Diggin' Onions

lhuff — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:34:14 +0000

Journal: Writing Multiple-Choice Questions

lhuff — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:31:51 +0000

Check out this site to see a list of common AP multiple-choice question stems. Remember, you must write two questions for each journal of The Awakening.

MC Questions

The Awakening: Journal Requirements

lhuff — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:09:33 +0000

This quarter we’re reading one of my all-time favorites, The Awakening by Kate Chopin. The book fits nicely in our gender thematic study. Though it is literature–classical fiction–rather than nonfiction, try to read with your rhetorical eyes, thinking of the text as an argument.

If you were to sit down with Chopin, what claims might she share that she is making in this text?

Think about the context (Victorian age) of the novel and the plight of women in the age: What argument(s) does Chopin seem to be making?

How does she make that argument, through what tools and devices–characters, setting, dialogue, rhetorical devices, ethos, pathos, logos…?

The picture above tells the tale of your journal requirements. Thanks to Amberly and Elizabeth for crafting these.

For those of you who prefer text…

Lit. Circle 1: 3/19 pp. 1-40
Lit. Circle 2: 4/1 pp. 40-78
Lit. Circle 3: 4/7 pp. 78-116

Come to class with journal (1-2-3-4) entries completed, ready to discuss the text with your literature circle.

Want to Be a Better Blogger?

lhuff — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:39:26 +0000

In the spirit of becoming better bloggers, take a few minutes to read two these two articles:

Karl Fisch, a noted edublogger, defines blogging and give example

Kris Braden’s blog post–How to Prevent Another Leonardo DaVinci–award Best Student Blog Post 2007 (I think that was the title.)

Give me feedback via Comments. What do you think? Do you agree? Can you reflect on their writing style, ideas, formatting…?

From Serving in Florida

lhuff — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:01:23 +0000

***This site probably won’t let you leave a comment, so go to this blog post, and post your comment.***

Before coming to class Friday (1/4/08), comment on at least two (2) of the discussion questions below. Your response should be well thought-out and carefully constructed to convey insightful ideas and analyses.

Be sure to use your first initial and last name to log in to the comment box so that I will be able to grade your comments. Also, be sure to label clearly the questions to which you are responding.

According to Ehrenreich, who is to blame for the situation
of those who work at low-paying jobs in restaurants?
Do you agree?

How does Ehrenreich establish ethos in this selection?

Discuss specific instances of humor in this selection.
Is it primarily ironic humor? Agressively sarcastic?
Affectionately musing? Use specific examples from
the passage to explain.

Nickel and Dimed, the source of the excerpt
you read, takes place from 1998 to 2000. Would Ehrenreich’s
experience be the same or different in today’s economy?
In our town?

e-Circles

lhuff — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:46:28 +0000

Someone once said writing is the inking of our thinking. Before we can write profound analyses of text, we need to mull over the text, reading and re-reading it deeply, thinking and discussing the text, bouncing our ideas off other critical readers of the same text. Good discussions help us all polish–or sometimes discover–our ideas. This polishing allows us to ink our thoughts.

In the spirit of discussion, we will undertake e-Circles this nine weeks. Here’s how it works:

Each group chunks the text into four reading assignments.

Each week (for four consecutive weeks) one member “hosts” the discussion on his or her blog.

The “host” generates three discussion questions–questions that will generate an AP-level discussion about the text. These questions might deal with the author’s style, with themes of the text, with characters, with setting, with connections to other texts, current events, or societal/world issues.

Each week, group members respond to at least two of the questions using the comments feature.

Ideally, a lively discussion ensues.

Below are the dates for the four discussions. I will grade each week’s discussion each Monday. To allow time for everyone to comment, the host must post discussion questions no later than Friday each week.

eCircle 1: January 11

eCircle 2: January 18

eCircle 3: January 25

eCircle 4: February 1

Literature Circles: Adding a Blogging Twist

lhuff — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 00:59:08 +0000

addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fblogtest.edublogs.org%2F2007%2F12%2F28%2Fliterature-circles-adding-a-blogging-twist%2F'; addthis_title = 'Literature+Circles%3A+Adding+a+Blogging+Twist'; addthis_pub = '';

Semester Test Review Project

lhuff — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:32:38 +0000

Six days. Five-hundred forty minutes. Thirty-two thousand four hundred seconds. We must make those 32,400 seconds between now and Christmas break count–every single one of them. To that end, I’ve decided to combine our brain power, creative energies, and critical thinking skills to create tutorial videos to review the key skills we’ve learned this semester to prepare you for the semester exam.

