targeting Kids”
Some conclusions to try…
1. Anecdote: A brief story that captures the essence of the issue or situation.
2. Admonition or instruction: The writer tells the reader to take a particular action.
What forward-looking communities see is a chance to to get in on the power production boom, not as consumers of dirty, increasingly expensive coal-fired power, but as produces of their own clean power.
There is a solar silver lining in our present environmental mess. It’s a chance to reinvent ourselves. Let’s do it right this time.
-Ed Firmage, Jr. “Revolutionary Solar Technology is Set to Transform Energy Generation.”
3. Prediction: The writer comments on how the situation might be different.
Somehow, we have to make our children understand that they are intelligent, competent people, capable of doing whatever they put their minds to and making it in the American mainstream, not just in the black subculture.
What we seem to be doing, instead, is raising up yet another generation of young blacks who will be failures - by definition.
-William Raspberry, “The Handicap of Definition”
4. Quote: A voice not your own that speaks to or exemplifies the issue.
Well, it’s off my chest; and it feels good.
I will no longer make excuses for my musical tastes. Not when millions are being made by performers exhorting listeners to “put your hands in the air and wave ‘em like you just don’t care.”
Compare that with the haunting refrain of Reba McEntire’s “I Think His Name Was John,” a song about a woman, a one-night’s stand and AIDS: “She lays all alone and cries herself to sleep/ ’Cause she let a stranger kill her hopes and her dreams/ And in the end when she was barely hanging on/ All she could say is she thinks his name was John.”
-Lena Williams, “A Black Fan of Country Music Finally Tells All”
Echo: The ending links back to the beginning - an idea, an image, or a word or phrase.
5. Strong, punched statement: The writer concludes with strong stance, perhaps a one sentence paragraph.
Cohabiting does not necessarily equal the tragic end of a relationship, but couples who do marry after living together have higher rates of separation and divorce. The lack of commitment in such a relationship plays a large role in the scenario. If a couple wishes to have a successful marriage, they should show their commitment to each other from the beginning. If they trust each other enough not to cohabit before marriage, their marriage already has a higher probability of success.
-Denise Leight ”Playing House”
October 7 and 8
Freshmen: Today we learned two simple methods of planning out an essay, as well as five possible lead techniques and six conclusion techniques. For your essay, you must use one of the lead techniques and one of the conclusion techniques that I taught you. Chapter 4 from Elements is due Thursday; there is also a vocab quiz on Thursday.
Sophomores: We finished the film today and discussed how it helped us understand our book. We also focused on how social change occurs. You must review the notes posted on my blog regarding leads and conclusions to try and use one of them in your film essay. Here's what you need to know as far as due dates go:
1. Thursday: Vocabulary test.
2. Friday: This I Believe assignment due. At least 2 3EJ entries due.
3. Monday: Chapter 12 due.
4. Next Thursday: Be able to access a completed electronic copy of your essay from school.
2 entries for the Power of One due on your Echoes of the Tao assignment.
Sophomores: We finished the film today and discussed how it helped us understand our book. We also focused on how social change occurs. You must review the notes posted on my blog regarding leads and conclusions to try and use one of them in your film essay. Here's what you need to know as far as due dates go:
1. Thursday: Vocabulary test.
2. Friday: This I Believe assignment due. At least 2 3EJ entries due.
3. Monday: Chapter 12 due.
4. Next Thursday: Be able to access a completed electronic copy of your essay from school.
2 entries for the Power of One due on your Echoes of the Tao assignment.
Monday, October 6, 2008
October 6
Freshmen: Today we took Step 3 in our essay process, Focusing the Data. We looked at all the data we collected, decided what it told us, and phrased that as a clear, arguable, and supportable thesis. For example, my thesis was The driving age needs to be raised to 18. Other students' were things like: Human activity is endangering large, wild cats; Cell phones should be banned for all drivers under 25; The death penalty is cruel and should be abolished. And so on. We also took a quiz on Chapter 3 from Elements; finish Chapter 4 for Thursday. There will be a quiz. There will also be a quiz on Chapter 3 from the vocab book.
Sophomores: We continued with our film study activity. Remember, your This I Believe activity is due Friday; keep working on your 3EJ and your Echoes of the Tao as well. Chapter 9 was due today from Power; Chapter 12 is next Monday.
Sophomores: We continued with our film study activity. Remember, your This I Believe activity is due Friday; keep working on your 3EJ and your Echoes of the Tao as well. Chapter 9 was due today from Power; Chapter 12 is next Monday.
Friday, October 3, 2008
October 3
Freshmen: Today Chapter 2 from Elements was due; Chapter 3 is due on Monday. ALL RESEARCH FOR YOUR ESSAY IS DUE ON MONDAY - this means, your 3x5s filled out, your interview complete with notes taken, your survey completed and collected. We will take the next step then, which you can't do if you don't complete the second step. Letters to the editor are due Thursday.
Sophomores: Today we continued our film/culture study of Cry, the Beloved Country. For Monday, Chapter 9 is due from The Power of One. Continue working on your Tao assignment, your 3EJ, your essay project, and read, read, read.
Sophomores: Today we continued our film/culture study of Cry, the Beloved Country. For Monday, Chapter 9 is due from The Power of One. Continue working on your Tao assignment, your 3EJ, your essay project, and read, read, read.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
October 2
Freshmen: We spent time gathering information from the internet for your essay project. All info - internet, interview or survey, and non-internet print resource - must be collected and written down for Monday. For Friday, finish Chapter 2 from The Elements of Style. Chapter 3 is due for Monday.
Sophomores: Today we began viewing Cry, the Beloved Country, continuing to build our schema for understanding the time, place, and characters of The Power of One, as well as continuing the idea of performing a close reading through analysis and synthesis. Chapter 9 from The Power of One is due Monday, and your compare and contrast film assignment is due on Thursday, October 16.
Sophomores: Today we began viewing Cry, the Beloved Country, continuing to build our schema for understanding the time, place, and characters of The Power of One, as well as continuing the idea of performing a close reading through analysis and synthesis. Chapter 9 from The Power of One is due Monday, and your compare and contrast film assignment is due on Thursday, October 16.
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