School Fine – Satire

Read the definition of satire and then read the satire below.

School ‘Fine,’ U.S. Teens Report

Having looked at A Modest Proposal, how is this piece similar? What is the appeal of a satire?  What do they accomplish that other types of text might not?  Why are they effective?  Blog your answer for Monday.

Elephant Paper due tomorrow

As you prepare and polish your papers for tomorrow, don’t forget a few things:

1. Revise your paper!
2. Make sure the MLA format is correct.  I will not take papers written in pencil or that are single-spaced.  Presentation may not be as important as your thesis and the depth and complexity with which you deal with your argument, but it does reflect on your effort and attention to detail.
3. Vocabulary test tomorrow
4. 1st graded argument timed write tomorrow

Wow, I didn’t plan it this way (Bwuhahaha), but it seems that much is converging on this Friday.  Makes me think of that Flannery O’Connor story, or at least the title, Everything That Rises Must Converge.

AP Test — IMPORTANT

In spite of the dire announcement that just wafted menacingly from the PA system, if you talk to Mrs. Ritchie AND bring your $15 tomorrow, you may still take the AP test.

Ready, Set, Write!

Get started writing your papers this weekend.  On Monday we’ll take a look at a couple of essays that approach argument in a couple of different ways.  We’ll be in the computer lab on Tuesday, but Career Cruising is going to taking up the lab the rest of the week. 

Have a good weekend and bring any questions or concerns about the essay with you on Monday.

Elephants travel slowly, evidently

Our cloze activity took longer than it has in the past and with the shortened periods we didn’t get to the more in depth discussion on the essay.  That will now happen tomorrow.  Think about the essay prompts a bit tonight and bring your thoughts, insights, and questions to class for our discussion.

If you are going on the band trip, re-read the essay in light of the question that appeals to you most, thinking about how the essay makes that particular argument.  Think through your position on the issue on which that prompt focuses. Then start forming your argument, keeping in mind our readings from Everything’s an Argument, including Toulmin.

image credit

Change in Plans

The Elephants have shifted directions.  Charlie is sick (ew!) and I am staying home with him today. Thus, we are putting the Elephants off for today and will pick them up tomorrow.  If you check this in the morning and haven’t read the article yet, you have an extra day. 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!!

“Elephantine” Homework

Tonight you simply need to read George Orwell’s essay entitled “Shooting an Elephant” on page 979 of your book.  We’ll finish the interrupted reading on the first three paragraphs tomorrow as well as dive in to the rest of the essay and the prompts we’ll be working with for our argument paper.

Please don’t forget about the AP test post below.

IMPORTANT AP Test Information

Our AP Coordinator has informed me that she needs to order your AP tests by March 25th.  Therefore, you need to declare your intention to take the test by placing a $15 deposit with the bookkeeper by March 25th.  If money is an issue, see me or your counselor.

Let me repeat, you must make a deposit of $15 with the bookkeeper by March 25th if you wish to take the AP test and take a shot at earning college credit.

Multitasking Re-Wires Our Brains!?

Those of you that were gone Friday, we took a vocabulary test that you’ll need to make up and we read and had a brief discussion on The Autumn of the Multitaskers that you will need to read as well.

Homework for this weekend is two-fold:

1. Identify and blog the main claim of The Autumn of the Multitaskers as well as the supporting claim for each section (helpfully denoted by the big drop cap at the beginning of the section).  Write a brief reflection at the end about how these sections and their claims work together to support the main claim.
2. In Everything’s an Argument, read pages 139-147 and then skim pages 147-171 (This second set is all about Toulmin and can be very helpful in understanding Toulmin’s system).

FYI: At some point next week, we’ll have a Toulmin quiz.

Next week we’ll discuss the Everything’s an Argument readings that you have done and any questions you may have.

We’ll also dive a bit deeper into argument and start analyzing the essay we’ll use for our argument paper (I know you just turned in your JFK papers, but before the extension, I’d planned for you to have half a week and a weekend before we started talking about the next one!)

Have a good weekend!

“Graff” that “Dumb” Article!

Remember that you should blog your Graff Template response to How Dumb Can We Get?.  You DO NOT have to post the questions.  Those are there to help you did a bit deeper if you get the first two sentences in the Graff Template written and then realize you don’t know what else to say.  This tool is designed to help you drill down a bit and get at some nuanced meaning in a text and then frame a cogent response.  If you lost your Graff Template (already!), you can get it in .pdf format from Class Info & Docs.

As I’m going to be gone tomorrow, hold questions on the reading until Friday.  If you remember that the whole reading is structured around exploring the 4 stasis questions introduced at the beginning of passage, you should be fine.  Just remember to pay attention to what the text is doing and not just let the text wash over your brain as you read without penetrating your understanding.

Homework:

• By Thursday, read Everything’s an Argument pp. 20-32
• By Friday, read Everything’s an Argument pp. 102-115
• Vocabulary test on list 5 on Friday
• JFK paper due Friday