1/31/18

Today we continued to discuss the SOAPSTone formats, using the red and yellow squares. This is the chart we used to convey this in class today.

Speaker		Speaker
Occasion		Occasion
Audience		Audience
Purpose		Purpose
Subject		Subject
Tone		Tone

We discussed the moral and ethical reasons for gun ownership, we also discussed reason and purpose for argument. We talked about Moore’s credibility, and how SOAPSTone can help us determine whether or not he is an unbiased source. We discussed credibility research by SOAPSTone-ing the two people, James Nichols and Michael Moore. We discussed how they would hold more weight. We ended with combining the two claims in a way that would discredit or lessen one or the other.

Find the difference

Michael Moore claims that it's too easy to buy a gun in Michigan  (Descriptive)

It's too easy to buy a gun in Michigan  (Argumentative)

Moore

S-NRA Member, from Mich

O- After court, Documentary

A- the youth, people uneducated about gun laws

P- to make J. Nichols seem unreliable, to show how guns are too easy to obtain

S- Guns, bombing, revolts

Tone- deceptively laid back.

James Nichols

S- Gun rights advocate, presumed crazy, brother of OKC bomber

O- Asked to speak in a documentary, on his farm.

A- Speaking to the people watching the documentary, as well as the government, and anti-gun people

P- To make people understand his point of view on weapons regulation

S- Gun ownership, gun laws and restrictions

T- Crazy, creepy, unnerving, radical

On the Classroom stream, we posted our descriptive claims, and picked an MVP, allowing us to discuss how specific they are. These were my claims, check our class feed for the ones posted by classmates.

James Nichols believes every person should have a gun, and that the only regulation should be on nukes.

Michael Moore claims the government should have more strict firearm regulation

1/30/18

Today we talked about Implicit vs Explicit Claims, SOAPSTone, Nichols’ VS Moore’s claims, discussing how the viewpoints differ, mostly about Nichols and how he was crazy, compared to Moore. We discussed how Moore portrays people in a way that makes them seem less credible, using different conversation and tactics to make them seem like they are making fools of themselves. This allows Moore to connect with his audience better by making them believe he is right. Using these tactics, Moore created a convincing argument in his documentary, bringing more people to his point of view.
This can be applied to the real world by committing quick SOAPSTone assumptions, we can analyze the people around us and determine their credibility. By determining their credibility, it allows us to work on points that can bring people over to our side of an argument. Convincing others to change their argument can cause new melded viewpoints to be put in play. This allows a new way to convince audiences of a speaker's purpose, by conveying a new perception of the subject. These are all aspects of the SOAPSTone format we used.


These are the charts we made in class, this might give some insight into how we went about determining the credibility of Nichols and Moore using the SOAPSTone technique.

S- James Nichols

O- Farm in Michigan, for a documentary, after OK City Bombing

A- Non-Radicals, Moore

P- To prove he isn't crazy, to explain and warn

S- OKC Bombing, Gov Tyranny

T- Passionate, Aggressive, Ominous, Creepy, Defensive

S- Michael Moore

O- Farm in Michigan, for a documentary, after OK City Bombing

A- Viewers, Nichols

P- To show how crazy he is, and how his anarchist views are dangerous, especially since he has a gun

S- OKC Bombing, Govt, Why whackos shouldn't have guns

T- Ironic, Condescending,

1/25/2018

1/28/2018
Today in class we continued watching Bowling For Columbine. We had to come up with two more claims for today. One for Michael Moore and one for another character for the show. We learned today watching the film that Michael set the film up in a way that wasn't harsh. We watched and heard phone calls from the high school shooting. Later after watching the tragedy and loss of innocent people we learned how Colorado had changed. With the way the treat high scholars and even younger. They told us how kids were suspended from school because of no harm or ridiculous reasoning. The main reasoning of Bowling For Columbine is Michael Moore is trying to show how gun violence can turn extremely worse by the second. Also, how Columbine is a sad tragedy that should have never happened.

Wednesday, January 24

Today in class we continued watching the documentary "Bowling for Columbine". We were introduced to many new people (or subjects?) and we were able to make connections and observations. One of the big things we looked at was background and lighting, and why Michael Moore chose specific things. Typically we came up with "discredits subject" as the reasoning behind it, but we also went into detail about questions Moore asked and specific frames shown during the answers. We created our first claims on google classroom also.
It is important to watch documentaries, but especially ones like Bowling for Columbine. That is because gun control is such an important topic today and as we near voting age, it is important we are educated in this matter as our future and our children's future could be incredibly impacted by the decision our generation makes on this issue.

