Julia Orlando 3/30

Today in English class we did the same thing that we were beginning at the end of class yesterday. At the end of class, we were pairing up with groups or a partner who had different SOAPSTone topics as us. There are six topics which include subject, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, and tone. My original topic is subject and I talked about the ideal on how minorities dream, desire, fantasize, and want to be like the favorable class, white people, during the time. Yesterday, I not only began to gather information about the speaker and shaped my opinion on how the speaker not only reflects my idea but how he influences the idea. In summary today, I got together with a speaker person again and an occasion person to come up with claims that are located on Google Classroom. The ideals of this poem are not only a depiction of this time period but could be a modern depiction of our times. Langston Hughes uses occasion to address and have his poem stand out creating a strong, stand out point.

Samantha Russo 3/29

Today in class we started out by reading all of the SOAPSTONE claims that the class wrote yesterday about the poem “Let America be America Again”. Then, as a class we went over which three of the claims were the best and why. After that we paired up with members from other groups to to combine the claims and look through “a different lens”. We paired up with other people from different groups (each group was a different part of SOAPSTONE) to form a claim by combining them together. We did this because we will be starting a new assingment where we have to SOAPSTONE either a song or poem, and make claims based off the evidence. That is also where we will be starting off in class tomorrow.

3.29.17 Patricia Aldrich

Today in class we had a short class again so we tried to fit a lot in so we could get to discussing our claims in different groups, which we didn't get to do yesterday. The first thing we did was post all of our claims on the classroom page because only 11 people did the assignment at first. Once we all posted our claims then as a group we had to find the three that we thought were the best and rank them. My group chose Bayleigh's and Elias's. The class chose my groups claim, Bayleigh's, and Ben's group. My group's claim was "The speaker is ridiculing America for claiming to be the land of the free when in reality America is only free for certain groups of people." We then as a class said what made each claim so good and how it applied to the specific lens that each group was supposed to be looking at. Once we went through all three claims we then split up into separate groups. We had to go to a different table so that we could partner up with someone with a lens that was different from our own. Me and Coralyn partnered up but we ended up not being able to come up with a claim because by this time class only had about three minutes left so Mr. Rivers said we could start class of with that again tomorrow.

Olivia Agius 3/28/17

Today in class Mr. Rivers introduced us to a site called Kami, which allows students to annotate documents by using many tools. Also on kami multiple students can edit at the same time. Using Kami our class looked at the poem we analyzed on friday, Let America be America Again. Mr. Rivers passed out note cards with one of the aspects of SOAPSTone on it. Then we all went onto Kami and annotated it as groups. For examples, my group which was given speaker looked for who the speaker was, based off of what they say what do we know about them, what the text proves about the speaker, and so on. Then, we had to connect our findings to a claim. Also, we posted that claim on classroom.

Christina Bally 2/24/2017

Today in class we had a substitute teacher. By the time the bell rang we took attendance and then were instructed to complete the assignment that was on the google classroom. The assignment was titled "SOAPSTone this!". There was a poem attached to the assignment. This meant that we had to analyze the poem and check it for the qualities in which make up the letters of the word soapstone. This included addressing who the speaker is, what the occasion is, who the audience is, and the purpose, subject, and tone. On top of this we had to look for rhetorical and literary devices. We were able to annotate the poem by commenting on the certain sentence that had the particular quality. Doing this allowed us to grasp a further understanding of the text. We were able to analyze the poem word for word. The poem was titled "Let America Be American Again". In this poem, it is explained that America should be the way is used to be, free and the dream it once was. The speaker of this poem is a man named Langston Hughes and the audience was all members of America.

