Tuesday, 26 February

Class continued in it's Pre-Thesis Week mode.

Guest instruction was provided by our Rock-Star Librarian Ms. Battle. She showed students strategies for doing Efficient; Effective; and Ethical research using online databases.

He key points included "go to" resources

First
OSLIS.org
Students were reminded of the school user name Port and the password.

OSLIS provides access to databases as well as the MLA Citation maker.

Ms. Battle recommended the "Opposing Viewpoints" data base and "InfoTrak" as good places to start (don't forget to click on the "full text" box".

Through Multnomah County Library's web page Ms. Battle recommended "Academic Search Premeir" and JSTOR.

She also showed how you can access a reference librarian through the Multnomah Co library website 24 hours a day!


After the research lesson, students worked with group members to prepare a report on the homework reading.

All students were reminded to bring 50 blank (lined) note cards to class on Thursday.

A week from Thursday class will be held in the Grant library in order to do research.

Monday, 25 February, 2013

After annotating the homework assignment from Thursday, students turned in the short essay.

Mr. Zartler then presented students with an article from the New York Times called "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food." The class then examined the article to see what research questions and hypotheses may have been at the root of the research for the article.

Students were to finish reading their section for homework.

Thursday, 21 February

During class today, students go two assignments to for next week.

First we reviewed plagiarism.

We added three vocabulary words to our list:
attribution
paraphrase
plagiarism

Next we reviewed the annotations students had due for the Introduction of Catching Fire.

Next we analyzed the statement "the transformative moment that gave rise to the genus Homo... stemmed from the control of fire and the  advent of cooked meals."

Students took notes on how to create "note cards" and "resource cards." Mr. Zartler demonstrated the use of "Citation Maker" on oslis.org for generating citations.

Mr. Zartler did lessons on embedding quotes  with a proper introduction:

Richard Wrangham claims, "the transformative moment that gave rise to the genus Homo ... stemmed from the control of fire and the advent of cooked meals" (2). (Add explanation here.)

and attributing paraphrases with an attribution:

According to Wrangham having cooks makes us human. Cooks are the missing link. (Add explanation here.)

Students are to explain the argument that Wrangham makes to prove,  "the transformative moment that gave rise to the genus Homo... stemmed from the control of fire and the  advent of cooked meals" (2). Using three pieces of evidence from the introduction, at least one embedded quote, and at least one paraphrase. The piece should have the MLA bibliographic reference at the end of the paper.

This short essay is due on Monday.

Juniors will meet with counselors next Thursday, but first they, and all students need to show Mr. Zartler 50 index cards (lined preferred).

Tuesday, 19 February

Pre-Thesis Week:

We covered several skills vital to successful research paper (thesis) writing today, including defining plagiarism.  Plagiarism could result in failing this class, so be sure that you know what it is.

Plagiarism is using someone else's words or ideas without giving them credit (through citations or attributions).

Using other peoples words and ideas is a basic aspect of a research paper.

So, your thesis will have lots of citations and attributions throughout the paper identifying those ideas and words you are borrowing.

In class we watched this video and practiced paraphrasing based on the content of the video.

Then we read an excerpt from Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. The class practiced annotating text and writing direct quotes. Students should finish annotating the passage for class on Thursday.

We learned the quote pattern song:

Intro the quote

quote the quote

cite the quote

explain the quote

In class on Thursday we will be writing a short essay explaining Wrangham's argument in Catching Fire.

Thursday, 14 February

Class today consisted of the Socratic Seminar and a debriefing of the seminar activities.

Few of the arguments proposed during the discussion were "illustrated arguments" so their will be additional instruction and practice on this next Tuesday.

Mr. Zartler also announced that Congressman Earl Blumenauer will be visiting Grant in the near future to discuss the issue of agricultural subsidies with the Food & Culture class.

Students were reminded to be thinking about what they want to learn in researching and writing their thesis.

Monday-Tuesday, 11-12 February

Students finished viewing the film King Corn on Monday. During and after the film they completed a graphic organizer for note taking.

On Tuesday, the class was divided into two "sides" to prepare for the Socratic Seminar on Thursday.

Mr. Zartler then explained that in developing the positions and arguments for the seminar the groups should follow a basic pattern:

1) Review the topic in general (Should the federal government subsidize corn production?)
2) Develop a list of possible arguments (brainstorm)
3) "Opposition Research" (what will the other side say; how to counter their arguments)
4) Final planning (what order of arguments best supports our position?)

Mr. Zartler also lectured on the difference between a simple argument and a more developed one.

An Argument is a proposition (something that you propose).
E.g.
"There should be no bones in ice cream."
A simple argument is completed with a statement of cause and effect:
E.g.
"There should be no bones in ice cream, because people can choke and die on them."

A more complex, and perhaps more effective argument is an "Illustrated Argument."
An illustrated argument uses a story or character or piece of evidence or a metaphor to create a compelling image to support the logical, cause and effect part of the argument.

"Imagine a small child licking an ice cream cone in the park on a hot day. Suddenly he takes a bite, then finds himself unable to breath choking, and falling to the green grass while he slowly turns blue. There should be no bones in ice cream because they are dangerous; allowing bones in ice cream is like laying land mines in a park."

In the above example, their is a both an illustration (the depiction of a tragic scene) and a simile used to emphasize the logical statement.

Students will have a few minutes at the start of class on Thursday to do final preparation for the seminar.

Students who missed class Tuesday will write several short paragraphs highlighting arguments in favor AND against the position "The Government should subsidize corn production."

February 4,5,7

I apologize for not updating as the week progressed.

The week was build around two main objectives.
1) Preparing for a Socratic Seminar next Monday / Tuesday on the question "Should the federal government subsidize corn?'

2) Studying the questions that result in good thesis research and analyzing the structure of researched articles.

Monday:
The class read "Stocking the Pantry" and completed an analysis of the article in class. After reading this article the class created a marketing campaign based on a "problem" vegetable.

Next the class read "How Chicken Conquered the World." See Mr. Zartler for copies. The class annotated a copy of this article both to see how it was formatted and in an effort to discern what questions might have sparked the research into this article.

On Thursday, the class began viewing King Korn. King Korn is available for instant viewing on Netflix and may be available on Amazon or other systems. Classes viewed 45 minute to one hour of the program. During the viewing students individually worked to complete this note taking chart.

Next week the class will finish viewing King Korn; the class will be divided in to seminar teams; the class will have the seminar.