Evaluating Newspaper Article - Mentor Texts

Enjoy these 'unedited' examples of  your most recent  assignment on evaluting a newspaper article. Will  your evaluation of  President Obama's speech contain clear examples of your opinion? Notice this time i have highlighted just opinion statements.

Filled with tater tots, cheese curls, and trail mix, Mr. Smith’s tractor slowly moves to the pig pen. Pigs Switch to Trail Mix is an unusual, but interesting article from the Wall Street Journal. Surprisingly, farmers are switching to fatty foods for their pigs! Oddly enough farmers, like Mr. Smith are now feeding there pigs tater tots. Cheese Curls are another strange food you can find on a farm. People food is now on a weird feed for animals like trail mix. Sadly, farmers are really hard time feeding their animals. Unfortunately, the whole reason pigs are switching to fatty foods is because of how high priced corn is these days. To feed the animals only fatty foods is a disaster because it depresses them. Farmers have figured out that pigs are really picky eaters, so they have to them sugary foods. Some of the vocabulary that was in my article was very difficult to understand. Mitigate, to make something less harsh, was one of the words I thought was difficult. Also, byproducts, something produced as a secondary result by manufacturers, was another word I did not know. Ethanol, a colorless liquid with a pleasant smell, also was new to me. The engaging and sad article Pig Switch Trail Mix is most unusual article that I have ever read. As Mr. Smith puts the tater tots, trail mix, and cheese curls into the squirming pigs troth, he is glad the pigs like their food.    by Paige

Finally, Seay feels a tug on his line, and as he reels in he sees that hard, scaly snout and treacherous pointed teeth. The Charlotte Observer’s story on four fishermen catching an alligator, written by Andrew Dys, is both breathtaking and amazing. The characters in this story, Seay, Fields, Honeycutt, and Martin, are astonishing. These people have numerous character traits. One of the character traits that these people possess is adventurousness because most people would never go hunting for alligators. Also, they are very persistent, because they never gave up on conquering that alligator. I am very impressed by them. I believe the action in this article could have been better, but they did use some very descriptive details in quite a few places. For example, they could have used more descriptive writing on how they got the alligator into the boat. Although, they did use some decent descriptive words and quotes when they narrated how the fishermen never gave up. One of the quotes was “No way we were going to give up once we got him hooked.” I believe that the information in this article is well chosen and informative. A very valid piece of information is that alligators are indigenous to South Carolina and have been around this state much longer than humans. Another important piece of information is that in 2009 more than 3700 people applied for the 1000 hunting tags. To conclude, this story needs a bit more descriptive writing but gives some impressive information. At last Martin got a noose around the gators jaws and Honeycutt ended the fight with a shot to the head.   by Handy

Evaluating a Speech - President Obama speaks to School Children

http://www.youtube.com/whitehouse#play/search/0/8ZZ6GrzWkw0

What criteria (categories) would 'you' choose to evaluate this speech.  Some possible choices might be:

• Message
• Stance (agree with/disagree with)
• Delivery of Speech
• Memorable moments
• Surprising moments
• Relevance to audience
• Quotes used
• Humor
• Setting
• Surprising Facts
• Language and vocabulary
• etc etc...

Make sure that whichever criteria (Power 2s) you choose to evaluate this speech, you can find at least three pieces of evidence (Power3s) to support the opinion you made

Compound and complex Sentences Practice

Explanation of  Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences
video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTfgqZmmG2Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO4CBvS_i8g
Ignore use of colon (:) and dash (-) explanations

text
http://www2.ivcc.edu/rambo/eng1001/sentences.htm

Complex and Compound Practice
http://eslbee.com/cgi-bin/quiztest.cgi?helenkeller
http://www.ainop.com/users/classroom/compoundsentences.html
http://itech.pjc.edu/writinglab/senpat.htm
http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/complex_sentence/index.html
http://www.quia.com/rr/126726.html
http://eslbee.com/cgi-bin/quiztest.cgi?shadrach

Optional Writing Activity to Practice
http://www.kimskorner4teachertalk.com/writing/sixtrait/sentencefluency/sentencebeginnings.html

Coming Next Week

Sentence Fluency Test
Can you write advanced simple, compound, and complex sentences?
Do you know the characteristics of compound and complex sentences?
Can you punctuate compound and complex sentences effectively?
Do the practice exercises on this blog to help you prepare for the test

Prepositions and Prepostional Phrases
What is a preposition?
Why do we use prepositional phrases?

Social Studies Textbook - Lesson 4
Land and Regions

Evaluating Text - Speeches
What criteria would you use to evaluate President Obama's speech to school children?

Evaluating - Mentor Text Example

Make sure the evaluation of your newspaper article resembles the paragraph below. Your opinion of what you read should be very evident. Follow effective paragrpah struture. Have you used sentence fluency?

Two adventurous fifth grade school girls search out more than they bargained for while attending a class outing at the Natural History Museum. A Mummy Mystery is an exciting story that leaves readers on the edge of their seats. The main characters, Molly and Lena, are very mischievous throughout the story. Even though they should be with their class, they wander off on their own almost immediately on their arrival at the museum. Lena is probably the most disobedient of the two. Molly seems be the type of person who worries about what other people think, “Mr. Gardiner will be furious with us!” she exclaimed at one stage in the story. Alternatively, Lena’s fascination with ancient Egypt and complete disregard for her class was demonstrated when she almost ran toward the larger banner over the entrance to the Great Hall. The author, Andrew Clements, tries to use humor to break down some of the tension that builds in the story. It was amusing when Officer Johnson thought he was on T.V. when he first saw the Mummy’s hand move or when Molly whispered to Lena about the Mummy, “…it looks more like a squirrel that’s been hit by a car.” The author does not seem to pay meticulous attention to all of the fine details, leaving some of the events of the story a little confusing. How would a mouse be able to burrow under the Mummy’s wrappings without causing damage? Moreover, the mouse would have died of suffocation if it had been stuck in the glass case all that time. Any “…ancient pieces of corn or wheat”, would surely be rotten after thousands of years and could not have provided food for the mouse. Despite some over exaggerated facts, the daring exploits of Molly and Lena and a few light hearted jokes make the tale, A Mummy Mystery both memorable and enjoyable. On your next field trip, I’d watch the exhibits really closely if I were you. Just in case.