Fri., Nov. 30.

Today we handed in I. R. Reports 6-11.
Homework:  Complete your draft of your Up to the Minutes Speech for Monday.

This Paragraph Will Make You Smarter 1

There is a danger to copy-editing. You start to read in a different way. You start to see the sentence as machinery. You focus on the gears and levers that connect words to one another; you hunt for the wayward semicolon, the unintentionally ambiguous phrase, the clunky repeated word. You even hope they appear, so you can kill them. You see them when they’re not even there, because you relish slashing your pen across the paper. It gets a little twisted.

-Yuka Igarashi in "House Style:  Editing Brazil."

Here's a classic deductive paragraph that begins with a topic sentence that states a generalization.  The rest of the paragraph then supports the generalization with specific, showing examples.  The examples are organized by anaphora, and sentence 4 features anaphora within anaphora.  It's also a textbook example of sentence variety, beginning with a short sentence and ending with an even more concise one.

Wed./Thurs. 28-29 Nov.

Today we worked in the library with the counselors.
Homework:  Complete I.R. Report 11 for Friday.  Complete the draft of your Up to the Minute Speech for Monday.

Wed./Thurs. 28-29 Nov.

Today we worked in the library with the counselors.
Homework:  Finish your I.R. Report 11 for Friday.  Work on the draft of you Up to the Minutes Speech for Monday.

Tuesday, Nov. 27

Today we read the essay "Shooting an Elephant" in the textbook, pages 979-984.  After reading the essay answer questions 1-4 on page 985.

Monday, Nov. 26

Today we handed in I.R. Report 10.  We also reviewed the three appeals and went over the requirements for Up to (2) the Minute Speech 2.  Work on your draft.  Due Monday, 12/3.

The Poetry Out Loud Classroom Competition will be on Monday, Dec. 17th.

This Quotation Will Make You Smarter 1

"When you go fishing you bait the hook, not with what you like, but with what the fish likes."
--Will Rogers

This quotation demonstrates the genius of concise, concrete language.  Notice that only a single word in the sentence is more than a single syllable.  Rogers' metaphor clearly states the most basic principle of rhetoric and persuasion:  "know your audience."  

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