Tag Archive for brainstorming

World Lit: Social Issue Research

March 1, 2019 / / No comments

Standard: 

  • ELAGSE9-10W7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
  • ELAGSE9-10W8 Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source, answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoid plagiarism and follow a standard format for citation.

Learning Target: I can research and analyze a social issue that affects my cultural group.

Opening Session: VOCAB QUIZ!!!

Work Session: Grab a laptop! Today we are starting your second Capstone essay, the Social Issue essay. Today is going to primarily be your research and brainstorming day, and next week you’ll be writing the essay.

For your second capstone essay, you are to research a social issue that affects your particular cultural group. You should write a well-organized essay of about 750 words, including citations from at least three sources, in which you explain what your social issue is and why and how it affects your cultural group.

The more specific of an issue you choose, the better. For example, students might be tempted to choose racism as an issue that affects their cultural group. While racism is obviously a huge problem, it is such a broad and far-reaching problem that you will find it difficult to write about and even more difficult to ameliorate. Instead, choose a specific facet of racism, such as a pay or education gap, barriers that prevent people of your race from accessing programs that should be available to everyone, or even something like discrimination based on names. Specific issues are easier to specifically research.

By the end of class today, I want you to turn in the following questions answered on your own paper:

  1. What is your issue? Be very specific here! Give a name to your issue and define that word!
  2. Who is affected by your issue? What is your cultural group and if a specific sub-group is affected in particular, explain that too.
  3. Where does this issue happen? Online? In schools? In jobs? When seeking employment?
  4. When: How long has this issue been going on – is it relatively modern, or has this problem been around for a while?
  5. How does your issue affect your culture? The other questions can be answered in a sentence or two, but for this one you should write me a paragraph. We will make this the introduction of your essay when we start writing on Monday!

Closing Session: Trade your paper with your neighbor and look over what they wrote. Does it make sense? Do you think this is a specific topic worth pursuing? Remember, your third capstone essay (which we will write in April) will be proposing a solution to the problem you’re writing about now. Give your partner some feedback if you think they’ve chosen something very difficult!

Assessment: Formative (brainstorming check)

Differentiation: Process (Scaffolding)

World Lit: Brainstorming Day

March 7, 2018 / / No comments

Standard: ELAGSE9-10W1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

Learning Target: I can develop an argument about a theme in Julius Caesar.

Opening Session: Why care about Caesar?

Work Session: Today I’m going to give you your essay assignment for this unit! You will be doing a literary analysis essay, which means you will be analyzing a specific question or theme raised in Julius Caesar. Here’s the deets:

Julius Caesar Essay Assignment

Your assignment is to write an analytical essay about one of the topics listed below. Choose a side for your topic and write an argumentative essay of about 750 words in which you examine your topic and explain which interpretation is best supported by evidence from the play. You will need to use at least six quotes from the play with proper lead-ins and citations. Your essay should also address and refute the counterargument, explaining the other side and why that side is wrong.

Your essay must:

  • Choose a side (do not argue “in the middle” or “It depends”)
  • Be approximately 750 words in length
  • Be supported by evidence (quotes) from the play
  • Incorporate a minimum of 6 quotes, each with proper lead-in and citation
  • Address and refute the counterargument

Topic Choices:

  1. Fate vs. Free Will: Throughout the play, we see Caesar warned about his impending doom over and over again. Despite all the signs telling him to stay home, Caesar goes to the Senate anyway on the Ides of March, where he is brutally murdered by a conspiracy of Senators. Was Caesar’s end predetermined by the gods/fate/destiny? Or was it Caesar’s own arrogance that led him to his doom?

OR

  1. Did Brutus kill Caesar for good reasons or bad reasons? Marcus Brutus’s internal conflict of whether or not he should murder his friend Caesar is one of the central conflicts of the play. Brutus is good friends with Caesar, but believes that Caesar is an ambitious tyrant. However, the people love Caesar, and Caesar’s assent to power also takes power away from Brutus. Did Brutus kill Caesar because he did not want to lose his own powerful position in Rome? Or did Brutus kill Caesar because he truly believed it was for the good of his country?

