Kevin Berlin

Blog

In today's class, we worked on annotating our song, monologue, etc. The song I chose to use for this assignment is Dreams by J cole. I chose this song because the lyrics really do tell a good story. So detailed you could probably write a movie about it. The song is about one girl he really liked but he barely even knew her that well, which is why he questions himself throughout the song as to whether he’s crazy or not. Throughout the beginning of the song, J Cole talks about how much he likes this girl. However, because he doesn´t really know her he can't find a way to talk to her. Towards the middle of the song J Cole talks about how he followed her home, just because he was curious to where she lives. Including other things that most people would consider strange behavior, that he thinks is justified. For example; ¨ Oh s***, she passed me on the boulevard
Ay, tell me is it stalking if I follow her like all the way home without her knowing?
Nah, n****, I'm just curious where she stay at
Besides when I'm with her, this gon' be the spot we lay at
And maybe I'll just drive by occasionally¨
   
    At the end of the song, J cole talks about how his dream girl is now with a new guy. He than sings about his plans to kill the new guy to make sure he isn't going to be replaced. The song lyrics are; ¨ So I find out the n**** name, know exactly where he stayin'
Find out when he leave for work, "Hold up n****, is you sane?"
I'mma follow in my car; I'mma cut in front of his
Run him right into the wall, maybe even off the bridge
I give her a little time, then console her while she crying
She gon' take that as a sign; finally she will be mine
I'll be king, and she'll be queen when I hit her with ring
At the wedding, who gon' sing?


https://d39smchmfovhlz.cloudfront.net/TQMUBtJZExokysL1qXeIxW9v6MAAeaMuCvQ7uT0MHFLwOsni.pdf

Jaxon Mase 3/30

         Today class was 20 minuets long due to the PARCC testing schedule. We looked at the poem “Let America be America again” by Langston Hughes. We have been dissecting this poem using SOAPSTone.

S- speaker

O- occasion

A- audience

P- purpose

S- subject

T- tone

SOAPSTone is very helpful for looking deep into pieces of literature to see what the author is using and how they are using it to display their perspective.

We then used Kami (an online interactive group based website) to dissect the poem together and get feedback from other students. It is a very helpful and fun way to improve each other with constructive criticism and analyzation. LINK - https://web.kamihq.com/web/viewer.html

We then went on to improve on the claims our groups had made on the poem "Let America be America Again". We used SOAPSTone to analyze the poem further and improve on the claims about what Hughes is talking about and how he uses his background of living in the great depression of America in the 1930's. I personally greatly improved my claim using SOAPSTone. Creating three different claims was interesting because it was awkward rewording it but it gave me good options rather than just one when it comes to deciding the best one.

"Make America be America Again"

Callie Bevacqua 3/30

Today we had a shortened class period because of the Parcc testing schedule. In this class we have been learning the process of analysis with using S.O.A.P.S.Tone. THis has been very helpful for me and understanding what I am reading on a deeper level.  We have also been reminded to use literary devices to help us.

S- speaker

O- occasion

A- audience

P- purpose

S- subject

T- tone

We have been dissecting a poem by Langston Hughes called, “Let America be America again” with our group members. Mr. Rivers has given us a great resource called Kami; which displays the poem online, and you can annotate it. Mr. RIvers assigned each group with a different component of Soapstone. My group was assigned with Speaker. We had to annotate the poem and find speaker qualities. Then we had to make a claim. My group’s claim was; The speaker has grown up in America, disappointed in the tragedy's he has witnessed, and has high hopes for the equality in America's future.

Next we met with other groups and we put our claim ideas together. When my group and another put Speaker and Tone together we came up with; The Author Langston Hughes has an angry and disappointed emotion towards America considering he has grown up witnessing many tragedies. When my group and another put Tone and Occasion together we came up with; The Author Langston Hughes feels hope for America throughout the Great Depression.   

Alexis Reeder 3/30/17

Today in class we strengthened our claims by focusing on not only the speaker but the tone, occasion and purpose. We focused on how to turn our claims into a good strong essay. We also worked with other groups who focused on different SOAPS and combined our claims to make strong topic sentences. The goal for today is to make 3 strong claims about the poem using these:

• Your claim with one lens
• Claim with two lens

• Claim with two lense

In my group we came up strong claims such as:

My claim:

America gleams on the outside but tarnished on the inside.

