IEW U.S. History - Week Seven

IEW – Week Seven

(Collect papers)

Vocab test cancelled

(until next week)

Note Taking

So far, how have we learned to take notes using a KWO? (by choosing 2 or 3 key words from each sentence)

This works well when source texts are short and about the same length as the report that you are writing. However, most source texts that you’ll encounter are not short. Most source texts are encyclopedia articles or chapters of books. If you rewrote those, sentence by sentence, your report would be enormous. So, how do you suppose that we should be taking notes when our source text is really long?

The key to note-taking for longer source texts is to understand the structure of a report – or how facts should be organized.

Open your SRN to page 8. This model outlines the structure you will use for one, two, or three-paragraph reports.

Notice that each paragraph has a topic sentence. This is simply a sentence to introduce what each paragraph is about. You’ve already been doing this with your reports, but the topic sentence was chosen for you. Now, you will have to learn how to choose topics and organize facts from a source text under those topics. Once you choose the topic of your paragraph, then all of the sentences in that paragraph have to fit under that topic.

Do you notice that it says Clincher at the bottom of each paragraph? You will end each paragraph with a general reminder of the topic. You’ll do this by repeating or reflecting two or three key words from the topic sentence in the clincher sentence. That is why you see arrows from the clinchers to the topic sentences on page 8.

Turn to page 38 in your student writing book. Let’s read this sample report together.

(Take turns reading – whoever wants to)

Now, let’s look at the first and last sentence of each paragraph. These should tell you what each paragraph is about.

What do you think paragraph one is about? (write on board)

Did you notice that 2 or 3 words sound the same in each of those sentences? Let’s circle them.

What do you think paragraph two is about?

What are the key words that are repeated or reflected in this paragraph?

What is paragraph three about?

What are the repeated or reflected key words?

So, you see that the author of this report began each paragraph with a topic sentence, and ended each paragraph with a clincher sentence that reflected the topic. In between those sentences are the details that he wanted you to know about that topic.

Now, we get to work on our own reports. We will be writing reports from the source text on page 40 about the Care of the Sick during colonial times.

Where do we start? After reading the source text, we will choose three topics to cover (younger students would only use two). However, this has already been done for you.

Older students will be writing about Medicines, Superstitions, and Doctors.

Younger students will be writing about Medicines and Doctors.

So, I’m going to show you how we will find our keywords. Look at page 41 under topic A. What is the topic of this paragraph? (medicines, colonial times)

OK. Let’s begin reading the source text together. Whenever you hear me read something that has to do with medicines in colonial times, raise your hand.

When we find a fact about medicine, we’re going to highlight it. (There will be some sentences that we won’t use, and there may be more that one fact in each sentence.) There may also be more facts about medicine here than we want to use. So, we’ll need to decide the facts that we think are the MOST interesting or MOST important.

Now we’re going to take those highlighted facts and circle the keywords of each.

Don’t forget to include the clincher.

(Repeat with paragraph three, as time allows.)

Assignment

Use these outlines to make rough drafts this week, using all the elements of style that we’ve learned so far.

Also, continue to study vocabulary words for lessons 1- 5, as well as beginning to memorize the vocab from lesson 7.