PAWS Rubric

Following is the rubric for the writing portion of the PAWS test. We looked at this rubric today and scored a few essays according to it. I suggest you look through the rubric a few times before the test so you can remember what they're looking for.

Click on the rubric pages to enlarge them.

Address to the Prisoners

The following is condensed from a speech given by attorney Clarence Darrow (pictured above) to the inmates of Cook County Jail.

I really do not in the least believe in crime. There is no such thing as a crime as the word is generally understood. I do not believe there is any sort of distinction between the real moral condition of the people in and out of jail. One is just as good as the other. The people here can no more help being here than the people outside can avoid being outside. I do not believe that people are in jail because they deserve to be. They are in jail simply because they cannot avoid it on account of circumstances which are entirely beyond their control and for which they are in no way responsible.

There ought to be no jails, and if it were not for the fact that the people on the outside are so grasping and heartless in their dealings with the people on the inside, there would be no such institution as jails.

I do not want you to believe that I think all you people here are angels. I do not think that. While you would not have the least thing against me in the world you might pick my pockets. I do not think all of you would, but I think some of you would. You would not have anything against me, but that’s your profession, a few of you. Some of the rest of you, if my doors were unlocked, might come in if you saw anything you wanted — not out of malice to me, but because that is your trade.

There is no doubt there are quite a number of people in this jail who would pick my pockets. And still I know this, that when I get outside pretty nearly everybody picks my pocket. When I want to light my house or my office the gas company holds me up. They charge me one dollar for something that is worth twenty-five cents. When I ride on the street cars, I am held up — I pay five cents for a ride that is worth two and a half cents, simply because a body of men have bribed the city council and the legislature, so that all the rest of us have to pay tribute to them. And still all these people are good people; they are pillars of society and support the churches, and they are respectable.

There are a good many more people who go to jail in the wintertime than in summer. Why is this? Is it because people are more wicked in winter? No, it is because the coal trust begins to get in its grip in the winter. A few gentlemen take possession of the coal, and unless the people will pay $7 or $8 a ton for something that is worth $3, they will have to freeze. Then there is nothing to do but break into jail, and so there are many more in jail in the winter than in summer. It costs more for gas in the winter because the nights are longer, and people go to jail to save gas bills.

Long ago Mr. Buckle, who was a great philosopher and historian, collected facts and he showed that the number of people who are arrested increased just as the price of food increased. When they put up the price of gas ten cents a thousand I do not know who will go to jail, but I do know that a certain number of people will go. Whenever the Standard Oil Company raises the price of oil, I know that a certain number of girls who are seamstresses, and who work after night long hours for somebody else, will be compelled to go out on the streets and ply another trade, and I know that Mr. Rockefeller and his associates are responsible and not the poor girls in the jails.

First and last, people are sent to jail because they are poor. No man in his right senses will go into a strange house in the dead of night and prowl around with a dark lantern through unfamiliar rooms and take chances of his life if he has plenty of the good things of the world in his own home. If a man had clothes in his clothes-press and beefsteak in his pantry, and money in the bank, he would not navigate around nights in houses where he knows nothing about the premises whatever. It always requires experience and education for this profession, and people who fit themselves for it are no more to blame than I am for being a lawyer. A man would not hold up another man on the street if he had plenty of money in his own pocket. He might do it if he had one dollar or two dollars, but he wouldn’t if he had as much money as Mr. Rockefeller has. Mr. Rockefeller has a great deal better hold-up game than that.

The more that is taken from the poor by the rich, who have the chance to take it, the more poor people there are who are compelled to resort to these means for a livelihood. They may not understand it, they may not think so at once, but after all they are driven into that line of employment.

There is one way to cure all these offenses, and that is to give the people a chance to live. There is no other way, and there never was any other way since the world began, and the world is so blind and stupid that it will not see. If every man and woman and child in the world had a chance to make a decent, fair, honest living, there would be no jails, and no lawyers and no courts.

The English people once punished criminals by sending them away. They would load them on a ship and export them to Australia. England was owned by lords and nobles and rich people. They owned the whole earth over there, and the other people had to stay in the streets. They could not get a decent living. They used to take their criminals and send them to Australia — I mean the class of criminals who got caught. When these criminals got over there, and nobody else had come, they had the whole continent to run over, and so they could raise sheep and furnish their own meat, which is easier than stealing it; these criminals then became decent, respectable people because they had a chance to live. They did not commit any crimes. They were just like the English people who sent them there, only better. And in the second generation the descendants of those criminals were as good and respectable a class of people as there were on the face of the earth, and then they began building churches and jails themselves.

But finally these descendants of the English aristocracy, who sent the people over to Australia, found out they were getting rich, and so they went over to get possession of the earth as they always do, and they organized land syndicates and got control of the land and ores, and then they had just as many criminals in Australia as they did in England. It was not because the world had grown bad; it was because the earth had been taken away from the people.

If you have ever lived on a farm you understand that if you put a lot of cattle in a field, when the pasture is short they will jump over the fence; but put them in a good field where there is plenty of pasture, and they will be law-abiding cattle to the end of time. The human animal is just like the rest of the animals, only a little more so. The same thing that governs in the one governs in the other.

I will guarantee to take from this jail, or any jail in the world, five hundred men who have been the worst criminals and law breakers who ever got into jail, and I will go down to our lowest streets and take five hundred of the most hardened prostitutes, and go out somewhere where there is plenty of land, and will give them a chance to make a living, and they will be as good people as the average in the community.

The only way in the world to abolish crime and criminals is to abolish the big ones and the little ones together.

To take all the coal in the United States and raise the price two dollars or three dollars when there is no need of it, and thus kills thousands of babies and send thousands of people to the poorhouse and tens of thousands to jail, as is done every year in the United States — this is a greater crime than all the people in our jails ever committed, but the law does not punish it. Why? Because the fellows who control the earth make the laws. If you and I had the making of the laws, the first thing we would do would be to punish the fellow who gets control of the earth. Nature put this coal in the ground for me as well as for them and nature made the prairies up here to raise wheat for me as well as for them, and then the great railroad companies came along and fenced it up.

