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.