December 14, 2015

We started class with 25 minutes to read, annotate, and respond to (1/2 page) today's Article of the Week for our Writer's Notebook and used remaining time reading our independent reading books.

One thing that will be on Wednesday's test is inductive and deductive reasoning, so today we read two essays that employ these two different techniques. The first essay, "Abolishing the Penny Makes Good Sense," uses deductive reasoning to argue why the penny should be removed from circulation. The second essay, "On Nuclear Disarmament," uses inductive reasoning to argue why countries should drop out of the arms race and work on building better relationships.

We listened to "Abolishing the Penny Makes Good Sense" and created a chart to track the general principle, specific situation, reasons and evidence, and conclusion that the author uses in his deductive argument. We also talked about whether the reasons and evidence were relevant and sufficient.

We listened to "On Nuclear Disarmament" and created two charts to track specific evidence and the conclusions they lead to that the author uses in his inductive argument. We also found examples of repetition and parallel structures used for effect in the essay.

These two activities will help students with many questions on the test. Students should also study the terms and their definitions and be prepared to identify devices used in examples. The Argument and Persuasion notes have been moved to the top of the Classroom page, so you shouldn't have trouble finding them.

Absent students: See the About section on Classroom for instructions on "How To Access the Online Textbook." The essays we read are in Unit 6. Under the "Student Resources" tab, you can see the charts we worked with: "Reading Skill: Analyze Deductive Reasoning" for "Abolishing the Penny" and "Reading  Skill: Analyze Inductive Reasoning" for "On Nuclear Disarmament."

Today's Board 1

Today's Board 2