Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 4 (Sept. 18)

Greetings!

We had another good day in Writing 3.  These are diligent, conscientious students; I'm greatly enjoying our class discussions.

We began with working through a couple of ACT/SAT essay prompts.  I divided the class in half and had them brainstorm how they might respond to the questions.  Half of the class worked through this prompt:

18. Some high schools in the United States have considered creating separate classrooms for male

and female students in subjects such as mathematics and science. Some educators think separate

classes will be beneficial because students will be less distracted from learning. Other educators

think having separate classes for females and males will not be beneficial because it will seem

to support stereotypes about differences in ability between males and females. In your opinion,

should high schools create separate classes for male and female students?

Source: The Real ACT Prep Guide, 2005

While the other half discussed this prompt:

25.  Some people say you should be content with what you have and accept who you are. But it is

possible that too much self-acceptance can turn into self-satisfied lack of ambition. People should

always strive to improve themselves and to have more in their lives — friends, things, opportunities.

After all, where would we be if great people, both in history and in our own time, did not try to

have more and to improve themselves?

Assignment: Is it best for people to accept who they are and what they have, or should people

always strive to better themselves?

Source: www.collegeboard.com, 2009

They then presented to the class their thoughts on their respective questions.  They are doing a great job thinking critically and taking apart the various aspects of the assignments.

Regarding the research paper, we began by discussing the basic process that students go through when writing longer research papers.  My hope is that, while they will be producing a well-written paper for this call, they will be learning the steps, strategies and skills that will help them with future writing.  I put together a hand-written timeline to illustrate the process.  Many of the steps may need to be revisited during the researching and writing stages.  We discussed that sometimes your research doesn't reveal the information that you thought it would.  A student shouldn't be afraid to "go back to the drawing board" if original ideas don't match data OR if new material sheds a different light on a topic.  It's all a part of the process.

In addition to reviewing the steps and the process, we talked about various ways to take notes and to keep track of information.  Some use sheets of notebook paper, some use notecards, and some use electronic note-taking tools, like OneNote.  Whichever way the individual student feels choose, he/she should be consistent and ALWAYS  keep track of where the information was found.  We also discussed types of outlines as they pertain to the process:  preliminary outlines, informal outlines, and detailed outlines.

A note about the task of finding good information:  

Some students are concerned about finding the right kind of good, accurate, authoritative and timely information.  One helpful trick is to look where those who wrote articles on your topic found their information.  Google Scholar is a good resource, too.  For some topics that have strong opinions on either side of an issue, don't be afraid to read articles that disagree with your point of view.  It helps to know what the opposition thinks.

For this week, students were to have an initial list of resources and  some general subtopics.  For next week, they are to write an informal outline with the subtopics in the order they feel they should be presented in the paper.

This week's blog:

Class Notes

Helps for Writing Outlines

Evaluating Print Resources

Week 4 -- Taking Notes & Outlines

Have a great week!

Mrs. Prichard