Assignment Prompt & Instructions
– ## engl045assignment1.docx
**## engl045assignment1.docx**
**Part A**
**This is a HW assignment and as such must be completed on time (no extensions).**
**To prepare, read "writing effective paragraphs" in the files folder here in Canvas. As a quick recap of that document:**
·
**unity is the property of a paragraph that inserts a controlling idea from the top, from the topic sentence, down**
·
**coherence is the property of a paragraph that inserts connections between chunks or the pieces of a paragraph that help you to prove the claim made in the topic sentence**
This will be a step by step PROCESS rather than a paragraph that you write immediately. I will count all parts equally. Turn in all work via a single Word document or by text box. I will give no credit for writing that shows no process (paragraphs written directly, which leads to underdevelopment and unclear writing!); you have a chance to focus on clarity, step by step, rather than producing a "perfect," "finished" paragraph. I really don't care about wording, grammar, or spelling here. I want to see a thinking process!
**Step One:**
List at least five foods that you enjoy, either dishes (ex, nachos) or single ingredients (ex, beets).
**Step Two:**
Choose ONE of the five to loosely explore. What is one thing that you enjoy about it or one feeling / experience that you associate with it? Write loosely for about two minutes, paying more attention to answering my question than to creating formal writing. In fact, for this step you should ignore grammar or even basic punctuation. You should strive for at least five sentences worth of loose exploration.
**Step Three:**
Organize the loose writing above by outlining a topic sentence, evidence, and explanation. Fill in this outline template (full example below):
· What is your favorite thing or strongest association with the chosen food item? Answer this question in a singular, focused sentence to create the topic sentence!
· What is your best piece of evidence or description to back up the topic sentence? What does the reader most need to see to appreciate the chosen food item as I do? This does not need to be a full sentence but can be a loose note.
· How does the evidence or description lead to the claim? In other words, what do you appreciate about the focused detail, so much in fact that you make the claim that you do? This can also be a loose note and should just paraphrase the loose writing where you answered this question.
_Example Outline_
Topic sentence is the claim (grilled cheese is my favorite food)
a. best evidence (mix of sharp and savory cheeses)
b. explain how the evidence leads to the claim (in two minutes, I can be alive and savoring food and the moment)
**Part B**
**"The Case for Handwriting." MAKE A COPY of the document, download that copy to your computer so you can color code and write on it, then turn it in as a PDF file only.**
| | |
| — | — |
| **Directions: Use the Chunk and Summarize method by following the steps below**<br>1. Preview the text and "chunk" it up into smaller pieces:<br>(highlight each chunk a different color) <br>0. Carefully read the chunk. <br>1. Locate and<br>**BOLD** the key details within the chunk.<br> <br>2. Summarize the chunk: Paraphrase the key details [restate them in your own words].<br>3. Repeat Steps 2-4 for each chunk. <br>**_You should have at least 5 chunks for this article!_** |
| **From “The Case for Handwriting.”**<br>by Jennifer L. W. Fink (Scholastic Teacher, 2014) | **Your Summary:** complete sentences; all your own words; no copy and paste |
| Across the country, handwriting instruction is fading from <br>**prominence** as teachers and students go electronic. Keyboarding and word processing are viewed as essential skills; handwriting is not. <br>**As a result, many schools and districts, emboldened by the new standards,** which only require students to print upper- and lowercase letters, have drastically cut back on or eliminated handwriting instruction.<br> <br> “What we hear is that handwriting is not a skill that’s tested, so therefore we don’t have to teach it,” says Laura Dinehart, associate professor of early childhood education at Florida International University. “But just because it’s not tested doesn’t mean that it’s not influencing other skills.” . . .<br> Indiana University researcher Karin H. James was one of the first to notice the link between the motor systems of the<br>brain and reading. <br>**Using MRI scans, she showed that the motor sections light up when literate adults simply look at**<br>**printed text.**<br> Keyboarding doesn’t “light up” the literacy sections of the brain in the way handwriting does. “Pressing a key on a<br>keyboard doesn’t really tell us anything about the shape of the letter,” Dinehart says. “If you press A or B, it feels the same. But if you’re creating a symbol over and over again, it creates in the brain a kind of cognitive image of what that letter looks like. The writing of that letter is critical to producing that image and having it in your brain.”<br> Although researchers aren’t yet sure how handwriting is related to reading, studies have shown that working to improve students’ handwriting may improve their reading, and vice versa. <br> Research shows that writing by hand also activates the parts of the brain that are involved in memory, impulse control, and attention. Anecdotal evidence and research strongly suggest that writing by hand “moves information from short-term to long-term storage,” says Carol Armann, a school-based pediatric occupational therapist.