For anyone needing computer time this coming week, Mr. Tucker will have the English Lab open for you after school on Wednesday and Thursday for one hour. Obviously, you are responsible for your transportation home.
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Today, most of you are in the library (some on the Chromebookies) to work on your research project. I have been working to get most of your drafts back to you. I have dropped a .pdf file in your Paper Drafts section of your OneNote notebook. I apologize if I have missed anyone, so please let me know. If it is due to my error, I'll get it remedied ASAP. If it is due to yours, time will dictate when it gets remedied. Here are some reasons why you may not have gotten back a paper:
-You did not send me a .pdf file. (Some of you sent links to a GoogleDoc.) -You sent me a file, but its name contained neither your period number nor your name. (I have 78 juniors--there is no way I can keep your papers straight without names.) -You never sent me a link to your OneNote notebook, as instructed. A few sent me a link but did not give me edit permission. -I never got anything from you at the email address provided. -You turned it in late. It takes 10-15 minutes for me to go through a paper. That averages out to almost 20 hours for me to read your papers and jot some feedback on them. If you did not turn yours in on the due date, it was on the bottom of the to-read list. Yes, I'm still going through papers and will continue to do so over the weekend. A Note About Section 1: * You are supposed to discuss three external factors that can hinder a person's attainment of success. Each one of those needs at least one full paragraph devoted to explaining and exploring it. Each should contain info/data from your research. * An illness is not really a good choice for one of these. There are many other options that are more likely to make being successful difficult. MANY of you have mentioned sickness/illness and devoted a sentence or two to it. No one has discussed the skyrocketing cost of college. * Again, this is not a rattle off a string of opinions paper. It is a research paper. It MUST use facts/data from your research. It must cite those sources. * You are also supposed to discuss three internal factors that affect whether or not a person is successful. Again, each of those should have at least one full paragraph devoted to its discussion. * These six things are the FOCUS of section 1--NOT your personal philosophy of what success should mean to society or a history lesson on The American Dream. Some of you devoted three or four paragraphs to one or both of these things. Today you will have most of the period to type in the English Lab. We have a handout, however, that you must complete as homework and bring to class tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon, all juniors at BGHS will be taking the required On-Demand test. We have already talked about the test and done a little practice for it in class. Please read the handout and fill out the other side of it. (You aren't writing an actual essay--just jotting down some details and an outline.)
Anyway, back to the research project. Remember, this is NOT a personal opinion essay. Some of you have just rambled on for several paragraphs with personal philosophy pulled straight from your head. Obviously, personal opinion is an element of the paper, but it is not the sole foundation of it! This is especially true for Section 1, but applies to Section 2 as well. For the most part, your opinion/commentary MUST be backed up with data/facts that you found through research. If you don't use any research in your paper, then it is NOT a research paper! (And will be graded accordingly.) Make a statement or share an opinion AND BACK IT UP WITH PROOF. Example: If you tell a friend that Barack Obama is the greatest president in the past 100 years, you'd better be prepared to cite facts/proof to back up that claim. If you tell a sports fan that the University of Kentucky is the most corrupt program in the nation, you'd better have some facts you can state to back up that claim. If you are going to make a comment to a group of people that the problem of police brutality has been greatly exaggerated by the media and the internet, you had better have some data to support that claim. If you are going to tell Mr. Tucker that he is the worst teacher ever, then you need to share specific examples that back that up and support it as fact. -In your paper, if you state that college expenses have skyrocketed, you need to back up that claim. WHERE IS THE PROOF? Well, the proof is in your research. SHARE IT!!!!!! -If you share your opinion that public school principals are in high demand, include some actual data to prove it. Looking up lots of information does not get you a grade. USING that information does. No data shared, no research happened. No research, not a research paper. Not a research paper, no passing grade for research paper. Dig??? We have changed the due date of the research project to Friday, May 22. Also, we have added this Friday as an extra lab day.
