Friday English 11

ACT Practice: Try the tests at http://www.actpracticetest.net/

OR try MENSA - a society for bright people, the only qualification for membership of which was a high IQ. The original aims were, as they are today, to create a society that is non-political and free from all racial or religious distinctions. The society welcomes people from every walk of life whose IQ is in the top 2% of the population, with the objective of enjoying each other's company and participating in a wide range of social and cultural activities.

try a MENSA workout at http://www.mensa.org/workout.php

Outline and Essay format

For fun!

An Emphatic Essay About Appositive Epithets

Posted: 26 Feb 2012 08:52 PM PST

An interesting problem often presents itself when one employs an anarthrous nominal premodifier.

A what who which?

“Anarthrous nominal premodifier” is usage-ese for “false title,” one of a handful of other more user-friendly ways to describe a job title that is not a job title. A description of this concept that is, I think, better still is epithet (a versatile word meaning, in this case, “characterization”), and that’s the one I use here and elsewhere on this site.

An epithet — in which, for purposes of clarification or edification, a person’s name is preceded by a concise description of that person — is often derided as a coarse conceit of journalistic writing, but it appears quite often in books and other forms of publication as well, and it serves a useful purpose, eliminating the need to follow a person’s name with a more distracting (and often more extensive) parenthetical description.

Unfortunately, too many people form the epithet-name construction incorrectly, as in this sentence: “The essay was written by humanities professor, Paul A. Robinson.”

This is one of the most egregious mechanical errors a writer can make; few other such infelicities distinguish the amateur from the professional, and it is one of life’s mysteries how such an obvious error has come to be so persistent as well as pervasive. (The correct form, of course, is “The essay was written by humanities professor Paul A. Robinson.”)

The mistake probably stems from confusion with the nearly identical form in the more traditional sentences “The essay was written by a humanities professor, Paul A. Robinson” and “The essay was written by Paul A. Robinson, a humanities professor.” (These forms are preferable to those who find epithets antithetical to good writing.)

The distinction here is that in the corrected sentence, the phrase “humanities professor” is a restrictive appositive. (An appositive is a noun phrase that defines or modifies another noun phrase, and a restrictive appositive is one that applies to only one other noun phrase.) In this sentence, the only humanities professor the phrase can refer to is Paul A. Robinson.

The presence of the indefinite article in the other variations is the crucial indicator that they each include a nonrestrictive appositive, one that refers to any example of the appositive’s description; Paul A. Robinson is just one member of the class “humanities professor,” and the punctuation signals that fact.

The restrictive/nonrestrictive distinction in appositives should be observed when referring to inanimate objects as well. A common error is to insert punctuation between the appositives in “Have you read the book, The Bestseller?” If a generic reference to the book has already been made, this sentence is correct; the title is an elaboration. However, when used on first reference, this construction presumes that the sole example of the concept “book” is The Bestseller. Because The Bestseller is, in fact, only one example among countless others, the comma is omitted to indicate that “the book” and “The Bestseller” are identical.

The same principle applies to any form of composition (film, television program, and so on) or any other thing: “I went to the amusement park Funland.” (“I went to the amusement park, Funland,” in the absence of a previous reference, implies that only one amusement park exists. “I went to the world’s largest amusement park, Funland,” by contrast, is correct, because only one amusement park can be the world’s largest one.)

If you oppose appositive epithets, this post isn’t for you. But for the many writers who accept the construction as proper usage, I recommend that you use the proper usage properly.

