Course Recap for Monday, April 27, 2015

Checklist for the First Draft of your Playlist Persuasive Essay

• Do you clearly state your argument?  Do you make it clear why your audience should listen to your playlist? Ex. This playlist is great for saying sorry to your significant other because it expresses both how sorry you are and shows that you can be sensitive and romantic.
• Identify your audience and make it clear why this playlist will appeal to them.  Who would be the most interested in your playlist?  Why would the songs in the playlist work for them?  Why would the hip-hop fan or the person looking for a good time want to listen to the playlist you created.
• Explain why your playlist is ordered the way it is.  Why do you choose the first song to open your playlist with? Why did you choose the last?  If you haven't thought about this before, think about it now.  What is the best order for these songs to be heard in?
• Quote and address at least 5 song lyrics in your piece.  This will give you practice providing outside evidence to support your argument.  What lyrics from the song help illustrate how funny, sad, beautiful, relaxing, etc your playlist is?
• Address at least two potential concerns, doubts, or questions your audience might have about your playlist.
• This is what I wanted to accomplish with the reviews everyone made of the playlist.  However, most of the reviews were positive.  I want you to imagine the potential naysayer, the hater, who wants to claim your playlist isn't great.  What complaints might they have? How can you refute those complaints? Maybe someone'll think there aren't enough uptempo songs or maybe they'll say your playlist isn't made of "real" music.  How can you prove them wrong?
• Check those text structures.  Be sure to use 3 different text structures by the end of your essay.

I'm going to shorten this essay length to two pages to make up for missing today.  I expect your rough drafts on Wednesday.  

Homework 

• Rough Draft of Playlist Persuasive Essay (due by midnight) If I don't get it by midnight, I will not check it.  

Course Recap for Wednesday, April 23, 2015

Post a link to your playlist on the blog with your intro paragraph.  Your introduction should introduce your playlist.  And it should present us with the main reasons why you feel your playlist is perfect.
What about it is special?  What can they gain from listening to it?  Establish who your audience is in this paragraph.  Who is your playlist for? You'll get to explore the specifics of each song and the order you put it in in the body of your essay.

Homework

• You received the name of a classmate before you left class on Wednesday.  Go to their blog and listen to their playlist.  Then email me at mosesm@kellogg.edu your honest opinion about the playlist.  It will be anonymous.  No one will know who had whose playlist unless you tell them.
• First Draft of Essay is due next Wednesday.  It's longer than your other two essays, so you want to get started working on it now.

Course Recap for Monday, April 20, 2015

Ethos, Pathos, Logos

1. Ethos-Appeals to credibility

• How do you appeal to credibility
• Credentials
• Showing off how much you know about the topic
• Experiences related to the topic
• Presentation- making sure you and your work looks good
• Appearing likeable

2.  Pathos-Appeals to emotions

• How do you appeal to emotion
• tone and voice-setting a specific tone to fit the emotion you want to evoke
• imagery that elicit emotions
• personal anecdotes that elicit emotion

3.  Logos-Appeals to logic/reason

• How do you appeal to logic
• Factual evidence
• Statistics
• Examples
• Cause and Effect

Persuasive Essay 1

For your first essay, you are writing a piece on your opinion on music.  There are no right answers in an argument like this, but there are good techniques that can be used to convince others to feel the same way you feel about the piece.  You will be creating a playlist (see Persuasive Essay 1 Assignment Sheet under Class Documents) and explaining to your reader why your playlist is perfect and why they should listen to it.  

Homework

• Make your playlist on YouTube.  You all have Gmail accounts which means you also have YouTube accounts.  Login with your Google credentials and create your playlist.  If you're unsure how to do this click the following link https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/57792?hl=en Have it ready to go when you come to class.

Course Recap for Monday, April 13, 2015

Homework

• Revise your Literacy Narrative (due next Monday)
• Start your Narrative Final.  You will be writing a narrative essay entirely on your own from start to finish.  Pick an event in your life that changed you is some sort of way or a something where you learned something about yourself or the world.  Check out the Narrative Final Assignment Sheet under Class Documents for more information. (due next Monday)

Course Recap for Monday, March 30, 2015

Homework

• Complete the Essay Outline for Your Literacy Narrative.  You can complete on the sheet on in a Google Doc but you should come in with rough drafts of all your paragraphs written down.

