Self-Evaluation Time

Today's 45 minute experience centered over what was on the final, and what you will need to know for your final exam in Advanced Composition. While we did not have time to work on your research essay, you now have a handout to use for self-evaluating your work PRIOR to the peer evaluation on Monday. Yes, there are a lot of questions. Yes, these are all the elements that I will be evaluating.

Field Trips for Research

Due to technological issues, we ended up taking 2 field trips to find working, suitable laptops for our research work. Fortunately, my neighbor supplied us with our most wanted desire: laptops that logged in and led us to those magical databases full of evidence, logos, and all the facts we need to construct strong argumentative essays.

Friday means sources and claim are due!

Presentation Prep Day

The official rhetorical presentation assignment has been announced, and you worked today in groups to prep the purpose, strategies, and presentation necessities. We will continue working on prep tomorrow for presentation day on Wednesday. If absent, you may want to contact your group to see what strategy you will be presenting.

Logos, ethos, pathos

After juxtaposing the four tone maps, there was an agreement that all of the tone maps (yes, have color) exhibit a rich fluctuation between Eponine's sincere dream-like state and her realistic morose perspective.

To review logos, ethos, and pathos, we read a short article to identify these strategies in an essay. As you have worked with the three musketeers before, this was a nice way to remind all of you that logos, ethos, and pathos act together and are not separate entities.

Finally, we read Bono's "Because We Can, We Must" speech, and you annotated for rhetorical devices. Give the speech one more read through this weekend, and identify any other strategies that may pop up.

Tone Mapping

Today's class focused on tone shifts via the vehicle of tone mapping. For each text, you identify the shifts, label each section a different tone (synonyms allowed), select two words to make a range, and then construct the tone map for analysis. For instance, "Siren Song's" fluctuating and seductive tones bespeak of the speaker's argument and her goal to "win" the man's attention, soul, and life. During the last portions of class, you began tone mapping "On My Own." At this point, you are your partner are identifying the tone words for each section. Bring back for Thursday's class -- and enjoy the zoo, you lucky seniors!

Dance Fever

In the most fascinating tone skit I have ever witnessed, we had competitive dancing courtesy of Alexis and Anthony. In a memorable turn, team positive brought in body language to add to their words and tones for the performance. Not to be forgotten, team negative -- and their poor pizza - gave us a range of tones showing a combative group.

Next week, we will work with tone maps -- looking at all the minute shifts in writing.

Emerson's Educational Diction

What a lovely little discussion on Emerson, his diction, and his perspective on education!

For homework, compose your assigned paragraph that will analyze diction and utilize quoted material from the source.

If absent, you will need to construct a thesis statement analyzing Emerson's diction; this thesis statement should be akin to what we worked on in class yesterday: author + verb + specific types of diction + purpose. Then, you will need to choose one example of diction from this thesis statement and write 1 body paragraph.

Diction

For now, we will shelve the syntax essay for when it is accessible. To pass the time, we focused on analyzing diction by looking at short and long quotes and how to create mature, sound thesis statements indicating an author's purpose.

• MM exploits exhausted, disappointing diction to humanize sex symbols.
• AC enlightens the reader with lugubrious and lively diction to express her views on life.
• BD implements inspiring, hunger-filled diction to encourage the audience to pursue dreams rather than money.
• TJ plants direct, bold diction to state how one has to sacrifice for freedom.

For homework, close read Emerson's "Education" and look for significant diction, patterns of diction, and any other strategies that may be utilized in the writing. 

Simply Sherman

The majority of our class focused on looking for syntactical patterns in Sherman Alexie's "Superman & Me," which commenced with more complex constructions and then ended with a plethora of simple, anaphoric sentences.

For tomorrow, you are writing a 3-4 paragraph essay on the following prompt: How does Sherman Alexie utilize syntax to reflect his purpose in "Superman & Me"?

Superman Syntax

After finishing the identification of syntax on the handout, we read "Superman and Me" by Sherman Alexie for its purposes per paragraph. In groups and for homework, you have been assigned 1-2 syntax types to highlight throughout the essay. We will be reconvening in groups tomorrow, and you will be able to share your findings and analyze patterns in syntax. Absentees, you will have to wait until tomorrow for a hard copy of the essay.