Make fair conditions of life. Give men a chance to live. Abolish the right of private ownership of land, abolish monopoly; make the world partners in production, partners in the good things of life. Nobody would steal if he could get something of his own some easier way. Nobody will commit burglary when he has a house full. No girl will go out on the streets when she has a comfortable place at home. The man who owns a sweatshop or a department store may not be to blame himself for the condition of his girls, but when he pays them five dollars, three dollars, and two dollars a week, I wonder where he thinks they will get the rest of their money to live. The only way to cure these conditions is by equality. There should be no jails. They do not accomplish what they pretend to accomplish. If you would wipe them out, there would be no more criminals than now. They terrorize nobody. They are a blot upon civilization, and a jail is an evidence of the lack of charity of the people on the outside who make the jails and fill them with the victims of their greed.

CLARENCE DARROW
1902

Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) is most well known for his role in the Scopes and Leopold-Loeb trials, but he also defended Eugene Debs, Big Bill Haywood and many other labor, antiwar and civil rights cases. More extensive discussion of his views on crime and punishment can be found in his books Resist Not Evil (1903) and Crime: Its Cause and Treatment (1922).

Expressive Exercises

If you have not yet gotten your essay to a 3 or above, or if you have not raised your word count to between 600 and 750, you should get those things done.

However, if you have gotten your essay to above 3, and between 600 and 750 words, copy and paste the following exercises into a Word document and. Complete the exercises and then email them to me. Please send the finished exercises in the body of the email rather than as an attachment. Thank you.


Break these long sentences into short, single-idea sentences.

Bobby, Skanky, and me were following our friends to Atlantic City, New Jersey and it was a dumb car ride all the way there and we were hitting and beating each other so when we got to Atlanta and our hotel room wasn’t ready so we went swimming for an hour then we went to the Silk Sleeve to play some foozball. When we got done we went to the room and found a big old bucket of glue on the way so Bobby opened it and took a few sniffs so I took a few sniffs because he called me a weenie and I am not a weenie so I took some. Then we went and ate at Under the Milky Way and it was really good then we went back to the room and got changed to go swimming again.

Skanky took a really big sniff and I took a few more little sniffs and we went swimming till 11 O'clock then we walked over to the Sleeve and played foozball for an hour then me and Skanky walked to the casino and we went to the gift shop and I bought a Pepsi and Skanky got a Dr. then we walked around the casino and avoided the security so we didn't get caught and kicked out of the casino then it got really boring so we walked back to the hotel and went to our room and watched American Idol till 11:45.

Then we paused the movie and watched the ball drop then Sheila came to our room and seen the bucket of glue on the table and Bobbie asked her if she wanted a sniff. She left the room and she went and called my mom and my dad and they called my cell phone and they asked if we had sniffed any glue and I said yes so she got way mad and told us to dump the rest out so we did. But it was kind of funny because that night Bobby got up cause he wanted to whiz and on the way he tripped over the garbage can where the bucket was and it totally spilled all over the floor and the next morning we saw that it had glued the garbage can to the floor.

The next morning we woke up and we ate at McDonald’s and then we were on our way home. When we got home my mom had a big long talk and I got grounded and my dad took my truck away and Bobbie got sent away to the school for glue sniffing kids. Then I saved my money and bought another truck but it doesn’t have wheels yet.

Break this up into paragraphs

Sixteen and invincible, one whole year driving now and I have yet to up yet. As I hear the stories of hitting dears, running into signs, rolling off in the bar ditch, following the car infront of you too closely, I laugh to my self, ponder how easily such an incident could be avoided, how I could out manuver a deer, and never fall asleep at the wheel. I had almost become one of these people one night. We was on our way to grandma's house, the car was pretty noisy, it was about eleven, so we decided to stopped at a gas station for some drinks and a restroom stop. Some of the circumstances still unknown to me, I believe it was kind of my fault, I should have been more caution, but the other driver had a play in it too. We was coming down the on ramp, and I had stopped at the sign, waiting for some traffic to pass by, figured that I was clear, but something distracted me, and before I knew it, I had moved us out in front of a semi. It was my fault, only because I bet there was a thousand feet between me and him, but I guess he was moving a lot faster then I thought and I should of paid more attention to this. My absentmindedness may have caused this not so smart decison, but thanks to lighting-fast youth reaction combined with Dodie's nice engine, we narrowly got of the way fast enough. Those big headlights coming at us fast, the sound of his horn blaring, I think about it from time to time, but it rarely crosses my mind. Life went on, we forgot about it, I was shook up a little, but it soon left my mind, that fear that compelled me to be cautious the rest of the trip. Few weeks up the road, we went to Preston for a cousin's birthday party during the summer, and as always we took the carter cut off through Kemmer, and on through Cokeville to the border, well we pulled out of Preston about eight, so it was late getting home. We had passed through cokeville, and was getting through the curvy canyon, particularly close to the Kemmer junction, crossing that bridge that you go across before you start seeing mines. Coming right out off of that bridge, we rounded the bend, I didnt spot it until about one hundred yards away, the roads one hundred percent pretty clear so I was nearly seventy mph. I slammed the breaks, and seeing that the other lane was open, I manuvered over, as the deer wasn't moving out from our lane. I was down to about thirty when we passed by it, but right as we drove passing, it whiped it's head around to face us, and we raked his antlers with the side of the car. I can still remember the rush of fear, my mom's arm shooting out to brace me for impact, the face of the deer as it turned at the worst moment. It wasn't hurt, it sure took off in a hurry actually. With but a couple of scratches on the hoof of the car, and about delivered my mom a heart attack, but I still learned from that experience, I never forget it, and I am always careful on that road, and now I am a very safe driver. Bottom line, life isn't a video game, you're not invincible, and you can't just restart from your last save if you goof up. Don't be cocky, anything could happen in the blink of an eye. That is the point.

Plot this story on a story graph. Place bolded numbers at the beginning of each sentence that has a plot point, then use those numbers to label the ups and downs on your story graph.

