Essential Questions:

• How can we address the issue of poverty and improve quality of life for all human beings?

• How do we organize information and ideas in our writing?

Texts

• Excerpts:

  • Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond (excerpt)

  • The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore (excerpt) 

• Videos:

  • Why Is It So Hard to Escape Poverty? - TED Talk by Ann-Helén Bay (5 minutes)

• Essays & Articles:

  • Website: Confronting Poverty

  • Website: Understanding Houston

    • "Poverty and Social Mobility in Houston" from Understanding Houston

  • "How can we understand the root causes of poverty?" from ConfrontingPoverty.org

  • Video: "A Radically New Understanding American Poverty and Inequality" from Society For Social Work & Research (8 minutes)

  • "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" by Martin Luther King Jr. - video | transcript | audio

    • "Johnson Leads U.S. in Mourning" April 5, 1968

    • "Today in Cathedral History: MLK’s Final Sunday Sermon"

    • Martin Luther King Jr. Biography from The Nobel Peace Prize, 1964

    • Spotlight on Martin Luther King Jr. from Smithsonian

  • "What Does California’s Homeless Population Actually Look Like?" by Jay Caspian Kang in The New Yorker

  • "How Houston Moved 25,000 People From the Streets Into Homes of Their Own" by Michael Kimmelman in The New York Times

  • "What’s Homelessness Really Like?" in The New York Times - Thirty people answer questions and share their experiences.

  • “Parental Incarceration Is a Silent American Epidemic More Common Than Childhood Asthma” by Joshua Martoma 

• Poetry & Songs:

  • 
    

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

• Selected artwork, audio, video - TBD

  • "Prison Window" (1992) by Robert Grober - at Menil as "Untitled" 2003-2007

Topics:

• Logic & rhetoric

• Annotation & Note-Taking

  • • Summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, questioning, commenting

    • Questioning

    • Reflecting

    • Analyzing - patterns, perspectives, comparisons/contrasts, defining

    • Synthesizing - consideration, explanation, integration

      • What are the relationships between your sources?

      • What's the relationship between your sources and your own argument?

      • Synthesis requires consideration, explanation, and integration of others’ arguments into one’s own argument.

      • When synthesizing, writers draw upon arguments from multiple sources, strategically select the most relevant information, and combine apt and specific source material as part of their own argument.

• Discussion & obstacles to understanding - pg 112 of Writing Rhetorically: Fostering Responsive Thinkers and Communicators by Jennifer Fletcher

  • expediting judgment

  • binary thinking

  • defensive listening

  • lack of sincerity

  • combative argumentation - creates "obstacles to constructive forms of advocacy, critique and refutation"

  • "One of the keys to effective negotiation is seeing the other person's perspective(s)"

• Commentary

  • establish/explain relationship between evidence and claim

  • signal phrases, transition phrases

• Organization & Structure

  • Methods of Development: narration, cause-effect, comparison-contrast, definition and description

    • narration - offer details about real-life experiences and offer reflections and insights on the significance of those experiences.

    • cause-effect - present a cause, assert effects or consequences of that cause, or present a series of causes and the subsequent effect(s).

    • comparison-contrast - present a category of comparison and then examine the similarities and/or differences between the objects of the comparison. When analyzing similarities and/or differences, like categories of comparison must be used.

    • definition or description - explain the characteristics, features, or sensory details of an object or idea, sometimes using examples or illustrations. 

  • Line of Reasoning

  • Thesis - the main, overarching claim a writer is seeking to defend or prove by using reasoning supported by evidence.

  • Paragraphing

• Logical Fallacies & Faulty Reasoning

• Line of Reasoning and Thesis 

• Critique & evaluate

• Citing Sources of Information

• Speaker / Ethos and persuasion in literature - voice of authority

  • passion, discrimination and inclusiveness - from pg 17, Poetry as Persuasion by Carl Dennis

  • "Literature as Persuasion" by Reed Whittemore

  • "Persuasion in Literature" - lesson plans from Why We Must Run With Scissors: Voice Lesson in Persuasive Writing by Barry Lane and Gretchen Bernabei

• Creative Writing - Return to exigence

• Persuasive Writing

Unit Skills: 

• Quote, paraphrase, question and respond to information and ideas in rhetorical and literary texts.

• Use signal phrases and transition phrases to introduce and connect text evidence and commentary.

• Identify and explain flaws in logical reasoning.

• Analyze and critique the structure and the logical reasoning of a text.

• Analyze  and discuss the use of rhetorical strategies in a text.

• Compare and contrast ethos, logos, and pathos in a rhetorical text and a literary text.

• Write a literary work (poetry, fiction, nonfiction) in which you use writing style and the speaker / narrator’s voice to establish a convincing narrative or idea.

• Write a persuasive essay that includes a clear organizational structure, line of reasoning, and thesis.

• Cite sources of information using MLA or APA format.

Enduring Understandings:

• Synthesis requires consideration, explanation, and integration of others’ arguments into one’s own argument.

• Effective use of evidence uses commentary to establish a logical relationship between the evidence and the claim it supports. Commentary explains the significance and relevance of evidence in relation to the line of reasoning.

• Signal Phrases: Writers introduce source material by using commentary to properly integrate it into their line of reasoning.

• Paragraphing, Organization & Structure: The sequence of paragraphs in a text reveals the argument’s line of reasoning.

• Flaws in a line of reasoning may render an argument specious or illogical.

• Citing Sources of Information: Writers must acknowledge words, ideas, images, texts, and other intellectual property of others through attribution, citation, or reference.

Formative Assessment(s):

• Journal Writing

• Notes & Annotations

• Group Discussion Notes / Anchor Chart

• Creative / Literary piece

• Online Discussion Board

Summative Assessment(s):

• Photo Essays About Community - The New York Times Where We Are: Photo Essays About Community Contest (see general info and guidelines on contests page)

• Author's Commentary

• Persuasive Essay