Literacy Speaks Volumes

The wind is tossing the lilacs. The new leaves laugh in the sun. The petals fall on the orchard wall,  But for me, spring is done. Beneath the Apple blossoms, I go my wintry way. Love that smiled to me in April Seems false to me in May. Sweet April Whose morning fog and chill Breathes life into the day. Anticipation and longing Bring a compacted lie And patent love to bitter May.

For this delightful sweet sauce, you will need the following: 1 cup of peeled and chopped mango 1/2 cup of ketchup 1/4 cup of lime juice 1/4 cup of soy sauce 1 tablespoon of toasted sesame oil 1 tablespoon of honey Combine ingredients. Pour into a saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes.

You will need the following for this yummy hamburger or hot dog sauce: 1 cup of mayonnaise 1 cup of ketchup 1/4 cup of sweet relish 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar 2 teaspoons of sugar 1 1/2 tablespoon of minced garlic salt and pepper Mix all of the ingredients together and serve as a condiment for your burgers and hot dogs.

There are many big ideas and key concepts that are expected of sixth graders in English Language Arts. The following is a breakdown of what the standards might actually mean. When a standard states that a student will "demonstrate control" of Standard English, what does that really mean?  The standard means that students should recognize the eight parts of speech correctly and effectively. It also means that students must be able to use correct capitalization and punctuation to  help make their writing clear. And finally,  they need to know how to spell correctly. All of these are difficult tasks. So how do we teach them? The second language standard says that students must use different strategies to determine a word's meaning. Okay? Does this mean that we need to have a school-wide vocabulary program? Yes. I believe that every school should adopt some sort of school-wide vocabulary program. This program should teach both domain-specific words and ...

The modes of persuasion, often referred to as ethical strategies or rhetorical appeals, are devices in rhetoric that classify the speaker's appeal to the audience. The three modes are ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is the appeal to the authority or credibility of the presenter. It is how well the presenter convinces the audience that he or she is qualified to present on the particular subject. It can be done in many ways: By being a notable figure in the field in question, such as a college professor or an executive of a company whose business is related to the presenter's topic. By demonstrating mastery of the argot of the field. By being introduced by, or producing bona fides from, other established authorities. Pathos is an appeal to the audience's emotions, and the terms sympathy, pathetic, and empathy are derived from it. It can be in the form of metaphor, simile, a passionate delivery, or even a simple claim that a matter is unjust. Pathos can be parti...

To analyze an argument, you must be able to understand, analyze, and evaluate arguments according to specific instructions and to convey your evaluation clearly in writing. You must be able to critically examine the author's line of reasoning and the use of evidence.  After reading the argument, ask yourself the following questions: What is offered as evidence, support, or proof? What is explicitly stated, claimed, or concluded? What is assumed or supposed, perhaps without justification or proof? What is not stated, but necessarily follows from or under  lies what is stated? When analyzing an argument, you should recognize the author's line of reasoning. You should be able to recognize the separate implicit steps in the thinking process and consider whether the movement from each step to the next is logically sound. Look for transition words and phrases that show that the author is making logical connections. Look for some of the following transition words: ...

What is an argument in writing? When you write an argument , you express your preference for a side to an argument. When you write an argument, you write a claim . Your claim is how you feel about a controversial topic. For example, if the question is "Should students grade their teachers?",  your claim might be, "Yes, students should grade their teachers." Or, "No, students should not grade their teachers." Your claim is your position on an issue. The issue is a problem in which there are two sides. The argument must be arguable. Something like "Smoking is bad for your health" is not an argument because everyone agrees that smoking is bad for our health. However, the argument might be that smoking should or should not be banned in public places. Now that is something that is arguable. Your claim must be supported. If you can't back it up, then you can't argue it. Your support is your evidence . Your support can be sta...

Whip Around Strategy Purpose:  To review material before a test; to encourage students to notice details. Repeated use of this strategy can help students feel more comfortable speaking in class. Directions: Name a topic that you have just covered, such as symbolism in "The Red Guards" from Red Scarf Girl. Give students one to two minutes to jot down a detail about that subject--something that you have just covered in class or was part of a homework assignment. Rapidly call on each student in turn.  Students may say "I pass," but no student is allowed to give an answer that ahs already been given.  When all students have answered, briefly clarify or summarize the information that the class has generated.

YouTube news story about dolphins washed out to sea in Hurricane Katrina. In this lesson, the learner will do the following: Analyze how a particular sentence, paragraph, or section fits into the overall structure and contributes to the development of ideas. Interpret information in diverse media and explain how it contributes to a topic under study. Write narratives to develop real or imagined events using well-structured event sequences. Discuss the guiding question with the students. Talk about recent news stories students have read or seen. After students read the introductory paragraph, invite them to discuss specific elements that make a news story complete and thorough. Those elements include facts, interviews, quotations, and pictures or video clips. Media Literacy: The 5 Ws and H of the News To be thorough or complete, a news report should answer six basic questions--who, what, when, where, why, and how. Reporters often use the 5 Ws and H as an...

Texts needed for this assessment: "The First Emperor" "Digging up the Past" Read the Prompt The two selections that you have just read provide different kinds of information on the same topic. In writing assessments, you will often be asked to compare nonfiction selections that deal with a similar topic in different ways. In three paragraphs, compare the main idea of "The First emperor" and "Digging Up the Past." Remember that the topic of each piece of writing is the same, but each presents different information. Support your comparison using details from each. What are some strategies that you can use to unpack the prompt? I need to identify the similarities and differences in the main idea of each selection. I need to determine the type of information in each selection. I should include examples from the selections to support my ideas.  Plan Your Writing Using the chart you filled out as you read, identif...

"Resistance is Futile." "Earth. Population Nine Billion. All Borg." "Live long and Prosper"   Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space, typically using a hypothetical device known as a time machine, in the form of a vehicle or of a portal connecting distant points in time. Time travel is a recognized concept in philosophy and fiction, but traveling to an arbitrary point in time has a very limited support in theoretical physics , and usually only in conjunction with quantum mechanics or Einstein-Rosen bridges. In a more narrow sense, one-way travel into the future via time dilation is a proven phenomenon in relativistic physics, but traveling any significant "distance" requires motion at speeds close to the speed of light, which is not feasible for human travel with current technology. The concept was touched upon in various earlier works of fiction, ...

Guiding Questions: What is archaeology? What does an archaeologist do? Why do we need archaeologists? Primary Text: A Practical Handbook of Archaeology by Christopher Catling Articles about recent archaeological finds and discoveries Wikipedia page on Archaeology Quotations about archaeology "In archaeology, you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy, you cover the known."  ~Thomas Pickering "Archaeology is the peeping Tom of the sciences. It is the sandbox of men who care not where they are going; they merely want to know where everyone else has been." ~Jim Bishop "As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end." ~Michel Foucault "It's crucial to reveal the mystery of the pyramid. Science in archaeology is paramount. People all over the world are waiting to solve this mystery." ~Zahi Hawass "There must be a rule of thumb in pop-cu...