My grandpa was the best grandfather any child could have. He was the kind of person that gave you whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. He loved all of his grandchildren equally, he never took sides with anyone, he was always there for us when we needed him, and most of all, he had the most tender heart in the world.

One night, I was at a youth dance at my school. My dad came around 9:30 to pick me up. He was crying. I asked him what happened, he told me that grandpa was in the hospital and that i needed to go and visit him. So, that night, i went to the hospital and stayed with him the whole night. It was fun being around him because, I wasnt really that close to him. I mean, yeah, we would talk, but he would usually just ask me how school was going and stuff, other then that, we wouldnt talk at all, but i still thought he was the coolest person in the world. That night at the hospital, changed how i felt about everything. He was so much fun to be around, he had a passion for music as much as i did, he loved to talk, like i do, he liked to be active no matter what. I learned so much about him that night. So, i stayed with him every night he was in the hospital.

One day, in the hospital, he told me that he wanted to teach me how to play the Ukulele. So, i went home and got an Ukulele and came back to the hospital. He started teaching me what notes matched what chords etc... He taught me how to play "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", and i thought i had accomplished so much just by being able to play that song. He was in the hospital for 2 weeks and i stayed with him every night. Every night, i learned how to play a new song, and learned another thing about him. One day, my grandma and I went to get him some lunch. When we returned, I could hear singing in the room. When we walked in,, it seemed as though he wasnt sick at all. He was entertaining the guests and other patients in his room. A i stood there, i couldnt help but cry because of how strong his spirit was in that hospital. That moment welded itself into my heart. I was able to learn so much from just being in his presence.

One Friday afternoon, the doctors came in to check on him. They told him that they would keep him for the weekend and that he could go home on Monday. He was very excited. After staying with him for 2 weeks and taking care of him, it was kind of a relief that he was able to go home, and i thought to myself how nice it would be to finally be able to get some rest. Saturday night came around and my dad came down to the hospital to visit him and to take some of his stuff home. He still was pretty excited that he got to go home soon. Sunday came and i didnt go to church because i was still down at the hospital with my grandpa, making sure that he was going to be safe. I told him i was getting ready to go home, since he was going to be able to come home tomorrow anyway, so I just told him that i would see him back at home. I really needed to go home and catch up on 2 weeks worth of sleep. So, that night, before I left, he gave me a blessing and in that blessing, i was told to continue doing good, and continue having the sweet spirit that i did. I was told of how blessed i would be if i did this, and then he told me not to ever forget him because he loved me and didnt want me to forget him when he was gone. I was surprised that he was telling me this because i was pretty sure that he would be coming home in the morning. So, i left that night thinking really hard about if I really wanted to go home and sleep, or if I wanted to stay just in case something happened. The doctors told me not to worry, he was perfectly healthy.

Monday morning, i woke to my phone ringing. I tried to answer it before it stopped but, it died, so i ran to my room and got my charger then came back out to the living room. I plugged it in, and it took my phone a while to start ringing again. When i answered it, all i heard was someone crying on the other line. I started panicking and so, I said, "Hello"? and then i heard my Grandma on the other line. She was crying so hard it was hard for me to make out what she was trying to say. Then she said, " Grandpa died". My phone dropped and i just stood there and cried. I didnt know what to do. It was 7 in the morning, and i didnt know what exactly to do. So, i went into my dad's room and woke him up and told him that Grandpa had passed on. We arrived to the hospital at 7:30. It was very heart breaking. I saw the nurses pulling out a gurney and i say a body on it. I wasnt sure that it was my Grandpa, but then i noticed the name on the side. I was hurt so bad.

I believe that this obstacle happened for a reason. It helped me realize that I shouldn't be taking life for granted. It taught me to make the most of my life with what I have and the people that i share it with. I was taught to take what i have and use it to help other people just like my grandpa did. Im so grateful for him and for the examples he was able to set for me and that i was able to learn from them. Although he is gone, he still remains with me through his music and through his spirit.

Revision Tips

So you've written the rough draft for your expressive essay, but feel stuck in revision. What can you do to make your paper better?

Happily, Captain Revision is here to help. He gonna kick yo flabby little ess ... ay into shape!


Cap. V (as he prefers to be called) just wants you to remember one little word:
P = Plot Points

Do the events you have written about to prove your point go up and down on the story graph? Your essay will be much more compelling if they do. If you find that your essay's plot points only go in one direction, find a place where you can change the story's direction, however briefly.
For more on this click here

P also = Punctuation

Which includes grammar, capitalization, paragraphing, etc. On the PAWS test you won't have access to a spelling or grammar checker, so you need to do it yourself. I noticed that many of you don't tend to capitalize I. It's OK to not capitalize I on Myspace, but on the PAWS test uncapitalized I's will hurt your score.

O = Zero in on Your Thesis
A thesis is the point of your essay. In the case of an expressive essay, your thesis will be located at the end of the essay. Your story will support your thesis. Make sure your thesis encapsulates the idea you want the reader to get from the story.

For example, if I had told the story of Red Riding Hood, my thesis paragraph might read: "This story has helped me navigate the treacherous world of used car salesmen. I just remember that though their words may sound sincere, under them hide ravening wolves setting up a trap for me. If they can do it, they'll eat not only me, but my grandmother too. For this reason, I always hack off the heads of used car salesmen before they can lure unsuspecting buyers into their webs of deception. And you should too."

W = Weak Places
Look for weak words, for example: "to be" verbs like did, had, done, am, are, were. These are plain boring words. Think of something more interesting.

For example:

Boring: My mom and I were at the store looking at shoes.

Interesting: My mom and I burst into Dillard's, our mission: shoe shopping.

Note that, among other things, we replaced "were" with "burst." Of course, we could replace were with almost anything. We slouched into the store; we dragged through the store, we raced into the store. Anything to spark the reader's imagination.

Boring = Find boring words and make them exciting.

Interesting = Hunt down boring words and inject them with excitement.