English 11 week of February 27

Monday students will finish up their papers on Ethos, Pathos, or Logos

Tuesday we will be in the lab working on SparkNotes practice tests for ACT
ACT: http://www.actstudent.org/sampletest/index.html?utm_source=act_home&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=practice_test

Sparknotes: http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/act/

Wednesday we will do our 3rd and final persuasive writing

Thursday we will chart our persuasive writing growth, and write a reflection on our personal writing goal

Friday and Monday will be spent on final ACT review

A Quiz on Treatment of 75 Compound Words

Posted: 02 Feb 2012 08:08 PM PST

Open, hyphenated, or closed? Usage guides, dictionaries, and style manuals may differ in their treatment of the following words, so there’s not necessarily one right answer — except for the purposes of this exercise: Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. All terms in this list are treated as open compounds. Which ones should be left as is, and which should be hyphenated or closed, and in which usages? The correct forms according to Merriam-Webster are listed at the bottom of the page.

1. Air borne
2. Anti social
3. Audio visual
4. Back log
5. Blood pressure
6. Book keeping
7. Bull’s eye
8. By law
9. Catch all
10. Check book
11. Child like
12. Clearing house
13. Court martial
14. Crew neck
15. Cross reference
16. Dog sled
17. Father land
18. Far reaching
19. First hand
20. Free style
21. Freeze dried
22. Fresh water
23. Go between
24. Great uncle
25. Half brother
26. High school
27. Higher ups
28. House hold
29. Inter agency
30. Key word
31. Jewel like
32. Land mass
33 . Life size
34 . Light year
35 . Long term
36 . Lower case
37 . Main frame
38 . Mass produced
39 . Mid week
40 . Mother ship
41 . Multi purpose
42 . Near collision
43 . North west
44 . Off shore
45 . On site
46 . Over supply
47 . Pine cone
48 . Pipe line
49 . Policy maker
50 . Post war
51 . Pre existing
52 . President elect
53 . Pro life
54 . Pseudo intellectual
55 . Quasi realistic
56 . Real time
57 . Record breaker
58 . River bed
59 . Sea coast
60 . Self control
61 . Semi final
62 . Shell like
63 . Six pack
64 . Snow melt
65 . Socio economics
66 . Step mother
67 . Stomach ache
68 . Strong hold
69 . Toll free
70 . Two fold
71 . Under water
72 . Vice president
73 . Wild life
74 . World wide
75 . Year round

Answers

1. Airborne
2. Antisocial
3. Audiovisual
4. Backlog
5. Blood pressure (in the dictionary, so never hyphenate, except when combined with another adjective, as in “high-blood-pressure medication”)
6. Bookkeeping
7. Bull’s-eye
8. Bylaw
9. Catchall
10 . Checkbook
11 . Childlike
12 . Clearinghouse
13 . Court-martial
14 . Crew neck (in the dictionary, so never hyphenate)
15 . Cross-reference
16 . Dogsled
17 . Fatherland
18 . Far-reaching
19 . Firsthand
20 . Freestyle
21 . Freeze-dried
22 . Freshwater
23 . Go-between
24 . Great-uncle
25 . Half brother (in the dictionary, so never hyphenate)
26 . High school (in the dictionary, so never hyphenate)
27 . Higher-ups
28 . Household
29 . Interagency
30 . Keyword
31 . Jewel-like (because of the collision of two ls)
32 . Landmass
33 . Life-size
34 . Light-year
35 . Long term (hyphenate only when the phrase modifies a following noun)
36 . Lowercase
37 . Mainframe
38 . Mass-produced
39 . Midweek
40 . Mother ship (in the dictionary, so never hyphenate)
41 . Multipurpose
42 . Near collision (hyphenate only when the phrase modifies a following noun)
43 . Northwest
44 . Offshore
45 . On-site
46 . Oversupply
47 . Pinecone
48 . Pipeline
49 . Policymaker (not in the dictionary, but other -maker constructions, such as winemaker, are closed; if it looks wrong, leave it open)
50 . Postwar
51 . Preexisting
52 . President-elect
53 . Pro-life
54 . Pseudo-intellectual (not in the dictionary, bust pseudo- constructions in which the second word starts with a vowel, such as pseudo-event, are hyphenated; those in which the second word starts with a consonant, such as pseudopod, are closed)
55 . Quasirealistic (not in the dictionary, but most quasi- constructions, such as quasiperiodic, are closed; it if it looks wrong, hyphenate it)
56 . Real time (hyphenate only when the phrase modifies a following noun)
57 . Record breaker (not in the dictionary, but all other compounds with breaker, such as “circuit breaker,” are open)
58 . Riverbed
59 . Seacoast
60 . Self-control
61 . Semifinal
62 . Shell-like (hyphenate only because of the collision of the ls)
63 . Six-pack
64 . Snowmelt
65 . Socioeconomics
66 . Stepmother
67 . Stomachache
68 . Stronghold
69 . Toll free (hyphenate when the phrase modifies a following noun)
70 . Twofold (but hyphenate with a number, as in 10-fold)
71 . Underwater
72 . Vice president (always open, though other compounds containing vice, such as vice-regentviceroy, are treated differently)
and 73. Wildlife
74 . Worldwide
75 . Year-round

