Evidence, Inferences, and “The Game of School” AOSR: English 10 Josefino Rivera, Jr. September 24/27, 2010

Homework  Finish “The Game of School”  Prepare for Card Quiz  Reading Log  Please write in your Daily Journal for 30 minutes: The Game of School “High School” Judge what your attitude towards school now is as a high schooler in light of Robert Fried’s description in “High School—Playing for Keeps. ” Reflect on whether you are “alienated from [your] learning spirit ” or “psyching out ” your teachers and why.

Today’s Objectives  To summarize the reading from last night  To showcase reading comprehension  To make personal connections to the text  To understand your essay prompt  To understand the difference between the writing and sequence and the thinking sequence  To develop specificity in evidence and make inferences  *If you’re interested in IB for next year, leave your name in the box in front of Ms. Fiochi’s office.

The Game of School: “Middle and High” Card Quiz  According to Fried, at the middle school level two games emerge. The can be described as…  A “temporary loser” is…  Examples of temporary losers are…  A “permanent loser” is…  Permanent losers are created by…  The third type of loser is…  According to Fried, “a learning spirit” can be defined as…  On the other hand, “‘psych[ing] out’ our teachers” means…  When we play the game of school in high school, we are “playing for keeps” which means…  Fried’s former student, Amanda, offers evidence of what it takes to play this game, saying…  Students play the game of school when it comes to extra curricular activities by…

Daily Journal  Date: 24/  Title: The Game of School: Elementary and Middle  Evaluate your participation in the Game of School in elementary school. Recall a point when you turned your focus away from learning new things to pleasing the teacher in elementary school and think about what happened and why.  Then evaluate your participation in the Game of School in middle school. Decide whether you played the getting ahead academically game or the getting in with the popular kids game or both and why.

Daily Journal  Pair Share  Card Call

The Game of School Essay

The Essay  Introduction + Thesis  Claim 1, Evidence, Commentary  Claim 2, Evidence, Commentary  Claim 3, Evidence, Commentary  Conclusion

The Writing Process  Prompt  Evidence  Inferences  Recognize patterns among inferences  Create thesis statement  Draft paper: thesis, claims, evidence, commentary  Include introduction and conclusion  Revise, revise, revise  Add a title

Two groups  Claims/Arguments “School too often insists…” “Ira Glass, host of the radio program…” “A group of elementary teachers…” “A child may learn…”  Evidence “How do I get…” “Everyone always… “ “That’s when they start…” “I was an avid reader…” “Basically, the game of school…”

Claim vs. Evidence  A claim is your opinion about the prompt.  Evidence are facts that support your claims.  They can come in two main forms: Quotes from the text. Personal anecdotes.

Evidence  What makes strong evidence? Specific who Specific what Specific when Specific where

Strong Evidence  Claim: A child may learn many useful and interesting things. But he also learn to undervalue his own learning in favor of “doing the work, ” pleasing his teachers, getting good marks on his report cards so his parents will be happy.  Evidence: I was an avid reader through fourth grade. I read every Babysitter’s Club book ever made. When I went to fifth grade, I was faced with grades! My teacher had the reputation of being extremely strict. I was no longer allowed to read any Babysitter’s Club-type books. Every semester if we wanted an A in reading, we had to read 1,000 pages. Now, I loved reading, yes; but I wasn’t a fast reader. Yet I wanted that A. I started complaining of my “eyes hurting ” when I read, and I stopped reading. I lied about the books I read, and I faked all the book reports. I didn’t read a book from fifth grade until my junior year in high school. ~Kate O’Regan, former student

What’s missing?  Claim: A child may learn many useful and interesting things. But he also learn to undervalue his own learning in favor of “doing the work, ” pleasing his teachers, getting good marks on his report cards so his parents will be happy.  Example 1: Once when I was in fourth grade, I used to collect things because I wanted to know more about them. But when I started going to science class, he killed my love for it.  Example 2: This one time my parents didn’t let me go to my best friend’s birthday party because I got bad grades.  Example 3: In elementary school, my teachers would put stickers only on my completed assignments.

From Weak to Strong Evidence  On a piece of paper, rewrite the following pieces of evidence with more specificity.  Claim: A child may learn many useful and interesting things. But he also learns to undervalue his own learning in favor of “doing the work,” pleasing his teachers, getting good marks on his report cards so his parents will be happy.  Evidence 1: Once when I was in fourth grade, I used to collect things because I wanted to know more about them. But when I started going to science class, he killed my love for it.  Evidence 2: This one time my parents didn’t let me go to my best friend’s birthday party because I got bad grades.  Evidence 3: In elementary school, my teachers would put stickers only on my completed assignments.

Daily Journal Revision  Return to your daily journal from this morning.  Revise your journal by making sure you provide specificity in evidence.

From Evidence to Inferences “One of my students, Kate O’Regan, put it this way: I was an avid reader through fourth grade. I read every ‘Babysitter’s Club’ book ever made. When I went to fifth grade, I was faced with grades! My teacher had the reputation of being extremely strict. I was no longer allowed to read any Babysitter’s Club-type books. Every semester if we wanted an A in reading, we had to read 1,000 pages. Now, I loved reading, yes; but I wasn’t a fast reader. Yet I wanted that A. I started complaining of my “eyes hurting” when I read, and I stopped reading. I lied about the books I read, and I faked all the book reports. I didn’t read a book from fifth grade until junior year in high school.”  What inferences (or conclusions based on evidence) can you make from this piece of evidence?  Inference: School can turn students off from learning.  Thinking: Given that Kate used to love to read and then all of a sudden stopped reading something must have happened. The only thing that changed between fourth grade and fifth grade was the introduction to grades and the strict teacher who focused on quantity over quality. So I can infer (or make the conclusion) that school was the culprit of the reason she started to hate learning.

From Evidence to Inferences  Read the following evidence.  Make an inference based on the evidence and document them on the small white board.  Be prepared to read your inference and explain your thinking (like I did in the last slide) to the whole class.

From Evidence to Inference  #1 “Scorned because they would rather stick their noses in a book or hack into a computer than “hang out” and try to be popular, many temporary losers grow up in a world outside of school that values thoughtfulness, depth of inquiry, creativity, and hard work” (26).  #2 “Lauraliz, born in Puerto Rico, moved to the Bronx; she describes herself thus: ‘I am one of the student that’s in the crowd the teachers don’t notice. I’m not liked or disliked. It feels safer. I don’t want to have people think I’m needy and I don’t want to talk unless I’m sure I have the right answer’” (28).  What can we infer about these students’ learning spirit?  #1 Inference: While temporary losers are unfairly picked on, they usually recover their learning spirit after school is over.  #2 Inference: Even though it can be easier to be unrecognized, students can also lose their learning spirit from it.

Homework  Finish “The Game of School”  Prepare for Card Quiz  Reading Log  Please write in your Daily Journal for 30 minutes: The Game of School “High School” Judge what your attitude towards school now is as a high schooler in light of Robert Fried’s description in “High School—Playing for Keeps. ” Reflect on whether you are “alienated from [your] learning spirit ” or “psyching out ” your teachers and why.

Feedback to Mr. Rivera  Our first two weeks in the course was devoted to pre-assessment, community building, skill building, and introductions to the course and resources on campus.  Last week was your first week of instruction.  Write a short paragraph that tells me what is working for you and what is not working for you in terms of my teaching style.