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Friday, May 29, 2015

5.29 - Essay Writing

Everyone had the period today to work on writing their essay response explaining the problem their civic action problem seeks to solve (see "Bare Bones of an Essay" handout in the outline resources below).

During this time, I was available to meet individually with people to respond to questions about the outline and essay writing process.

 The rubric that I will be using to evaluate responses is available here.

Completed draft of your essay exploring the problem that your civic action project seeks to solve.

Homework:
  • Use your outline to begin converting your thesis, claims, and evidence into an essay (due today)
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Thursday, May 28, 2015

05.28 - Debate Debrief, Outline > Essay

At the beginning of class today, we debriefed the debate that we observed in Ms. Gervais' class yesterday by discussing the responses to the after-the-debate questions that people were answering for homework.

 Everyone then had the rest of the period to work on writing their essay response explaining the problem their civic action problem seeks to solve (see "Bare Bones of an Essay" handout in the outline resources below).

During this time, I met individually with people to respond to questions about the outline and essay writing process.

At the end of class, we reviewed questions to prepare us for a debate we will be observing in Ms. Gervais' AP English class. For homework, everyone should respond to the "before the discussion" questions that were provided in class.
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Homework:
  • Use your outline to begin converting your thesis, claims, and evidence into an essay (due Friday)
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Wednesday, May 27, 2015

05.27 - Debate Observation

Today, we listened to a debate with Ms. Gervais' English class on whether or not women should serve in combat roles in the military. At the beginning of class, we discussed student responses to the pre-debate questions. We then watched the debate in Ms. Gervais' class with everyone taking notes on the arguments and rebuttal that were presented.

For homework, everyone should respond to the post-debate questions. For a 100 on this work, people may elect to identify an unsuccessful or missing argument in the debate and make that argument effectively using at least one appeal and one rhetorical device. The author should then explain why this argument is more effective.

People should continue to turn their essay outline into a fully developed essay using the "Bare Bones of an Essay" guidelines. We will continue work with this tomorrow in class with essay drafts due on Friday.

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Homework:
  • Respond to the "after the discussion" questions for today's debate in Ms. Gervais class on women serving in the military.
  • Use your outline to begin converting your thesis, claims, and evidence into an essay.
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Tuesday, May 26, 2015

05.26 - Outline > Essay

Everyone had the period today to work on writing their essay response explaining the problem their civic action problem seeks to solve (see "Bare Bones of an Essay" handout in the outline resources below).

During this time, I met individually with people to respond to questions about the outline and essay writing process.

At the end of class, we reviewed questions to prepare us for a debate we will be observing in Ms. Gervais' AP English class. For homework, everyone should respond to the "before the discussion" questions that were provided in class.

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Homework:
  • Respond to the "before the discussion" questions that were provided in class related to tomorrow's debate in Ms. Gervais class on women serving in the military.
  • Use your outline to begin converting your thesis, claims, and evidence into an essay.
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Thursday, May 21, 2015

05.21 - Outlines > Essays

We started today's class by wrapping up some of our discussion points from yesterday.

Following this, we reviewed the basic structure of an essay as a means of discussing how individuals' outlines will be converted to a feature-length essay (see "Bare Bones of an Essay" handout in the outline resources below).

Everyone then had the rest of the period to complete their outline and begin working on their essay. Outlines should be complete for our return to class on Tuesday.

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Homework:
  • Use the evidence you selected in your notecards to complete your outline. Use the outline format explained on 05.14.
    • If pasting in notecard evidence beneath the sub-claims reveals that you do not have evidence for some sub-claims, return to research and find sources that give you information on those sub-claims.
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Wednesday, May 20, 2015

05.20 - Solutions and Outlines

In the first half of class today, we discussed people's perspectives on the solutions they are proposing to address a community problem. Everyone had the first few minutes to respond to the prompt below and then we spent time discussing the responses that people generated and others' reactions to those ideas.


(Click Image to Enlarge)
Next, we returned to the work yesterday that was focused on creating an outline and using research notecards to fill in evidence for subclaims on the outlines that we started last week. If people found they were lacking sufficient evidence for a subclaim, they should do some research to find information related to this subclaim and then create notecards around the subclaim to use on their outline.