OR

  1. Did anyone die a noble death? Like most Shakespearean tragedies, almost all of the characters are dead by the end of the play. Several commit suicide (Brutus, Cassius, Portia), and Caesar is murdered. When he finds Brutus’s body, Octavius says Brutus was the noblest Roman of all. Does anyone in the play truly die a noble death? Or does everyone ultimately die in a cowardly or tragic way?

Your essay is due Monday, March 12th.

 

After we talk about each topic and I hand out the topic sheets, I want you to start brainstorming. Flip to the back of your sheet, choose your topic, and write a sentence that explains your stance on it. This will become your thesis statement. Then, start jotting down bullet points about why you think that or how you formed that opinion. For example, if you think that Caesar’s arrogance led to his death, jot down all the examples you can think of when Caesar is arrogant in the play. This brainstorming technique is called a brain dump.

Closing Session: After we brain dump, I want to take a little informal survey of y’all’s opinions!!

Assessment: Formal (essay)

Differentiation: Process (scaffolding)

World Lit: Brainstorming Day!

September 20, 2017 / / No comments

Standard: ELAGSE9-10W2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

Learning Target: I can explain how rhetorical devices are used to achieve and author’s purpose in persuasive speeches.

Opening Session: Some examples of rhetorical devices, as seen in Disney Songs

Work Session:  So, first things first, I’m going to give your assignment sheet for this assessment. Here’s the skinny:

For this Embedded Assessment, you should use your knowledge of rhetorical devices, as well as the Rhetorical Device Cheat Sheet, to analyze the following two speeches. Then, write a 500-750 word essay in which you answer the following prompt:

Below are speeches from two powerful leaders at crucial moments during their leadership. Martin Luther King delivers the iconic I Have a Dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for the 1963 March on Washington in the height people fighting for civils rights.  Mark Anthony delivers a funeral oration for Julius Caesar, a political leader and friend to an angry mob who believe Caesar was a tyrant and deserved to die.

Read the excerpts carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze and evaluate both speaker’s use of rhetorical strategies and rhetorical appeals to achieve their desired purpose.  Be sure to support your analysis with specific references to the text.

Your essay should be typed in MLA Format  (size 12 Times New Roman, double spaced, correct header) and turned in by Friday, September 22nd.

Today, I would like you to do the brainstorming and prewriting part of this assignment. Here are several graphic organizers to help you:

Writing the Thesis Statement

  1. What is the subject of each speech?
I Have a Dream

 

 
Julius Caesar Funeral Oration

 

 

 

  1. How does each speaker feel about the subject of their speeches?
I Have a Dream

 

 
Julius Caesar Funeral Oration

 

 

 

  1. What are three rhetorical devices that both King and Antony used to convey their purpose?
Rhetorical Device 1 Rhetorical Device 2 Rhetorical Device 3

 

 

  1. Rhetorical Device 1
Speech Textual Evidence + Line # How does the speaker want the audience to feel?

What does he want the audience to do?

 How does the use of this rhetorical device or strategy help to achieve his purpose?
King
King
Antony
Antony

 

  1. Rhetorical Device 2
Speech Textual Evidence + Line # How does the speaker want the audience to feel?

What does he want the audience to do?

 How does the use of this rhetorical device or strategy help to achieve his purpose?
King
King
Antony
Antony

 

  1. Rhetorical Device 3
Speech Textual Evidence + Line # How does the speaker want the audience to feel?

What does he want the audience to do?

 How does the use of this rhetorical device or strategy help to achieve his purpose?
King
King
Antony
Antony

 

Thesis Statement:  Now write your thesis statement using the information from above:

In  _________________(speech 1 + Author) and ______________ (speech 2 + author) both speakers use

(rhetorical device 1), (rhetorical device 2), and (rhetorical device 3) to ________________________________

____(write the speakers’ purpose).


 

Tomorrow we type!

Closing Session: VOCAB REVIEW!!!

Assessment: Formal – essays

Differentiation: Process (scaffolding)

It’s ESSAY TIME!

