Last minute review

Okay, Exit Essay is set for Tuesday, May 5th, and we have been working towards it for the past 14 weeks. Still feel apprehensive? That's normal, there is a lot of build up to this essay, so to NOT feel pressure would be weird. But breathe, and try to recall that we have been working away at this for 14 weeks.

If you want to practice, consider the following prompt:

"The legal age to get a drivers license should be raised to require people to earn a high school diploma before getting a drivers license. Agree or Disagree? Explain your point."

What some review on grammar? Chck out the following links:

Commas (and a practice worksheet)

Subject/Verb Agreement

Verb Tense (present and future)

Need/Want more? Go to EG first, email me next or move on to your own Internet hunt. A lot of great practice can be found on Online Writing Labs. If you google your subject and the phrase OWL, you should find some helpful items.

Good luck, and remember to breathe.

Persuasion, a fine novel by Jane Austen and a great way to work your audience

As our final preparation for the exit exam on Tuesday, May 5th, we worked on persuasion as a means of reaching out to our audience and getting them to see (and accept) our point about any given topic.  We practiced mostly with the "should Chicago host the 2016 Olympics."  With this practice we saw that we had to make many choices when persuading readers of our ideas.  These choices are known as RHETORICAL STRATEGIES, or rhetoric for short.  

The three main choices we made dealt with how we packaged our information.  We used:

1.  logic (also known as logos)--we stuck to facts and used reasoning.

2.  character/expertise (also known as ethos)--we relied on the quality of our own character or that of an "expert."

3.  emotions (also known as pathos)--we used the sympathy card and really worked on using am emotional pull to get the reader to see our point.  

(check out the links for a different way of looking at these three techniques)

On Tuesday, we will do our last full practice exit essay by doing a persuasive in-class essay.  The topic will not be announced in advance, so prep yourself to come in, sit down and start working through everything.  Remember to read chapter 19 of EG for last minute ideas on how to stay relaxed and how to work through an in-class, pressure situation.  

Commapalooza 2009!

Commas are used for so many reasons.  We already know we can use commas along with conjunctions to hold two independent clauses together: 

I went to class the other day, and I found out how important commas are.  

But today we worked on many other commas uses.  Click this link for an even more comprehensive comma run down, check out this link.  This link is sort of complicated because it tackles more than just the comma rules in our book, but it is a great source to review!

If you want some outside practice, do the practices listed below .

sample compare/contrast

I found a great example of a compare/contrast essay  and I wanted to share it with you.  There are even some response questions at the end to remind you to analyze the organization.  

PS-sorry for any blurriness with the document, if you are having trouble reading it on this blog, check the link above and you can download the essay.  

Thursday 3/26, a day of madness and modification!

Today was a bit of a whirlwind of grammar. We started off with that quiz over chapter 36 and then did a quick proofread over our final how-to essays. The bulk of our class we focused on modification though, so that is what we will concentrate on here.

When we modify, we are adding extra detail or description to our writing. We can modify almost anything, our verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs too! We use adjectives to modify (or describe) nouns and pronouns: the happy squirrel, for example. Happy is telling us about the squirrel. Click here for more stuff about adjectives.

But we also can modify our verbs by using an adverb (notice how verb is in adverb?): Carl knitted the sweater very nicely. Here, nicely is the adverb modifying how Carl knitted. We are getting more detail about the verb (knitted). Notice that the adverb ends in -ly and that is it really similar to nice. That -ly is a helpful difference, but click here to find out more about adverbs.

We can also use adverbs to modify more adverbs and adjectives: The cake is disgustingly gross. Here we see two modifications, disgustingly modifies gross, and gross modifies the cake (yum, sounds like a winner of a cake to me).

Furthermore, we use adverbs and adjectives when we compare. We use either the comparative (-er, more; used for two items) or the supperlative (-est, most; used for more than two items).
Comparative: Pete was the happier of the two clams.
Superlative: Pete was the happiest of all the clams.
Check out this useful ESL website for more stuff.

Still want more pracitce? (PS: do this practice, and you could earn up to 5 bonus points! Act quickly. This is a limited time offer that will expire on 3/31!).

3/24

Today we spent a lot of time working on topic sentences.  Topic sentences are a lot like thesis statements in that they both set up the direction and point of what you are writing.  The thesis does this for an entire essay, and the topic sentence does this for individual paragraphs.  

When building a topic sentence, it is useful to consider the general formula:

Topic + Main Idea/Point = Topic Sentence

So, for example, if I am writing an essay about how to use the class blog that has a working thesis of, "Knowing how to use the class blog can really help you succeed in class," I will want to actually refer back to this thesis in creating my topic sentences.  As we said in class, it is really beneficial to look back at the thesis to figure out what direction each paragraph must take in order to give full support of that thesis.  

Thesis: Knowing how to use the class blog can really help you succeed in class

Topic Sentence 1: First you will need to log on to the blog 

In this paragraph, the only stuff I will be writing about is actually logging on to the blog.  I could talk about accessing through BB or by typing the address into my address bar.  What else do you think will fit into this paragraph?

Topic Sentence 2: After you log on, you will want to read and process the information

In this paragraph, I would discuss the information and how it is packaged on the blog.   I would also explain how to go about finding the information for a particular day and how to read the notes in comparison with class notes.  

Topic Sentence 3: Finally, you will want to access any links to extra homework and practice.

Again, in this section, I would focus on explaining to readers how to use the links, how to click on them and how to print up or write out the work.  I might also include a brief how-to about where you can go for extra help on the work (Sarah, me).  

Conclusion: 1)Rephrase the thesis, "Understanding how to use a class blog can make a big difference in your education."  2)Restate/phrase topic sentences/main points.  3)End on a good closing thought.

So, you see how you can use topic sentences to help you control the flow of thoughts as well as to help you organize your ideas.  For more on topic sentences, click here.  

We also went over "minor" punctuation marks.  We did part D of EG chapter 36.  

1).  The colon :  is used for three reasons, to set up a long list, to separate the hour from the minute, and to separate the book from the verse in holy works.  

2).  Parentheses ( ) is used to de-emphasize added bits of information in a sentence

3).  The dash -- is used to emphasize added bits of information in a sentence.  

For extra practice, I suggest checking out the OWL site from Purdue University.  

class on 3/19

Today we explored apostrophes. We outlined how to use apostrophes to consolidate our writing and to save time. For example, instead of writing out the ball that belongs to the dog, we can use a apostrophe to show that the dog owns the ball in a much more efficient way: the dog's ball.

Remember to keep in mind whether you have a singular word or a plural when showing ownership.

Singular: dog's
Plural: dogs'.

We also used apostrophes with contractions. When combining two words into one, we use the apostrophe to show readers where we deleted letters: it is= it's. The ' replaced the i in is.

For Tuesday's class, follow the link by clicking this phrase and do the work. Either print this bad boy up or handwrite out the whole activity.

Email with any questions or problems.

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