Article of the Week (AoW)

soapstone (1)

“Article of the Week”

“Part of the reason my students have such a hard time reading is because they bring little prior knowledge and background to the written page. They can decode the words, but the words remain meaningless without a foundation of knowledge. To help build my students’ prior knowledge, I assign them an "Article of the Week" every Monday morning. By the end of the school year I want them to have read 35 to 40 articles about what is going on in the world. It is not enough to simply teach my students to recognize theme in a given novel; if my students are to become literate, they must broaden their reading experiences into real-world text.” Kelly Gallagher. Readacide.

At the start of each week, you will be assigned an “Article of the Week” (AoW) which will require you to complete three tasks.

Read and annotate the article paying special attention to SOAPSTone. This means you might use different colors or different symbols to represent: speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, and tone. You may print out the article and do this by hand and then upload a picture of your work, OR you may use Kami (or another app of your choice) to edit the pdf. Remember, annotations only count if you have your ideas written in the margins - a highlighted paper does not count.
Using your thorough annotations, complete a SOAPSTone on the doc provided. A sufficient response consists of 3-5 complete sentences for each. *this must be submitted to Turnitin.com.
One way in which we can master a topic is to teach that topic. Your last requirement is to record a 30 second Flipgrid reflecting on the article. What did you learn? How do you feel about it? What connections can you make? The article often provides response questions at the end so those can help spark your ideas if you are stuck.

These articles will be available on Google Classroom at the start of each week. You must submit it no later than the following Sunday night BEFORE the new school week begins. There is much to learn when we embrace the world around us, so please take this as an opportunity to learn and grow not only academically, but personally.

theysaytemplatespdf

SOAPStone Graphic Organizer for Rhetorical Analysis

Citing Evidence in Persuasive Text

Close Reading		How do you know? Cite specific evidence in the text.
S	Who is the speaker? Identify the speaker’s age, gender, class, and education. The voice tells the story. Whose voice is being heard within the text? What can you tell or what do you know about the speaker that helps you understand the point of view expressed?
O	What is the occasion? What is the time and place of the piece? What is the current situation (that prompted the writing)? Is this a political event, a celebration, an observation, a critique, or…? Identify the context of the text.
A	Who is the audience? Who are the readers to whom this piece is directed? It may be one person or a specific group. Does the speaker specify an audience? What assumptions exist in the text about the intended audience?
P	What is the purpose behind the text? Why did the author write it? What is his or her goal? (To find the purpose, ask, “What did the author want his audience to think or do as a result of reading this text?”) What is the message? How does the speaker convey this message?
S	What is the subject: topic, content, and ideas included in the text. State the subject in a few words or a short phrase. Is there more than one subject? How does the author present the subject? Does he introduce it immediately or do you, the reader, have to make an inference?
TONE	What is the attitude of the author? Is the author emotional, objective, neutral, or biased about this topic? What types of details “tell” the author’s feelings about the topic? What types of diction (choice of words), syntax (sentence structure), and imagery (metaphors, similes, and other types, of figurative language) help reflect the tone? How would you read the passage aloud if you were the author?