oh, CRAAP!

Friday, February 19th 

Go to the following links and using the CRAAP method, determine whether these are reliable websites. Post your response as a comment. Remember to choose "NAME/URL" in the comment box:

Mystery website #1: http://www.americanhistory.com/
Mystery website # 2: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/category/ancient
Mystery website #3: http://news.discovery.com/history

Bell Work - Wednesday, December 9th

BELL WORK

Review: Can you remember some good compare and contrast transitions from yesterday? List at least two in sentence form for bell work. You may use a sentence from yesterday's compare and contrast worksheet.

Compare Contrast Assignment

The Compare/Contrast Essay

Instructions: Watch and take notes on the following videos. Afterwards, choose one of the following topics. You will write TWO well developed paragraphs comparing and contrasting something specific about your chosen topic. Your paragraph needs: A) A topic sentence, B) correct use of compare and contrast transitions. 
* Being a toddler vs being a teenager
* The life of a dog vs. the life of a cat
* Acting vs. lying 
* Scrooge vs. The Grinch 

* You will upload your paragraph onto the 365 folder titled, "Compare and contrast paragraphs".

Bell Work - Thursday, December 3rd

Your Argumentative Essay is due tomorrow! What are some last minute things that you should do before turning your essay in? Do you have any questions before you do so? Be prepared to share your answer. 

Tuesday, December 1st: Bell Work

STEP ONE:
Yesterday, we completed peer editing. Copy the following statement into the comment box and fill in the blanks. 


My writing strength is ______________________(Development/Focus&Organization/Language/Conventions) because I am confident doing _____________________________ in my writing. I am mainly worried about ___________________(Development/Focus&Organization/Language/Conventions) because I always struggle with _____________________________. 

STEP TWO: Put the following in chronological order. What step are we on today?

Publishing

Brainstorming/Pre-writing

Drafting

Revising

Editing 

November 3rd Bell Work

The video you are about to watch is a speech by the public speaking world champion. What makes him such a great speaker? Pay attention to WHAT he says, HOW he says it, and what he is doing with his body/stage presence. 

Our future politicians!

Good job to the following students who presented some pretty good points and used some persuasive techniques!

Jaelin, 2nd period

If I were to run for school president, I would try to use Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to make my writing better. I would also use a rhetorical question, such as "Why would I be a good school president?" I would follow that with something logical, showing why I would be a good school president. "I would be a good school president because I work hard and would try to make the school a better place" would be a logical sentence about why I should be chosen. I could also use emotion and say something like "I've wanted this job for years, and my family would be disappointed if I didn't become school president." I could also make myself look good by saying "I would be a good school president because I do all my work on time and will help others."

Jeffery, 1st period

I should be school president because I will provide excellent hallway service providing safe passage in a jammed up hallway. I will change how long we can stay outside. I will have a whole period dedicated to finishing any missing assignments and socializing with friends. I will allow all electronic devices in the cafeteria during the lunch period. I would make the best school president over all the other candidates because I actually care about the student body.

Sarah, 3rd period

Ethos: "I should be your president because I am in the Beta Club, and I have fed the Homeless. I have also worked at Feed the Children's Home."

Pathos: "I would care for you and help you with any need that you have. I would stop in the middle of the hall and pick up the books that you have dropped. I would stop and pick up trash around the school!"

Vote for me!

Samuel, 2nd period 

If you vote me as class president, you will be trusting the hands of a reliable, honest, and hardworking student who knows right from wrong. You wouldn't trust a criminal or a drug-dealer, would you? I promise you I'm not any of those things, and never will be, and I'm sure the school will thank you in return for making me your class president.

Kaylea, 6th period

VOTE FOR ME!
I should be your school president! I make good grades, I never get in trouble, and I have some good ideas to turn this schools around. Do you, the student body, want to be heard? Well if I was your school president I would make sure to do everything to please the students. All students have at least one idea to make this school a better place. I would create a club to help the less fortunate. If you do not vote for me you could be hurting a kid in need. I would also seek into better school lunches, work on getting newer books in the library, and make students more involved. I should be school president for these reasons and many more!

ETHOS, PATHOS, LOGOS!

Today's required videos. If you get finished with the MIST writing assessment, watch and take notes on the following videos on persuasion. When finished, respond to the following prompt. Don't forget to identify yourself so you can get credit for doing a great job:

If you were running for school president, what would you say in order to use ethos (establish credibility), pathos (appeal to emotion) and logos (appeal to logic) in your campaign speech? Be creative. 

Kudos!

Check out my favorite responses from Thursday's Bell Work. Great work, guys!

Emily, 2nd period

When you use the argumentative essay writing style it will help you a lot. You need evidence that what you are saying is true and you need stuff to support the evidence. For example, your sister thinks her brother stole 20 bucks and spent it at the mall. If the brother didn't do it he needs to find ways to support his claim. Also known as "evidence". So furthermore, argumentative writing styles help you a lot in the world. They can get your innocent or guilty.