Purpose in Occasion:

Langston Hughes wrote his poem “Let America be America Again” during times of turmoil known as the Great Depression in which he uses polysyndeton and anaphora to emphasize irony in calling America “the homeland of the free” in times of such desperation for different minority groups.

Purpose in Tone:

In his poem “Let America be America Again” Langston Hughes establishes his goal to call attention to the irony in calling America “the homeland of the free” criticizing and disapproving of America during this time period through the use of polysyndeton and anaphora.

Kevin Berlin

Blog

In today's class, we focused more on SOAPSTones. We started off reflecting on our responses to the google class assignment from yesterday. My group thought that the best claims were made by Nadir and Hannah because they were arguable and detailed, giving enough information to support their claims. Mr. Rivers showed Nadir’s response to the class and together we analyzed it. His claim in his response is “Langston Hughes writes this to give the people hope that America will one day be as great as people claim it to be.”
This is an effective claim because it can be argued and supported with evidence. Another response that we went over as a class was Kayla’s. Her response included literary terms along with rhetorical devices. The final response we went over together was Hannah’s. Her response showed excellent diction and established tone.

After this, Mr. Rivers put two sentences on the board and asked the class the difference between them. “America should be more equal.” and “ Hughes argues that America should be more equal.”  The differences between these sentences is that one is a rhetorical analysis and the other is just a claim.

At the end of class, the students got in groups to try and create more claims using this information. The more claims you have, the more arguments you are able to make.

  

March 28, 2017

Jess Esso

Today in class we started off by getting a new website that allows us to use different tools to annotate and read different pieces of material as a class.  It is much like google docs but yet also different at the same time.  This website is called Kami.  first we downloaded it to our google accounts so we can access it from any computer wherever we are so that we always have our classroom material at our disposal.  Then with the second link that Mr. Rivers posted we went to a shared document with the entire class.  Mr. Rivers then proceeded to show us how this cite worked and the different tools that can be used to help us annotate our document as then groups instead of a class.  There are tools that allow you to create text boxes, one that allow us to draw on the document, one that allows us to erase things we don’t want there (even the text itself) we then went on to soapstone the poem we looked at last friday, “let america be america today again” by Langston Hughes  and using Kami, we as a class proceeded to soapstone this document.  Each group got a different device and had to annotate the document based upon which device we received on the card Mr. Rivers gave to us.  After this we came back together as a class and picked out the main literary device we have been using the past couple of weeks such as : parallel structure, anaphora, polysyndeton, rhyme, personification,  all of the devices that we have been working with to help us more fully understand soapstone.  

Kayla Edwards 3/27

Today for class we continued learning about rhetorical analysis. We first reviewed SOAP and then talked about STone. An important thing to help differentiate between purpose and subject when doing a rhetorical analysis is that purpose is what the text does. So, the purpose is described using verbs. The subject is a thing that the text is talking about so it should be a noun. Tone is the attitude the author has about the subject. The best way to figure out the tone is to look at the diction used by the author. Diction is just a word that means the word choice used by the author. When talking about word choice it is important to know the difference between connotation and denotation. Denotation is the dictionary definition of a word. Connotation is the social perception of the word. To illustrate the difference between denotation and connotation we looked at the difference between the terms "jock" and "student athlete". Both jock and student athlete have the same denotation because they mean the same thing: a student that plays sports. However, student athlete has a more positive connotation because when you hear student athlete you think of a hard working athletic and smart kid. Jock on the other hand has a negative connotation because when you hear jock you think of a very strong person who has no brains. Next when identifying tone, instead of referring to the tone as positive or negative, you have to make it more specific. This can be done by thinking of more specific adjectives to describe the author's attitude about the text.

Skylar Winberry 23-3-17

Today in class, we discussed SOAPSTone more. We focused on Occasion, Audience, Purpose and Subject. We then applied each letter of SOAPSTone to a art of Lin Manuel Miranda's 2016 Tony speech. We said that occasion can be separated into two sections: 

• Immediate occasion → why now → what's happening that prompts the writing
• Greek word kairos→ timing and location
• Larger occasion- what's happening in the world right now that prompts the writing.

The lines where this applied were:

• We lived through times when hate and fear seemed stronger;
• And love...cannot be killed or swept aside.
• Now fill the world with music, love and pride.

Then we defined what the Audience means.
We found many audiences in the sonnet such as: Vanessa (his wife), his peers, and the LGBTQ community.