Expressive Essays

On the PAWS test, you will be required to write an expressive essay. As far as I can make out from the PAWS stuff, an expressive essay is an essay that uses a personal story to support an opinion.

The basic outline is:

1. Story

2. Thesis

To understand how an expressive essay might work, we read an expressive essay from Newsweek entitled, "I'm Not Who You Think I Am" (click on the link to read it). It was by a woman named Carol Piak who is tired of people seeing her only as "Asian." She implies that people who mistake her for other Asian people harbor kernels of racism. She establishes this idea in 300 words by telling about a few experiences she's had.

However, in the next 300 words Piak tells about how she mistook a woman from Piak's own country, causing her to wonder is Piak herself is racist.

Then in the next 300 words she tells about a time she actually mistook another little girl for her own daughter.

At the end of the essay Piak writes, "A plea, then, for all of us to take the time to look more carefully. For those who see the race and not the individual: look harder. And for those who, like me, may be hypersensitive after years of not being properly seen, keep in mind that while there are people who are racist, many others are merely distracted, overeager, careless, tired, old. We, the thin-skinned, also need to avoid applying the easy label."

We saw that Paik's essay followed story structure very well. It starts with her high on the graph (1), being righteously indignant about being mistook so often. But then she goes down hill, (2) committing the same mistakes she abhors in other people. Then she takes a real plummet (3) when she mistakes someone else for her own daughter. It is only at the end, (4) when she realizes that she is as likely to make mistakes as anyone else that she rises on the graph.

We could graph her story like this:
We worked on outlining the stories we wrote for bellwork according to this essay's format, outlining three events that act as turning points in the story, and then presenting our thesis at the end.

That's the basic structure of an expressive essay

First story point

Second story point

Third story point

(each story point being a place where the direction on the story graph goes up or down)

Thesis


We might also notice that the essay also followed story structure in that the author had a goal and a dramatic need. Her goal was to get people to see her as a person instead of as a stereotype. But she kept being stopped by the fact that she stereotyped other people as well. Which led her to her dramatic need: to be more understanding of the people around her.

The bellwork for today was to write an outline for the following prompt.

Many of us encounter obstacles in our lives. Some are small, like a school test. Others can be life-altering, like the loss of a loved one or a major injury. Write about an obstacle you have encountered. How did you overcome it. Did it make you a better person, or did it leave you bitter and cynical?

Write an outline using the formula provided in this blog post.

Testing Strategies

Create the Situation

The first testing strategy we talked about was how to approach sentence combining questions. For example:

Choose the sentence that best combines the following two sentences.

I was listening to music on the radio.
I did not hear the doorbell ring.

A.
I was listening to music on the radio, but I did not hear the doorbell ring.
B.
I did not hear the doorbell ring while I was listening to music on the radio.
C.
I was listening to music on the radio, and I did not hear the doorbell ring.
D.
Listening to music on the radio, I did not hear the doorbell ring.

One effective way of approaching this question is to think of a situation where you would actually put those two sentences together. For example, what would happen if your dad was expecting an important package from FedEx and had asked you to sign for it when it came? But you had been listening to loud music and didn't hear the doorbell when the FedEx guy rang it? How would you explain yourself to you dad? The only answer that fits the situation is C.

I mean, who says "Listening to music on the radio, I did not hear the doorbell ring."? Weirdos, that's who.

Parallelism

We also had to figure out what was wrong with a few sentences. For example:

What part of the sentence below contains an error?

I plan on bringing/ corn, wild rice,/ some potatoes, / strawberries, and olives/ to the picnic.
A.
I plan on bringing
B.
corn, wild rice,
C.
some potatoes,
D.
strawberries, and olives

The error here is subtle. The way we find it is to play "One of these kids is not like the other." You know, the little segments in Sesame Street where three kids are doing one thing and the other kid is doing something different. We want to figure out what the most kids are doing and make sure the other kid is following suit.

In this case we can see that all the food items stand alone except for "some potatoes." "Some potatoes" violates parallelism.

Remember that parallel lines in math are lines that never intersect, they're absolutely straight. It's the same with grammar, the words in a list need to follow the same structure. So, since the other food items stand alone, we need to have the potatoes stand alone too in order to achieve parallelism.

The answer, therefore, is C.

Today's Test

Remember your test taking skills.

Click on the URL below to go to the test page.

http://achievementseries.com/

Once there, click on the button in the upper-left side of the window that reads "Students"

The site code is: 32-2506-0344

If you are in 6th hour, the test code is: 17017

If you are in 7th hour, the test code is: 43226

If you are in 8th hour, the test code is: 10870

Your user name is: the last two letters of your first name followed by your entire last name.

So, for example, if I were Justin Timberlake, I would enter: intimberlake.

If I were Kiera Knightly (I'd probably need some major surgery, but...) I would enter: raknightly.

This applies to everyone but Tone, Kohlby and Shelbi. Tone's user name is tone, and Kohlby's is bair, and Shelbi's is shelbi.

You need no password.

Take the test with no conversation amongst you.

Bull

Today we talked about bull. Yes, bull as in b.s. Happily we confined our conversation exclusively to non-excrement oriented terms. I was very proud of all of you.

We defined bull in a number of ways, but we focused mostly on how it is defined in academic terms. Bull, we said, is putting together a big song and dance around nothing much. In other words, the act of taking only a little information and making a huge essay out of it.

I asked the class members if they thought that bulling was a moral thing to do. Many of us said that it isn't. Which led us to wonder why. After all, if the teacher gives you a good grade for an essay constituted of pure bull, doesn't that mean the teacher values SOMETHING about it?

To help us answer our own question we wondered what the opposite of bull is. We decided that the opposite of bull is cow.


If cow is the opposite of bull then we decided that "cowing" must be having a lot of information but not doing much with it. Just sort of cramming it all into one space with no attempt at ... well, bull.

As we thought about it, we realized that it actually takes more thought to bull an essay than to cow it. A cow essay merely wants an avalanche of facts and information, which is easily copied and pasted from other sources. However, if we find ourselves having to write for a few pages on something we know little about, we grasp at straws, extrapolate from little, and otherwise work our poor little brains to the bone.