Syntax, Syntax, Syntax

To start the hour, you shared your Senioritis rhetorical analyzes with the class and then turned in the work to me. Then, it was time to learn about the six main forms of syntax that you may use in our future work: simple, compound, complex, compound-complex, cumulative, and periodic. Yes, you can still bring in forms of parallelism, hypophora, and the rest of the terms you now have on your chart. To end class, you were highlighting sentences and identifying types of syntax. We will finish that handout on Monday. Then, we will be reading a text and identifying purposes and syntactical styles.

More Than Just the Persuasive Appeals

After chatting about purpose in texts, you were given a list of rhetorical strategies to define and exemplify. After reviewing these in class, you selected a brief essay and will compose a rhetorical analysis - via question and answer on a handout - for your essay. If absent, you should stop by tomorrow to pick up an essay and be prepared for Friday's class.

The Triangle

Vocab is completed! For some of you, this is a glorious day of ceasing to improve your vocabulary. By the way, your vocabulary will keep growing whether you try to or not. For others, this is a lugubrious day signifying our transition into more upper-level writing types of rhetorical analysis and argumentation. I hope you still manage to vocab-drop words into your essays and have a thesaurus with you to improve your diction.

Tomorrow, we will review/learn (depending on your own ethos) other rhetorical strategies that create logos, ethos, and pathos.

Compare & Contrast Prompt

The whole hour was dedicated to composing the compare and contrast essay in class. Any absentees will need to sign up for a make-up time.

Tuesday will start with your Vocab Quest -- all 72 words will be involved in some way, shape, or form. Afterwards, we will start our next unit: rhetorical analysis. For those of you in the know, the three persuasive appeals will be in play and additional rhetorical terms will be introduced to help you further analyze a text.

Prepping for Assessments

1. We had our final round of vocab review for your Vocab Quest on Tuesday. Yes, all the words will be on there in some fashion.
2. You were given 25 minutes to construct an outline for you in-class writing prompt on Monday.

Still Comparing and Contrasting

During today's class, you completed a partner essay on your compare and contrast topics to practice the skills and writing necessary for your eventual place comparison & contrast essay. Absentees, you will need to write out an essay on your two topics. In class, our essays were 4 paragraphs, so do not feel the need to write more and consider this to be a first draft to practice the skill.

Partner Basis

For today's compare and contrast work, you worked with a partner (or two in one instance) to construct a basis, a thesis, an organizational pattern for your examples, and a concluding statement. Then, we moved onto vocab and reading a Mark Twain sample of how comparison and contrast works - and how the author manipulated the writing to get his point across. Tomorrow will bring more compare and contrast work - we will utilize your list and look at another sample reading.

Quest Review

Although I was not planning on reviewing the Grammar Quest for the majority of the hour, I think it helped going over all the little intricacies of grammar, punctuation, and mechanical concerns. For our little remaining time, you received your exemplification essays back, and we commenced our last round of vocabulary.

Don't forget to have your notes for your two places tomorrow. I will be making copies for your group, and you will definitely need these notes for your eventual essay.

Sadie & Maud

Using "Sadie and Maud," we looked at the five stages of compare and contrast writing: basis, thesis, organization (block or point by point), transitions, and conclusion.

For homework, make sure to research and take notes on your 2 locations. Notes are due the Tuesday we return.

Enjoy your break -- whether you will be in Colorado, Florida, or somewhere else!

Questing

1. You received the compare and contrast group research essay assignment today, which means by Tuesday, March 21, you will need to have your assigned notes completed on your locations. You will be sharing this with a group, so be thorough and do not forget to cite your sources.

2. We completed the Mechanics Quest, which means our grammar instruction has ceased.

Exemplification Revision Day

The entire hour - minus the last five minutes to chat about the Works Cited page - was dedicated to group peer revision. Don't forget that the final draft - hard copy as always - has a deadline of Wednesday. In the meanwhile, we have your verbal vocab quiz tomorrow and the third review for the Grammar Quest.

Writing Day

To start class, we finished up the last of this round's vocab words and played on the buzzers for review. Then, you were given time to work on your exemplification essay -- the first draft will be needed for Monday's class for peer review.

