Monday, February 13, 2012

Minimal Day: See chart below on this post.

Self-Starter:  Learn about using Informal Citation.

About research and essay -- Essay due by the end of class next time -- February 15.
informal citation -- Use three or more informal citations in your essay.  These will refer to the sources you used when you did research on the subject of your historical novel.

Research and Essay for Historical Fiction:    -- Due February 15. 
We will be in Lab 201 on Wednesday to FINISH the essays.  You should have your research done and be near to finishing when you come on Wednesday.  Bring your essay on a flash drive or have it saved on your student drive.


Book of the Month Essay for Historical Fiction.docx

Historical Fiction Essay Research.docx

Rubric for Historical Fiction Essay.docx

The essay will be graded based on your writing a complete essay, presenting your research on the background of your novel, using informal citation, and using seventh-grade-appropriate conventions.  

Sample for Historical Fiction Essay 

_________________________________

 Watch Video of Words By Heart

A1 got to Lena has found her father at Hawk's Hill, and he's telling her about what happened.

A2 got to  Claudie telling about the "white hats"

A3 got to before "before Mr. Starnes come, do you want to say goodbye?"

A4 got to where Lena had just taken Tater home.

Your spelling test on "mis-" will be on Friday, February 17.

Vocabulary/Spelling #11             Test on February 17, 2012

misprint

Prefix to study:   mis- which means incorrect, bad 

1. mistake
2. misprint
3. misplace
4. misinform
5. misuse

__________________________________

If you have not finished your book assessment from the 9th, finish it up during Cave Time on Tuesday or Thursday. 

This post originally published 2-9-12

Minimal Day

Time	Period	Minutes
8:15 – 9:15	1st Period	60 minutes
9:20 – 10:20	2nd Period/Announcements	60 minutes
10:20 – 10:45	First Lunch	25 minutes
10:50 – 11:50	3rd Period	60 minutes
10:25 – 11:25	3rd Period	60 minutes
11:25 – 11:50	Second Lunch	25 minutes
11:55 – 12:55	4th Period	60 minutes

Sample for Historical Fiction Essay

This essay was handed in early -- and received extra credit for that.

The commentary in brackets [  ] is added by the teacher.  I have not corrected the errors in conventions such as punctuation and word usage. 

Informal Citations are highlighted in this color.

The phrases highlighted in this color work as transitions between paragraphs.

Honus and Me

Brit W./A1

[Introduction]

            As you may know there are many great ballplayers today, but there may have been even greater ones in the past. In the book Honus and Me I was unsure while reading the book of what was real and what wasn’t real. I asked myself many questions while reading the book such as is Honus Wagner real? Did Honus Wagner really make card printing companies stop printing his card because of the cigarette advertisements on the back of it? Is Ty Cobb real? Did Honus Wagner really hit .354 in 1908 and win the batting title? Is Joe Stoshack real? These things and many more made me wonder what was real and what wasn’t ; but the author “Dan Gutman” really did a great job knowing what he was talking about.  [The rest of the essay will show that Dan Gutman got his historical facts right.]

            

[Body Paragraphs]

            In Honus and Me the main character, Joe Stoshack, meets Honus Wagner. From a SIRS Discoverer article it has said that Honus Wagner was real. Many call him the Flying Dutchman. Most experts even said he was the all around best ballplayer ever. He was born on February 24, 1874, in what is now Carnegie. His name was John Peter Wagner. He was an outstanding shortstop and he also played other positions such as pitcher.

            I soon found out that when Dan Gutman said that Honus made the card printing companies stop printing his card that he was right. In a Wikipedia article it says that he really did make them stop printing it, and because of this and the fact that he was so great it made the price of the card now much higher. It is currently worth over $451,000. There were only 50 cards printed until he stopped the printing companies.

            In the book when they play in the World Series against the Detroit Tigers Honus faces Ty Cobb or as they say “The Great Cobb.” I found out in the Baseball Almanac Website Ty Cobb is a real person. He was born on Saturday, December 18, 1886, in Narrows, Georgia.  At 18 years old he joined the Detroit Tigers. Ty Cobb played for 24 years with the Tigers.

            I also found out that all the stats in the book were true. In a SIRS Discoverer article Honus Wagner did hit .354 in 1908. He batted .300 or more for 17 seasons in a row. Also he not only won the National  League Batting title one time, but he has gotten it 8 times! Honus also became one of the first five elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

            In the book a boy named Joe Stoshack goes back in time to meet Honus Wagner. Time travel obviously isn’t real but I found that Joe Stoshack is not real either. He was made purely for the benefit of making this book exciting for the reader and an enticing background all making making it historical fiction.