So writing bull actually demands more thought. Is this what school wants?

We looked at what school seems to want out of us, and mostly came to the conclusion that it wants cow. School seems mostly designed to fill us full of information (cow) in hopes that we will be able to spit it back up as whole as possible on tests and essays. However, we also noticed that whenever we are able to bull well, we tend to get really good grades. Why would teachers reward us for bull when they seem to want cow?

It's possible, we posited, that the trick is to use bull to convince the teacher that you are a cow.

Which brings us back to our original question. Is bull moral? It looks like it might be, after all, we think more when we bull our way through an essay than when we cow. So it's up to the teacher. Does the teacher want us to be cows, slurping up facts and regurgitating the cud on cue, or does the teacher want bulls who think?

(False dichotomy alert!)

For our assignment today I sent you all home with a brief essay to read. We'll discuss it tomorrow. You will either read the essay or not. If you don't read the essay, you need to bull me into believing that you did tomorrow. Those who can bull me (or who actually read the essay) will get points. Those who can't convince me will not get points.

Here is a link to the article, entitled "Examsmanship and the Liberal Arts."

Dealing With Analogies

Today we went over the test we took on Thursday. I was happy to see that many of you improved on this test. We focused on the test questions that 50 percent or fewer of the class answered correctly.

The main batch we had problems with was the analogy section.

Choose the answer that best completes the analogy.

DURABLE:FRAGILE::__________:____________

A.
cold:frigid
B.
sturdy:concrete
C.
dwindle:increase
D.
trustworthy:friend

I presented you with a few ways to approach these questions. Each pair of words have a relationship that you are supposed to divine and then extend to another pair of words. The four most common catagories for identifying analogy relationships are:

Opposite

Level of intensity

Similarity

Cause/effect

Take, for example, the following question.

VERBOSE:BRIEF::__________:____________
A.
rambling:concise
B.
talkative:chatty
C.
social:converse
D.
shy:quiet

We can see that verbose and brief are opposites. Therefore we will look for a pair of opposite to complete the analogy, which, in this case is A.


ANCIENT:OLD::__________:___________
A.
youth:age
B.
cool:cold
C.
child:young
D.
boiling:warm

This analogy is based on a level of intensity since ancient and old both describe age. Ancient, however, is a more extreme form of age than old is. So we will look for an answer based in level of intensity.

We find ourselves with two options: B: cool:cold, and D. boiling: warm. Therefore we need to find one more similarity between the root analogy and the correct choice. We discover that ancient precedes old in the root analogy, the more extreme preceding the less extreme. Cool is less extreme than cold, so that does not fit the root analogy. However, boiling is more extreme than warm, so we choose D.

LAUD:SUCCESS::_________:__________
A.
chastise:misbehavior
B.
start:argument
C.
represent:reward
D.
scars:hide

This one was more difficult for us because few of us knew what laud means. However, we can still look for patterns that give us the clues we need. For example, the relationship between chastise and misbehavior is that you chastise a person when he or she misbehaves. So misbehavior causes chastisement (cause and effect). However, an argument does not cause a start. Reward and represent don't seem to have much in common at all, they are not opposites, they are not similar, they aren't related to each other through levels of intensity, and one does not cause the other (however, the test writers did try to trick you by making reward a similar word to success). So we can eliminate that one. Similarly, hiding does not cause a scar.

So we are left with just one pair of words that seem to have a relationship: chastise and misbehavior. This is the correct answer. Laud means to praise. When someone is successful, we praise (laud) him or her. Similarly, when someone misbehaves, we chastise him or her. So this analogy is based in cause and effect.

The best strategy to use when confronted by analogies is to look for patterns: opposite, level of intensity, similarity, and cause/effect.

Use Your Test Taking Skills

Today I am recovering from the illness that has made me so boring lately. To make sure we don't waste any of the time we have to get your ready for PAWS, I have created the following test to help you practice the test taking skills we talked about on Wednesday.

You'll remember that we talked about eliminating answers in order to have a better chance of finding the correct answer. There is a function on the test that allows you to do this. You'll see that just below the A, B, C, or D there is an X. If you click on that X, a red X will be drawn through the answer, indicating that you believe it to be wrong. Use this to help you remember which answers you believe should be eliminated.

You'll also remember that we talked about analogies (comparisons between two things) and that we practiced figuring out a few. We also talked about how much easier it is to extract the right information from a text when you already know what the question is.

The test consists mainly of analogies, homonyms (words that have two very different meanings), synonyms (words that have a similar definition of other words), and extracting information from pamphlets. If you use the test taking strategies we talked about in class, you'll find that this test is much easier than the last one. I expect you all to do well on it.

Click on the URL below to go to the test page.

http://achievementseries.com/

Once there, click on the button in the upper-left side of the window that reads "Students"

The site code is: 32-2506-0344

If you are in 6th hour, the test code is: 90050

If you are in 7th hour, the test code is: 84090

If you are in 8th hour, the test code is: 77635

Your user name is: the last two letters of your first name followed by your entire last name.

So, for example, if I were Justin Timberlake, I would enter: intimberlake.

If I were Kiera Knightly (I'd probably need some major surgery, but...) I would enter: raknightly.

This applies to everyone but Tone and Kohlby. Tone's user name is tone, and Kohlby's is bair.

You need no password.

Take the test with no conversation amongst you.

There are 50 questions.

A grade is attached to this. So please do your best.

Test for the Day

Hey all,

Click on the URL below to go to the test page.

http://achievementseries.com/

Once there, click on the button in the upper-left side of the window that reads "Students"

The site code is: 32-2506-0344

If you are in 6th hour, the test code is: 34314

If you are in 7th hour, the test code is: 56062

If you are in 8th hour, the test code is: 58158

Your user name is: the last two letters of your first name followed by your entire last name.

So, for example, if I were Justin Timberlake, I would enter: intimberlake.

If I were Kiera Knightly (I'd probably need some major surgery, but...) I would enter: raknightly.

