Those Rangefinders

As noted in all classes, those rangefinders sure did not exhibit the best and the brightest essays. Ergo, it's time for all of you to make a 6-worthy attempt. Monday will be the timed prompt for certainty and doubt, so make sure to have your chart with you in first, third, and fourth hours. Seventh hour completed the prompt today!

Otherwise, first and third hour completed a MC passage with scoring, and we will go over the answers on Tuesday. Plus the vocab/tone quest will occur on Tuesday for 1,3, and 4.

Certainty and Doubt

1 & 3: After checking out the new scoring rubric for argumentative writing, which is much more conducive to comprehension in a one page format, you received feedback for your team jingoism or team identity essays. Big lessons from these readings is to go immediately into your example for the hook, have a solid transition that moves from the hook's example to the eventual claim idea/abstract noun, and a claim that ends that first paragraph. For those body paragraphs, you need a sub-claim/set-up of the example, warrants throughout to connect the understanding of the concept to the example, and a superwarrant clarifying the big idea at the end. For the counterclaim, complex sentences work the best, which is also the same advice I would give you for setting up the rebuttal as well. Following those meetings, we looked at a philosophical argument prompt on certainty and doubt, and you completed the pre-writing chart for this prompt. Overall, I read a great deal of original examples and a few twists on the counterclaims that convey a great deal of sophistication! Lastly, you began scoring the rangefinders for those prompts with 1-6. As noted in class, absolutely none of these essays warrants a 6, so judge each essay as an individual and not as one number that fits in with others. Make sure to score the essays (skip the last one) for next class so we may further discuss the importance of specificity, organization, and overall argumentative skills.

7: We haven't had class yet, so I'm figuring it will go something like this: first, you have your charts for the certainty and doubt prompt prepped, and I will be meeting with you to take a looksee at your examples and plan; second, we will then analyze the rangefinders for this prompt, which obviously are not up to the standard we would like them to be; third, you know that you will be writing to this prompt next class, so make sure you bring back your chart; fourth, we selected our new topic for tone, which is ice cream flavors. The paragraph for this tone cycle will be due on Monday as you will be busy writing in class on Friday. Emma, your tone word for this topic is derisive.

Fourth Hour Tone Words, Round 3

Since you are working on your philosophical prompt via a pre-writing chart and checking out the rangefinders as well, you may want to take a glance at all of our tone words since class will be focusing on writing arguments for the next few days.

• Abstract
• Apprehensive
• Apprehensive
• Archaic
• Audacious
• Bantering
• Bellicose
• Bellicose
• Biting
• Callous
• Candid
• Caustic
• Churlish
• Clichéd
• Clichéd
• Clinical
• Colloquial
• Contemptuous
• Dejected
• Demoralized
• Demoralized
• Derisive
• Earnest
• Earnest
• Effusive
• Empathetic
• Erudite
• Facetious
• Facetious
• Fatuous
• Flippant
• Idyllic
• Incensed
• Incensed
• Informal
• Insolent
• Jejune
• Jejune
• Laissez-faire
• Laissez-faire
• Omnipotent
• Omnipotent
• Patronizing
• Patronizing
• Pedantic
• Pedantic
• Poignant
• Poignant
• Polemical
• Polemical
• Pompous
• Pretentious
• Quizzical
• Reticent
• Reverent
• Ribald
• Ribald
• Sardonic
• Scathing
• Sentimental
• Simple
• Supercilious
• Trite
• Trite
• Vituperative
• Whimsical

Third Hour Tone Words, Round 3

Here are all of the tone words, which will appear on your vocab 18/tone quest next week. We are obviously taking a little hiatus from reviewing these words in class to focus on writing arguments, so studying is up to you.

• Abstract
• Ambivalent
• Apprehensive
• Archaic
• Audacious
• Bantering
• Bellicose
• Biting
• Callous
• Clinical
• Clinical
• Colloquial
• Contemptuous
• Cynical
• Derisive
• Diffident
• Disdainful
• Disdainful
• Effusive
• Empathetic
• Enervating
• Enervating
• Erudite
• Eulogize
• Facetious
• Fatuous
• Flippant
• Flippant
• Forthright
• Gauche
• Gauche
• Hubristic
• Hubristic
• Idyllic
• Impartial
• Incensed
• Incredulous
• Informal
• Insolent
• Irreverent
• Jingoistic
• Jovial
• Jovial
• Laissez-faire
• Laudatory
• Laudatory
• Obsequious
• Omnipotent
• Pompous
• Pretentious
• Quizzical
• Reverent
• Ribald
• Sardonic
• Scathing
• Seductive
• Simple
• Supercilious
• Supercilious
• Unctuous
• Urbane
• Urbane
• Vituperative
• Volatile
• Volatile
• Whimsical
• Wistful