• To whom is this directed
• What are the characteristics of this person/group
• How does our audience change our text?
• Appealing to different people in different ways

Purpose was described as

• Why? What does this text do?
• Emphasis on verbs- to critique, to embrace, question, to grieve, to mourn, to honor, to blame, to comfort, to antagonize, to entertain, to ????

And examples from the speech were purposes like: to honor, to help others, to thank his wife, to inspire, and to mourn.

Lastly, we said that the Subject(s) are what the piece is about and that

• You should be able to condense the topic into one sentence (or less)
• Start simply then SPECIFY
• War? What about war?
• Money? What about money?

They are meant to build upon the purposes you have already found.

Here is a link to the speech if you would like to hear it yourself.

https://youtu.be/pAG_7qeiOZA

Jaxon Mase March 21

Today in class we left comments on our essays that we have been working on for a long time. We based these comments based of the rubric provided. The sections included organization, writing style, citation, content, and presentation. First we were split into 5 groups and we went up to the boards to write what would be effective in these sections and what would not effective. Each student for the rest of class would go through their essay and find an example of each section of the rubric that was effective and one that was not effective. I found in my essay it was awkward for me to be critical of my own work but it was very helpful to be hard on myself. These comments helped me be more honest about my work and doing this can hekp a student improve their work substantially.

Blog march 21st

John DePreker

Today, the class focused on a unit in which the 5 argumentative essay categories, finding effective and ineffective items to use in essay writing. The first category Mr. Rivers goes over with the class was presentation which in an effective standpoint would have an effective MLA Heading, consistent spacing and 12-pt font. The ineffective way to use presentation would include a sloppy setup of margins and different fonts. After we finished going over that, the remaining four were split up into groups and completed in a few minutes time. The other categories were Research, Organization, Content,  and Voice & Style.  For research. Under effective, they put no plagiarism, correct citation, and analyzed correctly. For ineffective it would include  no citation, plagiarism, choppy sentences. Another group had organization. Under effective was Perfect Paragraph format, Transitions and good topic sentences. Next is content, this includes sufficient evidence, a great claim and counterclaim of course and an even better refute to the counter claim. Lastly, Voice and style. An effective way would include a Good use of tone, Sophisticated Grammar and Depth of vocab. The ineffective part would have an Informal tone. After this, we         un-submitted our better than the best draft ever paper. You were then told to pick one quote from the paper that expresses one of the groups above in a positive and negative way. This assignment is to be done in class or for hw due at 11:59 and submitted back into classroom.

Blog 3/21/17

Shannon Kehoe
3/21/17




         Today during class we started a new unit on essay writing. We went over the argumentative essay rubric and discussed what makes a good essay according to the rubric. The first catergory we went over was presentation which entails uniform font size, margins, mla format etc, that's what makes presentation effective, but we were also instructed to say what makes presentation ineffective and the class said, not uniformed font/size, not mla format, and inconsistent margins. Then we split up into our groups and were assigned a category fom the rubic and were instucted to make a list of what makes the category effective and what makes it ineffective. My group got content and some of the things that we listed under effective were integrating and analyzing evidence, acknowleding the audience knowledge of the subject, and claims/counterclaims. Under ineffective we put limited focus, off topic, and unrelated evidence. Another group had research. Under effective they put no plagiarism, correct citation, and analyzed correctly. Under ineffective they put no citation, plagiarism, choppy. Another group had organization. Under effective they put paragrph form, effective conclusions and transitions. Under ineffective they put no intro, incorrect thesis, and conclusion does not conclude. The last group had voice and style. Under effective they put good use of tone, sophisticated language and depth of vocabulary. Under ineffective they put informal tone, bad language, and bad grammar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL-zer6-Rs0

Katie McGuckin's Blog Post

Katie McGuckin                                                                                                                            3/20/17

Blog Post

     Today's class continued the same as last week's, but instead of rough drafts, we worked on the final version our research paper because it will be due at 12:00 tonight. Before we started on our papers, Mr. Rivers gave a few reminders on the format of the document and a step by step process for revision.

