The Tempest Opporunity

Today at 3:30 and tomorrow at 5:00 CNG students will be presenting The Tempest.

Rarely do we get to see Shakespeare in English in Bogotá, so take this opportunity to do so - not to mention a play that we performed with students mostly from your Lang classes.

If you do, take a picture of yourself and write a little about the experience on your blog and I will award you a special grade.

Satirical Commencement Speech Rubric

All speeches must be 3-5 min (maximum) in length. These will be presented on our final exam day.

See the rubric here. 

Dangling Modifiers

Read lesson and complete exercises.

Reminders

Remember you should be reading for at least an hour between each class.

In addition, don't forget to bring in your completed first draft of your satirical commencement speech for Writers Workshop - either in print or on computer (phones are not acceptable).

Vote!

I need you guys to vote in the poll for our class about what to study next. I need to start planning for tomorrow.

Semester Reflection

As we near the end of the year, please take out a few minutes to respond to this survey.

Most important to me are the comments in the end. Think about the curriculum too. Favorite books? Favorite unit?

The Tempest Rubric

Here is The Tempest rubric.

DBQ and Synthesis

I thought this article might be interesting for those who have already taken AP US History.

Last Rhetorical Terms

These are some terms either very obscure or simply not covered over the course of the semester. Have a look if you weren't in class this week.

Study?

It'd be a good idea to know 98% of the terms on this list. We've covered all of them. In addition, see the extra special terms for our 70 question MC exam.

MIAP

For those of you that are Missing in AP Exams or are MIAP, make sure you follow up on missed classes.

Of particular importance is our class Wednesday and Thursday. These will be review days for the AP exam and for the AP 70 question multipe choice exam.

Reminder: Multiple Choice exam, 70 questions, summative is on Friday or Monday, depending on your section.  If you will not be in class for whatever reason, you need to email me about it. If not, it counts as missing an exam day. This is a key practice exercise for test day. After 70 questions, 55 will feel like a breeze.

The Tempest Performance

While Seniors will be on an exam scheduele, in order to have everyone present, we will meet on May 20th at 2:15pm in the theater. Every group will have a chance to present. We should be finished at 4pm the latest. I will announce the day, as soon as I have a date. This will be a summative assessment. And our class´s send-off for the 12th-graders.

Be aware you will also be graded on your participation as an audience member.

Exemplar Hot Topic Blog

I wanted to share with you Mateo´s blog, as it does a great job summarizing, then evaluating various positions on one topic.



Take a look.

Also, check out "In the Mind of an Adolescent" for a great hot topic blog on organ donations.

Hot Topic for New Week

Complete one other hot topic blog for Friday or Monday, whenever we meet.

See rubric here. 

In addition, be sure you are reading in preparation for reading pair discussions. This means reading regularly and meeting the reading goals you established with your partner.

For next week, choose another hot topic in which you analyze five sources and come up with your own position.

Print out your The Tempest scene for our next class.

Next week we'll complete a timed writing exercise for the last question on the AP exam. It will be a holistically graded summative assessment for the open response question.

Research Paper Reflection

Tonight listen to my audio commentary on your paper.

When finished respond on your blog. Talk about how you might have approached or written this differently if you were to do it all over again.

Hot Topics (our new form of blogging)

This week rather than read at home, you'll be reading in the class.

Instead you'll choose one hot topic to investigate. You will identify at least six sources relating to the topic. You will evaluate each in terms of its audience, purpose, etc. as well as its veracity. In the end, you will write a blog entry in which you take your own position, while using hyperlinks to summarize, incorporate or refute all of your six sources.

If you want to see a professional version of this, return to the Charlie Hebdo article from Slate we read some time ago.

Your first of these hot topic blogs will be due this Friday or Monday.

College Madness

Here´s Frank Bruni´s op-ed about the College Admissions process. After reading describe Bruni´s tone.

All Calm

The cancellation of classes on Wednesday in no way changes the due dates that are established. Use this extra day well to ensure the best paper possible.

You must submit in turnitin.com. You must register in turnitin.com. Turn it in to turnitin.com by Wednesday.

The number is 9733250.

Password is linguistics.

Chicago Style Citation

Some helpful examples here.

UNC Conclusions

You can find UNC's guide to writing here.

Research Paper Rubric - Put in your two cents!

Complete the research paper rubric here.

What's Going On?

Tests, tests and more tests, in preparation for our test, will be happening this week.

Just look at the periodic sentence!

MC Exam Monday or Tuesday, and the Synthesis Essay will be completed Friday or next Tuesday in class.

