Lessons for Week Five - UCSB



Lessons for Week Five

Unit Two: The Argumentative Essay on School Life

Tuesday: 2/6/07

• Reading: Jonathan Kozol’s “Life on the Mississippi: East St. Louis, Illinois” from Savage Inequalities. An online version is available at . Also, in our course reader.

• Assignment: First Draft of “Argumentative Essay” due. Final Draft due on 2/13/07.

• Class Activities: Work with starting lines piece—in class. Work on Kozol. What are schools like in your hometown?

I Starting Lines Work (25 min)

A. Read the Starting Lines piece aloud in groups of three.

B. Identify the thesis.

C. Identify the opposing arguments.

D. Identify the pro arguments.

E. Answer this question: Does this essay get you to think deeply about the point the author wants to make?

II Peer Review (30 min)

III Kozol Discussion (25 min)

A. Use prompt: What sort of argument do you think Kozol is trying to make?

B. Have them share in pairs.

C. In your pairs write down one or two questions you want to ask us about the reading.

D. Each group presents their questions

E. My Questions:

a. Did you believe everything you read?

b. What did you make of his opening description of East St. Louis? Why does he start with that?

c. What was the effect of hearing from the kids themselves? What did you learn from them you couldn’t learn from teachers, administrators, or other adults?

d. What commonalities or differences do you see between schools you attended and the schools that Kozol describes in East St. Louis?

e. What sort of argument is Kozol trying to make. (Use the journal Prompt).

IV Quart Prep (15 min)

A. Questions:

a. Is it okay for schools to make money off of licensing soda sales to a given company?

b. Should students have a say in which company if schools do license a particular company?

c. Are people too brand conscious?

d. Do brands matter a lot to you?

e. How conscious of brand names are you?

B. After this, read the piece, and enter into a discussion with the following questions;

a. Why would a company volunteer to stop selling candy to children? What do you think is the back story here?

b. How much responsibility do companies, like Coke and Mars, hold for the obesity epidemic?

c. Why is “under twelve” a big deal? Why not under six? Under sixteen?

d. What sort of behavior can the public expect from publically traded companies that sell food to kids?

e. How much should be regulate food producers?

f. Key Question: Can you buy coke and pepsi on this campus? Can you get both in the dining halls? Can you get RC? What things are you able to get and why?

Thursday 2/8/07

• Reading: Alissa’s Quart’s “Schools for Sale” from Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers. In course reader.

• Class Activities: Peer Review. Discussion of Quart. Walking ad-tour of Campus and “the Branded Challenge.”

Lesson for Thursday 2/8/07

• Reading: Alissa’s Quart’s “Schools for Sale” from Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers. In course reader.

• Class Activities: Peer Review. Discussion of Quart. Walking ad-tour of Campus and “the Branded Challenge.”

I Quart Discussion: Via Moodle (25 min)

A. Before beginning: What did you see, in terms of advertising, on campus? Who do you think is getting money for the advertising?

B. Bring up UCSB Athletics site: . Is advertising right here? Why or why not?

C. How about here: . Would you want ads on the homepage for our page?

a. If folks don’t think it’s corporate, then bring up the website design stuff:



D. Quart Discussion Prompt: What do you think was the main argument that quart brought up? What was she trying to convince you, her readers, of and how did she go about doing it?

E. After you post your reply, read someone else’s response, then reply to them. Ask them questions, agree, and in general try to build on what they said.

F. Be ready to talk about this with the whole class face-to-face.

II Online Branded Challenge (15-20 min)

A. In groups of three: Look at the website of your high school, UCSB’s website, and the school of your best friends. When you find some sort of reference to something commercial on a website, be sure to bookmark it.

B. In your group, come up with what seems the most interesting case of commerce in the schools. Talk about this case and answer, in your group, these three questions:

a. What is being sold here, and why is the school involved in selling it?

b. Does what the school is doing with the particular business seem ethical or not? Why or why does it seem, to you all, to be ethical or unethical?

c. Key Question: Should schools, in general, be allowed to purse commercial money from advertisers and big business? Why or why not?

III Work on A Thesis (20 min)

A. On your own, take the chopped up thesis, which Chris just pointed out to you, and see if you cannot come up with the way that it goes.

B. When you are done, compare your version with a neighbor’s. Decide which piece you like best and email it to Chris at cdean@writing.ucsb.edu. We’ll go over the options and talk about thesis statements, introductions, and how to get you thinking about writing good ones.

IV Topic Sentences and Ordering (20 min)

A. Do the exercise: .

B. After you are done, compare with a friend, and be ready to talk about the decisions you made. Also, with your partner, come up with two questions about writing this paper that you now have.

V Giving Advice to High School Teachers Chat (15 min)

A. Knowing what you know now about college, what advice would you give to your high school teachers to help prepare the friends you left behind? What would you tell them about teaching reading, writing, and thinking? What would you tell them about teaching style?

B. Brainstorm for five minutes, then talk:

a. Questions:

i. What do you think is the big difference between college and high school in terms of work load?

ii. What is the big difference in terms of expectations for you, a student, by teachers/

iii. What would have helped you be even more prepared?

iv. What can be done now to help others?

v. Key Question: What specific advice would you offer teachers about how to teach you now and in the future? And how could you structure an essay around this?

VI Go over readings and Have them Read one of the pieces from Starting Lines

Week Six

Unit Two: The Argumentative Essay on School Life

Tuesday 2/13/07

• Reading: Kathleen Cushman’s “Going Beyond the Classroom” from Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students from the course reader. Also read selection from Starting Lines—TBA.

• Assignment: Blog check. Class Activities: Discussion of Cushman and Starting Lines piece. Responses to “the Branded Challenge.” Common Errors Jeopardy.

Thursday: 2/15/07

• Reading: “Prologue” and “Prehistory” by Brendan Halpin. Both selections are from Losing My Faculties: A Teacher’s Story. Both are in our course reader.

• Assignment: Turn in final draft of “Argumentative Essay.”

• Class Activities: Discussion of Losing My Faculties. Dialogue writing of situation between Trenton and Halpin. Brainstorming for final piece. Grammar and editing work. Introduction to midterm portfolio.

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