While everyone was working on this work, I checked in individually with people to assess progress and answer any questions on the following assignments:

- Project focus declaration
- Thesis and claim creation
- Problem sources
- Problem notecards
- Outline

We will continue with this work tomorrow.
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Homework:
  • Use the thesis, claims, and sub-claims created in class to begin creating your outline. Use the outline format explained above and paste in relevant evidence beneath sub-claims from your notecards
    • If pasting in notecard evidence beneath the sub-claims reveals that you do not have evidence for some sub-claims, return to research and find sources that give you information on those sub-claims.
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Tuesday, May 19, 2015

05.19 - Problem Discussion and Outlines

In the first half of class today, we discussed people's perspectives on the problems that they are researching and attempting to help solve through their project. Everyone had the first few minutes to respond to the prompt below and then we spent time discussing the responses that people generated and others' reactions to those ideas.
(Click Image to Enlarge)

Next, we returned to the work yesterday that was focused on creating an outline and using research notecards to fill in evidence for subclaims on the outlines that we started last week. If people found they were lacking sufficient evidence for a subclaim, they should do some research to find information related to this subclaim and then create notecards around the subclaim to use on their outline.

While everyone was working on this work, I checked in individually with people to assess progress and answer any questions on the following assignments:

- Project focus declaration
- Thesis and claim creation
- Problem sources
- Problem notecards
- Outline

We will continue with this work tomorrow.
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Homework:
  • Use the thesis, claims, and sub-claims created in class to begin creating your outline. Use the outline format explained above and paste in relevant evidence beneath sub-claims from your notecards
    • If pasting in notecard evidence beneath the sub-claims reveals that you do not have evidence for some sub-claims, return to research and find sources that give you information on those sub-claims.
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Monday, May 18, 2015

05.18 - Outlines and Research

Today our work was focused on creating an outline and using research notecards to fill in evidence for subclaims on the outlines that we started last week. If people found they were lacking sufficient evidence for a subclaim, they should do some research to find information related to this subclaim and then create notecards around the subclaim to use on their outline.

While everyone was working on this work, I checked in individually with people to assess progress and answer any questions on the following assignments:

- Project focus declaration
- Thesis and claim creation
- Problem sources
- Problem notecards
- Outline

We will continue with this work tomorrow.

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Homework:
  • Use the thesis, claims, and sub-claims created in class to begin creating your outline. Use the outline format explained above and paste in relevant evidence beneath sub-claims from your notecards
    • If pasting in notecard evidence beneath the sub-claims reveals that you do not have evidence for some sub-claims, return to research and find sources that give you information on those sub-claims.
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Thursday, May 14, 2015

05.14 - Claims, Sub-claims, and Outlines

We started today's class with a review of the second claim that people wrote last night as part of the homework. In class, we had a couple people share out the claims that they wrote and we discussed how to improve them to make them more focused (see slides below).
(Click Image to Enlarge)
(Click Image to Enlarge)

Next, we looked at how to create sub-claims to help organize the evidence that people had gathered in their notecards (see handout below). Everyone then had time to complete the sub-claim worksheet. We then used this information to begin completing an outline for the first section of individuals' civic action project papers (see directions below).

 Formatting your outline:
  1. Create a new Google Document in Google Drive.
  2. Name the document "Last Name, First Name - Outline Civic Action Project"
    1. Example: Collins, Mister - Outline Civic Action Project
  3. Share the document with Mr. Collins' Google Drive address
  4. Create a header for the document
    1. Select "Insert" > "Header"
    2. Type your last name followed by a space
    3. Select "Insert" > "Page Number" > select the first option / the upper-right hand box
    4. Set the justification for this text so it lines up on the right-hand side of the page
  5. Click underneath the header and type the word "Outline" at the top of the page so it is centered on the page
  6. Go down two lines below the "Outline" title and switch back to a left-hand justification so words line up on the left-hand side of the page
  7. Type "THESIS:" followed by your thesis statement for your research paper
  8. Go down one line and then insert a numbered list the icon looks like this:
  9. Select the bottom, middle numbering option
  10. List your claims at the I and II organization level and sub-claims at the A. and B. organization level (evidence will be at the 1, 2, 3, etc level)
When complete the outline should look like this: Outline Model

 If you are having difficulty formatting the outline, you may also simply copy the document above and modify the information on it to fit your project focus. To do this go to "File" > "Make a copy..." and then copy the document and put your last and first name in the title.

 For homework, everyone should use the thesis, claims, and sub-claims that we created in class to create an outline. Everyone should then copy and paste information from notecards into their outline beneath the appropriate sub-claims (see directions above).

Handouts:
Homework:
  • Use the thesis, claims, and sub-claims created in class to begin creating your outline. Use the outline format explained above and paste in relevant evidence beneath sub-claims from your notecards
    • If pasting in notecard evidence beneath the sub-claims reveals that you do not have evidence for some sub-claims, return to research and find sources that give you information on those sub-claims.


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