WEEK 9

WELCOME BACK! Next week is our second catch-up week, so you've got TWO weeks to get this work done. Plan carefully. Don't put it off.

YOUR WORK: 

Due NEXT Friday at midnight.


1. ACT Practice Test E .... Corrections and Review.

2. Go to this act site. You'll see five reading passages with questions. Take passages 1,2,3, and 5. (We did passage 4 already). Read through the explanations (No, you don't have to listen to my voice for these) and submit your scores to me in the table in the misc section of the google doc.

3. Go HERE for this week's ACT essay prompt.

4. Revise the School Scheduling ACT prompt (if you're so inclined; it's optional).



HAVE A GREAT TWO WEEKS!

WEEK 8

 YOUR WORK:

First, a word on literally. Some of you need a bit more practice, so read these fine examples:

• She tried keeping her new pet a secret but she literally let the cat out of the bag during the party. 
• As he was laughing he fell off a cliff. He literally died laughing. 
• She literally knows the ropes. She is a sailor. 
• During dinner she literally ate the whole enchilada.
• Molly literally cut corners while she was doing school and ruined her art project.
• The little boy was literally caught red handed when someone noticed the red frosting on his hands from the stolen cupcakes.

Thanks to Amelia and Taylor for the models!

Now here's your work...

1. ACT Q set (Passage IV, beginning with "Comic books...")  Corrections.

2. Reading skills practice....

a. Skill Builder 1

b. Skill Builder 2

Check here for the corrections for 2a 2b 


3. GO HERE. Read each of the five passages and answer those questions. Set your timer for 42 minutes (that's the same pace as the ACT test, but you'll be answering 48 questions instead of 40 in 35 minutes). You'll be reading these passages:

1. "Men of Brewster Place"
2. "Personality Disorders"
3. "A Poem of One's Own"
4. "How to Build a Baby's Brain"
5. A pair of passages: "In Orbit" and "On July 20th 1969" 

4. In week 5, you watched this video on context and framing. Make sure you're including these strategies in this week's essay.

5. This week we'll leave the SAT and start with the ACT style prompts.  Go HERE for the prompt.  

DUE FRIDAY @ MIDNIGHT.

WEEK 7

Good morning!

YOUR WORK:

Everything is due Friday.

1. LBGB...

A. Read chapter 4. 

B. Explain in your own words the five "AVOIDS" in the Style & Usage section.

C. Write a sentence using each term in the pair correctly:

    possible / plausible

    shall / will

    who / whom

D. Write three sentences, each using the word literally in a corret way.     

2. The videos have you getting out your green textbook. Ignore that. I posted a pdf of all the exercises here. Show me your work and post your scores. Also, check your scores from last week's exercises. A few of you didn't tell me how you did, so you may need to score those again. Show me the ones you got wrong.  

Watch this video on modifier problems ...

and this video on case forms. The video cuts in a little after the beginning, but that's ok. You'll hear what you need to hear. I'm more concerned with you knowing how the objective case works (that's where problems tend to show up) than the subjective case.


3. ACT Q set (Passage III, beginning with "The formal tradition..."). Corrections.  *Make sure you do this Q set after the two videos from #1. 


4. Revise the Paul Bogard SAT prompt. Most of you need to read the prompt again. It lays out how to organize it pretty clearly: evidence, reasoning, and appeal to emotion (or other style/persuasive technique like word choice). Remember, your job in that essay to show HOW he builds his argument, so use the terms that describe persuasive writing.


5. Go HERE for SAT prompt #2. Remember to use the language of the prompt itself to guide your writing (the basic language about evidence, reasoning, and other elements, doesn't change from one prompt to another, so get in the habit of organizing your essay that way.) NO REVISIONS THIS TIME! So proof it carefully.


Have a great week!

WEEK 6

WELCOME!

1. Chapter 22 in the GREEN textbook deals with common usage problems. Some of these issues involve the use of words that sound similar but are different words--affect and effect, for example. (You'll recognize that pair from the LBGB work last week. These exercises are similar but cover a lot more usage problems; yes, we'll be skipping LBGB this week.) Others are simply conventions that developed over time to become accepted usage in standard English (no logical rule to point to--you just need to know how to use the word). We'll work through a handful of these exercises. As you'll see, the exercises apply to particular alphabetical sections of the glossary. Be sure to refer to these before (or while) you do the work. 

The corrections and review cover all of the exercises.  

a.  ex 1, p.699
b.  ex 3, p.702
c.  Rev A, p.702
d.  ex 4, p.705
e.  ex 5, p.709


2. SAT persuasive essay analysis:
Before we write ACT style essays, we're going to take a couple of weeks and look at the SAT essay. This one acts as a good bridge between the persuasive essays you've been writing and the analytical essays you will be writing for the ACT. The SAT essay is different in that it has you analyze a persuasive piece of writing. The ACT will have you analyze and synthesize three different positions on a debatable issue.
Go to HERE for this week's writing assignment.

3. You may need to revise your Oppo Essay and/or the Context & Framing from last week.





EVERYTHING'S DUE FRIDAY NIGHT.

Have a great week!