3rd and 4th Periods: Do NOT forget about your paperback book that you are required to purchase. A big part of your final exam will be over this book, so choosing not to read it will have a significant negative impact on your grade! Click HERE for the details, in case you forgot. Today we are in the English Lab. You have the period to work. IF you turned in your section draft on Friday, then you can retrieve a reviewed copy of it by logging into your OneNote folder and going to the Paper Drafts section. It should be saved in there. Open it, look over any notes/marks on it, and proceed with revision. (It may help to have your screen split with the PDF document and the working draft side by side.) If you do not have the draft in your section, then you probably did not submit it last Friday or you have not shared your notebook with Mr. Tucker.
On many of your papers, I commented to check out the Comma Rules post on this blog. Just scroll down this page to the May 9 entry, and there it is. They are numbered 1-7 for easy reference. Here is some general feedback about common issues seen with Section 2, which is what most of you turned in: -You must make reference to specific facts/information. Several of you just discussed your personal feelings about a career path. You need to include specific information. Salary, education fees, job demand data, etc. -If you mention debt from student loans or from business loans, you must mention how long it will likely take to pay those loans off. -Most of you gave a brief overview of what your chosen career does, but you need to also go into more detail in a following paragraph with a more detailed look at the typical workday in that profession. A reader should feel like he has a solid grasp of the what someone with that job does after reading this section. Yes--part of Section 2 is providing a career profile of the career you have focused on. Don't just mention it. -You can take a paragraph to mention your plans regarding spouse, kids, hobbies, etc. Do NOT make a whole paper about this! All along, you have been instructed to keep track of your sources. With a research paper, you MUST tell where you got any information that you make reference to in the text. In English classes, people usually use the MLA In-Text Citation style of identifying where you got your information. A research paper without any real research is, well, not a research paper. A research paper with research findings that are mentioned but the author doesn't tell exactly where that info came from is, well, plagiarized. * You have already been told that the last page(s) of you project will be a works cited page. This is simply an alphabetical listing (by author's last name) of all the different sources used/referenced in your paper. There is a very specific way to write out the needed information from each source. (Most of the papers you write in college will require some method of citation.) The easiest way to follow the correct MLA citation format is to use the web site www.easybib.com. * The part that may be new to some of you is in-text citation. When you are using info from a source, directly or indirectly, then at that spot in the paper you need to indicate whose information that is. You have a listing of all your sources on the works cited page already, so all you do within the paper, at those spots, is write the author's last name, as well as a page number, if from a book or article. You put that info in parenthesis. Additional info HERE. Today's video can be found HERE. You will probably have to download first.
Below are some basic rules for common comma usage. This is a "user friendly" version of some rules, so don't quote them on a college level English exam. They are written to be quick, helpful references, so view them as such.
RULE #1: Use a comma to separate introductory words/phrases from the rest of the sentence. Examples: Well, I had no idea that was your pineapple. In the future, please ask before borrowing my toothbrush. After swooping gracefully, the falcon flew away with Mrs. Laird's poodle. Near the end of the third grade, Janet discovered that her baby brother was actually a Finnish spy. RULE #2: Use a comma to separate two complete thoughts that are joined together in one sentence (with a conjunction, of course.) Examples: The cake is on the counter, and it is not for you. William is the tallest boy at school, but he is not interested in playing basketball. Kentucky is known for its great college basketball programs, and it is the birthplace of Billy Ray Cyrus. RULE #3: Use a comma when giving additional information in a sentence. Examples: Mr. Veenker, our city's mayor, was featured in today's newspaper. Our class visited Frankfort, the state's capitol, for our yearly field trip. RULE #4: Use a comma when listing a series of three or more things. Examples: Tammy found a quarter, a paper clip, and half an Oreo under the chair's cushion. Please bring a hat, sunglasses, and sun block on tomorrow's visit to the zoo. RULE #5: Use a comma between two adjective that don't have "and" between them. Examples: Gina found a small, brown puppy in the old barn. The hungry moose stalked the hikers along the steep, narrow trail. RULE #6: Use commas with dates and places. Examples: On March 20th, 1768, George Washington was cut from the Miami Heat, ending his brief NBA career. The Turners moved