Ways to Engage With Texts

 1. Warm-up: Which aspect of Rashid's identity do you will be most important at Chelsea: Race; Gender; or Social Class? Why? 

2. Which aspect of your identity: Race/Ethnicity, Class, Education, Gender do you think plays the greatest roll in who you are or how you are seen? After doing the circles Self Awareness Exercise, write a page about which aspect of you exerts the most importance on you. 

3.  Carefully read the opening two quotes to the novel, The Fall of Rome.  What do they mean? What does the Henry Louis Gates quote mean? What does it mean to be fissured? Substitute your own ethnicity where it says Black Americans. 

4. Based on #3, construct an Identity Map.  An Identity Map is  creative Visual representation of all of the fissures and groups and factions in your race or ethnicity. You are to clearly identify your race and at least 15 different fissures. 

Description: Objective and Subjective--A Review and additional practice

Warm-up: Compare and Contrast Objective description with Subjective description. Be sure to NOT use notes and be sure that each includes at least three components. 

What role does Connotation play in Subjective Description ? Then, Describe each of the following subjectively and objectively 1. King Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science 2. Pizza 3. Netflix 

Finally, write your final draft of your new paragraph on cardstock. Submit with the first 30 minutes of class today. 

Friday Routines

 Good Morning! Our routine to assist us in reading 2 millions words per year, demonstrating reading comprehension and posing student generated questions is to write: 1. Find your journal prompt from 550 Prompts for Personal Narrative Writing and respond in a page.  2.  Select your Article of the Week from either your prompt or your choice podcast and complete your SOAPS Analysis +Summary+2 Rt Questions, 2 Author and You Questions and 2 On Your Own Questions. 

Link for SOAPS Analysis Electronic Version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11WdKZ_m_wR6RQVoC98FRk6kAuWyAXTWqW7mIQPKQ1Ek/copy

Asking Student Generated Questions; Reviewing Subjective and Objective Description

 1. Warm-up: How did it feel reading a text out loud? 2. Review: Description: Subjective and Objective/Connotation

3. Introduce Levels of Questions

Welcome to Wednesday!

 Welcome to Wednesday block! Our goals/objectives: --To understand description and the TWO specific types of description--their similarities and differences.  To briefly understand what connotation and denotation are--any why they are so important on us.To demonstrate understanding of grade level reading The Fall of Rome --To rewrite a passage using a different method of description. 

Friday, September 17, 2021

Happy Friday! Objectives: Revise our "favorite paragraph using: 1. An example of figurative language--a comparison (simile or metaphor); and 2 specific types of imagery pertinent to the subject. Must read a loud to correct diction, sentence length and style.  2. Student Choice AoW (or podcast) and 3. Journal response from 550 Prompts. All students received mark of "M". Any student who has not submitted more than 4 assignments received grade of "D" even if that was due to quarantine/isolation.  New link: Patterns For College Writing. 

Period 4 Homework

 Finish plotting the descriptive details in your chart for passage two. Then write a paragraph answering the following: What impression of the subject or speaker do you get based on the use of description and the denotative or connotative meanings of the words chosen and/or the figurative language? Please also bring your paragraph that you wrote about your favorite cousin, shoes or restaurant to revise in class. 

Period 6 padlet link: https://padlet.com/lguy2/p9cwcprf2swh8bfp

Homework period 5 (09/14/21)

 Write a NEW paragraph either describing your favorite cousin, favorite pair of shoes or favorite restaurant. This time, include at least ONE SIMILE OR METAPHOR, at least TWO Examples of the imagery that best fits, and diction choices that present a favorable impression of the subject.  Be ready to re-write your descriptive paragraph on card stock paper in class in your best handwriting. It should be obvious that you are using the mode of description.   I will stamp your last draft before we write our final draft on card stock. Feel free to bring a thin sharpie or decorative marker to write your paragraph. 

Description in Action

 Objectives: To continue to gain facility scoring student SOAPS Analysis to allow us to transfer expectation and skill in our own SOAPS Analysis.  2. To analysis descriptive passages of individuals to analyze how diction (word choice) and the connotation of that diction, as well as the five types of imagery and figurative language create an impression of a person. 3. To transfer strategies as we work to REVISE our paragraph description of a person that creates an impression of them using at least one example of connotation, figurative language and at least two types of the five types of imagery. 4. Finally, to create a SOAPS Analysis (if needed) and respond to questions about form on "Ground Zero the article found in our online text, Patterns for College Writing. 