Course Recap for Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Homework

• Aplia Assignments: Narration and Revising for Consistency and Parellelism (Due Monday by Midnight)
• Thursday Blog Post Comment: Reflect on our beginning class exercise.  What movies, TV shows, music, video games, etc have had the biggest influence on your language choices?  What media has had an influence on the way you see the world?
• Write a Narrative Paragraph detailing a pivotal moment in your literacy narrative.  It can be an event that presents the conflict or it can be the event that presents the resolution.  Remember that narrative paragraphs should primarily feature a chronological recounting of the things that happened at a specific time or during a specific event.  Check the Aplia Assignment if there is any confusion.  We will use this paragraph as the jumping off point for the rest of your essay.

Course Recap for Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Mrs. Flowers Discussion Questions

1. What is the thesis of the narrative?  Remember the best way to find the thesis is to first figure out the overall topic and then ask yourself what is the piece saying about the topic.
2. How does she support this thesis?  What details does she use? Give specific examples.
3. What are the lessons Marguerite learns from Mrs. Flowers concerning language?  What are the lessons she learns about life?
4. We talked earlier about what makes a good story.  Is this a good story?  What elements of a good story does this piece have? Give specific examples.

Homework

• Answer the Sister Flowers Questions in a Google doc.  Use complete sentences.  3 sentences for each question.
• Revise 4 of your 6 paragraphs via Google Docs
• Read "Me Talk Pretty One Day" and write the various text structures you find throughout the piece.  Complete the Discussion Questions.  (DO NOT DO THE LANGUAGE EXERCISES.)
• Thursday Blog Post Topic: Tell me a story of a time you were embarrassed.

Course Recap for Monday March 16, 2015

Final Paragraph Portfolio

We have completed the following paragraphs so far this semester.

1. Description-Homework-Significant Person or Place
2. Illustration-In-Class-Commercial
3. Definition-Started In-Class-Slang Word
4. Your Choice-Homework-Good and/or Bad Music
5. Cause and/or Effect-Homework-Break-up
6. Process-Homework-How-To

All of these assignments should have been completed in Google Docs.  For your portfolio, you are going to revise 4 of the 6 paragraphs based on my comments.  Make your changes right in the Google Document.  They will automatically be saved, and I will be able to go back to previous drafts to see how well you revised your paragraph.  Do not just change one word and consider that a revision.  I want to see that you seriously sat down and asked yourself, how can I make this better.  I gave you pointers on each one, but you may make changes that I did not suggest.  

If you never submitted a draft to me for any of these assignments, you cannot do a revision.  Each paragraph will be worth 25 points. 

You may also revise the following blog posts for extra credit.

1. Compare and Contrast-Blog-Best Friend
2. Classification-Blog-Three types of ____I enjoy

Make sure that whichever paragraph you revise, that it follows the rules and organization for the specific text structure.  I should know exactly what type of paragraph you are writing from the first two sentences.  Use the appropriate signal words and pay attention to my comments.

It is important that you master each text structure and understand its uses, so you can pick the right types of paragraphs for your essay based on the information that you want to convey.

Here is a brief reminder of each text structure and what they mean

• Description:  describes a specific noun using sensory details (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches)
• Definition: tells what something is.  gives broad overview of a noun.  generalized
• Illustration: when you have specific examples you want to give to prove or illustrate your point
• Classification: when you want to take a group of things and break them into smaller categories.  when you're talking about the types, or classes, or categories, or groups certain things belong to.
• Compare and Contrast-when you want to talk about the differences (contrast) and/or similarities (compare) between two things
• Cause and Effect-when you want to talk about the reasons something happens (causes) or the consequences of a specific happening (effects)
• Process-when you want to explain how something is done.

See Text Structure Examples underneath Class Documents for examples of each.

Homework

• Read Sister Flowers Identify the text structures within the piece.  Then suggest a text structure that isn't included in the piece that you think would fit and what information you would put in it. (Due Wednesday)
• Revision of Paragraphs from today for extra credit (due Wednesday)
• Work On Final Paragraph Portfolio (due next Monday)

Course Recap for Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Homework

• Write a paragraph on the causes OR the effects of a breakup.
• Thursday Blog Post Prompt: Complete the sentence.  "There are three types of ___________________ I enjoy."  Then explain what they are.
• Aplia Assignment: Present Tense Agreement

Course Recap for Monday, March 2, 2015

Writing Quiz

We are going to practice writing paragraphs today.  We have learned four different text structures, Description, Definition, Illustration, Compare and Contrast.  In class, you are going to choose one of these text structures and write me a paragraph on the topic of Good and/or Bad Books.  Your main idea will be based on which text structure you decide to write in.

