June 1 - 5

With all of the civil unrest in the country right now, I assuage my own grief and anger by thinking about my experiences with you in the classroom. You are the future, and you give me hope that we'll heal and become stronger and more just than we have in the past.   

The last full week of school

This week, we'll begin typing rough drafts of the college essay or alternate job title paper. We'll be reading successful samples, all different kinds, for inspiration.


Remember, Wednesday, June 3 is the last day to turn in late work for partial credit. 

As of Sunday morning at 11:00 a.m., Aeries is completely updated, including comments and scores in Turnitin.com for all of the final argument essays. If you don't like your score, you may take the feedback and rewrite it before the cutoff on the evening of June 3 and I'll average the scores. 
 
MONDAY B-Day/TUESDAY A-Day: Online, Zoom class. How to avoid writing the same college essay that everyone else writes: be specific. Read actual college essay samples and critique them together as a class. On a volunteer basis, discuss any specific challenges matching essay topics to prompts, or about prompt selection.

Due: Go through the admissions pages of the colleges and universities where you plan to apply, and see which essay prompts they require. Bearing in mind the strategies we discussed in class, choose the prompt(s) you'll write for the final assignment for English class, and begin the process of matching your stories with a specific prompt (or two, if you choose the UC prompts). 

Homework: Do a free write where you completely answer a prompt (or 2, if you're responding to the UC prompts for the final), and just get all of your thoughts down. Don't pay attention to word count, pacing, order, making sense, or any other restrictions, just let it flow. You are writing the crappy version, including any associations and tangents that come to mind in answering the prompt. Once it's all out on paper, we'll work on editing it during the next couple of classes. (If you prefer, you are piling up all of the clay onto the worktable; we will sculpt it into something polished, unique, and interesting once it's all there.)  DO NOT CENSOR OR JUDGE YOURSELF at this point.

Read this really long, but very important and interesting article. There is some adult language included, but the perspective and message are thought-provoking and worth a read about how we make choices about career paths and life decisions.

WEDNESDAY B-Day: Offline, work independently on the activity from Monday.


Due: n/a

Homework: (same as Monday)

THURSDAY A-Day/FRIDAY B-day: Online Zoom class (see sidebar for details). Discuss the article, discuss the very rough draft you have. Look at editing reference sheets. Go over the two most important issues in working with the very rough draft: pacing and specific details/imagery. Make sure the draft is about YOU, not someone else. Go over more sample essays as a class and evaluate them.

Due: Do a free write where you completely answer a prompt and just get all of your thoughts down. Don't pay attention to word count or any other restrictions, just let it flow. We will work on editing during the next couple of classes.

Read this really long, but very important and interesting article. There is some adult language included, but the perspective and message are thought-provoking and worth a read about how we make choices about career paths and life decisions.

Homework: Go through your draft again with the editing sheet. Graph out the pacing, and replace generalities with specific, vivid details on the page. It's coming along nicely, now! Have this still-very-rough draft ready for the last class on Monday, June 8 for 1st and 2nd period, Tuesday of next week, June 9 for our last class session together.