Each of you will work with a group to create one video on a key concept. Here are the groups and topics we agreed on in class today:

Diction: What is it? How do you analyze an author’s diction? How do you write about diction? [Preston, Audrey, Halli, Kaitlin]

Syntax: What is it? How do you analyze an author’s syntax? How do you write about syntax? [JM, Price, Madison]

Coordination & Subordination: What’s the difference? What are the coordinators and subordinators? How do we punctuate them? What different sentence types (compound, complex, compound-complex) can we create?
[Clare, Amy, Tory]

Rhetorical Devices–Tropes: What are they? How do we identify them? Why/How do authors use them, for what effect?
[Lizzie, Amber, Grant]

Rhetorical Devices–Schemes: What are they? How do we identify them? Why/How do authors use them, for what effect?
[Daniel, Elizabeth, Shea]

Passive Voice: What is it? When is it appropriate to use active and passive voice? For what effect do authors purposely use it? How do we revise to make passive sentences active? [Drew, Jay, Kendra, Courtney]

Tone: What is it? How do we determine an author’s tone? How do we write about tone? [Megan, Rasheeq, Will]

Your video should be a tutorial—teaching your audience the concepts in a format that is easy to follow and easy to understand. For inspiration, check out Lee and Sachi Lefever’s “paperworks” (their name) videos that combine simplistic white board drawings and paper cut-outs with voice narration. (You’ll have to scroll to the bottom of the page for a list of their videos.) You should also check out the attached rubric. semester-test-review-video-project.doc

To begin, you need to brainstorm. Then, you’ll plan and organize—frame by frame—your ideas for your video. Use the storyboard template to map out the project. The storyboard is due Tuesday, December 4.

You can then divide the tasks among your team members to make certain you get the job finished on time. The finished video is due Wednesday, December 12.

In addition to time spent outside of class working on the project, you will have the following time in class to work on the project:

Friday, 11/30: 1 hour

Tuesday, 12/4: ½ period (45 minutes) **Storyboard due by end of period

Thursday: 12/6: ½ period (45 minutes)

Monday, 12/10: 1 hour

Wednesday, 12/12: 1 hour

For those of us who are keenly conscious of our time, that’s 4 ½ HOURS of class time! Use them wisely. For those of you who fervently tackle this project, the process—not just the end product—will be a valuable learning experience.

Rhetorical Treasure Hunt

lhuff — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:50:13 +0000

This Thanksgiving, I hope you’ll spend some time hunting for more than just turkey and dressing. As we continue our journey to give voice to the techniques writers use to “play” with language, we’re starting to appreciate how challenging acquiring a rhetorical vocabulary can be. It can seem a bit daunting–especially when multiple terms exist for one device. Don’t lose hope. Though hundreds of terms exist, we need only learn a few of the most common. About.com has a wonderful list: Top 20 Figures of Speech. Though these aren’t the only devices we must know for the AP exam, they are a wonderful start.

Your task in this assignment is to undertake a rhetorical treasure hunt. For what are you looking? Examples of writers “playing” with language. Where might you look? Everywhere. Start with your CD (or digital downloads) collection–in the song lyrics, notice advertising slogans, check out the newspaper, look in your textbooks, search in the classic you’re currently reading.

Share your results in a blog post:

Include a catchy introduction to introduce your topic,

Quote the example of a particular rhetorical device,

Give the source of the example,

Identify the device being used, and

Include a concluding paragraph.

I’m spraying purple any Internet lists of examples of rhetorical devices–such lists are off limits. The idea is for you to find your own original examples, not copy and paste someone else’s list. Include at least five (5) examples in your post.

For inspiration, check out Richard Norquist’s post: Trampling Through the Garden of Eloquence. Note how his post includes a witty introduction and conclusion and how, within the body, he includes a list of rhetorical devices. In short, his post exemplifies good writing as should your post.

Start hunting! Season ends Monday morning after Thanksgiving; that is, you must have published your post before coming to class Monday, November 26.

Tweaking Your Navigation

lhuff — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:49:20 +0000

Many of you are becoming expert bloggers: writing interesting, thought-provoking posts, including links to relevant sites, embedding pictures or videos relating to your posts, incorporating original graphics that enhance the look and readability of your site, eliciting comments from peers and unknowns. As we continue to hone our blogging skills, we need to consider our sidebars and the navigation of our blogs.

How easily a reader is able to navigate your blog is extremely important. Just as you carefully consider how best to arrange your ideas in a piece of writing, you must also consider carefully how to arrange your ideas on your blog. As your blogs grow, navigation becomes especially important.

Basically, you can create two formats for your ideas:

posts arranged in categories and listed in chronological order (usually)

pages arranged in whatever heirarchy you create.

How does a reader navigate a blog?

He can view posts created in particular categories by selecting a category and viewing all the posts created in that particular category;

He can view pages created by clicking a page link shown in the header or sidebar of your blog.

What if your template is not displaying categories or pages?

You may need to tweak your settings to improve the navigation of your site. To do so, follow these steps:

In the administrative panel, select Presentation.

From the subcommands (bottom row of toolbar), select Widgets.

If your template uses a sidebar, you’ll see it displayed. If you scroll down the page, you’ll see all the “Widgets” you can add to your sidebar. To display pages in your sidebar, simply click and drag (while holding down the left-click mouse button) the pages widget onto the sidebar. Do the same for the categories widget. Then click update or save (whichever displays).

These simple changes should allow your reader to navigate your site via categories or pages. As we add new categories and begin creating several pages for your portfolio, you’ll see how important it is to be able to navigate the myriad of ideas and information on your site.

You might also consider playing with some of the other available widgets. Don’t get too carried away, however. Remember, the goal is to make your site user-friendly, not to overwhelm your readers with a sleugh of trivial widgets!