Don't forget to have the first draft of your research paper ready for Writers Workshop this week. The final is due by Wednesday March 25th (midnight the latest). You will upload it to turnitin.com. More on that next week.

Synthesis Scoring Guide

See Synthesis Scoring Guide here.

Researching, Mostly

This week please concentrate on your research paper. You must bring the first draft of your four to five page paper in Chicago Style next week for Writers Workshop.

Don´t forget to bring in your revised bibliography for Writers Workshop.

Also, you and your reading partner should create a reading goal calendar to finish your book before Semana Santa.

Finally, we have a full-length mc exam next Monday or Tuesday (whenever we meet).

Passive Voice Video and Exercises

Complete these exercises. 

Chicago Style Citation Overview

For more about Chicago Style read this.

Antithesis

You can repeat the minilesson here.

This Week

For Writers Workshop bring in your bibliography with ten sources. This needs to be on paper because it will be collected and graded.

There will be a multiple guess choice quiz about "Letter from Birmingham Jail".

For Friday, complete two annotations on Genius for "Letter from Birmingham Jail".

Also, if you haven't already complete the Charlie Hebdo questions below by next Monday or Tuesday (whenever we meet).

Charlie Hebdo Discussion

Read this article in Slate and any other hyperlinked articles that seem pertinent.


When finished answer these questions in a google doc:

1. Using the hyperlinks summarize at least two other arguments that Weissmann cites.
2. Define “sophomoric” in this context.
3. According to Weissmann, what is the either-or issue? Why is it wrong?
4. Do some research to explain the comparison to The Satanic Verse.
5. What does Weissmann mean by a “binary question”?
6. Can humor go too far? Give an example from your own life.

Research Questions and Outside Reading

Don´t forget to have a satisfactory research question for our next Writers Workshop.

Prepare for our vocabulary quiz to take place in Writers Workshop.

Complete reading goal and one reading vlog by the end of this week as well.

Turn Your Research Topic into a Quesion

Here's how. Thanks, Duke University.

Counter Argument

During This Week

Set an ambitious but feasible reading goal. Keep in mind we have many days without class and little other outside homework. I hope you use this time to complete lots of annotated reading. Doing so not only helps you with this class, but the SAT as well.

Complete a vlog in response. 

Research Paper Topic Questions

We also came up with a dichotomy to guide the paper: Research v. Analysis - which also reflected primary v secondary sources.

From MIT´s research guide for undergrads:

• Think of the who, what, when, where and why questions:
• • WHY did you choose the topic?  What interests you about it?  Do you have an opinion about the issues involved?
  • WHO are the information providers on this topic?  Who might publish information about it?  Who is affected by the topic?  Do you know of organizations or institutions affiliated with the topic?
  • WHAT are the major questions for this topic?  Is there a debate about the topic?  Are there a range of issues and viewpoints to consider?
  • WHERE is your topic important: at the local, national or international level?  Are there specific places affected by the topic?
  • WHEN is/was your topic important?  Is it a current event or an historical issue?  Do you want to compare your topic by time periods?

Sentence Types

Watch this video:

Then complete these exercises. 

VLOGS!

Please don´t forget to complete these by our next class.

Syntax Cheat Sheet

You can download it here. 

Writers Workshop Reminder

Don´t forget to bring your three possible research projects written. 

Wanna See Nicaraguan Sign Language?

An Intro: Research Paper

As we discussed in class, this month we're going to begin a research paper about linguistics.

Okay, no crying. The fun part is that you get to pick your topic. Rather than explain it all, I'd rather you see some samples to understand different approaches and what it is I'm looking for.

The topic will be linguistics, as we've been working on. However, that includes many areas of language.

Your classmates were very kind and have agreed that I share their papers and names. 

Here are three samples.

Come to next Writers Workshop with three possible topics. 

Parallelism?

Pidgins, Creoles and Standards

You can find the article and the audio here. 

WW: Parallelism Practice

Complete these exercises.

In Class Linguistics Reading

Find our reading here. 

This Week

For our class this Friday or next Monday complete one reading vlog in which you incorporate notes from your discussion. You should read another 30-35 pages at home in addition. Be sure to be using your post-its.

Vlogging

Yes, the day has come. This weekend instead of writing a reading blog, you may write a reading vlog - that is a video in which you react to the text. In essence, this is entirely the same exercise. You can record this separately or in pairs. Either way remember you're addressing mostly your partner and discussing the book.

Here's an excellent example from a different class.