<br>**A 2014 study found that college students who took notes by hand demonstrated better conceptual understanding and memory of the material than students who took notes using a laptop.**<br> Researchers suspect the same may hold true for younger students. . . .[To incorporate handwriting practice] Jeannie Scallier Kato, a recently retired fourth-grade teacher, required her students to write a final report in cursive. Each student’s project was then sent to Studentreasures Publishing and returned as a glossy hardback book.<br> “To my students, it was like creating an art project,” says Kato. Some parents objected to using such an old-fashioned method to create a report, but, she says, “I reminded [them] that children did digital projects, too, and that the published books [would be] a sample of their child’s personal writing as it was at age 9 or 10.”<br>**Many studies have linked handwriting fluency with compositional skill.** Research by Virginia Berninger, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, found that handwriting instruction improves first graders’ <br> <br>composition skills, and a 2007 study published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology found that<br>handwritten essays were two years ahead of typed essays, developmentally.<br> Why would handwriting instruction improve students’ compositional skills? Dinehart says it’s partly because handwriting practice makes writing automatic. “If you’re too busy focusing on getting the writing out, you take the focus away from what it is you’re writing. You’re focused more on the writing itself than on the content.” . . .<br> [To combine handwriting and writing instruction] Rhonda Thomas, a sixth-grade English teacher at Woodson ISD in Texas, projects her writing onto a SMART Board. “You can’t just tell students, ‘Write an introduction,’” says<br>Thomas. “I model writing for them, often sentence by sentence. They watch me as I write the whole thing out. The next week, I’ll leave a few blanks and they start filling in their own words when they copy it. By the end of six weeks, they’re writing their own introductions.”<br>**It’s a near-universal rule: Kids with better handwriting do better in school. And while it’s easy to attribute this to the**<br>**fact that teachers tend to give better grades to papers they can read,** t<br>**he link between handwriting and academic**<br>**achievement appears to be deeper than teacher bias.**<br>**Kids with better handwriting have “better reading grades, better reading scores on the SAT, and better math scores,**<br>**both on the SAT and as it relates to grade** s,” says Dinehart.<br> <br> “How we interact with things physically has a huge bearing on cognitive development,” James says. <br>**“Fine motor control, memory, and learning are highly connected, and doing things with the hands is really important.” . . .**<br> Teachers at Zielanis Elementary School in Kiel, Wisconsin, don’t have much time to teach handwriting, so they enlist parents’ help. “We send a letter home letting parents know that our goal is to introduce kids to it and help them be able to read cursive,” says second-grade teacher Sara Kassens. “We let parents know that if they would like their child to really master writing cursive, they’ll need to spend more time at home [on it].”<br> Keyboarding and tech skills are a necessity, but handwriting matters, too. You can offer your students the best of both worlds by giving them opportunities to do both. “This is not handwriting versus technology. There is a place for both of those,” Dinehart says. “<br>**Handwriting serves a purpose, particularly for young children.”** | Teacher and students think handwriting not an essential skill since electronics are becoming more popular <br>Writing and looking at printed words helps and light up the motor section <br>Writing helps with reading and writing with your hand helps you remember. information longer.<br>Younger students and older students that wrote and took notes, take the information in better. Researchers say when you write essays you focus more on what you are writing. People that write more then typing tends to have good compositional skills<br>Keyboarding and writing are both good to learn. But Kids with better hand written have better scores. Doing things with your hand help you in the long run. Handwriting should start with younger kids and become a useful tool in life when they get older. |
**Part C**
A
**central idea** is an argument or strong opinion the author of a work is trying to get across, convince us of, or make us believe in.
**The prompt:** In a single, unified paragraph (150 words minimum), use the ACES rules and
**write an analysis which reveals the central idea** of the article, "The Case for Handwriting."
**More detailed instructions:** Make certain to begin your analysis with an introduction of the article and author, then proceed to answer the prompt by restating the question in your answer. Then, explain that answer using a quote from the article and detailed explanation of how that quote justifies or supports the answer. Finish up with a quick summary that touches on your ACES parts, but introduces no new information.
How to hand it in: write your analysis in Word or Google Docs, then convert it into a PDF file. Upload that PDF file into the assignment by the due date!