Tristan Dobbs, 1st period 

If you are running for President or other election based positions, being a great argumentative writer can aid in your election. This is because a good argumentative writer can make a persuasive speech to win over the massive and overall getting more votes.

Bennett Neu, 1st period

If you are a good argumentative writer you can change peoples opinion of a topic. imagine that you are asking your parents for a new video game. Your parents may say no, but if you are a good argumentative write, you can give a good reason for getting the game. Like, "it's educational and it can teach me life skills.' If you can make a good point, they may get you the game. Or they will just say no.

Hailey Kelly, 4th period

Being a good argumentative writer can come in handy if you are on the debate team in middle school, high school, or college. If you are on the debate team then you have to be able to be given a topic and state why its important, better, or what it's benefits are. The ability to argue your topic and give good support and details could help you win your debate event.

Bell Work: October 15th, 2015

Watch the following Shmoop video on argumentative writing. Afterwards, respond to the following question:

How can being an effective argumentative writer help you in life? Give a unique example. 

Desalination

Welcome to my blog! You are going to go to my blog each day for bell work when we are in the computer lab. Today for Bell Work, read the attachment I sent you on Jupiter as well as the article below. From there, post a comment on here responding to the following question:

Do you think Desalination would work? What are some pros and cons? Use a quote from one of the articles to support your opinion. 

Why Desalination Doesn't Work (Yet)

by Michael Schirber   |   June 25, 2007 04:49am ET

Credit: Dreamstime Credit: Dreamstime View full size image

With water fast becoming a hot commodity, especially in drought-prone regions with burgeoning populations, an obvious solution is to take the salt out of seawater. Desalination technology has been around for thousands of years, after all. Even Aristotle worked on the problem.
Tantalizing as desalinated water might sound, the energy costs have made it rather unpalatable.
"Until recently, seawater desalination was a very expensive water source solution," said Gary Crisp, an engineer for the Water Corporation of Western Australia.

Drinking seawater straight is a bad idea because your body must expel the salt by urinating more water than it actually gains. Seawater contains roughly 130 grams of salt per gallon. Desalination can reduce salt levels to below 2 grams per gallon, which is the limit for safe human consumption.

Currently, between 10 and 13 billion gallons of water are desalinated worldwide per day. That's only about 0.2 percent of global water consumption, but the number is increasing.
"There is significant growth in desalination capacity throughout the world, and it is anticipated to continue for sometime," says Stephen Gray of Victoria University.
Gray has been chosen to lead a new research program in Australia—where many regions lack fresh water supplies—to improve the efficiency of desalination plants.
Aristotle's efforts
Back in the 4th century B.C., Aristotle imagined using successive filters to remove the salt from seawater.
But the first actual practice of desalination involved collecting the freshwater steam from boiling saltwater. Around 200 A.D., sailors began desalinating seawater with simple boilers on their ships.
The energy required for this distillation process today makes it prohibitively expensive on a large scale. A lot of the current market for so-called "thermal desalination" has therefore been in oil-rich, water-poor countries in the Middle East.
Since the 1950s, researchers have been developing membranes that could filter out salt, similar to what Aristotle originally envisioned. Presently, this membrane technique, sometimes called "reverse osmosis," requires one-fourth of the energy and costs half of the price of distilling saltwater.
"In the last ten years, seawater reverse-osmosis has matured into a viable alternative to thermal desalination," Crisp says.
Energy is key
But even with membranes, large amounts of energy are needed to generate the high pressure that forces the water through the filter. Current methods require about 14 kilowatt-hours of energy to produce 1,000 gallons of desalinated seawater.
A typical American uses 80 to 100 gallons of water a day, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The entire country consumes about 323 billion gallons per day of surface water and another 84.5 billion gallons of ground water.
If half of this water came from desalination, the United States would need more than 100 extra electric power plants, each with a gigawatt of capacity.
Depending on local energy prices, 1,000 gallons of desalinated seawater can cost around $3 or $4. Although that might not seem like much, it is still cheaper in many places to pump water out of the ground or import it from somewhere else.
But the price difference will undoubtedly narrow, especially in regions that could experience more intense droughts owing to climate change.
Water use has been growing twice as fast as population growth, causing more and more communities to suffer water shortages. The demand for freshwater supplies will drive prices higher, making desalination increasingly attractive.
Brainstorming on membranes
The number of desalination plants worldwide has grown to more than 15,000, and efforts continue to make them more affordable.
Last month, Australia's largest scientific research agency joined with nine major universities in a membrane research program to reduce desalination energy costs, as well as maintenance costs associated with gunk sticking to membranes and fouling them up.
"Lowering the energy required for desalination and the fouling propensity of membranes are the two biggest challenges facing desalination," Gray says.
A team of diverse researchers will try to tackle these problems by developing new types of membrane materials. The goal is to cut in half the energy required for desalination.
"We would hope to have something available within the next 10 years," Gray said.

YouTube video: Desalination