Teaching students to synthesize a variety of sources, and then sustain a clear line of reasoning, isn’t easy.
On my yearend evaluation for AP Language, here’s what one of my emerging writers had to say of his experience with me:
“It’s kind of like you asked us to learn how to juggle with seven flaming bowling pins when we’ve never juggled before … starting with a couple of tennis balls would have helped me out a lot.”
Bingo!! He’s 100% correct.
So, Tootsie the Missing Cat is a two-tennis ball kind of introductory synthesis unit that I've spent the last few days putting together.
The sources are funny and accessible and include things like Tootsie’s Snapchats, a diary entry, graphs and charts about the ill-effects of ingesting too much catnip, an overview of the basic premise of the law of attraction – there’s even a source to capture Tootsie’s superstition about eating right Twix versus left Twix.
The goal … students need to incorporate the source material in order to bring Tootsie back home to his owners.
Today’s writing workshop video walks you and your students through the process of constructing the essay while I “Bob Ross” how to pull the strings of my templates.
There are a ton of models and exemplars … this is perfect to kick off next school year.
If you’d like the packet of source material and my writing workshop slides so that you can host your own seminar, feel free to reach out.
I absolutely love how this turned out!! My outgoing juniors did it as prep for the Regents exam and they crushed it. Lots of fun and great discussions about Tootsie’s fate.
Link to the video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UJAZU4pF4I&t=48s
And please subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven’t already.
Happy teaching and happy writing!
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