Sadie & Maud

After learning four more vocabulary word, we concentrated on activities to practice compare and contrast writing. Up first, "Sadie & Maud," a poem reflecting progeny of the same family with conflicting outcomes in life. Then as partners, you created a basis, thesis, a block or point-by-point evidence outline, and a concluding statement on two items.

Tomorrow brings the last of our new vocabulary words for the class and compare/contrast reading samples.

Introduction to C/C

We will resume vocab experts tomorrow and complete the last 8 words of vocabulary this week. The end result will be an overall Vocabulary Quest next week.

To start off our compare and contrast writing unit (if you are counting, we have, including this one, three essays left to go), you were introduced to five key facets of this mode of discourse: the basis (brainstorming, planning component), the thesis (including the purpose and eradicating predictable words such as "similarities" and "differences"), the organization (block versus point-by-point), the transitions (utilizing comparison and contrasting phraseology), and the conclusion (final statement regarding the topics at hand). For tomorrow's expedition, we will start practicing compare and contrast writing and analyzing sample texts.

Make sure you are in class all week: the next essay begins as a group activity and you will need all of your partners on the same page and ready to complete the assigned tasks.

Finally, The End of the Exemplification Unit

After countless hours of researching and writing, the time has finally arrived: the exemplification essay deadline of 3:30 p.m. on Friday.

For Monday's class, we will review vocabulary and commence our next mode of discourse, compare and contrast writing. For a quick preview, we will be constructing an essay that involves St. Louis and its attractions.

Exemplification Peer Review

Today's class was split into a writing day for the exemplification essay and a peer review session. For Friday's class, we will have vocabulary for the first 5 minutes and then you will have the remainder of the hour to work on the final draft, which includes a Works Cited page. If you have major revisions planned, you will need to work on these outside of class.

Final draft deadline is 3:30 p.m. on Friday.

Work Day

During today's class, you had ample opportunity to work on your research and exemplification writing. As a reminder, you should work on this assignment this evening in order to have everything finished for tomorrow's class. Agenda for tomorrow will be as follows: 45 minutes to work on draft, 45 minutes to peer review, excess time for vocabulary.

Exemplifying Research

After choosing your abstract noun, the research process has begun in class -- and outside of class. The schedule for this week: Tuesday will be 5 minute vocabulary and then the remainder will be used to research examples and commence your first draft; Wednesday will be 45 minutes of class time for research and first drafting and the remainder of the class will be peer review time - you must have an essay draft at this point; Friday will be vocabulary and then time to work on your final draft during class time. The final draft of the exemplification essay will be due by 3:30 p.m. on Friday.

While we will be dedicating the majority of the week to finishing up the drafts in class, you may need more time outside of class to research and write. Keep this in mind tonight and tomorrow as you exemplify your noun.

Citing Evil

Takeaways from today's class exemplification, citations, and transitions.
1. Your thesis should directly define your comprehension of the abstract noun. It should not be a dictionary definition.
2. Each body paragraph's topic sentence should connect the abstract noun (evil) to the specific example.
3. Incorporate evidence via paraphrases and direct quotes from multiple sources.
4. Citations, traditionally, feature the author and the page number (Gianini 5). However, if you do not have an author, you should commence with the title of the selection. If you do not have a page number, you just put the author or title.
5. To avoid the immature full sentence quotations, work on selecting key phrases to transition into your writing. Your essays will have better flow and focus more on your writing than other texts.
6. Create a final concluding thought to tie together the example.

Following our evil practice, you were assigned your new vocabulary word for Vocab Experts starting on Monday.

Then, the preview of the exemplification essay. For your essay, you will be selecting an abstract noun from the given list of 441 abstract nouns. (Remember, "chaos" is not allowed due to the student example for next week.) When you walk into class on Monday, you should have a list of 3-5 nouns ready to go. Each student will pick a different noun and then we will discuss research policies, source pages, and the Works Cited Page.

We only have 4 essays left to go in this class -- how time does fly!