Grammar Part II

1. Vocab -- three words more.
2. Grammar Review Part II - the whole thing.
3. Work time on exemplification essay -- briefly.

Our Schedule (vocab will continue each day as well):
March 3 = Writing Day
March 6 = Peer Revision Day
March 7 = Grammar Review Part III
March 8 = Grammar Quest
March 9 = Compare & Contrast Preview

You will have a note-taking project over spring break. Hence, one day next week, preferably when all of you are present, we will go over the assignment.

Exemplification Assignment

After writing down the new vocabulary words (we only have 2 rounds left for the class), you received the assignment for the exemplification essay, which will involve an abstract noun, your interpretation of the meaning, and a plethora of examples from multiple genres. While the minimum for this essay is 3 examples, it would behoove your work and maturity of understanding to do more -- including one in the hook to provide the direction of your essay.

At this point, you have chosen your abstract noun and have begun the process of researching and prewriting. We will have all class on Tuesday to work on preparations for this essay. I am still working on the exact schedule for the remainder of the week, but it looks like the first draft for this essay will be due on Monday, March 6, for peer review. Stay tuned for the final dates. We will finish the exemplification essay prior to Spring Break.

As for the grammar angle, you have completed the first part of the review in which you tested your knowledge and determined the areas for future study. Review number two will arrive at the end of the hour on Tuesday, which you will complete for homework.

Team Essay Analysis

For the majority of class today, we provided feedback for your team sybaritic essay. Overall, common suggestions included stronger hooks - with imagery or example perhaps, expressive topic sentences, a plethora of specific examples, and appropriate concluding sentences.

For the remainder of class and for homework this weekend, utilize englishgrammar101.com and complete the first review handout. This is to test what you know at this moment and ascertain what you will need to study individually. If absent, request copy via e-mail.

Team Sybaritic

After our "circle" vocab quiz, you spent the rest of the hour in your teams constructing your sybaritic essay. At this point you should have shared your team essay with me so that our class will analyze your work tomorrow.

S, you will need to create a Google doc, brainstorm a list of examples for "sybaritic," select one of these examples for exemplification, and then write an introductory paragraph and one body paragraph.

And, since we have finished all of our grammar work -- which hopefully will pay off in dividends with your future essays - a Grammar Quest is coming next week. Prior to that moment, we will have 3 reviews to practice the rules and make sure you know what to study for the quest.

Prepositions & Team Sybaritic

For our first half of class, we first reviewed our vocab for the big quiz tomorrow. Congratulations to Logan for his prowess on the buzzers and his crowning as vocab champion this time around. Then, we worked with prepositions by identifying prepositional phrases in sentences, revising sentences so that we do not end with a preposition, and rephrasing sentences to avoid over-prepositioning in writing.

For the second half of class, we worked in teams to begin our team essay on "sybaritic" (yes, a vocabulary word on the quiz tomorrow). Thus far, the teams have brainstormed a lengthy list of examples, composed a thesis statement, determined the relevant examples, and ordered the range. For homework, you are to complete informal research on your specific example so that you may use that information during tomorrow's writing.

For our two absent ladies, you will need to complete the brainstorming portion for "sybaritic," coming up with as many examples as you can for that word. You will be working as a partnership tomorrow, and I will clarify the steps that you will need to do to catch up.

Prepositional Short Stories

After vocabulary and the sharing of your evil paragraphs (absentees will need to turn in a printed copy), we worked on prepositional phrases in a creative light by making prepositional short stories. Tomorrow, we will check out your stories and discuss the rules for prepositions in your writing.

Evil Preparations

In order to write our class essay on evil, you will need to do research on your evil subjects. Take notes on your person/group/abstract idea/miscellaneous example, and bring these in tomorrow with the sources of your notes. We will be reviewing how to transition evidence into your writing and how to cite your sources in writing. Then, you will be writing your evil exemplification paragraph.

Exemplfication

After our verbal quiz, we began work our next unit: exemplification. Using the broad topic of "student," we went step by step through brainstorming, selecting a theme/thesis, removing irrelevant examples, grouping examples, determining a range, and providing specific details. Tomorrow, we will construct a class "evil" essay using your brainstorm from today's class.