You will be graded on the strength of your topic sentence and how well you use the text structure (including how well you utilize the necessary transitional phrases).  You should also be mindful of your grammar.  We've discussed fragments and run-on sentences.  Be sure your paragraph is free of these errors.  Any sentence fragments and run-ons will cause you to lose points. 

Homework

• Pick one of the four text structures that you did not write about in class and write another paragraph.  Your topic is still Good and/or Bad Books.
• Aplia Assignment: Cause and Effect

Course Recap for Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Compare and Contrast
When you compare (talk about the similarities) and/or contrast (talk about the differences) between two things in a paragraph it is important that you make sure your paragraph has a strong topic sentence that helps summarize the similarities and/or differences and doesn't just state that they exist.  For instance, don't say "High school and college are very similar to one another."  This is too generalized.  A stronger topic sentence would be "High school and college have similar content and social activities."  This better prepares the reader for what you're about to write about. It also helps you to know what information to include and what information to exclude.

"But" Statements
You may have used the word "but" many times, but have you been using it the correct way?
If you look at the previous sentence, what do you think the main point of this section is going to be.
A. The ways you have used but B. Or the ways you have used it correct or incorrect.  If you answered B you are correct.  In a "but" statement, the main point of the sentence, the place where most of the emphasis is placed is the part of the sentence that comes after "but."  This is important to know for any sentence but especially for compare and contrast sentences.  If the main focus is going to be on how things are similar, you put that information after the but.  "Me and my best friend don't always see eye to eye, but we have similar upbringings that help us relate to each other."  While I expect, you will mention the ways you don't see eye to eye, I expect that the main focus of the paragraph will be  about your similar experiences and how they connect the two of you.

Homework

• Aplia Assignment: The Simple Sentence
• Thursday Blog Post Prompt: Write about whatever you want!

Course Recap for Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Definition vs Description vs Illustration
We talked about the difference between definition, description and when it would be best to use either text structure.  Definition tells us what something is and usually used to describe something in general terms.  Description is more specific.  It's topic will be less general than definition and it will use more subjective details.  Instead of telling what something is in general, you would describe what something looks or feels like to you.  Illustration mean that we have an idea we want to provide more information on or a point we want to prove and we have a bunch of specific examples that will help us do this.

We imagined that we were writing an essay on the legalization of marijuana.  In this essay, we might have a definition paragraph that first defines what marijuana is.  Then we would have an illustration paragraph listing examples of people or places that have benefited from the legalization of marijuana. Then we would write a description of a the relief a sick person felt from using marijuana.  (BTW No one will be writing this essay this semester.  The topic is way too overdone.)

Homework

• Write 7-9 sentence definition paragraph using the topic sentences you created in class about your slang term.  Submit via Google Docs (Due Monday)
• Read Sister Flowers by Maya Angelou listed underneath Class Documents (Due Monday) (I am trusting you to read this.  Do not let me down.)
• Aplia Assignment: Compare and Contrast Reading and Graded (Due Wednesday)
• Thursday Blog Post Prompt: Who is your best friend?  Why?  How are you similar?  How are you different?

Course Recap for Monday, February 9, 2015

General Note: Be sure to keep track of the various text structures we are studying.  Make sure you understand their purposes.  You will be tested on this information later.

Illustration
Today, we checked out the text structure illustration.  In an illustrative paragraph, your goal is to support your topic sentence by providing the reader with specific examples that illustrate your point. This is similar to description except in this type of paragraph you can have multiple subjects.  The topic of a descriptive paragraph is usually very specific, a specific person, place, or object.  Illustrative paragraphs allows your topic to be more general.  It also allows you to explain abstract ideas and concepts instead of specific nouns.

Homework

• Aplia Assignment: Chapter 9 Definition-Reading and Graded Assignment (Due Wednesday)
• Revision of your Illustration Paragraph on Commercials via Google Docs (Due Wednesday)
• Thursday Blog Post Prompt: Who is your best friend?  Why?  How are you two alike? How are you different?

Course Recap for Wednesday, February 2, 2015

Description

We talked today about people and the different ways we can describe them.  We have to use more than just sensory details because describing how a person looks isn't always enough to provide people with an accurate impression of them (although we did discuss how a person dresses and their personal belongings tells us a lot about them).  We can discuss a person's character traits (whether or not their kind or mean, smart or dumb, generous or selfish) but it's a lot better to show than to tell.  How kind is this person? Give an example.  What do you mean when you say "Richard is really dumb."  Some people have different ideas about what makes a person dumb.  It's important in descriptive writing to be specific. 