[Concluding Paragraph] 

            This book really taught me a lot that was true. Even though Joe was not real it still taught many lessons and things to me. In this book Honus tells Joe that he has the tools to be a great ballplayer. Later on Joe hits an inside the park homerun in the world series. It showed that it doesn’t matter what you look like you can still do great things you just have to believe you can. Honus also taught that you shouldn’t play baseball for money, but for the love of the game.

 [Brit's concluding paragraph tells about a theme and a topic in the book.  It would be better if he stuck to his idea that the author really did include true historical facts and did a good job mixing them with his fictional story, and leave most of the discussion of theme and other ideas presented in the book to a different essay, or to his assessment on February 9th, when you all will write about theme in your books.  This is still a well-done and very interesting essay! Thanks, Brit!]

A Few Transitional  Words and Phrases

Transition Word List from Ms John.doc

More about transitions:   http://www.studygs.net/wrtstr6.htm

Informal Citation 2012

 

Informal Citation 2012

Reliable Sources
 Something interesting to know: 
What about bias?  This article gives information about the bias found on various news sources.  http://www.businessinsider.com/what-your-preferred-news-outlet-says-about-your-political-ideology-2014-10

What do you mean by an "informal citation"? 
    You use an informal citation when you tell right in the same sentence with the fact where you got that fact.   

Example: 

I learned on a web site for the Buxton Historic Museum that the community of Elgin (Buxton) was founded in 1849, and that there are still descendants of those original settlers living there now.


The red part above is the "informal citation."
Here's a works cited entry to go with it (though with your 2012 assignment, you don't need to prepare a works cited list):

Gardner, Lori. "BUXTON WEB EXHIBITS." BUXTON HISTORIC MUSEUM. Buxton National Historic Site and Museum, Nov. 2009. Web. 23 Nov. 2009.


Another Example:  
According to Ms. Dorsey on our class blog, you should link each fact you use on your project to an entry in your works cited list. 


Works Cited entry :   With your 2012 assignment, you don't need to prepare a works cited list.
Dorsey, Claudia E. Web log comment. Caveman English. Claudia E. Dorsey, 23 Nov. 2009. Web. 23     Nov. 2009.

You should use informal citation for each fact you find for sources other than your novel. 

Utah State Core 7th Grade Language Arts, Standard 3, Objective 2d.  Use informal contextual citation. (Example: “Gary Paulsen says he gets his ideas
from…”)

According to the Mantor Library Information Literacy Program,
"Informal citation gives credit to the author or creator by reference. With informal citation, you
identify the source of the information, but do not provide a full citation. It should be used for
visual presentations (Power Point or poster presentations) or oral reports as a way to give credit
to the sources of the information you use without being too cumbersome or disrupting the flow of
your presentation. An example of citing informally is use of a signal phrase that precedes factual
information, such as: “According to the U.S. State Department,...” Informal citation can also be a
reference to the author or creator and a particular date or event to more clearly pinpoint the
source of the information, such as: “At the 2000 Symposium for Plant Biotechnology, Swiss
biologist Florianne Koechlin stated…”"     (http://library.umf.maine.edu/handouts/UsingWebInfo.pdf)

Begin with INFORMAL Signal Phrases:

• cite source within a sentence
• add quotations to quotes
• paraphrase requires citation too
• best practice for conversation skills
• if helpful, introduce source’s occupation or background

Examples of informal citation and signal phrases:
Fitness guru Roberta Green says, “Eat lots of broccoli!”

On the Weather Channel, global warming is taken seriously.

President Bush believes the war in Iraq is winnable.

“Go home!” Manuel screamed to the neighbor’s mutt.

According to acclaimed teacher therapist Dr. Feelgood...

The New York Times reports......

a White House spokesperson shared in late 2010 ...

. . . appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine in May 2010

. . . explains the author about her work  

According to. . . . , the sponsor of . . . .website, . . . .

The website. . . .  .(give the name of the site) reports that. . . .

Molly Billings, on the website "Human Virology at Stanford,"  explains that. . . .

 

Phrases for Informal Citations

Informal Citations -- Some of the Phrases You Could Use

according to
as reported by
as stated in
affirms that
agrees that
asserts that
validates
as you could read in
[name of person/author] states in [name of source] that. . .
[name of person/author] , an expert on [the subject], says that . . .
[name of person/author, the author of . . . , writes. . . (or wrote that. . . )
reports that
says that
In found in [name of source] that. . .