Your prompt:
Write an essay on a subject from your study of the practice of empathy.
Each hyperlink in the prompt leads to the entirety of what you need to write this essay. It starts with the writing process post, which leads you to your writing guide:
The questions guide you through the modular elements of writing. Here is the second page:
This assignment builds on the NPR Podcast Challenge we started in early January:
You can continue to use the space to complete the challenge, and I’ll make that an ongoing option through the end of March. There is an opportunity here to do more than just a podcast, though. The five prompts provided by NPR could be used for discussion and essay-writing, too.
First, those prompts again:
Tell us a story about your school or community: about something that happened there — recently or in the past — that your audience should know about.
What is a moment in history that all students should learn about?
Show us both sides of a debate about an issue that’s important to you.
What do you want to change about the world? What’s a big change that students today will make in the future?
Explain something to us that kids understand and grown-ups don’t.
Answering these five questions has given you the subject and approach, at least, for five different essays. We will use the writing process(es) outlined here:
Your assignment is simple: Choose a prompt, and then write an essay in response to it.
You can use your peers for inspiration, by the way, since you can load the Google Form you completed, click on “See previous responses,” and read hundreds of potential approaches:
You have to add your own answers first, of course. If you’ve done that, you now have access to the anonymous suggestions of your peers.
Follow any further directions on Google Classroom, and ask questions below.
Earlier this month, you were invited to read excerpts from Freakonomics:
The focus overall is on parenting, with the subject of names dominating an entire chapter. That is now our focus: the names we have and what we might write about them.
The prompt for this writing assignment is simple: Write an essay about your name. The trick is unpacking that prompt and finding an interesting approach to the subject.
To do this, we’ll us two tactics. First, a work-in-progress guide to writing built on makerspace principles. It’s roughly 90% complete, which means it will work for you:
It will also be shared in class. Following those steps will produce an essay.
The second tactic is to use the comment section of this post to share, discuss, critique, etc., your ideas. Focus on your approach. What is the interesting perspective you can bring to bear on the subject of your name? What questions can you ask and answer? What will interest a potential audience? And so on.
Post your (succinct) comments here, and we’ll let the interstitial mechanisms of the course take over. Follow Google Classroom for deadlines and other requirements.