3/24/17 Elias Frieling

Today in English, something was wrong. Sitting at the desk was the not Sparta High School teacher of the year, Brent Rivers, it was a sub. Our assignment for the day was on google classroom. We had to SOAPSTone a poem by Langston Hughes, Let America be America again. The poem was pretty long, about 4 pages so there was lots of work to do. The speaker of the poem was not just one person but many. The speaker claimed that, “I am the poor white, I am the Negro, I am the red man, I am the immigrant.” The speaker is different than the author because obviously the author cannot simultaneously be white, black, and native american. After a quick google search to learn about the author was I found that Langston Hughes was a black poet in the early 1900s. As for the occasion of the poem it seemed to me that it was to highlight the injustices some Americans face. How some Americans do not experience freedom and equality. He talks about blacks being slaves, native americans being pushed off their lands. We continued to work all period on annotating the document with SOAPSTone finding the speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, and tone. We also found and analyzed the impact of its rhetorical devices in the poem. Overall class today was fairly easy, we did not do anything new, just practicing SOAPSTone.

3/23/17 Jake vreeland

Today, March 23rd,2017 we entered the class as normal by grabbing our laptops and getting our notes ready.  Mr. Rivers usually starts the class by getting us to shut up then asking our groups a question from the day before.  I was absent the day before so I just observed what my group said and got the work my class did yesterday.  That work was also involved in this class today.  It was a sonnet written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, he read it when he won a Tony award this past June.  A sonnet is a fourteen line poem with a with rhyming themes, which we learned in class today.   The class analyzed the poem yesterday and found literary devices in it.  Today we started going over a subject called SOAPST.  Which stands for Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, Tone.  We took down a few short bull it points for each word.  We did not get to finish and we won't be able to tomorrow because sadly Mr.Rivers will not be in school.  Instead we will practice with what we have learned so far and be prepared for him next time we are all together.  Also with the SOAPST as a class we found a few examples for each part of SOAPST we were taught.  Since there is parc testing next week we will most likely not get to finish this for a little time.  But still have to stay focus and used what we have learned so far throughout the year for the up coming testing. Here is a picture of Lin-Manuel Miranda.

3.22.17 Patricia Aldrich

Today to start class we watched James' blob fish video from when he was a freshman. It was actually so funny that everyone was laughing out loud, one time I saw Mr. Rivers laugh and his head went back, so that just shows how funny it was. Then we wrote down our objectives (IWBAT reflect on my argumentative writing process & IWBAT evaluate how an essay prompt affects an essay's outcome). Everyone got SAT essay prompts so we could see for ourselves how ridiculous and vague they used to be back in 2012. We pointed out that they did not come with an article so there was no evidence to prove your point, they also did not tell give the writer any direction to go in so they would be hard to write a good essay from. After that Mr. Rivers gave us a poem and from it we had to find examples of metaphor, anaphora, antithesis, personification, and parallelism. These are some examples... symphony of one (antithesis), our son is her beautiful reprise (metaphor), this show is proof history remembers (personification), she nudges... she is... (anaphora). We discussed multiple examples of each until the class ended and also went over the definition for each of those terms because the majority of the class had seemed to forget what all the terms meant because we hadn't talked about them since October.

Julia Orlando - 03/20/17 ( Late )

Hello, two days ago in Mr. Rivers classroom the class just finished up their essays and asked for help with Turnitin.com, citations and any other complications a student may have had. The essay, after a month of being drafted and all the hard work put into it is finally over. Agfter an outline, draft, long periods of research, the essay is finally completed and should have been done by Monday. On Tuesday, 03/21/17, Mr. Rivers allowed each student to make comments on their essay to show the qualities that were effective and ineffective in content, research, presentation, voice & style, and organization. Those were all on the Sparta Argumentative Rubric which you can find on the Sparta website or linked onto the Google Classroom. If you were absent for both days, this is just a reminder to make sure to turn your essay on Classroom and Turnitin.com. Best of luck to everybody who finally completed their paper after a long process of writing inside and possibly outside of class.
Link to picture ( Would not upload as an image ) : https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e7/11/14/e71114a2d9ac910a9bdfb875d8f58302.jpg

