Monday, October 21st

Extra Credit Opportunity:
This film is showing for free at Fort Lewis College in the Vallecito Room on Tuesday night at 6pm.  15 points extra credit if you go and write a reaction. The reaction should be one page, single-spaced and include a short summary followed by a critical analysis and reaction to the film.  
About the film  
The feature-length documentary God Loves Uganda is a powerful exploration of the evangelical campaign to change African culture with values imported from America’s Christian Right.
The film follows American and Ugandan religious leaders fighting “sexual immorality” and missionaries trying to convince Ugandans to follow Biblical law.
God Loves Uganda premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18th, 2013 and has won numerous awards at film festivals so far. The film serves as a catalyst for change, through our upcoming international screening tour and social action campaign.

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Quote of the day: French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal once wrote something to the effect of: "If I had more time, I would have made this letter shorter"(1657)

Goal:  Understand the areas in your writing that you can strengthen and begin refining your op-ed article. Understand what a smooth transition and paragraph topic sentence looks like and refine your own writing in this way. 

Starter:

• Open your op-ed article feedback from me and carefully read my feedback and your first draft grade as indicated on the attached rubric.
  

Answer these questions on your google doc of starters:

• What is the most significant improvement you need to make in your sentence structure?

• What are 2 more significant refinements you need to make regarding your argumentation/perspective/rhetoric/philosophical/constitutional connections?

• What, if any, questions do you have for me about my feedback? 

A note on my feedback:  
Don't be alarmed!  I had to get straight to the point and thus there is more critique than positive feedback.  I still think you are all wonderful, smart and beautiful human beings, I just care more about you becoming outstanding writers than making sure you feel all warm and fuzzy after reading my critique. After all, these are drafts.

Agenda

1. Go over starter questions
2. Mini Lesson: Common errors in your op-ed articles with student examples

• Read through this handout and circle the issues you seem to be having in your own writing.  Annotate the student examples in a similar way to how I started to do with my margin comments.
• In example #4,  highlight the student's use of topic sentences and transition between the two paragraphs.
• Pick one of your paragraphs in your essay and rewrite the topic sentence to include a clearer transition and stronger topic.  Copy and paste your original paragraph and refined paragraph into your google doc of starters.  
• Share your change with a partner.

Work Time:

• Do more research and refine op-ed article
• Continue working on visual piece
• Write your visual piece artist statement