George Siemens addresses the question.
Two videos on education by Kenneth Robinson:
We will have an exam over The Great Gatsby on Tuesday. You should complete the book by Monday for class discussion and preparation for the test. In the downloads folder, 
you can find some background notes on the text, modernism, and Fitzgerald’s techniques.
You can also complete the worksheet I gave you this week for use on the test.
A number of you still seem to be struggling with topic sentences for the persuasive essays. Once again, please consider reviewing the cheat sheets which will give you a template that should help you begin the transition to effective, argumentative topic sentences.
It’s still right here. 🙂
There are a few major issues that cropped up in the compulsory voting essays. Pay particular attention to these as you revise.
- General proofreading needs to be dramatically improved. Check your paper for spelling, grammar, and usage errors before hitting submit. A number of these errors dramatically reduces your ethos.
- Parallelism, especially in the thesis statements, needs to be more consistent.
- Given that the essay considers a possible potential future, you should write in the present tense. Rather than saying what compulsory voting does, focus on what it would do.
- Concessions need to be genuine. A number of you only offered half-hearted concessions before attacking the other side.
- Use naysayers to avoid repetition and to add sophistication to your arguments. They were a specific requirement for this prompt–and many of you didn’t include a single one in your response.
- Topic sentences are always arguments.
- Development, development, development: make sure that you’ve provided enough analysis and evidence to support your claims.
- Slippery slopes are logical fallacies, not fun summer games.
Revision Due Dates
- Period 3 (Sunday at 11 p.m.)
- Period 5/6 (Sunday at 1 p.m.)