Jimmy Bliss 3/21/17

During English class today, we were instructed to list items that are effective and items that are ineffective while writing essays. Since our better than the best draft ever were submitted last night to both google classroom and turnitin.com, it appears that we have a brief break from writing these such essays in class. Nonetheless, Our five main categories were Research, Organization, Content, Presentation and Voice & Style. We were split up into groups depending on our seating arrangements. Each group was assigned a marker and a writing space, and we were told to write what came to mind.  We, then, walked around the room and broused at what the other groups came up with. After this, we were instructed to unsubmit our better than the best draft ever and point to specific places in our essays as where we could have improved, and where we excelled. Using research, organization, context, presentation and voice & style, we were told to give an example of a piece of our essay where these terms were used, and comment. One comment was to be how I did well in this sentence, and the other comment was to be how I can improve my writing next time. When you finished your ten comments, you can resubmit your better than the best draft ever on google classroom. Students have until 11:59 PM tonight to do so.

Jackie Dowd- 3/21/17

Today was a nice and easy day in class that helped all the students, other than the few who had to listen to their own voice, relax and enjoy visual movie/show reviews. Lucky for me I went yesterday, which meant this day was a breeze. We watched 3 and a half movie reviews, all very good in their own ways. Although Zach almost had a panic attack watching his own review, it was very well thought out and put together. Kirk also had a very good review, but neither came close to being as thoughtout and put together as Michaela's. This review blew my mind and really showed how much can be done in one episode with just body language. Her explanations were spot on and I really enjoyed it. All the students wrote down what they thought of these reviews (yes we reviewed reviews) and voted for their favorite ones. Tomorrow we will finish Jakes presentation and continue on with our mini movie festival! 

Chloe Rippey- 3/21/17

Hello,
So for the past month or so we have been working on our research papers. A lot of time and effort was put into them and we finally submitted them last night. That is now the end of our argumentative unit I believe, and we are next starting a new unit. Today in class we went over the Argument rubric to see how we could have improved our papers. The class was split up into 5 different groups and each of the groups analyzed a topic from the rubric. Each group wrote out what would be effective in the research paper and what could be ineffective. We also translated the rubric language to a language we could better understand. Following this we unsubmitted out final drafts of our research paper and commented on our paper 10 times with effective and ineffective parts of our essays for presentation, organization, research and citation, voice and style, and content. Once you finished your comments you then resubmitted your paper and that was our class today.
~ Chloe
(here is an example of what my group did for organization)

3/16/17 - Zabrina Branning

Today in class, Mr. Rivers discussed with us how after reviewing some of our ‘Best Drafts of All Time’, he found that some of us didn’t take “Best Draft” too seriously. He explained how he disappointingly found that a good number of us did not have an introduction for our research quotes, or possibly didn’t even cite them. He also brought it to our attention that he found that if we used our time a little more wisely last week in drafting, that our drafts most likely would have looked much better. He then went on to lecturing about evidence, and ideal ways to introduce the background information. We also took some time to look at some claims on the movie Beauty and the Beast. We also read and identified the problems with a paragraph that was giving a person’s review on the movie, and the paragraph did not have an introduction to the quote or a strong analysis of the evidence following it. It was also missing an official citation of where the quote came from. We looked over and focused on some of the issues with the way that the paragraph was written. We looked at the paragraph after it was drafted and fixed three more times, as the introduction, citation, and quote were all fixed to make the paragraph flow and make more sense to the reader, as the claim or topic of the paragraph transitions to the quote itself, with a stronger introduction that provides context and specificity to the information. The final paragraph differed from where it began with the way it flowed and how the information  was presented, and the quote was shortened so that it was more appealing for an audience to read.
                                                              