1/24/2018

1/24/2018
Today in class we had a relaxed day. We watched the film Bowling For Columbine for the whole period. We paused a few times to discuss someones upbringing. For homework we had to come up with a claim for Michael Moore's point of view and another person from the film. Besides that we did not do much in class besides study Bowling For Columbine.

1/23/18

Today in class we went over the essay we will begin structuring.  It will be an argumentative research essay based off of a documentary 5-6 pages long.  We have to find a documentary for Monday and watch it by next Friday.  Over the next month we will have individual due dates to keep us on track and the final paper will be due March 1st.  We then went over Binary and Inadequate topics for arguments.  Binary are a more staple two sided argument while inadequate is a more complicated argument.  Inadequate is what will be helpful to write the essay because it will fully explain what is being argued along with allowing a grey area to be seen so it isn't bias. Finding gradients will allow your claims to be sophisticated.  At the end of class we were told that we will be finding two claims for the documentary we are watching in class each day we watch it. 

Film by Moore 1/24/18

Today in class we opened the class by being introduced to next year courses such as tomorrows teachers provided by Mrs. Kopp.  This is a course you are able to take if you are interested in working with kids at all in your future and college credits can be learned along with many valuable skills involving children of all ages.  We then began to watch the documentary by Michael Moore about the shooting of Columbine. While watching we have to make two claims for the part we watch, so each day we watch we will do this. Different strategies were provided to us while watching, one being just listening to what was being said in the documentary, analyzing it, and then watching what is filmed while we listen. This allowed us to pick apart the different tactics being used which will help us while we are watching our documentary to write our essay. One claim that I found that a character Moore was interviewing was, Other Person’s Claim: If you don’t have a gun you are not doing your duties as an American citizen to protect yourself and your family. Many of the people he had talked to was very anti-government. People were also saying nonsense and just things that didn't make sense at all, and they thought they were 100% right no doubt about it. We then ended the class by finishing our claims and submitting them to the classroom.

Bowling for Columbine 1/22/18

Today we talked about how we will soon have to start a research paper on a documentary of our choice. We took a look at documentary "Bowling for Columbine" to see what Micheal Moore was arguing in his documentary and, to serve as inspiration for what documentary's we were going to pick, Before we saw that we first talked about tactics for connecting to an audience. To connect to a a specific audience, your topic is either binary or gradient, most likely and preferably, your topic should a gradient because a gradient topic is a that people can partially support. If they like what your saying, but don't support all of it that is a gradient topic. An example being if a friend ask's you "Hey do you like Wendy's?" and you say "yes I love their burgers just not their chili." for you that would be a gradient topic. Binary topics are topics that just black and white either you agree or you don't agree, yes or no. Like saying "Do you like bowling?" if you say no, that's it end of story. The reason why gradient topics are better is because they have more to talk about. They're more "meaty" than binary, say we go back to the question I asked before about Wendy's, so if you like everything about Wendy's but the chili binary topics dictate you have to hate Wendy's because you don't like their chili. I guess what you could learn from this is the right topics to bring up and to breakdown, why binary topics are kind of one sided and that you should go with gradient topics because they can procure better themes than what binary topics can. Other than today was a productive day and we will be continuing with "Bowling for Columbine" tomorrow.

1/23/2018

1/23/2018
Today we continued with the difference between binary and gradient. We talked about how binary is one of the other. For example, Chipotle or Taco Bell. Also, the gradient is different varieties of an agreement. For example, favorite restaurant. Mr. Rivers gave us four claims which in our groups we had to discuss the similarities of statements. The first claim was gun laws should be more stringent like they are in New Jersey. The last claim was the government has no right to restrict access to guns. We compared the two saying that both talk about specific opinion. After going over those claims Mr. Rivers told us about our research paper. We went over the information on classroom. After we listened to Ronan's screencast. We worked on finding a perfect documentary until the end of class.

Monday, January 22

Today's class was a bit of a continuation of Friday's class. We were able to look at the beginning of a documentary called Bowling for Columbine, which showcased how easy it was to obtain a gun in the state of Michigan. Granted, the documentary was shot in 2002, but it is still a relevant topic today. In the clip we saw, the host sees a bank ad advertising a free gun if you open up a bank account with them. The host visits this bank and opens an account. The audience is brought through the process of getting the gun, which was completing a brief background check. After watching the short clip we were asked to determine the host's purpose, tactics, and audience. We concluded that the purpose was to show how easy it is to get a gun, tactics were showing the leniency of the background check, the simplicity of it all, and the unbelievable questions the host asked. He asked for both questions shown in the clip to be clarified, and he made it clear that he could easily lie on the background check . Finally, we determined the audience was the general public, specifically those who feel strongly about guns and gun control. We were also asked to start thinking about a documentary to base our research papers on. The papers have not been formally introduced to us yet.