**## engl045assignment1.docx**
**Part A**
**This is a HW assignment and as such must be completed on time (no extensions).**
**To prepare, read "writing effective paragraphs" in the files folder here in Canvas. As a quick recap of that document:**
·
**unity is the property of a paragraph that inserts a controlling idea from the top, from the topic sentence, down**
·
**coherence is the property of a paragraph that inserts connections between chunks or the pieces of a paragraph that help you to prove the claim made in the topic sentence**
This will be a step by step PROCESS rather than a paragraph that you write immediately. I will count all parts equally. Turn in all work via a single Word document or by text box. I will give no credit for writing that shows no process (paragraphs written directly, which leads to underdevelopment and unclear writing!); you have a chance to focus on clarity, step by step, rather than producing a "perfect," "finished" paragraph. I really don't care about wording, grammar, or spelling here. I want to see a thinking process!
**Step One:**
List at least five foods that you enjoy, either dishes (ex, nachos) or single ingredients (ex, beets).
**Step Two:**
Choose ONE of the five to loosely explore. What is one thing that you enjoy about it or one feeling / experience that you associate with it? Write loosely for about two minutes, paying more attention to answering my question than to creating formal writing. In fact, for this step you should ignore grammar or even basic punctuation. You should strive for at least five sentences worth of loose exploration.
**Step Three:**
Organize the loose writing above by outlining a topic sentence, evidence, and explanation. Fill in this outline template (full example below):
· What is your favorite thing or strongest association with the chosen food item? Answer this question in a singular, focused sentence to create the topic sentence!
· What is your best piece of evidence or description to back up the topic sentence? What does the reader most need to see to appreciate the chosen food item as I do? This does not need to be a full sentence but can be a loose note.
· How does the evidence or description lead to the claim? In other words, what do you appreciate about the focused detail, so much in fact that you make the claim that you do? This can also be a loose note and should just paraphrase the loose writing where you answered this question.
_Example Outline_
Topic sentence is the claim (grilled cheese is my favorite food)
a. best evidence (mix of sharp and savory cheeses)
b. explain how the evidence leads to the claim (in two minutes, I can be alive and savoring food and the moment)
**Part B**
**"The Case for Handwriting." MAKE A COPY of the document, download that copy to your computer so you can color code and write on it, then turn it in as a PDF file only.**
| | |
| — | — |
| **Directions: Use the Chunk and Summarize method by following the steps below**<br>1. Preview the text and "chunk" it up into smaller pieces:<br>(highlight each chunk a different color) <br>0. Carefully read the chunk. <br>1. Locate and<br>**BOLD** the key details within the chunk.<br> <br>2. Summarize the chunk: Paraphrase the key details [restate them in your own words].<br>3. Repeat Steps 2-4 for each chunk. <br>**_You should have at least 5 chunks for this article!_** |
| **From “The Case for Handwriting.”**<br>by Jennifer L. W. Fink (Scholastic Teacher, 2014) | **Your Summary:** complete sentences; all your own words; no copy and paste |
| Across the country, handwriting instruction is fading from <br>**prominence** as teachers and students go electronic. Keyboarding and word processing are viewed as essential skills; handwriting is not. <br>**As a result, many schools and districts, emboldened by the new standards,** which only require students to print upper- and lowercase letters, have drastically cut back on or eliminated handwriting instruction.<br> <br> “What we hear is that handwriting is not a skill that’s tested, so therefore we don’t have to teach it,” says Laura Dinehart, associate professor of early childhood education at Florida International University. “But just because it’s not tested doesn’t mean that it’s not influencing other skills.” . . .<br> Indiana University researcher Karin H. James was one of the first to notice the link between the motor systems of the<br>brain and reading. <br>**Using MRI scans, she showed that the motor sections light up when literate adults simply look at**<br>**printed text.**<br> Keyboarding doesn’t “light up” the literacy sections of the brain in the way handwriting does. “Pressing a key on a<br>keyboard doesn’t really tell us anything about the shape of the letter,” Dinehart says. “If you press A or B, it feels the same. But if you’re creating a symbol over and over again, it creates in the brain a kind of cognitive image of what that letter looks like. The writing of that letter is critical to producing that image and having it in your brain.”<br> Although researchers aren’t yet sure how handwriting is related to reading, studies have shown that working to improve students’ handwriting may improve their reading, and vice versa. <br> Research shows that writing by hand also activates the parts of the brain that are involved in memory, impulse control, and attention. Anecdotal evidence and research strongly suggest that writing by hand “moves information from short-term to long-term storage,” says Carol Armann, a school-based pediatric occupational therapist.