Today Mrs. Hopkins was absent: thank you sick toddler!
At the beginning of the class, students turned in their DWA (District Writing Assessment) Reflections to their corresponding basket on the counter. Their reflection must be printed out and stapled to the blue rubric they received on Wednesday. Students noted at the bottom of their reflection whether or not they intend to do a full revision for a higher grade. On Wednesday students read the Declaration and began working with a partner to “translate” the Grievances into “normal language.” They will continue this work today. Just copying the shorter phrases doesn’t count. For example, “For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us,” or “For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world”; these need some definitions for “quartering” and “trade.” The same goes for the other grievances--they will need to define unusual words. When they are done with the grievances, they must work on the intro and concluding paragraphs: identifying ethos, pathos, logos in each paragraph, and deciding which appeal is dominant in each paragraph. They should also indicate which appeal they think is dominant in the entire Declaration. They only need to label the appeals, they do not need to justify them. If time, they should work on mini-summaries of the intro and concluding paragraphs. This must be completed for homework if not done in class, and students should be prepared to share their translations aloud in class tomorrow.
DWA Reflection Assignment (click here first) DWA Rubric (Mrs. Hopkins gave you a blue printout of this in class) Essay Scale Percentage Conversion (this is how your scale score in Turnitin.com was converted to a letter grade for Skyward) This assignment is due on Monday, November 30, at the beginning of class. Please go over the instructions carefully. It is a MANDATORY assignment, no matter your grade. It must be typed and printed out. This is your only homework during our break. It would have been the same assignment over a regular weekend, so hopefully that removes some stress for you.
Here is the (final) version of the Declaration we will be working with in class. After reading the first two paragraphs together (the fun stuff we are all familiar with), we worked in pairs on the Grievances, writing mini-summaries for each of the 26 (or, translate them into "normal speak"--Mrs. Hopkins likes to call them the TOP 25 REASONS THE COLONIES HATE THE KING OF GB). We will continue our work on the summaries when we return from break, ultimately working towards sharing these in class. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!Today, because of conference scheduling, only 5th period American Lit met today. 1st period will meet on Tuesday this week.
We continued work on the paragraph analysis of "The Crisis." There should have been plenty of time today to finish, but it will not be due until we reconvene on Wednesday (lots of students working on Chromebooks and will need to print out their work). No homework other than to finish this assignment. Today, because of conference scheduling, only 1st period American Lit met today. 5th period will meet on Monday and Wednesday of next week.
We continued work on the paragraph analysis of "The Crisis." There should have been plenty of time today to finish, but it will not be due until we reconvene on Tuesday (lots of students working on Chromebooks and will need to print out their work). No homework other than to finish this assignment. Today, with Mrs. Hopkins back, we went back over the contextual information relating to George Washington and "Common Sense" that the sub skipped over.
We re-read the beginning of "The Crisis," and then got back to work on the paragraph analysis. We will continue working tomorrow. Before reading, please pass out the yellow handouts (Parent/Guardian –Teacher Conferences 2015) in the orange folder. This is a required reflection activity REGARDLESS of whether or not the student’s parents/guardians will be attending conferences. It is due tomorrow, Thursday. Skip reading the Thomas Paine biography. We will address that tomorrow. Instead, please read this background piece about “The Crisis” (found at this link, but pasted here as well): “The Crisis” was published on December 19, 1776. These are the times that try men’s souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. When these phrases appeared in the pages of the Pennsylvania Journal for the first time, General George Washington’s troops were encamped at McKonkey’s Ferry on the Delaware River opposite Trenton, New Jersey. In August, they had suffered humiliating defeats and lost New York City to British troops. Between September and December, 11,000 American volunteers gave up the fight and returned to their families. General Washington could foresee the destiny of a rebellion without an army if the rest of his men returned home when their service contracts expired on December 31. He knew that without an upswing in morale and a significant victory, the American Revolution would come to a swift and humiliating end. Thomas Paine was similarly astute. His Common Sense was the clarion call that began the revolution. As Washington’s troops retreated from New York through New Jersey, Paine again rose to the challenge of literary warfare. With American Crisis, he delivered the words that would salvage the revolution. Washington commanded that the freshly printed pamphlet be read aloud to his dispirited men; the rousing prose had its intended effect. Reciting Paine’s impassioned words, the beleaguered troops mustered their remaining hopes for victory and crossed the icy Delaware River to defeat hung-over Hessians on Christmas night and on January 2, the British army’s best general, Earl Cornwallis, at the Battle of Princeton. With victory in New Jersey, Washington won not only two battles, but also the love and thanks of man and woman. Please click here for a PDF of our textbook version of "The Crisis." Here are the instructions for students for the remainder of the period: With a partner (each of you need to record your answers separately) please read Thomas Paine’s “The Crisis” in the textbook and complete the following:
No homework other than filling out the conference handout/survey. Today we reviewed the Patrick Henry speech, again looking for examples of rhetorical appeals.
We began logging examples of each type of appeal in the speech. You will need to find five examples of each type of appeal, label it, and explain why it is that type of appeal. Simply stating "it's logical" or "it's emotional" is not sufficient. You must explain what words make it so. You may not use the same quote more than once, though you may acknowledge that a quote may have more than one type of appeal. This will be due Thursday. Today everyone presented their Patrick Henry portion of their Age of Reason pamphlets.
We read a short bio on Patrick Henry, and then read his Speech to the Virginia Convention (his "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" Speech). We highlighted/underlined passages with examples of ethos/pathos/logos. We also watched the famous Lyndon Johnson "Daisy" attack ad from the 1964 Presidential Election. It only aired once, but its rhetoric was so powerful, once was enough. We compared this to Patrick Henry's plea to raise arms against the British. Today we logged examples of rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, logos) found in SNL sketches and turned them in at the end of class.
Have a great weekend! Today we discussed rhetoric as it applies to the current presidential nomination campaigns. The candidates have to think about rhetoric and how to persuade the American public to vote for them pretty much 100% of the time. We discussed the use of ethos and pathos by the candidates to make themselves more accessible and relate-able to voters.
We brainstormed stereotypes about the Democratic and Republican parties, and then generated a list of candidates for both sides. Turns out there are way more candidates competing for the Republican ticket (and it doesn't seem like anyone has the lead), and over on the Democratic side, it's going to be a long drawn out battle between two candidates. We read an article and watched two ads for Hillary Clinton about her use of pathos (ads centered on her mother) in order to seem "softer" to voters: Hillary Clinton unveils Mom-inspired campaign ads. We then watched an ad for a stereotypical Republican candidate for the Alabama Agriculture Commission from 2010: Dale Peterson Alabama ad 2010. We then looked at a new campaign ad for Republican Marco Rubio that was specifically designed in order to entice young voters: Rubio New Ad. At the tail-end of class, we watched a bit of Saturday Nigh Live's sketches on the Democratic Debate and the MSNBC forum. |
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June 2016
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