23 Final Draft // Due the week of March 3, 2015

Hi Everyone!

This week, just revise your final draft (I will be checking for big changes so make sure to actually take the advice of some of your comments—mine at the very least) and put it on the blog (local-option.blogspot.com).

There is the same login information as there is to get into our Google Drive account. If you don't remember that or have trouble getting on—email me!


Thanks!

22 Peer Reviewing // Due the week of Feb. 24, 2015

Hi Everyone!

Today, your rough draft should definitely be on Google Drive (if it's not on by Feb. 18th, it is half-off).

You'll want it to be there so that your classmates can peer review your writing! This means that they will read through your essay and make comments as to what is good or what could be improved.

So that is your homework everybody:

Write (Monday: 15) (Tuesday: 12) comments** total, spread out between all of your classmate's papers. Because your classmates are relying on you to be a good peer reviewer, I will be grading this assignment quite harshly—be sure to sign each comment with your name, and follow the following guidelines very closely :)

• PEER REVIEW GUIDELINES:
• Finish each comment with your name at the end.
• Look for big picture suggestions
• Organization: Does it follow the organization we learned in class? Is it missing certain pieces?
• Evidence: Is there enough good evidence about each reason? What specific evidence would you like to see?
• Relevance: Is everything on topic an useful for defending the thesis?
• Language: Is the language varied, with good vocabulary, metaphors, imagery, etc?
• Formatting: Is there a title? Is it double spaced, Times New Roman, 12 Pt font? 
• Don't worry about little picture suggestions
• Grammar
• Spelling
• Typos
• BE SPECIFIC and KIND!
• GOOD:
• "I would like to know more about the international space station that you bring up—I don't really know what that is. —Bob"
• "I like how your attention grabber is really tragic and moving—that's a tough goal to achieve. —Sally"
• "I notice that you don't have your sources cited within your paper. Remember to put parenthesis with the source number after each fact. —John" 
• BAD:
• "Nice intro! —George" (Not specific enough)
• "This paragraph needs more information. —Louis" (Not specific enough)
• "This part is boring. —Ronda" (Not specific or nicely put)

**To write a comment on Google Drive: 

1. Select a word or phrase of the paper.
2. Right click on that word or phrase.
3. Go down the menu that appears and click on "comment."
4. Write a comment in the bubble that appears in the right side of the screen.
5. Press "Comment" when you are done to save your comment. 

21 Rough Drafts // Due the week of Feb. 16, 2015

Hi Everyone!

Next week, the rough draft of your research paper is due! It doesn't have to be perfect, but I'd like to see a genuine effort at each of the five paragraphs of the essay.

Please follow the following general outline (but use complete sentences and essay paragraph format)

1. Introduction
1. Attention Grabber: Gets the audience interested; choose one of the following:
1. Ask a question
2. State a shocking fact
3. Quote an interesting quotation
4. Make a joke
5. Feel free to try something not on the list, as long as it's attention grabbing!
2. Thesis: Opinion because reason1, reason2, and reason3.
2. Paragraph about Reason1
1. Evidence from your notecards
2. Possible Evidence types:
1. Logos: Facts, Statistics, Reasonings
2. Pathos: Emotional stories, personal accounts
3. Ethos: Expert opinions by doctors, teachers, professors, scientists, etc
3. Paragraph about Reason2
1. Evidence (See above)
4. Paragraph about Reason3
1. Evidence (See above)
5. Conclusion

Make sure it's all on Google Drive in the Rough Drafts folder. We will be doing peer review, so make sure you like your work enough to share it :)

Email me if you have questions!

20 Notecards // Due the week of Feb. 10, 2015

Hi Everyone!

This week, we went back to the sources you collected last week and started looking for information that would be useful to your research papers!

Materials you'll need:

• 12 notecards of 3 different colors (4 of each color)
• If you don't have colored notecards, you can distinguish them in other ways like shapes in the corners, or you can cut colored paper into notecards.
• I gave you notecards in class, so if you have lost those, you'll need to find your own.

Assign one color of notecard to each reason from your thesis. For example, if your thesis is:

• Cats are the best animal because they are clean, cheap, and cute.
• Then all evidence about their cleanliness will be blue, all evidence about their cheapness will be pink, and all evidence about the cuteness will be yellow.

Write one piece of information on each notecard, until you have 12 notecards of information.

Be sure you label the notecards in their corners with which source the information came from—you can write the number of the source (from your works cited page) or the last name of the author—or whatever you want, as long as you remember where you got the information.

Consider the following types of evidence to write down:

• Logos: Facts, Statistics, Numbers, Reasonings
• Pathos: Personal stories, emotional stories
• Ethos: Expert opinion: Doctors, Scientists, Politicians, people who've experienced it before

Email me if you have questions!