Justin Rhodes 3/16

Hello class, today in Mr Rivers class we started off by discussing integrating evidence, and what it means to integrate. To integrate something is to put in, to make it simpler, or to insert something with specific intention. After discussing the definition, we then went over multiple examples of paragraphs making a claim, with evidence provided. We analyzed what was good, and what was bad about said paragraphs, These examples showed how to properly cite evidence, introduce it, as well as how to analyze the evidence, and the proper length for a quote so your paragraph isn't too overloaded with quote. Overall, your paragraphs should be mostly your words, containing an introduction to the quote, the pasted quote, analysis of the quote, and then the rest of your paragraph. After discussing all this, we recieved our rubrics for the outlines which came with the estimated grade range for the best draft of all time. Going forward, you should look at the comments listed on the rubric, as well as making changes to your final draft so it's ready to submit without any stress or worries.

Samantha Russo 3/16/17

In class today we went over how to seamlessly integrate evidence and specific evidence. We looked at three excerpts of writing and went over which was a claim and how did we know, we also revised an example paragraph and went over what was wrong with it. At the end of class today we Mr. Rivers handed back the improvements that we should make on each of our research papers.

Justin Rhodes 3/13 blog

Hello class, on Monday in Mr. Rivers class we had recently submitted our best drafts of all time through turnitin.com, and after discussing submission issues and getting through those issues, we moved on with the lesson. On Monday, we discussed transititions that help reinforce relationships, to help revise and make our essays better. Inter paragraphs are the transitions between claims, and are integrated into the topic sentence. Additionally, inter paragraphs establish the logical relationship between the claims of new paragraphs in the essay. Intra paragraphs are the transitions within the claims, and it links the analysis of evidence A to intro of evidence B. It establishes the logical relationship between the examples. The new due date for the essay is still on the table due to back to back snow days, however it will be told soon.

Ben Dottinger 3/9/17

With today's class, we wrapped up the final leg of our essay-drafting peregrination with a short lesson about our conclusion paragraphs and what they should look like. Mr. Rivers instructed us to take our past transitional phrases we used (e.g. in conclusion, to sum it up, at the end of the smoking gun, etc.) and host a metaphorical funeral for the impending consignment to oblivion of such phrases; we are never to use them again. We also learned about what a conclusion paragraph should include within its hallowed sentences. The main thing we should be doing in our conclusions is to look backward at the analysis we have provided and used to support our evidence and claim, and to look forwards at the results of our argument, whether positive or negative outcomes. In our conclusion we should mainly be focused on context, characters, and content in our essay, whether those characters be important authors, directors, researchers, or the likes. We were then turned loose to work on our best drafts ever wherever we saw fit. Tonight at 11:59 our drafts are due. Good luck to everyone who spent a good deal of their time in 'Procrasti-Nation’ (seen below)!

Tony Xhudo 3/8/17

Today in class we got to work some more on our 5 page essays. The class originally started by looking at a turnitin.com assignment which was requiring us to put in any random document. This way Mr. Rivers could not only see who has gotten signed up for the digital class but also make sure we don't have any issue to turn stuff in during the future. Soon after that the class was back to compiling their evidence and making the greatest draft of all time. Overall today's class allowed for some good work to be done.

Jimmy Bliss 3/8/17

Today in English, Mr. Rivers demonstrated how to use turnitin.com to the class. Mr. Rivers created a mock assignment, as each of us were instructed to submit something into the assignment and hit submit.Some people decided to copy and paste parts of books, blog schedules, song lyrics, etc into the mock assignment. Once you hit submit, a little pop-up should follow, ensuring that your submission actually occurred. After we completed the mock assignment, Mr. Rivers instructed us to continue working on our best draft ever. It's not a "rough draft" because often times, people tend to use minimal effort in their rough drafts. On the day prior to today, Mr Rivers taught us how to write an effective introduction, as well as a powerful conclusion. So, today many students took that information to further develop their best drafts ever, as it was still fresh in their memories. The rest of the class was spent with the entire class working strongly on our argumentative essays. At the end of the class, Mr. Rivers reminded us that our best drafts ever were due on Thursday, March 9th at 11:59 PM. This must be submitted on turnitin.com or else you will receive a 0.