Welcome to Week 5

Welcome to Week 5! In honor of grading week, today we will focus on understanding grades by way of reading and discussing the Abbreviated Rubric for Scoring Reading. After reading, we will use that rubric to score two student samples SOAPS Analysis generating both a numeric score, commentary and feedback for the two student samples.  Then, we will work to complete a SOAPS Analysis of "Ground Zero" and/or the comprehension questions that follow the essay.  If time permits, we will view Learning Targets for Grades 11 and 12.  (Focus: Understanding rubrics and scoring of SOAPS + Connotation and Active Writing + Descriptive Exercises). 

Description: The How, The What, the Why

 Today, we will take some time to actually do some describing.  Describe either: (1). Your favorite pair of shoes (you may own them already or be saving up for them). (2). Your favorite cousin (3). Your favorite restaurant--it can be take-out or fancy, a hole in the wall or elaborate place.  

Goal: to help someone see or understand why the shoes, your cousin or restaurant is your favorite. 

2. Once you've done the above and shared with a neighbor, view the slide deck, slides 1-11, including the short video on imagery. Then answer the following.  In your descriptive paragraph did you use figurative language such as a metaphor or simile? Language to appeal to sight, taste, hearing, smell or touch? Where? Complete the sensory detail chart for your own paragraph and upload your chart and response in schoology. 

Beginning Expository Composition: What and why and how do we use description?

 Welcome to Week 4. The focus for this week and next is an exploration of descriptive writing. We will discuss description and what it helps us do. We will compare passages written on the same topic, and will read several essays in our Patterns For College Reading Text that are descriptive. We will read texts paying careful attention to their use of sensory description using writing strategies of adjectives, adverbs and adverbial phrases; figurative language, to enhance description. We will write about an object two ways: subjectively and objectively.  We will also engage in a variety of writing exercises to fine tune our use of description to see how it adds vigor, specificity, clarity and concern to writing. We will produce two longer pieces of descriptive writing as well as engage in several activities to make dull, boring language more descriptive as we gain more appreciation of the genre. 

What is Description and Why Should Writers Use It? Period 4

Period 5 link: What is description? Why/How Do Writers Use it? 

Period 6 link: What is Description? Why/How do writers use it? 

Article of the Week: Student Choice periods 5 and 6 Expos Comp

Since I began teaching the course, the scope of expository texts has exploded.  Truly, there is expository writing on almost any topic, subject, hobby, interest and disposition. That is why I seem so tentative so far--there is so much good writing to explore and share! As stated in our Academic Procedures, each week  you will find YOUR OWN individual Expository Text of the Week. You may choose from Magazine Articles and Op-Eds or Commentaries;  Podcasts or Editorials, or an occasional movie/film (provided that you viewed it recently). To help guide you, here are some resources, likes and places you might want to check out as you begin your journey. 

18 New York Times Articles to Read Before Eighteen 
Radio Rookies: Youth Radio from New York
Latino USA: Radio Journal of News and Culture from A Latino Perspective
Very Smart Brothas
The Huffington Post: communities Black Voices; Queer Voices; Women's Voices; Latino Voices
The Root: Black News, Culture, Opinion

50 Best Podcasts for High School Students

550 Prompts to Inspire Personal and Narrative Writing 

NPR Podcast Listing

I enjoy and love listening to podcasts and encourage you to explore podcasts and argumentative writing for your first Independent Reading SOAPS Analysis due Tuesday night at 10pm.  You may choose to read or listen to the same podcast at times. 

Exit Slip for All Classes

Please complete the Exit Slip Today! Link is here to go to the google form: https://forms.gle/RkNShRSzEw5mCA3b6

Gearing Up For Expository Independent Reading

As you know, a hallmark of the Expository Reading and Writing Course is INDEPENDENT Reading.  With Independent reading, you will self select a text that is in some ways expository. It can be pure exposition: Writing to inform; it can be narrative: autobiography or biography; or book length argument/mixed method.  To help you decide which book you would like to check out from the public or King Drew library, or obtain through Amazon or Target or Walmart, start to browse the following curated lists to see which if any books catch your eye.  Then complete the Google Form for accountability. 

75 Non Fictions Titles to Read over the Summer 

https://explorethearchive.com/nonfiction-books-for-teens

https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=28-ya-nonfiction-titles-young-adult-teen-summer-reading-2021