Opinion Response Essays For Mr. Kay’s WORLD HISTORY and AMERICAN GOVERNMENT classes

Opinion Response Essays Why, oh why, do we have to do THIS ???

YOUR GRADE will depend in some part on how well you do on these. These will be graded as assessments: Score point 4’s will be equivalent to 20 points Score point 3’s will be equivalent to 18 points Score point 2’s will be equivalent to 16 points Score point 1’s will be equivalent to 14 points

MORE IMPORTANTLY… Doing opinion response essays helps to develop your reading, writing, and critical thinking skills Social studies classes in the future will begin to look more and more like English classes. If the Common Core continues to prevail as the basis for subject area standards, English and social studies will be linked together as never before. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/

What if I don’t care about the Common Core? Note the “mission statement” beneath the logo: “PREPARING AMERICA’S STUDENTS FOR COLLEGE & CAREER” You will be expected to do this kind of essay in almost every college course you will take. Even if you forego college for a more immediate career, you will be COMPETING AGAINST students who will have these skills once Common Core is more fully implemented. Why not be better readers, writers, and critical thinkers ?

Opinion Response Essays… Test your reading proficiency equally as much as they test your abilities as a writer Help you to become better informed about current events—events of national and international import By requiring you to disagree with another writer’s opinion, ask you to think critically about these issues Can cultivate a better sense of empathy—“the ability to see the world through the eyes of another”

How to write excellent or better opinion response essays… Score point 1 papers – the majority of these papers did not follow instructions Score point 2 papers – the majority of these papers were too brief or undeveloped Score point 3 papers – a good level of writing proficiency; these papers are often not as serious or as well-planned/thought-out as they could be Score point 4 papers – only one or two in a class, indicates a superior ability to write, will be interested to see if this can be demonstrated consistently

Dealing with the problem of NOT FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS Be sure to include the following at the top of each opinion response you write: your name, class hour “title of article” date article ran in WSJ Choose an article from the OPINION section of The Wall Street Journal. (generally located in the last 3 to 6 pages of the first/A section) Be sure that you write an opinion response in which you DISAGREE with the opinion expressed by the writer of the article you have selected and read Do NOT rewrite, re-cap, summarize, or explain what the article means – do as much of your own original writing as possible to share your opinion about an issue with those who will read your essay. The goal is to CONVINCE your readers that your opinion is right or more valid, and that the other writer’s opinion (in the article) is wrong or misguided.

Dealing with the problem of TOO BRIEF or UNDEVELOPED If you’ve only written 3 sentences or filled up less than ¼ of the page, your response is almost certainly too brief or undeveloped. Consider what sort of evidence will best support the statements that collectively express your opinion in your response. Personal experience Evidence from the text itself Evidence from outside sources (NOTE: Each of these has its strengths and weaknesses.)

1. Personal experience Use personal experience as examples to: demonstrate why you interpret the text the way you do why you react the way you do why you agree or disagree Example sentence: I strongly disagree with Tannen’s first point based on my own high school experience, especially in my History class.

2. Evidence from the text itself Cite specific phrases or sentences (or the lack of them) from the text itself to support your explanation of the text analysis of the effectiveness of the text to support why you agree or disagree Use this kind of evidence to question the credibility, credentials, or authority to speak on the issue of The source itself – the Wall Street Journal The writer of the article

3. Evidence from other sources Acceptable to bring in ideas and information from other texts or online sources of information Your prior knowledge (i.e., what you have learned in other subject area classes) No research is required for this assignment, but don’t be afraid to discuss the issues with adults in your life or to learn more about the issues online Informally cite sources if you do use or borrow material from other sources

Dealing with the problem of NOT AS SERIOUS or AS WELL-PLANNED OR THOUGHT-OUT AS IT COULD BE These responses tend to suffer from being LOPSIDED DOGMATIC They rely too much on one kind of evidence They ask questions they leave unanswered or make statements not supported by any kind of evidence They do NOT match the style of the article to which their response is directed

A Question of Style – FORMAL or INFORMAL ? Take the following test to see how well you understand the differences: http://dissc.tees.ac.uk/Writing/Style/wordstyletest.htm

Using the Rubric… Rubric title: SBAC Informative-Explanatory Writing Rubric Grades 6-12 Scores are based by measurement in three to five areas: Statement of Purpose/Focus and Organization Statement of Purpose/Focus Organization Development: Language and Elaboration of Evidence Elaboration of Evidence Language and Vocabulary Conventions (aka grammar) These areas are arranged in order of importance in weighing the final score of the student’s writing—therefore, a student’s ideas and their organization are most important; followed by how they use evidence and language to support their ideas; followed lastly by grammatical considerations

Some Other Rules First of all, choose an article with a topic that we feel we can most effectively write about… For example: Obamacare, domestic violence in the NFL, or the decline of penmanship. Then we use this STRUCTURE to write our essay: Opening Body Conclusion

Opening In this part we write a presentation of the issue and our opinion. This part of the essay shouldn’t be too long; it’s only a brief introduction to the topic that we will then treat in the next section, the body. The longest part of our response will be developed in the next part, the body.

Body Is the longest part of the essay. In the body of the essay we have to convince the reader, giving specific reasons and facts to support our opinion (this is why it’s the longest part). And to finish our opinion essay, we must write an effective conclusion.

Conclusion It’s the part where we sum everything up and (almost always) restate our opinion. As in the opening, the conclusion does not have to be too long—a single complex sentence or two or three sentences at most.

Some last words of advice You can use a separate sheet of paper to do a scheme—a list of the ideas that you are going to talk about in your essay. Using this scheme, you should be able to better organize your opinion response and present your ideas in the most effective sequence.

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