Bayleigh Takacs 3/7/17

Today in class we were reminded that our, best draft ever (rough draft), is due Thursday, 3/9/17. We then moved into new notes. We took notes on introductions, first we took the basic definition of an introduction. We were then asked to write a response to the scenario of “if we had a new student coming TOMORROW, how would you introduce that student to our English class?” After finishing the prompt we shared with our groups what we said, then as a class. Soon transitioning back into notes, learning what we should be introducing our audience to. We moved into a few requirements about our essay and small tips for writing them. We, as writers, need to focus on the function. We need to actually introduce, artist+text+active verb. We finished notes and then worked on our essays for the rest of the class period. 

Colin Higdon 3/7/17

Today in English class, we spent the majority of time exploring different ways to strengthen our introductory paragraphs for our research papers. We thought about a scenario where a new student would be entering our class. The task was to write down what we would say to that student in order to introduce them to the class. Some common answers included: teacher's name, technology based classroom, classroom procedures, etc.. Mr. Rivers then told us that we should introduce the audience to three things: Relevant context (info surrounding your essay), Relevant content (the evidence of your essay) and Relevant characters (the people/groups of your essay). After some more discussion, we spent the remaining time in class working on our best drafts of all time which are due Thursday at 11:59 P.M.
          

Gillian Kee-3/617

Today at school, the Wifi was done so we were unable to use our Chromebook in Mr. River's classroom. We were in the computer lab instead. At the beginning of class Mr. Rivers went over a brief review of the essay and what is required. Our rough draft is due this Thursday (3/ 9/17) at 11:59. He also went over how we will be turning our essay in, turnitin. You need to make an account if you do not have one already, the class code is;
Class ID: 14894349
Password: oldsport
The rest of the class was ours to work on our essay. Mr. Rivers suggested that we start with our body paragraphs then go to our introduction and conclusion (we will be going over this tomorrow and Wednesday in class). If you were absent I would, just make a turnitin account and start writing some of your body paragraphs so you are not too far behind.

Nick Elnasser 3/6/17

Hello class,
Today was a different class than almost all others because we were not in Mr.Rivers' regular classroom. From the time we got into school today the wi-fi in the english wing was down so we were unable to use our chromebooks. Class was held in the computer lab today. In the beginning of class Mr.Rivers addressed us all by explaining the next part of our research papers. He said that we will be constructing our rough drafts this week and they will be due by Thursday night. However, the most important thing that Mr.Rivers said to us today was to make sure we write our body paragraphs before our introduction and conclusion paragraphs because we don't know what we're introducing or concluding until we've written it. Mr.Rivers then introduced us to a website called turnitin.com which is what we will submit our paper to. He said to use this website because it will prevent us from plagiarizing or copying another student's work. After he explained turnitin.com he gave us the green light to start constructing our rough drafts and we did just that for the rest of the period.

3/3/17 Tony Xhudo

Todays class was very similar to every other. We started with a class discussion but todays topic was Counter Claims again. We were told to go on to a website to view and discuss with our groups how the professionals use counter claims and logical fallacies. Soon after Mr. Rivers went over his example of the claims and counter claims each group got their own editorial and shortly after went to find more counter claims and logical fallacies. Overall todays lesson was to help prep us for writing our documentary essays.