Semicolons and Colons

In order to vary your syntax - and correctly punctuate it - we looked at how semicolons and colons are used in sentences. Hopefully, this will aid your narrative final draft preparations as the the final draft deadline is 3 p.m. tomorrow.

Comma Day!

Class was all about the commas as we looked at what to do with a dependent-independent joining of clauses, 2 independent clauses with one of those FANBOYS, and transitional expressions. For homework, finish the last section of the handout.

We will go over semicolon and colon rules on Monday, and then you will have some work time on your narrative essay. Our next unit, beginning on Tuesday, will involve exemplification, a writing style that promotes the usage of your ethos on multiple subjects.

Narrative Peer Review

The entire hour was dedicated to working on the narrative draft and then peer editing your classmates' work. We will work on punctuation on Friday and Monday in order for you to have no mechanical distractions on your final draft, which has a deadline of Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. As we had 2 absentees today, I will have you peer review during class on Friday.

Adverbal

The first half of class was designated for your narrative writing. Remember, you will have a half hour in class tomorrow to complete your first draft prior to our class peer edit.

The second half of class featured three new vocabulary words and the focus on adverbs. If you missed class today, you did not have the opportunity to witness the theatrical performances of your classmates as they acted out behavior and movement using diverse adverbs. In any circumstance, note how you incorporate adverbs into your narrative to help create tone and action.

Your Narrative

1. The commencement of our new vocab unit, which began with 4 new words today.
2. The return of your descriptive writing essays, which were filled with imagery, figurative language, and engaging hooks.
3. The check of your narrative warm-ups and brief observations regarding which one would be best for your narrative.
4. The reading of 2 sample essays to provide 2 varying approaches to a narrative or college application essay.
5. The official assigning of the narrative essay, which will be either a game narrative, a future narrative, or a college ap/scholarship prompt.

The first draft of the narrative will be on a Google Doc and will be expected for class evaluation on Wednesday after lunch. That will give you a couple days plus a half hour to finish up your story.

Adjectives

With the vocab quiz completed, you now have 10 new words starting next week. We discussed hyphens and commas with adjectives, and then you were assigned narrative warm-up 3 for Monday's class.

Pronouns

After a heated vocab review on the buzzers (congrats, Morgan), we completed our dialogue exercise by crafting conversations between two of your assigned characters. Absentees, you will not have to make up this assignment.

Then, we discussed pronoun rules involving antecedent-pronoun agreement, possessive pronouns, and that who/whom placement. Currently on the board, we have all of the subjective and objective pronouns available to help remind you of their placement in sentences. To help us practice pronoun rules, you completed a handout on this subject. Absentees, I have this handout available tomorrow if you would like to stop by.

Last, you have a homework assignment. Complete Narrative Warm-Up 1 for Friday's class.

Narrative as College Application

1. Vocab Experts -- we finished the 20th word of our combined unit, which means review tomorrow and a mega quiz on Friday. Yes, I am one of those teachers who likes to put "old words" in to test you.

2. We reviewed verb issues including subject-verb agreement, active & passive voice, "to be" verb eradication, and infinitives.

3. We read "Porkopolis," a college application essay that provides a narrative about Lisa Simpson and her influence on the narrator.

4. For the remainder of the hour, you received an age and gender and are creating a character based off this general information. Tomorrow, you will find out what your character will be up to in class.

Befuddling Verb Rules

After our new three vocab words, we spent some quality time with verb rules - including subject-verb agreement, active and passive verb phrasing, and split infinitives. As we need another day of practice with these rules, we will do a second round of verb work tomorrow. Afterwards, we read "My Mother Never Worked" and analyzed its theme, dialogue, time, character, and imagery in its narrative style. At the end of class, you received your narrative warm-up handout. Complete the questions for warm-up three for tomorrow.

Narration

1. We added 4 new words to the vernacular.
2. We reviewed noun identification (make sure it is not an adjective), capitalization of proper nouns, and apostrophe usage.
3. We began our brand new narrative unit, which will focus on theme, time, character, dialogue, and imagery. In order to identify these components, we read the following essay: http://wp.lps.org/mpayant/files/2012/07/Coming-to-An-Awareness-of-Language-Malcom-X.pdf. If absent, read through and identify the five items listed above. I will not be collecting this from you. However, it is a brief exercise to prep for next week's narrative work.