Take the test with no conversation amongst you.

Outlines

The PAWS test will have a writing section on it. The basic format will be:

1. The test gives you a prompt
2. You have approximately 40 minutes to write a rough draft.
3. You come back the next day and get 40 minutes to revise your rough draft.
4. The revised draft is then turned in for scoring.

So you have about 80 minutes to put together an essay that will be no longer than 750 words. I'll expect you to write at least 650. This is about two and a half type-written, double-spaced pages.

The only way you'll be able to manage this part of the test is if you are adept at putting together good outlines. If you have an outline, your writing will be better organized, more assured, and much higher scoring.

Today we started to practice outlining. You'll remember that during the previous term we worked a lot on persuasive argument, especially focusing on providing support for your thesis. Now we are heading a little deeper, focusing on warrants.

When we think of a warrant we usually think of either the make-uped hair rock band

or the police closing in on your house.

If the police are coming to arrest you or to search your house, you have the right to ask why, and they are required to give you warrant, or a piece of paper that a judge has issued outlining the reasons why you are being arrested or your house searched.

A warrant in a persuasive paper works the same way. A warrant is "justification or authority for an action, belief or feeling." A warrant is what you use to support your support.

It looks like this:

Thesis (X is true because of Supports A, B, and C)

Support A
Warrant 1
Warrant 2

Support B
Warrant 1
Warrant 2

Support C
Warrant 1
Warrant 2

Conclusion

A warrant provides reasoning and evidence that solidify the logos of your support.

Take the following as an example of an outline that includes the thesis, supports, warrants and conclusion. (The argument is not necessarily factual, by the way.)

Thesis
Eminem is an influential artist because (A) he is funny, (B) he is a social critic, and (C) he is a family man. Each of these gives him the clout he needs to be influential.

Support A: He is funny
Warrant 1. (Provide an example of Eminem being funny)
Warrant 2. Funny people tend to get attention. Therefore, more people will listen to him, making him more influential.

Support B; He is a social critic:
Warrant 1. Most musical artists focus on banal subjects such as falling in love and breaking up, making them socially inconsequential.
Warrant 2. Eminem focuses much of his music on exposing and critiquing the culture, such as in “Just Lose It” where he skewers hypocrisy by lampooning Michael Jackson.

Support C: He is a family man.
Warrant 1. Most pop music stars cannot sustain a stable familial relationship destroying the confidence their fans have in them (provide examples like Britney Spears).
Warrant 2. Eminem has a wife and a child, with whom he shares a committed relationship. This sends a subtle but powerful message to his fans, and they respect him for it.

Conclusion
Eminem got the attention of the masses by being funny, he also earned their respect by maintaining a stable family life. These, combined with the social criticism he embeds in his raps, make Eminem an influential artist.

You'll notice from the sample outline that the supports don't necessarily seem to support the thesis (Eminem is an influential artist). Why would being funny make someone influential? That is why I provided warrants. I needed to show how my support supported my thesis.

I provided a list of ten prompts about halfway through the class, asking you to pick two and write an outline for how you would argue it. If you were not here today, or if you need more practice (and you do), follow this link and make outlines using thesis, supports, warrants, and a conclusion.

PAWS, baby

It's time for a fast-breaking news story.

The reading and writing portions of the PAWS test will be taken by by the sophomores this year. Those who score a "proficient" or better won't have to take the PAWS test as juniors. This is a good thing as Mr. Limoges will doubtless be throwing big parties during the tests next year.

So, we are going to get ready for the test. I believe the majority of you, if you put your mind to it, will be able to pass the test just fine.

Thus, we will be spending the next month and a half learning how to outwit the PAWS test. Then we can get back to the literary criticism unit we so unceremoniously tabled to make room for this unexpected development.

Aristotle's Reply

As we talked about yesterday, Plato distrusted artists because they made imitations of imitations. However, he also distrusted poets (the main artists of his time). This was mainly because poets claimed that they were under the influence of “the muse" when they composed their works.



The muse was usually portrayed as a woman who brought inspiration to the artist. When the muse was doing her thing, the poets said that they were transported out of rationality, which led Plato to observe:

"... the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and then the mind is no longer in him.”

Being under the influence of the muse usually meant that the author wasn’t in the rational world, which really bugged Plato because above all, he revered rationality. In fact, most of his life was spent trying to convert his culture from founding its morality on stories about the gods to founding morality on abstract reason. One of the main reasons he did this was because Plato worried about what would happen if law-abiding people continually heard stories about people who were acting badly. He was afraid people would use those stories as an excuse to act badly themselves.

For example, Plato would probably condemn "The Odyssey" because, though Odysseus was a brave warrior, he was also sleeping around during his travels, despite the fact that his wife was going through a lot to keep the men away from her.

Thus, if poets can do anything good for society, it will be to tell stories that show people how to behave according to their social station and not rock the civic boat.



However Aristotle, one of Plato’s students, had a different idea. In his view, the poet wasn’t merely imitating the Forms. Nor was the poet telling people what had happened (like wars, political stuff, etc.). Rather the poets tell us what could be.

As Aristotle said, “Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history; for poetry tends to express the universal; history, the particular.”

Thus, in Aristotle's view, poets were actually creating something closer to the Forms than mortal reality.

So what made for good poetry? Actually, it was tragedy that Aristotle focused on most. The purpose of a good tragedy, he said, was to bring the audience to a moment of catharsis.

Catharsis is a term in drama that refers to a sudden emotional breakdown or climax that constitutes overwhelming feelings of great sorrow, pity, laughter or any extreme change in emotion that results in the restoration, renewal and revitalization for living. In other words, a purgation.

Aristotle judged the worth of art on how well it could initiate catharsis in its audience.

We watched two short films (The Competition and More - both of which you can watch by clicking on the titles) to see which stimulated greater catharsis in us.



The Competition was essentially made up of face shots of people sitting on a windy hillside. This went on for about three minutes until we found out that they were in a crying contest and had to drop three tears on their paper to win.