Sarah Kokoszka 3.3.17

Yesterday in class, March 2nd, 2017, Mr. Rivers was absent so we were left with a sub. This sub was a new substitute that no one has ever had before, so he did not really do much. He told us what was our agenda for the class period and let us go on about our day. What our objective was during the class period was to go over fallacies again. For the past couple day in class we have been working on fallacies and relating them to our research paper. First we had to define the fallacy and name it, then we had to write a sample claim from our opposition from our research paper, then lastly explain in various sentences why our opponents logic is flawed. Since fallacies are new to us, we were able to work with and discuss with our group members. It was easy to work with our group members for part one, but as part two came about we had to focus on our own topic and research. Nothing else had to be done during class today besides working on the fallacies. There was no given date on when the fallacies were due so if people got them finished then they can hand it in for now. If people did not finish their fallacies during this period then they are most likely given more time later on in the week to work on it. The atmosphere of the class yesterday was pretty mellow, everyone had their headphones in and worked on their computer or they were conversing with their peers, helping one another. Nothing was posted on google classroom, no work was due, all we had to work on were the fallacies.

Ben Dottinger's 3/2

Today, in Mr. Rivers’s absence (and in Mr. S’s presence), we continued what we had been doing yesterday and the day prior with logical fallacies and our research of different types. Yesterday and the day prior, the different groups of desks researched 4 of the given 24 fallacies on a website (yourlogicalfallacyis.com). Some of the fallacies on the website include ad hominem (attack on the character of the opposing arguer), strawman (misrepresenting an opposing argument), and tu quoque (refuting criticism with more criticism). What happened today was we rearranged the groups of 2 to 4 so that each of us had researched different logical fallacies and could teach the others the ones we were now well-versed. After we had fully explained the aforementioned logical fallacies to one another, we began to draft a counterclaim paragraph based on our own research paper and our own topic. When it comes to the counterclaim paragraph, there was some ambiguity as to the format of the paragraph: would it be better to refute just one well-developed (through multiple sentences) antithesis, or to refute multiple smaller, less-developed counterclaims (through only a sentence or two). Upon emailing Mr. Rivers and rescuing him--albeit briefly--from the fatal, overwhelming boredom of his meeting, he promptly replied with some answers. He explained that it would be beneficial to argue against one well-developed counterclaim at a time, and that it would not be a daft idea to, especially in larger works than even our own, include multiple counterclaim paragraphs. This would also help ensure that multiple opposing arguments are effectively countered rather than with merely a blanket attempt and a vague refutation. In the picture below, we see ad hominem. Jimmy may seem to have a strong argument, capitalizing off of the opposition’s own insecurities, but we can quickly poke holes in his argument when we realize that he’s purely using logical fallacies (sorry Jimmy). All in all, it was still a rather productive day.

Chloe Rippey 3/2/17

In class today our sub announced what we were doing for the class period. While taking attendance the sub asked if we could correct him on how to pronounce people's names. Connor then corrected the sub saying his name was actually Konnor. Following this our class everyone was meeting  up separately talking about different fallacies that could be used in our research papers. If you were not in class today you could just go on to our classroom page and follow the link the the logical fallacies. Then pick one of the fallacies that would work well for your counterclaim. We then drafted a counterclaim paragraph which we can possibly use in our paper. I am sure Mr. Rivers would like us all to have that available for tomorrow's class.

~Chloe

Zabrina Branning 3/1/17

Today in class we continued looking into the different logical fallacies in preparation to improve possible counterclaims we may put into our future research paper. Within my group, we looked into the four fallacies known as appeal to authority, genetic, appeal to nature, and middle ground. Mr. Rivers explained how based on our different claims and topics in our paper, we will have to refute the possible counterclaims, but our argument should be based on the logical fallacies reviewed in class. Following up the work we started in class yesterday, defining the different fallacies and learning what they mean, today, we created possible counterclaims to our own research paper topics, then refuted them, pretending if someone were to argue our topics, and refuting their arguments. We had to make a counterclaim and rebuttal for all four fallacies we looked into as a group, each 2-3 sentences long, then prepared to submit it in Google Classroom. We ran out of time in class to review and talk with other groups to learn about other possible fallacies that could be representative as counterclaims in our research paper. If not done in class today, we must finish completing the counterclaims for homework so it is prepared for class tomorrow, while he is out, preferably by 7:00 AM tomorrow.