     Final steps for revision:

1. Integrate all evidence
2. Other comments from the draft/outline
3. Go to the hallway and record yourself reading your paper...then listen to it!
4. Tidy up MLA formatting

Along with these suggestions, he also gave two additional tips that could make it easier to select text and help improve the spacing of the paper. One tip we were given was that by clicking "Ctrl" and "a", every word in the document becomes highlighted, which is a much more efficient way to make changes to the font, coloring, sizing, spacing, etc. Another suggestion we received was how to remove the random and inconsistent spaces in the text, by selecting the entire document and click "line spacing" and "add space after paragraph", then click "line spacing" again and click "remove space after paragraph. We were also reminded to add a title to our work (other than "Research Paper") that introduces the topic, add transitions to create a smoother flow throughout paragraphs, have the document in correct MLA format, and list our work cited on a separate page that is double spaced and in alphabetical order.

      MLA Format for Research Paper
Your Name
Mr. Rivers and Mr. Dalia
American Literature
20 March 2017
                                                                            Title

     Text __________________________________________________________________________

I spent today's class looking for a quote to support my counterclaim and figuring out how to explain it after I added a transition word. During study hall, which I had before English, I looked at the three articles I had found on Ebscohost and emailed to myself last week. I tried to find a quote that would work as an example of media that challenged male stereotypes successfully, but was not remembered or discussed often in society because it was from a first time director and not backed by a popular franchise or production studio. After reading the articles, I decided to use an early quote in one that was about the film, Salt of This Sea, and summarized how it acknowledged the incorrect assumption that Palestinian men tended to resort to violence. Once I cited the quote and added it to my work cited, I tried to lead into the quote and explain its significance.

3/17/17 Nicole McGahey

Today, we worked on our final drafts which are due on Monday at 11:59 pm. First, each of us answered the question that is on Google Classroom, “What is your revision plan?” where we listed what we need to do to make our essays perfect. For my essay, I need to provide stronger analysis, more specific topic sentences, better word choice, and more counterclaims. I also want to double check my citations to make sure they are all correct. Those are just a few examples of what someone might need to do to revise their essay. Before submitting your final essay to Turnitin, it is also a good idea to look over the rubric to make sure that you’ve met all of the requirements.

Lauren Zanetakos

3/16/17

P. 8

Today our objectives were:

IWBAT: seamlessly integrate evidence

IWBAT: establish specific goals to revise/edit my writing

We began class by looking at three statements and distinguish which one is a claim. then Mr. Rivers put up a simple claim and told us to talk with our group to figure out how to make it better.

Sample quote:

Despite some initial skepticism, critics have embraced the strengths of the newest adaptation of Beauty and the beast “ their singing and banter is so vivid and so natural that you almost take for granted that they appear to be mechanical objects clicking and whirling in physical space, sharing the frame with human characters” Obviously, critics are interested in what the film has to offer.

This would have scored an (2/4)

Changes that you should make:

weak analysis

No introduction

No citation

Disgusting tone

Changed paragraph

Despite some initial skepticism, critics have embraced the strengths of the newest adaptation of Beauty and the beast. One reviewer says, “ their singing and banter is so vivid and so natural that you almost take for granted that they appear to be mechanical objects clicking and whirling in physical space, sharing the frame with human characters” (Scott). Obviously, critics are interested in what the film has to offer.

This would have scored an (3/4)

Despite some initial skepticism, critics have embraced the strengths of the newest adaptation of Beauty and the beast. many point to the enchanting characters and high quality Disney storytelling , “ their singing and banter is so vivid and so natural that you almost take for granted that they appear to be mechanical objects clicking and whirling in physical space, sharing the frame with human characters” (Scott). Obviously, critics are interested in what the film has to offer.

Intro provides context

Who? what ?where? Why? How?

What not working:

Coma before quote works as a period, makes it choppy

Final paragraph

Despite some initial skepticism, critics have embraced the strengths of the newest adaptation of Beauty and the beast. many point to the enchanting characters and high quality Disney storytelling, which create a world “ so vivid and so natural that you almost take for granted that [the characters]they appear to be mechanical objects clicking and whirling… with human characters” (Scott). Critics are interested in what the film has to offer.

Kelli Vogel (Blog #2)

March 9, 2017


     Today during class we talked about the final step in creating our research papers, conclusions. Mr. Rivers said that this isn't the most important part of your essay because you are just summarizing what was stating in your body paragraphs. We talked about not starting your conclusion paragraph off with the following statements:

• In conclusion
• To conclude
• In summary
• At the end of the day
• When all is said and done
• When the smoke clears
• Obviously

Conclude- Looking BACKWARDS and FORWARDS

• Context
• Content
• Characters

“Backwards”- What does the analysis prove about…? How has your essay evolved from the intro?

