This I Believe

Your this I Believe essay is due on Tuesday the 20th.  It should be uploaded to your blog and you will be reading it aloud in class as well.  Here are the requirements adapted fromt he This I Believe submission page (I encourage you to submit them to This I Believe if you wish).

Keep the following in mind when you write your essay:

1. Limit your essay to fewer than 500 words.
2. Describe an event that shaped your beliefs or a person who inspired them.
3. Avoid sermons and editorials—no soapbox declamations, please!
4. Read more of the This I Believe essay-writing tips.

Metacognition Paper

Your Metacognition Paper is due January 15th.  It must be 600-900 words plus or minus 10%.  It’s worth 130 points.  Less than the big synthesis essay, but significantly more than many earlier papers. 

PS For those of you in 2nd period, we are grading the analysis timed write from our Double Timed Write of Death exercise today.  Have a great weekend!  (It’s GOT to be better than 2 timed writes!)

Musing upon the Metacognition Paper

We will talk more about our metacognition paper tomorrow, but we’re cramming a lot into these last couple of weeks so we might not have as much time in class as I’d like to cover everything.  Given that, think a bit about your paper before tomorrow.

This paper is going to be about reflecting upon and analyzing how you think.  Not what you think, but how.  If you can wrap your head around that distinction, you’ll be doing well at this point.  So your homework is to wrap your head around that distinction and perhaps start cogitating about how you cogitate.  

PS You did a good job today on the multiple choice activity.  You were able to see things in the text that the AP test writers saw.  Nice work!  Especially given your post-break stupor.  

Papers!

Don’t forget to attach your rubrics to your papers!

Weekend

Remember that your Lord Chesterfield essays are due on Monday.

600 words give or take 10%

Just make sure you’re answering the prompt, use either implicit or explicit textual evidence to support your points, and don’t fall into the summary trap. If you can do that and write it well, you should be in good shape.

Otherwise, have a great weekend!

Write!! Revise!!!!

Just a quick reminder that your JFK papers are due tomorrow (Wednesday October 1st) as is your Summer Assignment.  Remember that after the 1st, all missing summer assignments go to irrevocable zeros.

Remember as you revise your papers, think about how each sentence flows into the next and how each paragraph leads into the next.  Make sure each paragraph serves a purpose in your paper, jsut as each sentence must serve a purpose in your paragraph.  Sometimes subtraction can do as much or more than addition to make your paper better.

It’s all in the Implications

As was said in class today, we will be in the study hall computer lab.  Let’s go ahead and just meet there.

Tonight for homework, do some thinking about the question and look at the text in light of the what and 2 hows in the question.  Perhaps annotate the text in light of our question.  If you do that, you’ll be better able to get some writing done in the lab tomorrow.