Friday, February 27

Target: to analyze a cause and effect research essay, looking at how its parts work together to make it a model essay. 

1. Fallacy Warm up

2. Return to padlets.

3. Complete the "Urban Neanderthal" activities on yesterday's agenda. 

4. volleyball?

HOMEWORK:  prompt comes on Monday!  Decide on your group members and a few possible cause and effect topics that interest you. 

Thursday, February 26

Target: Introduce the Cause and Effect Mode

WARM-UP:  (15 min) Vocabulary 10 words!  http://quizlet.com/60515121/power-plus-book-3-lesson-10-flash-cards/

1. Read the Bedford Reader chapter on Cause and Effect. (15 min) Take notes on any important details you think you will need to remember to write an effective paper in this mode. 

Post it on this Padlet: 

1st period: http://padlet.com/jenlamonte/lbpfc6sia04g

2nd period: http://padlet.com/jenlamonte/x1k8zqxwp9bf

Review together (5-10 min)

2. Read an example of an MLA formatted paper: "The Urban Neanderthal" (10 min)

In groups: 

• What stands out to you about this essay? 
• What is the writer's thesis?
• Are the causes or the effects emphasized?
• What evidence is most effective?
• How is the paper organized? do a rough outline.

Wednesday, February 25

In class Synthesis essay:  Be sure to use at least 3 sources from the synthesis packet.

Tuesday, February 24

Target:  to carry the conversation as a class without the teacher,  asking questions of each other in order to go deeper (in a Socratic Seminar)

1. In table groups, partner off.  Using the scoring guide, choose a skill to focus on in discussion today.

2. Put your names on both copies of the scoring guide.  Hand one to your partner and one to me. 

3.  Form an inner and an outer circle.  1st round participants go in the inner circle, and partners sit behind them in the outer circle.  

4.  Inner circle:  Participate in a discussion about the topic by asking a question, presenting key evidence and responding to each other's remarks.  

Outer circle:  Listen and take notes on the scoring guide, marking skills your partner demonstrates.  

The 1st round will be 8 minutes.  

Partners give feedback--what did he/she do well?  What does he/she need to work on for next time?

5. 2nd round: 8 minutes.  Then partners give feedback.

6. Closing comments?

7. Reflect on the back of your scoring guide:  How did you do today?  What was the most interesting or enlightening part of the discussion for you?  

Monday, February 23

Target: to build an effective argument collaboratively by finding and discussing important details as evidence for both sides.

1. MAKE UP DWAS: Who's on?

2. Fallacy warm-up (5 min)  Survey: Race and Social Justice: Help out Natalie and Tiffany

3. (20 minutes) In groups of 4, share and discuss the details (evidence) that you collected from all sources in the synthesis prompt.  Spend quite a bit of time considering how you should deal with the counterguments and most compelling pieces of evidence on the other side. 

4. (10 minutes-individually)  On the back of the chart, write one concession paragraph with a rebuttal for this argument.  Remember the key transitional words:

It is true.....however.....therefore

Of course....on the other hand....as a result

Granted....but.......thus........

5. (5 min) REVISE: Read out loud to yourself. Fix any errors and be sure Add one piece of evidence from the texts (or the film) to support your rebuttal (if you haven't already).  

6.  (10 min) Read it out loud to your group.  Listen and offer constructive feedback.  Make sure the logic is clear and makes sense.  Suggest ways to fix any holes in the logic, or offer any evidence that might work better for them. 

Thursday and Friday, Feb 19 & 20

District Writing Test 

1. Thursday is a READING and NOTETAKING day.  Here are the texts: DWA 3 texts

2. Friday is a PLANNING and WRITING and EDITING day.  55 minutes to write your argument, using claims, evidence and thoughtful commentary to support your position (THESIS). 

If you were absent, you will make this up next week during class. 

Argument: Body paragraphs

Here is one way that Katlyn Tucker, an English teacher from Windsor High School, recommends structuring your body paragraphs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw1uLeDLN8g

Note:  this is slightly different from the BAWP model we have been working with.

Wednesday, February 18

Target: What rhetorical moves do I need to remember for tomorrow and Friday?

1. Review introductory paragraphs: Vote here.

2. Review Concession and "Pro" paragraph structure.  Your claims are ESSENTIAL!

3. Look at sample body paragraphs.

4. Remember to embed and to cite your sources.

5.  What about your punctuation?  SUBVOCALIZE.  Look for a place where you could use a semicolon. (with a conjunctive adverb?)