Scoring guide

0-25 correct: Always look it up.
26 -50 correct: Always look it up.
51 -75 correct: Always look it up.

Can Winter Weather Bring Down Brain Performance?

As the winter wears on outside of Lumosity's San Francisco headquarters, we're pondering this question: can bad weather be bad for your brain?

In some cases, wintry weather can lead to seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a seasonally recurring depression linked to limited sunlight exposure during winter months. Research shows that about half of non-depressed people have some degree of SAD symptoms during the winter.

But seasonal affective disorder doesn't just change your mood. A Psychological Science study showed that seasons can impact cognitive processes such as memory and speed. The study found that students' mood ratings and memory performance improved when the weather was better, especially on days with more sunlight. In an experimental manipulation, students who took a memory assessment indoors performed worse than students who took the same test outdoors on a warm, sunny day.

Given that research suggests a link between warm weather and enhanced cognition, we turned to our own database of cognitive performance to assess the effects of the seasons on Lumosity game performance.

We looked at scores from the popular free game Memory Matrix to answer this question. Our analysis included only adults in North America, to control for seasonal differences in daylight and weather in the Southern Hemisphere.

Members who started playing Memory Matrix during the winter months (December, January, and February) had significantly lower initial scores than those who started playing during the three other seasons. However, after just five sessions of training, winter Memory Matrix scores improved as much or even more than those in other seasons. By the fifth training session, Memory Matrix scores had improved and were at about the same level across all seasons.

So though initial game scores affirmed prior research linking bad weather to poor performance, we also found that people can significantly improve memory in any season.

If the winter blues have you feeling down, don't fret—spring is just around the corner. While you may feel a little less sharp at the moment, our research shows that you can still enhance your cognitive abilities to new levels no matter what season it is.

Ethos, Pathos, Logos

Learning goal: Persuasive writing that takes a logical, focused position with specific details using effective word choice to support and refute opposing viewpoint.

During class, February 23 and 24 you will explore on your own Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. The following are recommended links, with an assignment that follows.

*Go to http://courses.durhamtech.edu/perkins/aris.html - Take time to read all of the explanations and examples through the links. (Ethos)

*Informative powerpoint at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHJlVRFJb6A (Carmeyrose)

*Informative video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhbbTb0t8q8 (Rangerswebsite)

*Sample of persuasion at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKC5LsVO9k0&feature=related
(Naikamit8)

*Sample of president persuasion at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVyDi-iwuNY&feature=related (Kelmscott2008)


NOW, In your own words, write a multi-paragraph essay defining your particular circled principle of persuasion: Ethos, Pathos or Logos on your rubric, and how you use each of them in your writing.

Include a title,
ntroduction that gives an overview of Aristotle's principles of persuasion,
then a detailed paragraph defining your element,
a few paragraphs how you plan to use this in your writing,
and a conclusion

Please type, double-spaced, 12 point Cambria

save in your English 11 writing portfolio and print a copy for Luttke