The ICE Format

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think. –Margaret Mead In this class, you will be encouraged to share your unique perspective with the class; however, your ideas must always be backed up with textual evidence. The highest level of learning happens when we engage with the text, formulate opinions, and support our opinions with textual evidence. An English classroom is a place for us to make sense of our world. WE WANT TO HEAR YOUR IDEAS. CONVINCE US WITH TEXTUAL EVIDENCE.

In class discussions… Listen carefully to ideas as they are shared. Ask the speaker… Why do you think that? Where do you see that in the text? How does that quote support your idea?

When writing, use the ICE format! When writing, your goal is to be as convincing as possible. Finding textual evidence is much more than just writing down a random quote; it is proof of your opinion! The ICE format is an organizational tool to help make your writing reader-friendly and convincing.

ICE stands for: Introduce the idea (or answer question) Cite a source (give a quote) Explain the quote in your own words (pick specific words from the quote to discuss more fully, connect the quote to your answer/topic sentence/ thesis sentence)

Answer the question in a complete sentence. Step 1: TOPIC SENTENCE Answer the question in a complete sentence.

Step 2: Introduce the Quote Citing a quote without an introduction is very confusing for your reader. We want our readers to be CONVINCED, not CONFUSED. Quotes can be taken out of context very easily. Check out this famous example.

Quote Mining Quote mining is taking quotes out of context in order to make them agree with the quote miner's viewpoint or to make the comments of an opponent seem more extreme or hold positions they don't in order to make their positions easier to refute or demonize.

Example: Scooby Doo The second live-action Scooby Doo movie makes use of this. A news reporter (secretly the main villain) takes Fred's comments and remarks out of context to defame the gang. The context... Fred: Wait a minute! You're going to edit what I say to make people think I think Coolsville sucks! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXAZ7LZsUy8

Example: Ellen On the September 12, 2012, installment of her self-titled talk show, Ellen DeGeneres quote-mined both President Obama and his opponent, Mitt Romney, to make nice political ads against the other. So President Obama ended up saying, among other things, "Governor Romney ... drove my grandma to work." And Candidate Romney said, among other things, "President Obama ... won World War II." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWc7XCLMKfQ

This teaches us 2 things: Don’t believe every quote you read without examining the context. INTRODUCE your quotes to your readers.

How do I introduce quotes? Provide a short summary (in your own words) of what is happening in the text prior to the quote: What is happening in the text? Who is speaking? To whom are they speaking?

Step 3: Cite Write the actual quotation using using exact words from the text or paraphrase the quotation using your own words. With a short story or novel, you cite the page number. A short story should be in quotation marks; a novel or book should be underlined. Example: In Eugenia Collier’s “Sweet Potato Pie,” the narrator has a flashback about his brother Charley as if he was “looking at split TV screen (1).

Provide an explanation of why this quotation is significant. Step 4: Explain Provide an explanation of why this quotation is significant. HOW does it support your answer? WHY is the quote important? WHAT do you think it means? Your explanation should be at least as long, or longer that the quote itself!

Use your note guide to annotate examples of ICE paragraphs from our formative assessment on “Sweet Potato Pie.”

What do these details tell you about their childhood? These details tell the reader that the narrator’s family was very poor and it took a lot of effort to just survive. When the sharecroppers were finally paid, the narrator explains that the family had been running out of things that they couldn’t grow nor get on credit for weeks. This shows that no matter how hard the narrator’s family worked, they were still struggling to survive.

How does the flashback help you understand the narrator’s feelings about Charley? The flashback helps readers understand the narrator’s deep feeling of love for Charley because it allows us to see that they come from a family that had to stick together to survive. The text states, “Charley never had a childhood at all. The oldest children of sharecroppers never do.” This shows that the narrator admires his brother for sacrificing his childhood to make sure that the family had enough to survive.