to Boise, Idaho, after Mr. Turner received a promotion. RULE #7: Use a comma when making a direct address in a sentence. Victor, where did you buy that snazzy sweater? Come here, Harold, and hold this patient down. Let's eat, Grandma. It isn't a foolproof method of deciding where to use commas, but it is usually a safe bet to read a sentence aloud. If you pause briefly in the sentence in one or two places, it's a good bet that commas are supposed to be there. Obviously, there are more rules when it comes to commas, but this is an accessible list of common comma issues put together for your quick reference. For some more in-depth comma help, look HERE. Today you are on the computer all period, having the opportunity to work on your research project. Remember, a complete draft of one of your two sections is due today. (Technically, due tonight.) Rather than printing your draft, I want you to send it to me as a PDF file. Some of you have switched accounts, for some reason, that you use to log into OneNote. Some never shared properly in the first place. Many of you have done what you were supposed, but I'm adding an extra step today to ensure that everyone has taken care of biz. 1.) You are going to export your complete draft as a PDF file. If you have no idea how to do that, some screenshots below will help you out. Just save it to your desktop for the moment, if you don't know where else to save it. You MUST save the file with your class period, first initial, last name as the file name. (For example, mine would be 2jtucker.pdf) 2.) Open a new message on whatever email service you prefer at the moment. Type [email protected] as the send-to address. Type period number, first initial, last name as the subject. 3.) Attach your PDF file to the message. 4.) Copy and paste the share link to your OneNote Junior English notebook into the message of the email. (I apologize again for those who have done so previously and correctly, I just want to make sure I have a link for everyone done correctly, and this was easier than calling people out one by one.) If you still don't know how to share according to our instructions, that two step process is listed at the bottom of this post again. 5.) Click send. Export your draft as a PDF: From GoogleDocs- From OneNote- From MS Word- Click on File in upper left of screen If you are using some other method to type and can't figure it out, ask Mr. Tucker for help. For those of you who need to double check that you know how to share your notebook correctly, here is how to do so from the web version of OneNote: Click on Share at the top of the screen. It's in purple--how appropriate. Select Get a Link. Select the Edit option, then click on Shorten Link. Copy and paste that link into your email message. For the 30th time this year: If you select Invite People, I will hit delete.
Today we are in the classroom using the ever popular ChromeBooks. You have the whole period to work on the research project. Remember, before leaving school tomorrow, you must turn in the draft for either of your sections. It does not have to be polished-finished, but it must be complete.
Some of you are more tech-skilled than others. I apologize up front about the ChromeBooks--unless you sell your soul to Google, they can be a challenge because they don't actually run any programs. IF you are not typing your paper in GoogleDocs, you need to make sure you are saving it to some other form of cloud storage. DropBox, OneDrive, etc. Also, you can type directly in OneNote if you'd like, though, which is maybe the easiest solution to cope with ChromeBook limitations. (You already have a section in your notebook called "Paper Drafts"!) Anyway, you can just type your draft in OneNote if you like. Your research notes are just a tab away, so maybe that makes the most sense. Since OneNote does just about everything except walking the dog, there is an option to export pages as documents, which you can do later on. Anyway, work it up today! Typing a paper directly into OneNote can be an easy answer to working on the web, especially when on the sell-us-your-soul Chromebook device. As mentioned in class before, if you are familiar with GoogleDocs and like it, use it. If not, use something else. Since you already have all your notes/resources saved in OneNote, the easiest solution for those not choosing GoogleDocs might be to just type directly into OneNote. You have a section named Paper Drafts, so there you go. When it comes time to put the finishing touches on your paper and print, it will be necessary to open your document in Microsoft Word (desktop version) because Section 1 must be in columns. GoogleDocs and other online word processing sites are very limited with options, and formatting text into columns is not one of them. If you are typing in OneNote, the same is true. Fortunately, opening a OneNote page in Word is pretty straightforward. Here you go: 1. Go to the OneNote page you want to open in Word. (If currently using the web version of OneNote, before moving to step 2, you will need to first open it in the desktop version.) 2. Click on File, located in the upper left section of your screen. 3. On the menu bar, select Export. Then choose Word Document. Then click the Export button that's at the bottom of those options. |
Mr. Tucker
English Teacher, BGHS
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