Verbage

After completing our vocab quiz - which will need to be made up by absentees this week - you wrote down the next 10 words, which we will commence on Friday's class. Then, we finished up our definitions for the grammar prep.

Returning from lunch, we spent some quality time with your descriptive essays. First, the addition of specific, mature active verbs aids the level of diction every time. Removing "to be" verbs, familiar ones (uses, says), and redundant choices creates a better presentation for your writing. Second, eradicate the usage of second person from your formal essays. Third, formal writing requires full words, so spell out those contractions! After two rounds of conferences, we spent the last ten minutes reviewing capitalization rules.

Do not forget your deadline for the descriptive essay is 3:30 p.m. on Friday in hard copy!

Concluding

After reviewing vocab for our brief vocab quiz tomorrow, we reviewed your introductions for hooks, diction, and thesis statements. Whether it is an analogy, an anecdote, or some show of mature diction, you want to engage your audience from the opening sentence. A strong hook aids not only in the start of the essay but also the end of the essay. A conclusion is a reference to the essay, but it should not be a regurgitation of everything that came before. If you have an analogy for a hook (the brick by brick analogy courtesy of Jenna), then your conclusion can return to this analogy and finalize its meaning. If you have an anecdote or partial story for a hook (the boxing ring courtesy of Logan), end the story in the conclusion. As noted in class, do not worry about sentence count in your conclusion - or for in any paragraph for that matter. You want quality sentences that fully explain your point or tie the essay together.

The hard copy final draft of the descriptive essay has a deadline of Friday at 3:30 p.m. If absent all day, you will share/e-mail the draft and then bring a hard copy on the next class day. If present at any point on Friday, the deadline remains the same.

For our last twenty minutes, we spent time with nouns, verbs, and pronouns. We will finish up with adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions tomorrow.

The Essay, Descriptively

After our new three vocab words, we focused on how to further our descriptive paragraphs on family members. Using similes, metaphors, precise examples, and imagery, your ideal goal is to construct a writing that reflects each family member's persona. If you introduce that someone is funny, show us an example of his or her phrasing or behavior; if you introduce someone as tough, show us an example of his or her tenacity. If you want us to get to know a person, compare him or her to something we know: a tea kettle, for instance.

All of these paragraphs equate to the body section of an essay. Each body paragraph should commence with a topic sentence, the main point that will be exemplified in the paragraph. After you have crafted all the descriptive, quality details, you will wrap up the paragraph with a concluding sentence, the final thought regarding this person and what you want your reader to remember.

Moving forward, we discussed MLA format with heading (writer, professor, class, date due), page number insertion, title placement, and overall font (12 Times New Roman).

Wrapping up class, we looked at introductory paragraphs, which include a hook and a thesis statement. As noted in class, a hook can be an analogy, an anecdote, an example, or any other multi-sentence, attention-getting opening that will engage the reader. At this level, a question or a quote may limit your introduction and eventual essay, so I recommend focusing on how you can use your words to hook the audience. The thesis statement features the overall main idea of the essay. You may do this one of two ways: a thesis map, in which you list your upcoming topics 1, 2, 3; or an overall thesis that clarifies an overall idea about your topic (the family).

For tomorrow, you will need to have an introduction and your three paragraphs revised -- typed in Google (no printing needed; we will use laptops in class). We will work with reviewing these steps and then use the remainder of the time to prep for our upcoming Grammar Boot Camp.

Time to Write

After peer reviewing your subjective and objective paragraphs (remember, hold on to all of these descriptive writing practices for later turn-in date), we added three more vocabulary words to our vernacular. Then, we read the following article to look at imagery and other literary elements used to describe the culture, the father, and the situation of the author: https://www.cabrillo.edu/academics/english/100resources/'Only%20Daughter'.pdf.

Afterwards, you received three assignments.

Up on deck first will be 3 descriptive paragraphs for Monday's class. Select three family members and write one paragraph describing each one to an audience that has never had the opportunity to meet him or her. Make sure to include details that physically and emotionally represent this person.