In a real life setting it is very important to be able to understand and comprehend information given through a documentary. It is important we know why certain things or actions are shown in these documentaries so we can best form our own opinions and make contributions to our society. Especially today when social media and documentaries are on the rise in popularity.

January 16th, 2018

Today in class we watched some of our classmates' screencasts and responded to them as characters from the book. We were all given 2 note cards and told to write our names on the backs of both. These note cards were then randomly distributed in the class, and whoever's note card we received would be the screencast we watched. We also got two additional note cards, so we can choose two people's screencast's and watch/respond to them as well. It was really interesting to see everyone's song choice and how they related them to the book. It allowed for us as students to better understand our classmates and see The Great Gatsby from a different perspective.

Throughout our lives, social media has become an extremely important source for news, careers, communication, and so much more. Videos are a large component of social media, and it is vital that we,  as young adults, can interpret and understand videos and other opinions for the rest of our lives. Today's class was a great learning experience for this and allowed students to get to know each other better through their song choice.

Screencastify 1/11/18

For the past few days in class we have been working on our Thematic Screencast project. The Thematic Screencast project is linking a theme from The Great Gatsby to a song that we chose. The class has been provided with www.khamihq.com to help us annotate the lyrics from the song and passages from the Great Gatsby. This way it is easier to download for the screencast. We have also been provided with the link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/screencastify-screen-vide/mmeijimgabbpbgpdklnllpncmdofkcpn?hl=en for the screencast portion of the project. To find a theme from The Great Gatsby, find topics that repeatedly was shown in the book. On google classroom, there are many examples sown by Mr. Rivers.

My project is focused towards Gatsby's endless love for Daisy. I found different passages that show the obstacles in between Gatsby and Daisy and how they try to overcome them. The song I chose reflects on a love that is forbidden, which I compared to Gatsby's obstacles to being with Daisy (Tom).

This is project is able to help students connect any book with different songs. We are able to dig deeper in any kind of text, not only a book. Also this helps us better understand themes and how to create them through reading.

Thematic Screencast cont. 1/11/18

Today in class Mr. Rivers went over the fact that we will not be in class tomorrow due to a guidance meeting talking about our schedules for next year. Mr. River really encouraged us to talk to some of the seniors to see what classes they like and to get their perspectives on things. He also said that it will help you in the long run if you start talking to the teachers who teach a specific class you are interested in taking. He continues to say that it would be very beneficial to get an idea on what you would be learning next year. He goes on to say that this can relate to the Great Gatsby by different perspectives. For example, he said if you were to ask someone who is failing a class they might have more of a negative tone towards the class rather then someone who is getting good grades. I think that is really important to know because if you want to take a class but someone say its a bad class because of their experience might limit you and your knowledge. After he was done explaining the plan for tomorrow he went on to say that the project we've been working on is due Friday at 11:59. He gave us an extension because of how good we worked in class today. He also went over the stuff we need to include on google classroom which is your annotations of both the book and the song, he wants us to have the two claims and also the synthesis claim. Then he wants us to have the screencastify link so he will be able to listen to our project.  Today I didn't face any problems with my project I was just really focused on getting my script done and recording either tonight or tomorrow. Mr. Rivers also urged us to ask any questions that we had today because we will not be in class tomorrow. He also asked us come see him or Mrs. Carroll if we have any technical problems with screencastify. He made it pretty clear that he would not answer any questions on Friday night about technical things.

This can relate to the outside world because like I said yesterday we could be asked to do this in college and just to have the experience and the knowledge on how to work this stuff is beneficial. It is also very important to not sound like a robot in the real world so this can be helpful in sounding normal and natural. 

Thematic Screencast cont. 1/10/18

So today in class Mr. Rivers went over the rubric. He went into depth with it and said that we needed to have a song theme, book theme, and then lastly a synthesis claim. With these three things getting graded it went even more into depth and it states that you will be graded on "claim is specific and clear" (well develop). He went on to say that the themes should have 2 pieces of evidence and that they will be graded individually too. The rest of the rubric talks about the introduction and the conclusion and if it is clear and easily understood. The next part of the rubric is about annotations (video) and this is basically just shows that there is no yellow text or 8 size font. The annotations needs to be clear and has to be a close reading to the text. The next part you will be graded on audio, this means he doesn't want to be listening to a robot. He wants it to sound natural and not like you are reading from a script (kind of like monotone). After he went over that he allowed us to keep working on our projects. Today I worked on my synthesis claim so I can get it checked with Mr. Rivers. I started off saying "Although both texts show the characters going through their differences, there are some similarities throughout each text." I asked him if this was a good claim and he said that I had a good structure I just needed to be more specific with "differences and similarities." So taking that into consideration I was able to make a really good claim that looks like this "Although both texts show the characters going through a heartbreak, Fitzgerald's text shows how one lies to forget about the past and has a more traumatic ending." With my new claim I was able to convert differences to how the endings were in each the text and the song but I was also able to show that in the novel Gatsby lies about his past to escape from it and in my song it didn't do that. For the similarities I changed it to a heartbreak because both in the text and in the song they each have some kind of relationship problem and they show it by the word choice and how it affected them.