“Forwards”- What are the RESULTS of the argument? “What will happen IF…?” (+?-?)

This picture will help you understand what you don't do while writing your conclusion paragraph.
 

jake Zerillo second blog

Today in class we started off with what we wanted to get done in class. First we talked being able to analyze the function of a conclusion and we also said that we want to be able to craft a sophisticated conclusion to our research paper. First we needed to know what conclusion meant, which is the place where one concludes and if that isn't enough concludes is a verb, which means to bring to an end. To start off that conclusions you should never use these words: in conclusion, to conclude, in summary, at the end of the day when all's said and done, when the smoke clears and obviously. They are just useless fillers to start your conclusion that don't help strengthen it. Now you want to make a strong conclusion to do that you need to look backwards and forwards. To do that you need to use context, content and characters.  When going backwards you need to talk about what the analysis proves about these three things, context, content,and characters. One you talk about those things you need to talk about how your essay has evolved from the intro to prove whatever point you are trying to making. Then you want to work forwards, you do that by talking about the results of the argument. You want to make the reader think what will happen if what you are talking about continues. For example what will happen if colleges continue to take the money that the athletes deserve. This is good because it makes them think. For the rest of class we worked on our essay that is do at 11:59pm tonight on turnitin.com. This picture shows that you take all the work from your body paragraphs and shrink it down into the most important things in your conclusion.

03.06.17Hannah Newbold Blog Post 2

In class today 03.06.17

We worked on our rough drafts which are due Thursday. They also happen to be the best rough drafts we have ever written - so be sure to edit your draft. Make sure that you check out the google classroom to make sure you have all the write components for your essay to get a better grade.👍🏼👍🏼

Callie Bevacqua March 7

 Class today was helpful for our junior research papers. Mr. Rivers talked over a powerpoint with some good tips on how to create an effective introduction paragraph. He first advised us to write our body paragraphs before we draft our introduction. This is so we are able to take ideas from them and put it all together. 

•  The introduction is where the essay is introduced to your audience. 

• The example we used in class was; if we had a new student coming tomorrow, how would you introduce the student to our english class? 

Mr. Rivers said we use the same concepts in introducing the student to our english class as we would introduce our essay! 

-I responded to the promt by saying: I would introduce the person by telling all of our names. I would tell the student how great of an english teacher Mr.Rivers is. We would tell the student our daily activity of logging onto the computer and taking online notes. I would let them know about the american dream because we learned about it in the beginning of the year.

INTRODUCTION MUST HAVES

1. Relevant context- information surrounding our essay such as purpose, intention, background info

2. Relevant content - evidence of your essay such as ideas present

3.Relevant characters- important people, groups

***Never will you include in your introduction ***

-definition

-off topic quote

- rhetorical question

- impossibly broad focus

- sweeping generalization

The most effective way to start your introduction would be to consider the function and purpose of your essay. An opening sentence can be very effective by following the formula of, Artist + text + active verb

The class followed by looking at sample introductory paragraphs. During this class I definitely learned how to introduce my essay. :))

Don't forget to have a killer thesis statement in your intro!!!

Hannah Newbold Blog post

03/01/17

Today's class activity was a continuation of yesterday's assignment. Today in class we continued working in our groups finishing the prompt on the google classroom about fallacies.

The goal was to complete numbers 1-3 with our group and if there was time to talk with other groups about the fallacies and how different ones can correlate with our essay topics opposition.

Alexis Reeder 2/28

What is a counter claim?

The class discuss:

Claim- vs counterclaim

How do you use it in an argumentative paper?

We will refute it.

We watched a short film on Bowling for columbine,

Michael Moore interviewed Marilyn Manson and his counterclaims were promoting violence through his music. Manson says he’s more influential than the president. He is a crazy man that want people to kill each other. He refutes it by talking mature, speaking normally and knows what he is talking about; thinks before talking. Manson speaks softly/calmly, uses facts/logos to decipher the truth. He is a caring and understanding person and would like to listen to both perspectives.

We also learned about different Fallacies. A Fallacy is a mistaken belief. our group was assigned four fallacies to define and consider an example of each fallacy that your opponents (to your paper) would use. Then explain why your opponent's logic is flawed.