For Tuesday, you will need to complete the Grammar Prep handout. For each item on the handout, be able to define and provide examples for course review on Tuesday.

For Wednesday, you have the optional extra credit assignment: summary posters.

Any absentees are welcome to e-mail for the specific handouts.

More Description

1. We started our next 10-word unit of vocab.
2. We used highlighters to identify sight, hearing, smell, and touch/feeling sensory details in the library description.
3. We read and analyzed "Words Left Unspoken" for descriptive writing components.

For homework, select an object that has a significant meaning to you (no cell phones and pets) and write one paragraph describing the object objectively and one paragraph subjectively.

Place Descriptions

For the first half of class, you discussed in small groups the "Ground Zero" article and analyzed its thesis, imagery, literary devices, and mood. We then completed a full class discussion. If absent, you will need to hand in your annotated essay to me for participation points.

With our discussion complete, you copied down the next 10 vocab words, which will commence tomorrow.

And to end our class, we ventured to the library for your to jot down notes about what you heard, saw, felt, and smelled. For homework, you are to write a 1-2 paragraphs describing the library to an audience that has never been there.

Describing A Thing

After our vocabulary quiz today, we worked on description by composing a paragraph on John William Waterhouse's Miranda. As with description of any "thing" or object, you want to create imagery and a mood for someone unfamiliar with the topic. Since our class was curtailed by college credit visitors, you will read and annotate the descriptive essay for homework.

Into the Imagery

After reviewing our 12 vocab words and crowning Jenna the unit 1 vocab champ, we met for feedback on our second summary. Following that meeting, you received a text to annotate and write a summary for your final assessment. Here is the text for any absentees: http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/22/opinion/is-harry-potter-evil.html.

For the majority of our second half, we began our descriptive unit, which covers imagery, mood, subjective and objective detailing, and purpose. In order to practice imagery and creating a mood, you worked with these bland sentences (http://jupiter.plymouth.edu/~megp/test/vague.htm) to convey specific, memorable details. We completed revisions for number 2 and number 10.

We will resume descriptive writing on Friday.

More Summary

After finishing our vocabulary today, we looked at the 7 components of a strong summary. As indicated in class, the most important element is to reference the author throughout the piece and be selective with the details you place into your summation. For homework, you are to write a summary for the "Adjuncts" article.

See you tomorrow for more summaries and possibly a little digital work too.

Annotating to a Summary

1. We commenced with 4 more vocabulary words for a grand total of 8 at this time. We will finish the last four tomorrow and then have a review day prior to the quiz day.

2. We reviewed how and why we annotate texts via the Sperber article on college-level writing.

For homework, you are to complete a summary of the Sperber article. We will use this in class tomorrow to discuss the qualities of a summary and how to write a successful one.

E-Mail Assessment

After beginning our first vocabulary unit with four words, we spent the remainder of class completing the e-mail assignment: three e-mails (one a question, one an absence, one a turn-in of work) to me. If absent today, you should complete this task prior to Monday's class.

Welcome to Advanced Composition

While future blogs will most likely cover more details regarding writing and mechanics, today's blog will be on the short side. First off, welcome to Advanced Composition, a class in which the goal is to make you stronger writers that recognize the importance of every detail.

To begin class today, we chatted about college credit courses, what you want to improve during the class, and what adjective best describes you entering the final semester of your high school career.

After looking at the syllabus, you copied down the first 12 words of vocab unit 1. To learn vocabulary and maintain its meaning in our daily vernacular and written projects, you will become vocab experts on one word. A vocab expert gathers the definition, at least two synonyms (preferably not from the class vocab book), and a memory trick to help your classmates understand the word's meaning. Today, our small nine were assigned their given word and will prep the aforementioned components for tomorrow's class. Absentees, don't fret - you will have your word tomorrow.

At the end of class, we discussed e-mail communications by looking at sample e-mails and suggestions for the five components necessary in a professional e-mail. During tomorrow's class, you will have the whole hour (unless you all finish early and we have a great deal of time on the clock) to write 3 e-mails to me. One e-mail will be on a question for an assignment; one e-mail for an absence; one e-mail for turning in an assignment.

While we are a class of 12, that number will work wonders for paper writing and revisions. See you tomorrow -- sans snow, of course.