ELA 10: May 9-13

We will start the week with our final literary analysis annotation assessment. Students did lots and lots of practice in the past two weeks with many different types of texts. We’ve practiced identifying and analyzing instances where an author uses character development, point of view, parallel structure, and manipulation of time to help us better understand the story.  On Monday, students will read a new short story independently and annotate to show their understanding of those four elements of an author’s style.  This will be a graded assessment and should be in MiStar by the end of the week.

On Tuesday, we will get back to our study of rhetoric and the different tools writers use to persuade their audiences.  Last week we studied one op-ed in depth; this week we will look at a number of different op-eds and identify the different strategies the writers use.  With each piece we read, we’ll look for logos (appeals to logic), pathos (appeals to emotion), and ethos (appeals to credibility).   The goal is for students to recognize the different ways a writer is attempting to persuade, evaluate how effective those tools are, and then decide how persuaded they are by the claims made in the piece.  There isn’t a “correct” opinion for the students to have about the pieces we read; rather, I want them to be able to justify whatever opinion they have. I’m looking forward to some great discussions about the pieces we read this week!

Their analysis of these pieces and their ability to evaluate the different elements of logos, pathos and ethos will be assessed throughout the week with various practice assessments. Students will answer short answer questions and work in groups to identify and evaluate the different elements. After we’ve practiced this week, we’ll have an assessment next week that “counts”.  Look for practice (4/3/2/1) scores to start appearing in MiStar this week.

Finally, students should still be reading an independent novel, and they should begin thinking about which independent novel they will use for their final speech presentation.  Students will do a persuasive presentation the final week of school about an independent novel they’ve read this year. They’ll use the three rhetorical appeals--logos, pathos, and ethos--to persuade their audience either to read (or not read!) the book.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!