More was a stop motion animation about an alien-looking person who creates a pair of glasses that makes the world look colorful and happy. However, at the end of the film, despite his success, he is not happy.

The votes fell overwhelmingly to More. The main reason it produced more catharsis in us, we said, was because there were significant changes in the character and his circumstances throughout the film. He started sad, became happy, but then went back to sadness.

Aristotle would agree with this assessment. Seeing a character go through change is a great way to induce catharsis in an audience.

The Competition stayed at essentially the same level the entire film. Though the people were ostensibly sad (a good prerequisite for tragedy), we saw no change and therefore felt no catharsis. We did, however, enjoy the twist at the end.

Plato's Aesthetic Philosophy

When you critique a work or art, whether it be a painting, some music, or a passage of writing, you must have criteria on which to base your critique.

We started our exploration of criteria by learning how Plato (a philosopher born in Greece around 423 B.C.E.) formulated his criteria for what makes good or bad art.

Plato had a worldview that he described by using the metaphor of a cave.

We are like people who have been strapped to chairs, unable to move. We are sitting inside a cave staring at the back wall. On the back wall we we see shadows, which we think are reality.



If we could free ourselves we would see that the shadows are actually cast by two-dimensional cutouts, and we would perceive these shapes as being reality and the shadows as only imitations. However, if we found our way of the cave, we would find the cutouts were themselves only imitations of real, three dimensional objects. We would find out that there are real tables, chairs, and cats, and that the shadows we had once thought were reality were actually only shadows of imitations.

It's kind of like in the "Holiday In Vince" episode of Rex the Runt when Rex, Wendy, and Bad Bob get into Vince's brain through his ear. Once there, they find Vince and get into his brain through his ear. At the end of the episode, Rex, Wendy and Bad Bob think they've returned to the real world, but are in fact, still inside Vince's brain. Therefore, everything they perceive has been filtered from outside reality through Vince's abnormal brain.

Plato believed that outside the realm of our perception (or outside Vince's head) there is, in actuality, a reality that our earth is only an imitation of, like the cutouts. Outside our perception exist the ideals of objects and living things which Plato called "Forms." They are the perfect, ideal abstractions that our earth and everything we perceive on it, are only imitations of. Therefore, art is the shadows of the cutouts. So Plato wasn't too impressed with artists or poets. After all, they only made imitations of imitations.

To show why Plato may have believed in the world of the Forms, we talked about chairs.


We agreed that this was a chair. We defined a chair as having four legs, a place for your rear, and a back.


So is this a chair? It only has three legs. We decided it was a chair anyway and expanded our definition of chair to include three legs.


But what about this one? It has 10 legs. Still, everyone was willing to call this a chair because it met our criteria of having a place for your bum and a back. So we expanded our definition again to include ten legs.


But what about this one? Suddenly we have a chair with no feet. We're we still willing to call it a chair? Most of us were. After all, someone was sitting in it. Thus, we expanded our definition of chair yet further. It could now have between zero and ten legs.

This piece of furniture has a place to rest your bum. We're OK with it having no legs, but, it has no back. However, many of us were still willing to call it chair, thus expanding our definition yet again so that now a chair can have between zero and ten legs and have no back.


Therefore, this is a chair. It has a place for your bum, four legs and no back. The class usually protested calling this a chair. They claimed it was a television.


So I gave up and presented you with this chair. It has between zero and ten legs, a place for your bum and a back.

Plato leads us down this infuriating road to prove a point. When we talk about a chair, we're not talking about an actual object so much as chair-ness. When we define something as a chair, we're talking about how it fits on a scale of chair-like attributes. So the first picture of a chair would score high on the chair-ness scale, while the "television" and the contortionist would score lower on the scale, though they still have attributes of a chair.

The reason we recognize chair-like qualities in all these things is because, out there in the land of Forms, floats the abstract idealization of a chair which is embedded in our minds as a kind of memory. So when we see something chairish, we can discern its chair-like qualities.

So, according to Plato, we are all metaphorically strapped to chairs watching the shadow play on the wall. We do not know that the shadows are two steps removed from reality. But when we see something that stimulates our memory of a Form strongly, we call that good art.

Good art, therefore, is that shadow which most closely resembles the Form outside the cave.

Have You Seen This Man?

Today we watched a film called "Have You Seen This Man?"

It was about an artist named Geoff Lupo who goes around New York City hanging up hand-drawn fliers that offer to sell mundane items like a cracker or a thumbtack for 15 cents.

The film showed people actually calling him and buying the stuff. It even showed and art collector who had started to collect Lupo's work and resell it on the streets, becoming a kind of itinerant museum curator.

Most of us weren't sure what to think about Lupo's work, because it seemed that people weren't so interested in collecting his fliers as they were actually going through the process of buying the items. This weirded us out because we are used to thinking of art as something drawn or painted that we hang up in an art gallery or in our home.

Though Lupo's drawings were good, it wasn't the drawings themselves that seemed to attract people. Rather it was the mystery and the novelty of the situation he had set up with the fliers. Lupo had created an interesting story that people wanted to enter, even though they knew it was absurd.

We decided that Lupo's art wasn't so much drawing as it was dramaturgy (the theory and practice of drama). In a way, Lupo was a performance artist who invited people through his fliers to be in a small, unscripted play with him.

So it was the idea behind the artwork that intrigued people.

Most of us decided that Lupo's artwork could be described as good art if we judged it on its ability to get people to participate in his little plays. Others of us held that Lupo was simply a nut.

Good Art / Bad Art

Today we discussed what makes for good or bad art.

At the beginning of class I put up a painting by Franz Klein and asked if it was art. Opinion was divided on the question.



Those who thought it was art reasoned that it's an interesting piece that invites different interpretations. Others thought it used shapes and contrast in interesting ways. A few said that the novelty of the piece was intriguing. Others said that, even thought they didn't like the painting, they were willing to call it art, simply because anything painted by a person could be seen as being art.

In other words, they give credence to the idea that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

Those who thought it wasn't art reasoned that it looked as if it hadn't taken much time at all to make, and that art required time. It also seemed lacking in detail and craft.