January 25, 2017 / / No comments

Standard: 

  • ELAGSE9-10RL1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Learning Target: I will begin brainstorming and outlining for my first formal essay in this class about whether or not communism could ever work in America.

Activator: Just for fun – A clip from American Dad, about Steve the Communist. Hey look, this stuff extends outside of class, too!

Work Session: Today we’re going to split the block in half and work on two things. First, your essay for this unit! DUN DUN DUUUUUUN!!!!!

Essay prompt: Could communism ever work in America? Drawing on sources of how communism has worked or not worked around the world (the articles we read in class), decide if communism could ever work in America. If so, why is the system not already in place? If not, why not?

You must include FOUR QUOTES from the articles we read in class in your essay!

Your essay must meet the following criteria:

  • MLA format, including headings, 12 point Times New Roman, double spaced.
  • Formal style (no contractions [don’t, wasn’t, etc.], no first person [I, me, my, you, your, our, we, etc.], no slang or abbreviations)
  • 750 words
  • Due on Friday, January 27th. 

Today we’re going to go over MLA format and start brainstorming your essay. I want you guys to take a minute to think about your opinion on the prompt above….and when you have it, write it down on the top of your paper.

Now write one of your four quotes from yesterday…and then write 1-2 sentences explaining WHY it supports your opinion on the matter.

Do three quotes that way!

Next up, the counterargument… Write a quote that goes against your opinion, and then 3-4 sentences explaining why that is WRONG. (I like the sentence stem “Some people think…..but those people are wrong because…..”)

We’ll continue with brainstorming until you’ve got a pretty good handle on the prewriting, and then you’ll have the rest of the first half of the block to draft!

COMPUTER LAB TOMORROW – COMPUTER LAB FRIDAY – REVIEW MONDAY – TEST TUESDAY!!!!

Honors: Your first MGP project is due next Tuesday, January 31st.

Closing Session: TOTD – write your thesis statement (your answer to if communism could work in America or not) on a slip of paper and turn it in!

Assessment: Formative assessment of completion of study guide

Differentiation: Student choice (essay topic, choose a side to defend), process (tiered essay assignment), readiness (study guide time for those who need it)

Communism Essay and Study Guide!

August 30, 2016 / / No comments

Welcome to TUESDAY!!!

Standard: 

  • RI.9-10.1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Learning Target: Students will work on a study guide for their Animal Farm unit test and prewriting for their communism essay.

Activator: 

Today we’re going to split the block in half and work on two things. First, your essay for this unit! DUN DUN DUUUUUUN!!!!!

Essay prompt: Could communism ever work in America? Drawing on sources of how communism has worked or not worked around the world (the articles we read in class), decide if communism could ever work in America. If so, why is the system not already in place? If not, why not?

You must include FOUR QUOTES from the articles we read in class in your essay!

Your essay must meet the following criteria:

  • MLA format, including headings, 12 point Times New Roman, double spaced.
  • Formal style (no contractions [don’t, wasn’t, etc.], no first person [I, me, my, you, your, our, we, etc.], no slang or abbreviations)
  • 750 words
  • Due on Friday, September 2nd. (The day before our long weekend!)

Today we’re going to go over MLA format and start brainstorming your essay. I want you guys to take a minute to think about your opinion on the prompt above….and when you have it, write it down on the top of your paper.

Now write one of your four quotes from yesterday…and then write 1-2 sentences explaining WHY it supports your opinion on the matter.

Do three quotes that way!

Next up, the counterargument… Write a quote that goes against your opinion, and then 3-4 sentences explaining why that is WRONG.

 

We’ll continue with brainstorming until you’ve got a pretty good handle on the prewriting, and then you’ll have the rest of the first half of the block to draft!

For the second half of the block, you may either work on your study guide, or continue drafting for your essay.

TEST TOMORROW, ESSAY DUE FRIDAY!!!

Assessment: Formative assessment of completion of study guide

Differentiation: Student choice (essay topic, choose a side to defend), process (tiered essay assignment), readiness (study guide time for those who need it)

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