Tuesday, February 17

Target: to pull your details together and make a claim about the documentary

1. Fill out the form based on your reading this weekend.

Finish watching "Born to Trouble".

2. Meet in groups of 4 to dicuss the details you felt were important.

3. Hand me your EBC chart with your claim written clearly and legibly on the box on the back side.

DWA is Thurday and Friday of this week!

Reading for the long weekend: Synthesis Prompt on Huck Finn

Synthesis Prompt is linked here on this form!

Wednesday, February 11

Target:  to practice citing a source in a body paragraph

1. Review SOAPSTONE of each article: "Darkness Too Visible" and "Why the Best Kids' Books Are Written in Blood"

2. What is the central question?  Are dark themes in youth fiction helpful or harmful to teenagers?

3. Using each source, write a body paragraph that presents one reason for your point of view.  Cite both authors, using the signal phrases from the handout.

4. Continue watching "Born to Trouble."

Tuesday, February 10

Target:  to gather evidence from a visual text in order to make a claim

1. Fallacy Warmup (5 min)

2. Review claims from Morrison's essay in groups of 4.  Discuss and turn in. (10 min)

"The brilliance of Huckleberry Finn is that it is the argument it raises."

3. Begin documentary viewing.  Use the "forming claims" chart to record related details from today. (30 min)

Born to Trouble (2000)

Homework:  Read two articles about Young Adult literature and do SOAPS for both.

Monday, February 9

Target: to practice writing a three-part argument in one class period

1. Review the DWA scoring guide

2. Using your graphic organizer and text, write an essay with an introduction, concession paragraph, and at least two pro paragraphs, along with a conclusion. 

PROMPT:  Should teenagers be able to make their own medical decisions?  Using first-hand and second-hand evidence, write an argument that supports your point of view on this issue. 

Friday, February 6

Target: to consider both sides of an issue and address the counterarguments

1. Vocabulary test Lesson 9

2. 4 square debate: Mature Minors--Should teenagers be able to make their own medical decisions?

3. HOMEWORK:  Read Toni Morrison's essay for Tuesday.  Fill out the Making Claims chart with two of her claims and evidence from the essay.

Thursday, February 5

Target:  To practice embedding quotations in a paragraph

In those old slave-holding days the whole community was agreed as to one thing--the awful sacredness of slave property. To help steal a horse or a cow was a low crime, but to help a hunted slave, or feed him or shelter him, or hide him, or comfort him, in his troubles, his terrors, his despair, or hesitate to promptly betray him to the slave-catcher when opportunity offered was a much baser crime, & carried with it a stain, a moral smirch which nothing could wipe away. That this sentiment should exist among slave-owners is comprehensible--there were good commercial reasons for it--but that it should exist & did exist among the paupers, the loafers the tag-rag & bobtail of the community, & in a passionate & uncompromising form, is not in our remote day realizable. It seemed natural enough to me then; natural enough that Huck & his father the worthless loafer should feel it & approve it, though it seems now absurd. It shows that that strange thing, the conscience--the unerring monitor--can be trained to approve any wild thing you want it to approve if you begin its education early & stick to it.- Notebook #35 (reprinted in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Univ. of California Press, 2003

1. quiz on the ending

2. write a paragraph using your details from Tuesday, supporting a claim

3. Assign "Remarking Twain" for Tuesday: Fill out Making Claims chart (on the back side of Forming Claims chart)

4. Are we ready for tomorrow? Vocab 9 test too!

Tuesday, February 3

Target:  To practice forming claims about a text

1. Watch Jon Stewart clip: False Dilemma Fallacy

2. Review quiz from last week.

3. In groups of 4, wait for your assigned chapter. Fill out a FORMING CLAIMS chart, looking for RELATED DETAILS from your chapter.  Consider these guiding questions: http://goo.gl/769r5x

4. Share your claims about the reading. Remember:  a strong claim is ARGUABLE, PRECISE, and INSIGHTFUL. 

The Best/Worst Superbowl Ads

From the New Yorker magazine: http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/best-worst-super-bowl-ads-2015

Time magazine: http://time.com/3691421/super-bowl-2015-ads/?xid=newsletter-brief

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