First Hour Tone Words, Round 3

Here are all of them for preparations for your vocab/tone quest next week:

First Hour:
• Aloof
• Apathetic
• Archaic
• Audacious
• Callous
• Candid
• Caustic
• Churlish
• Clinical
• Concrete
• Contemptuous
• Cynical
• Cynical
• Demoralized
• Derisive
• Didactic
• Diffident
• Disdainful
• Earnest
• Effusive
• Elegiac
• Elegiac
• Empathetic
• Erudite
• Formal
• Forthright
• Gothic
• Gothic
• Idyllic
• Impartial
• Incredulous
• Irreverent
• Jejune
• Jingoistic
• Lugubrious
• Lugubrious
• Macabre
• Malicious
• Nihilistic
• Nihilistic
• Nostalgic
• Obsequious
• Partisan
• Partisan
• Patronizing
• Poignant
• Pretentious
• Provocative
• Reverent
• Scathing
• Seductive
• Sentimental
• Sentimental
• Trite
• Unctuous
• Vehement
• Vehement
• Vituperative
• Whimsical
• Wistful

Fourth Hour Brainstorming

We started off by sharing our brainstorms for empathy, faith, and guilt and then moved into a group activity for further brainstorming and utilization of exemplification and argumentation or writing. If absent, you will need to complete the following steps:
1. Open and share a Google doc with me. You can title it whatever you would like - as long as it's school appropriate.
2. Time yourself 3 minutes and brainstorm all examples for the abstract noun "identity," remembering to not self-edit and attempt to bring in examples from multiple subjects.
3. Time yourself 3 minutes and brainstorm for your next abstract noun "jingoism," just as above.
4. Choose one of your brainstorms or the writing.
5. Write a claim for your definition of your abstract noun.
6. Select one of your brainstorm examples and writing a supporting body paragraph to that claim.

Afterwards, we looked at the new scoring rubric for argumentation. The expectations are much the same as the 1-9 CDQ rangefinders from last week: a claim that is proven through evidence through the entirety of the essay, evidence from relevant, specific, multiple examples that are explained through warrants and set up by sub-claims, and the sophistication from multiple subject examples, connecting ideas under an umbrella claim, a counterclaim, syntactic style, transitions, strong diction, and argumentative voice that is not kidnapped by any persuasive intentions. All of the aforementioned will lead you to a 6. Anything lacking will decrease the score in some manner.

With the new scoring rubric in mind, you then received the philosophical prompt, the first one the AP introduced after the CDQ-style ones, and a chart to help break down this prompt and prepare for writing. The rest of the class was dedicated to working on this chart and running it by me (if time permitted) and having the rangefinders for this prompt to score. Anything not finished was or homework as all of this needs to come in to class on Friday ready or meetings/feedback and analysis of essays.

By the way, vocab and tone have not disappeared. We will still have a quest over 18 and all of your tone words coming up next week. We are taking a little detour to go back to writing and assess everything you learned this quarter. The same goes or multiple choice passages - we will be having a series of 5 coming up soon too as we will have our first full MC test after spring break.

More Brainstorming!

1 & 3: We finished up vocab and reviewed tone prior to sharing our brainstorms for dishonor, empathy, faith, and guilt, which continued our work towards original, mature examples that stem from variegated subjects. Then, we broke into groups with each group brainstorming for the abstract nouns of "identity" and "jingoism," then choosing to be either team identity or team jingoism, and then splitting up examples to create a team essay. Each group member will be writing one paragraph (which you decided in class) for the start of our next class. Be ready to analyze and have feedback since we will be completing more writing, brainstorming, and evaluating of arguments.

4: After vocab and tone, we spent the hour brainstorming abstract nouns in 3 minute increments. Words included in our brainstorming included achievement (riding a bike, Blues Stanley Cup, Mongols, Nobel Peach Prize), absurdity (Groundhog's Day, Salem Witch Trials, Dahmer, Lord of the Flies), dishonor, empathy, faith, and guilt. Tomorrow, we will be sharing brainstorms for the last 3 abstract nouns listed, so if you were absent, you are expected to have brainstorms completed and your four favorite choices for each one determined.

7: Today was all about brainstorming, writing, and evaluating in the name of team identity or team jingoism and then writing a team argumentative essay for the team's selected topic. After the writing process, you received direct feedback to help you with your future argumentative writings.