Next I put up Michaelangelo's painting of Plato and Aristotle and asked if it was better art than Klein's piece.



Most of the class felt it was because it represented reality better, obviously took a lot of time, and showed great craftsmanship. We created a spectrum of art that ranged from "snore" on the bottom to "changed my life forever" at the top. Most students put Michaelangelo much higher up on the spectrum than they put Klein.

So, though most students were unwilling to say one painting or the other was not art, they were willing to put different art pieces on a spectrum. Which means that we must have some criteria for what differentiates better art from worse art. And this idea goes against the idea that beauty is completely in the eye of the beholder.

In the coming term we're going to be exploring what we can do to find our criteria for judging literature and establish it reasonably.

Ch -ch-ch-ch-changes

Today we talked about times when we feel like we actually learned something in an English class. The results of the discussion were quite illuminating.

We found that most students remembered learning something when in a 1 on 1 situation with a teacher. We also found that putting things to songs was helpful for memorization (Who wants to compose the logos, ethos, pathos song for us?), that practice was often helpful, and that using symbols, such as the ones in Framing Your Thoughts can help solidify concepts.

For the rest of the class we talked about an essay written by some students that critiqued my teaching methods.

We could tell that the authors were angry with me, but that they had done a good job keeping their ethos level-headed, which was much to their credit. We also noted that they did some research (for example, talking with Juniors and Seniors about what they had encountered in Sophomore English).

We gathered from reading their concerns that, in order to accommodate the authors better we should implement a little more discipline into the classroom, review basic concepts from time to time and make sure our work would prepare us well to enter Junior English next year.

I'm grateful that these students took the time to make their concerns known to me and hope the class becomes a more inclusive place for them.

Mind Metaphors

Today we talked about metaphors for the mind and what they might mean to a teacher and a student.

The mind is a muscle to be exercised:



We interpreted this metaphor to mean that when the mind is exercised on a particular function repetitively, it becomes stronger (i.e. more able to perform that function with less effort). This is the reason, we thought, why math teachers have us do so many repetitions of mathematical exercises.

The mind is a cavern to be illuminated:



One way we interpreted this metaphor was that there is possibly much already in the mind, and that our job is to discover what is already in there. Plato, in fact, thought this was true. All learning, to him, was remembrance.

A teacher who teaches by the cavern metaphor might be the kind who "gives us a light" or an opportunity to explore the reaches of our minds.

The mind is a cup to be filled.



This metaphor made us imagine that our mind can be filled with information from an outside source. as a pitcher fills a cup. However, this metaphor also suggests that the mind can be completely filled until there is no room left

The cup metaphor also made us wonder why information leaves our brains. Does it evaporate? Are our cups actually sieves? Also, what happens when a teacher dispenses information and we don't receive it? Is it the teacher's fault (being the pitcher) or the student's (being the cup)?

We decided that a teacher who worked by the cup method would tend to lecture a lot or insist that a student receive all his/her learning from a book.

The mind is a garden to be cultivated.



In order for a garden to grow, we said, many elements must combine: sunlight, water, air, seeds, soil, rain, etc. We thought that this could represent the variety of subjects and approaches we need in order to create a proper learning environment.

However, a garden doesn't tend itself. It needs a caretaker actively cultivating the garden. We decided that this cultivator isn't the teacher, it's the student. The teacher can bring seeds, fertilizer, etc. to the garden gates, but the student must do the work to make them grown.

We noted that the garden type teacher might be the kind that uses all of the mind metaphors: providing opportunities (the light in the cavern), information (pouring water into the cup), and exercise.

Writing Your Presentation

I've been talking about your projects with Superintendent Hillstead, and he in turn has been talking with the school board. They are all interested in reading what you have written up, so I am putting together a packet of your material for them.

The board has requested that we take 10-15 minutes to present our findings to to them this Wednesday. They are planning to make a decision on the 4.5 day week issue next month, so now is the perfect time to make our influence known.



As Shakespeare puts it: "Brevity is the soul of wit." What he means is that the shorter and more cogent you can make your presentation, the better. Thus, we will be condensing our papers to their very essence. Three sentences to be exact. You will present these sentences orally to the school board during their Wednesday meeting.

I have three structures that you may use if you're feeling at a loss.

Structure 1: Straight Argument

1. Use the first sentence to make your thesis clear. For example: "We should institute the 4.5 day school week because students from Mountain View will start coming here."

2. Use the second sentence to provide evidence supporting your thesis. For example: "In a survey I conducted, 80 percent of Mountain View students surveyed said they would prefer the 4.5-day school week over a block schedule."

3. Use the third sentence to sweeten the deal. For example: "As you all know, the more students we have, the more money the school district receives."

Structure 2: Problem/Solution

1. Use the first sentence to describe a problem. For example: "For the past few years, more students have transfered out of Lyman into Mountain View than the other way around causing Lyman's school district to lose money."

2. Use the second sentence to set up evidence that will lead to a solution. For example: "In a survey I conducted, 80 percent of Mountain View students surveyed said they would prefer the 4.5-day school week over a block schedule."

3. Use the third sentence to propose the solution and its benefits. "From this survey, we can see that instituting the 4.5-day school week is likely to attract more students to the district, thus increasing the district's financial resources."

Structure 3: Analogy

1. Use the first sentence to set up your analogy. For example: "Instituting the 4.5-day school week would be like winning the lottery, all kinds of money will come into the district."

2. Use the second sentence to set up your evidence. For example: "A survey I conducted showed that, of the Mountain View students surveyed, 80 percent preferred the 4.5-day week over the block schedule."

3. Use the third sentence to bring the analogy and evidence together. For example: "It's likely that students will start moving into the Lyman school district for the 4.5-day school week, and as we all know, the more students we have, the more money the district receives."

This assignment should be finished by the end of class. When you feel you are finished, call me over to look at it. When I approve it, please email it to me.


The school board meeting is scheduled for this Wednesday at 8 p.m. in the basement of the District Office.