DAY 12: Reviewing the 12-sentence

Today, we started with Unit 2 in the vocabulary book, and did one lesson in the Sentence Diagramming Workbook. It was painless. The technical terms we covered included: subjects, verbs, helping verbs (words that determine tense, e.g. will have been, will be, had, had been, etc.), and modal auxiliaries (words that determine condition/obligation, e.g. could, should, would, can, may).

Then, I asked you to consider the specific skills we have covered so far:

READING (associated handouts are in parentheses):

• Annotating (Annotating Literature)
• Determining relationships between characters & taking good notes on that (COMC Family Tree)
• Considering a story in terms of its parts to see how meaning is constructed (literary terms)
• Learning to question a text interpretively (writing questions)

SPEAKING & LISTENING:

• Asking follow up questions ("What leads you to think that?")
• Inviting others to join the conversation
• Proffering your opinion with evidence
• Summarizing other people's statements for more useful notes
• Forcing yourself to take risks and jump in

WRITING:

• Writing an arguable, focused, text-based thesis.
• Making a claim in support of the thesis.
• Introducing a quotation.
• Explaining the quotation's relationship to the thesis.
• Transitioning within a paragraph.

These are the major skills we have look at so far. I then asked you to consider them, overall, as a game you ar learning, and to then assess yourself using the following statements as guidelines:

• I know the rules of the game, but I haven't played.
• I'm playing the game, but I'm at JV level.
• I'm a bubble player.
• I'm varsity level.

In terms of my expectations of you, you should feel that you are somewhere around the first two. As the semester keeps going and we keep practicing these skills (as you would dribbling, passing, defending, etc.), you should feel yourself increasing in mastery and working toward bubble status. By June, you should not only be at varsity level, but in contention for captaincy!

The reason I brought any of this up is because some of you are fretting about whether or not you're doing it all right. So long as you feel you know what is expected of you, and that you have a sense of what you'll need to improve as we go, you're in good shape. This isn't an invitation to let up if you feel you've got a sense of things. I still expect you to give me the best of your work and that you will actively strive to master each skill as we go. From watching your behavior in class, the amount that's written in your homework, the degree to which you participate and take notes, the quality of what you turn in, your quiz scores, your willingness to come ask questions if you are uncertain about something or need help, your ability to plan ahead, and just plain general comportment at school, I have a pretty good idea of what your best ought to look like, and you do, too. You know what your effort grade would be right about now, and so do I. Keep it up, work hard, and all will be well.

After that little diversion, I had you grade each other's paragraphs using an editing worksheet, which you can find on the wikispace. In addition to having you look at specifics of the paragraph that we've discussed, it also brought in some new ideas, including:

• Use of the literary present: We use the literary present because characters forever do what they do. Edmond Dantes will forever by arriving in Marseilles in the opening chapters of The Count of Monte Cristo. You can check your book to confirm! Ten bucks says it will be the same tomorrow and the next day, too. To acknowledge this perpetual being of the characters, we use present tense, so say "The Count says..." and not "The Count said..."
• Avoiding second person address: Never use "you" in formal writing, unless the word appears in a quote. "You" is informal in writing, and to use it in a formal essay is akin to wearing a grubby t-shirt with your nicest pants or skirt.
• Choosing precise, vivid words.
• "The character is very interesting and has many bad traits" = DULL & VAGUE.
• "The antagonist is a mesmerizing but vicious scoundrel whose cruelty seems limitless" = FAR MORE INTERESTING.
• Avoiding drab "docent-isms" like "This shows that..." Docent-isms (my word) make papers feel like dull, grade-school tours to the museum. Get rid of them altogether to improve the readability and appeal of your paper.

HOMEWORK:

1. Add new sentences to the wikispace, using the link for your class.
2. Read "New African" in Junior Great Books.
3. Add 2 interpretive questions about the story to the wikispace. One question sould stem from consideration of "Point of View" from the Literary Terms sheet, and the other question should stem from consideration of "Conflict" from the Literary Terms sheet.

Questions? Leave a comment or send an email.