Homework

• Write a paragraph (7 to 9 sentences) via Google Docs describing a person or place that is significant to you. (Due Monday)
• Aplia Assignment- Illustration Read the Reading and then Complete The Graded Questions. (Due Sunday 11:00PM)
• Aplia Assignment- Achieving Coherence (Same as above) (Due Sunday 11:00PM)
• Thursday Blog Post Prompt- The Super Bowl just aired this past weekend and so did this years infamous Super Bowl commercials.  What is the purpose of commercials?  What techniques do they use to achieve their purpose?  Refer to specific examples (they don't have to be Super Bowl commercials but cool points if they are.) (Due Thursday)

Course Recap for Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Description

Description is the text structure whose main goal is to describe a person, place, or thing using sensory details.  Descriptive pieces appeal to one or more of the five senses.  It paints a picture in the reader's head.  As the writer, you have control over how your reader views your object.  You and your classmates won't see things the same way.  You may love the gym while your classmate hates it, so your descriptions of the same place will probably differ in many ways.  It's up to you to determine how you want to depict the object you are describing. 

When formulating the topic sentence for a descriptive paragraph, ask yourself, what's the main thing I want my reader to know about this thing.  What's the overall impression I want them to have.  Write a sentence that expresses this and then include details that'll help your reader see the object in that light. 

Homework

• Aplia Assignment- Diagnostic Assessment Due Sunday
• Thursday's Blog Post Prompt:  Write a paragraph describing your favorite food without saying it's name.  Make sure you have a strong topic sentence. 

Course Recap for Monday, January 26, 2015

The Main Idea

We discussed the main idea of paragraphs today and how to craft topic sentences.  The main idea of a paragraph is the central point of the paragraph.  It what all the other details are there to support.  Think of it like math.....Supporting detail 1 + Supporting detail 2 + Supporting Detail 3 = The Main Idea.  Another way to determine the main idea is to ask yourself what is the main topic of the paragraph.  For instance the main topic of this paragraph is....you guessed it....the concept of the main idea.  Now ask yourself what is this paragraph trying to tell you about the main idea.  It is trying to tell you what it is and how to find it.  So the main idea of this paragraph is The main idea and how to find them. 

We went over examples in class that should help this make a lot more sense to you.  The main idea help us organize our writing.  It tells the reader what to expect from our paper and lets us know what information we should include and what information we should keep out of assignment.  Every supporting detail you include must somehow relate to your main idea (not your main topic).  For instance if I'm writing a paper about how cool I think horror movies are, I'm not going to include information about how corny and stupid they can be sometimes because this contradicts my main idea, even though I'm still talking about horror movies.  Now if I say that the corniness of horror movies is sometimes what make the movie fun, I can use this detail because it supports my main idea.  When revising your paragraphs, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What is my topic?
2. What do I want to say about my topic?
3. Does every sentence I have in my paragraph relate to my main topic?

For this class, your goal is to be sure that your topic sentence is at the beginning of each or your paragraphs.  As you grow as writers, you will be able to write paragraphs where the main idea is implied instead of explicitly written out, but for now the first one or two sentences of your paragraphs should contain your main idea. 

Homework

• First Blog Post on Blogger.com Due tonight by midnight.  This post can be about whatever you want.  It's your first post so it might be a good idea to introduce yourself to your readers.
• Aplia Assignment- Chapter 3 The Process of Writing Paragraphs Due Wednesday when you come into class
• Aplia Assignment- Diagnostic Assessment Due Sunday by 11:00PM 

Welcome to TSEN 95 Writing Improvement!

Hello I'm Mickey Moses, and I am your instructor for TSEN 95.  Welcome to the class, and welcome to our blog.  This blog is our class's central hub.  Here you can find class recaps, homework assignments, readings, and helpful links.

Our class syllabus is located to the right of this post underneath Class Documents.  It lists the rules and expectations for this course.  We will read through the entire document in class, but some of the major points you want to remember are....

1. Come to class everyday.  Attendance is important and necessary in order for you to pass this class.
   
2. Complete all your assignments.  You cannot get points for work you do not complete.
   
3. Be respectful of me and your classmates. 
   
4. Don't cheat. 
   
5. Ask questions and participate in class discussions.   

How you should be in class.





I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you.


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