Using a thematic screen cast can help you in the long run if you want to go in broadcasting , you can get an idea on how to make your script more natural and not sound like a robot. But most importantly you can use this in colleges and if your professor tells you to do a podcast you will already have the experience.

Thematic Screencasts!!! 1/9/18

Today in class Mr. Rivers briefly went over how to do the project again. He explained how to set up your script meaning your introduction, conclusion, and how to integrate evidence. After he was done lecturing he allowed us to work on our projects. I struggled a lot with this project because I was absent for a week and I didn't know what you guys were learning. But I managed to figure it out with some help from the teachers and classmates. I struggled the most with making my themes because I wasn't here when you had that lesson but not only that I've always struggled with that. I also had a hard time revising my theme and how to make it more elaborate. But with the help from Mr. Rivers and Mrs. Carroll, I was able to figure out how to use words to make my theme more specific. For example, in one of my themes I said "A heartbreak tragically affects the way life plays out" but what I did to make it more specific was that I changed "heartbreak" into "decisions". By doing this it allowed me to have a more specific theme however it was still too vague. Since I was stuck I had asked Mr. Rivers for help and he told me for "the way life plays out" to change it to something more elaborate and say what changes tragically in a life. It had me thinking about the song I picked and it explains that the guy singing the song was cheated on making him having trust issues in the long run. My revised theme for my song ended up being "Decisions that are made in a relationship can tragically affect one's trust issues." Although, this theme is good I believe when I start finding evidence for my theme I can make it even more specific.

I believe that knowing how to write a good theme will help you in the long run because in college you will need to know how to do it. It is also important to know how to expand it using "who, what, where, how, why."

Themes and Such 1/2/18

Today was a short day will a very short class time. Class lasted only for about twenty five minutes but managed to make the most out of it. We started off by moving all of our seats with the new chart River's made from the the surveys we took two weeks ago. We then went on with a little refresher on themes and topics, like what they are and what the difference is between the two. Rivers had us come up with some topics on our own, then he went over the last line of the Great Gatsby and told use to create a few themes about the last line using the topics we came up with. Other than that it was just a short day of discussion and some note taking here and there. What learning about themes and topics gives to us is the ability to come up with topics and themes of our own not just for what we read but we create, and knowing about themes helps to identify them in a text and to speculate the theme in a text. Now that we finished the Great Gatsby we can go back and all the messages and themes Fitzgerald tries to point out to his readers. Other than that if you were absent you didn't miss much just twenty five minutes of a refresher and a few lines of notes, and some new seats.

Blog 1/2/18

The focus for today's class was to be able top interpret symbols in a text and then be able to develop specific real world themes from those symbols. We started our class by going over a few general thematic myths that people typically think are true and why those certain beliefs were wrong/myths. There were three that we went over, they were: 1. There is only one singular theme for a text (wrong: there can be many); 2. A theme must be a lesson (wrong: it doesn't have to be a lesson); 3. A theme can be one word long  (wrong: A theme cannot be one word long because it would be a topic). The last myth that we went over set the tone for the rest of the lesson, which would be a discussion about the differences between themes and topics. We first analyzed a excerpt from the end of the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald when Nick Carraway, "So we beat on, boats against the current back ceaselessly into the past.", and the class came up with four main topics out of this quote. Our topics were; the past, determination, perseverance, and time. Mr. Rivers then said that in order to get a theme, think about how two topics overlap/relate and that will be a theme. Then, every group came up with a general theme for this one excerpt. My groups theme was, "Mans eternal struggle to not fall back into the mistakes of them past". Today's lesson relates to the real world through the evident appearance of themes and topics in book, TV shows, movies, etc. In almost every single medium of daily life in the 21st century, there are underlying concepts, lessons, and themes that readers and/or viewers have to find out by diving deeper into the novel, show, or movie. This is especially evident in the Great Gatsby throughout the book with the appearance of symbols relating to different topics such as in Chapter 6 when the rain starts, stops, then starts again during Daisy's first visit to Gatsby's house, showing the rapid and drastic changes in emotion while Daisy is at Gatsby's.