DAY 10: The paragraph in detail and "Zoo Island"

Today, we looked at the 12 sentence paragraph in depth, studying a model and talking about its individual parts, specifically:

How the thesis statement is a more focused answer to an interpretive question:

For example:
The question:

Public rituals are often a means of bringing communities together and making them stronger. Is this the case in “The Lottery”?

The general response:
In this story, rather than promoting a strong community, tradition works to destroy it.

Tweak response to meet the criteria of a good thesis and give it more specific shape:
Rather than promote a strong community, the tradition of the lottery, in which one of the town residents is randomly selected to be stoned to death, works to destroy all that strong communities rely upon: thoughtful individuals, healthy families, and collective respect for all members.

Tweak the individual claims of the quote sandwiches to focus ideas further:

• Individuals in the town do not know why they are doing what they doing and are not encouraged to think independently or take responsibility for their actions
• Individuals within families worry more about their own fates that about the fate of the family itself
• As a result, respect for human life isn’t fostered on any level, and the whole community is damaged.

We also talked about including evidence effectively to back up these claims, and using commentary sentences to carefully explain just how our quotes demonstrate our claims. Finally, we mentioned how writers can include exposition (see your literary terms sheet!) to make sure readers understand what is going on. You can find a copy of the PowerPoint presentation from today's class on the wikispace.

Afterward, I had you start with a partner and start working up toward larger groups in discussing the following question: How does the census promote self-respect among the residents of Zoo Island?

You came up with about four or five reasons. These are the sorts of reasons you would include in a thesis if you were writing a 12-sentence paragraph.

HOMEWORK:

Finally, I gave you a handout about annotating literature (also on the wikispace), and I asked you to try it on the short story "At the Pitt-Rivers" which you will read this weekend. There is also a vocab and short story quiz on Monday. Be sure to click the "corrected sentences" link on the wikispace so you can download a studyguide for the vocabulary portion (as of 7:15 PM on Saturday, all sentences were corrected and available for download).

Football players, you have a late game Monday and a big assignment that night. Plan ahead.