<br>**A 2014 study found that college students who took notes by hand demonstrated better conceptual understanding and memory of the material than students who took notes using a laptop.**<br> Researchers suspect the same may hold true for younger students. . . .[To incorporate handwriting practice] Jeannie Scallier Kato, a recently retired fourth-grade teacher, required her students to write a final report in cursive. Each student’s project was then sent to Studentreasures Publishing and returned as a glossy hardback book.<br> “To my students, it was like creating an art project,” says Kato. Some parents objected to using such an old-fashioned method to create a report, but, she says, “I reminded [them] that children did digital projects, too, and that the published books [would be] a sample of their child’s personal writing as it was at age 9 or 10.”<br>**Many studies have linked handwriting fluency with compositional skill.** Research by Virginia Berninger, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, found that handwriting instruction improves first graders’ <br> <br>composition skills, and a 2007 study published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology found that<br>handwritten essays were two years ahead of typed essays, developmentally.<br> Why would handwriting instruction improve students’ compositional skills? Dinehart says it’s partly because handwriting practice makes writing automatic. “If you’re too busy focusing on getting the writing out, you take the focus away from what it is you’re writing. You’re focused more on the writing itself than on the content.” . . .<br> [To combine handwriting and writing instruction] Rhonda Thomas, a sixth-grade English teacher at Woodson ISD in Texas, projects her writing onto a SMART Board. “You can’t just tell students, ‘Write an introduction,’” says<br>Thomas. “I model writing for them, often sentence by sentence. They watch me as I write the whole thing out. The next week, I’ll leave a few blanks and they start filling in their own words when they copy it. By the end of six weeks, they’re writing their own introductions.”<br>**It’s a near-universal rule: Kids with better handwriting do better in school. And while it’s easy to attribute this to the**<br>**fact that teachers tend to give better grades to papers they can read,** t<br>**he link between handwriting and academic**<br>**achievement appears to be deeper than teacher bias.**<br>**Kids with better handwriting have “better reading grades, better reading scores on the SAT, and better math scores,**<br>**both on the SAT and as it relates to grade** s,” says Dinehart.<br> <br> “How we interact with things physically has a huge bearing on cognitive development,” James says. <br>**“Fine motor control, memory, and learning are highly connected, and doing things with the hands is really important.” . . .**<br> Teachers at Zielanis Elementary School in Kiel, Wisconsin, don’t have much time to teach handwriting, so they enlist parents’ help. “We send a letter home letting parents know that our goal is to introduce kids to it and help them be able to read cursive,” says second-grade teacher Sara Kassens. “We let parents know that if they would like their child to really master writing cursive, they’ll need to spend more time at home [on it].”<br> Keyboarding and tech skills are a necessity, but handwriting matters, too. You can offer your students the best of both worlds by giving them opportunities to do both. “This is not handwriting versus technology. There is a place for both of those,” Dinehart says. “<br>**Handwriting serves a purpose, particularly for young children.”** | Teacher and students think handwriting not an essential skill since electronics are becoming more popular <br>Writing and looking at printed words helps and light up the motor section <br>Writing helps with reading and writing with your hand helps you remember. information longer.<br>Younger students and older students that wrote and took notes, take the information in better. Researchers say when you write essays you focus more on what you are writing. People that write more then typing tends to have good compositional skills<br>Keyboarding and writing are both good to learn. But Kids with better hand written have better scores. Doing things with your hand help you in the long run. Handwriting should start with younger kids and become a useful tool in life when they get older. |
**Part C**
A
**central idea** is an argument or strong opinion the author of a work is trying to get across, convince us of, or make us believe in.
**The prompt:** In a single, unified paragraph (150 words minimum), use the ACES rules and
**write an analysis which reveals the central idea** of the article, "The Case for Handwriting."
**More detailed instructions:** Make certain to begin your analysis with an introduction of the article and author, then proceed to answer the prompt by restating the question in your answer. Then, explain that answer using a quote from the article and detailed explanation of how that quote justifies or supports the answer. Finish up with a quick summary that touches on your ACES parts, but introduces no new information.
How to hand it in: write your analysis in Word or Google Docs, then convert it into a PDF file. Upload that PDF file into the assignment by the due date!