Letter to the Senator

Here are some tips for writing a letter to your Senator:


 Typed, one-page letters are best. Many PACs (Political Action Committees) recommend a     
three-paragraph letter structured like this:

1. 
   
2. 1. Say why you are writing and who you are. For example, if you are writing about veteran's causes, state your affiliation or proximity to Fort Hood. If you are writing about homeschooling, identify yourself as a homeschooler.
3. 
   
4. 2. Provide more detail. Be factual not emotional. Provide specific rather than general information about how the topic affects you and others. If a certain bill is involved, cite the correct title or number whenever possible.
5. 
   
6. 3. Close by requesting the action you want taken: a vote for or against a bill, or change in general policy.

The best letters are courteous, to the point, and include specific supporting examples. Be careful to not denigrate or demean the representative. Remember, we want our letters to be "civil." 

The sample letter below is provided to show the correct format for addressing your State House Representative.  It is impossible to provide one letter that would meet the needs of all students; so, you will need to personalize your letter to address your concerns or issues regarding legislation.  Please use the left-hand column as a guide for the format, but make the letter unique to your needs!

Here is a sample letter format with the explanations on the side. You would need to look up the representative for Texas in our district. I'll leave that up to you smart googlers. :) It's always a good idea to know who your representatives are. 

Return Address Date Representative’s Address Salutation Introduce yourself:  your name, address, and school to identify that you are a constituent Why are you writing your Representative?  Ask for a response Thank your Representative for his/her time Closing with your name

Your Name Address City, S.C.  Zip Code [Insert Date] The Honorable [Insert Representative’s Name] Post Office Box 11867 Columbia, S.C.  29211-1867 Dear Representative [Insert Last Name]: My name is [Insert Your Name] and I reside at [Insert Your Address] in [Insert Your City], South Carolina.  I am in the fourth grade at [Insert Your School].  I am writing you to ask that you help make school buses safer to ride.  I ride the bus to and from school every day.  [Be specific with your suggestion, idea or request.  If you are writing about a specific Bill, include the Bill Number - for example, H. 5400 or. S. 2815] I appreciate your help and ask that you please send me a response letting me know if you are able to pass a Bill that would make our school buses safer to ride. Thank you for your time and considering my request. Sincerely, [Insert Your Name]

Henry David Thoreau

You've probably heard of this guy, and maybe a few of you have actually read some of his work. You will be reading "Civil Disobedience" this week. The link for that is on the Spring Syllabus page, or you can just google it. There are several copies available for free online. This is the man to inspire Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr, and even Don Henley of The Eagles. He was part of a movement known as Transcendentalism, which we will discuss a little bit more next week, but simply, it reflected an era where women's rights, abolitionists, and nature lovers sought a simple and meaningful life shunning luxuries for simple walks and minimalism. Sound familiar? If not, watch an episode of HGTV's Tiny Houses to see this in action. Or if you aren't an avid fan of HGTV, try Duck Dynasty. :)

Grammar Matters

How to use a Block Quote

When you are using MLA citations for your papers, and you are in this class, quotes that are longer than forty words or four lines need to be offset in a block quote. To do this, you will place the quote on a separate line and indent the entire quote. You will not use quotation marks. You will place your punctuation at the end of the sentence and the citation will follow in parenthesis. Notice the distinctions in the following example from an old paper I wrote in rhetoric class. See the differences with the citations inside the paragraph and the citation of the block quote.

       Hortensia was another classical Greek female rhetorician, but contrasting her peers, her own words have been preserved. Hortensia was the daughter of Quintus Hortensius, also an orator. The following speech was delivered at the Forum, where a group of women gathered to protest the taxes they were required to pay for a war they could not vote on. In a sense, her speech is one of the first “no taxation without representation” arguments (Ritchie 16). In this speech, she argued,

Why should we pay taxes when we have no part in the honours, the commands, the state-craft, for which you contend against each other with such harmful results? When have there not been wars, and when have taxes ever been imposed on women, who are exempted by their sex among all mankind? (16)

Her speech is significant, not just because of the content, but also because of her use of rhetorical questions. Why should women pay for a war they can neither participate in nor vote against? In her important book Rhetoric Retold, Cheryl Glenn implores, “rather than arguing for women’s participation in political affairs, an argument that would have been both impossible and fantastic given her context, she uses women’s nonparticipation to argue that women’s war efforts be voluntary” (69). This is a rather brilliant move. She essentially points out that women’s inequality is precisely the reason their support should be voluntary. Why should women who have no say be punished with the cost of war? Her skill with persuasive argument is evident. Her argument convinced Marc Antony and the other men in the Forum. The next day the women’s tax rate dropped from 1400 to 400, and wealthy men were ordered to help fund the war (Ritchie 18).

Notice how this quote does not end my paragraph. I still need to define its significance, so the second part of my explanation is not indented. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. :)

Weekly Assignment Due January 24th

Class,


Here's a reminder of your assignment due next Tuesday. First, finish reading Night.  Second, study your vocabulary words from the last two weeks. We will have our flyswatter game review this next week. For those that were absent, I will post yesterday's words. Third, you will write the first three paragraphs of your paper on the ethnicity/racial/religious/political/etc stereotypes. How is this group portrayed in popular culture or the media?

 

1.     Provide an introduction--some kind of interesting opening discussing stereotypes in general. This should be approximately 2-3 sentences. Next, introduce the group you have decided to evaluate and three examples you will analyze in your essay. Southerners are often negatively represented in media, portraying extreme ignorance, poverty, and racism.

2.     This paragraph will focus on one of those examples. Here's an example: 

                 One of the most popular stereotypes of Southerners is their lack of education. This is portrayed in all types of media, but especially in Disney movies. In the film Aristocats, the characters roam the Parisian streets in search of their home; however, they stumble upon a junkyard run by two “redneck” hound-dogs speaking in a very pronounced, if not exaggerated, southern dialect.  The characters break grammar rules, contrasting the more educated and refined Parisian.  This scene feels out of place geographically, but the takeaway leaves the viewer with a negative portrayal of Southerners in general. If the Parisians speak proper English and reside in an affluent apartment, the denigrated Southerner with their broken grammar and dialect deserve to remain in the junkyard. This stereotype of ignorance usually ties in with the second most common portrayal of Southerners-poverty.

3.     This paragraph will do the same thing as the second but focus on my second point, poverty.

4.     This paragraph will discuss the final claim in your thesis statement. Mine would be racism since that is outlined in my thesis statement in the introductory paragraph.

5.     Here you provide your conclusion. What observations have you seen? Which are true or harmful? What can we learn about the media and these stereotypes? How do stereotypes connect with a larger issue of society?     

      Next week, have your introduction and two body paragraphs written. You may need to do some research here. Can you think of film, television, or other media sources to prove your point? Remember, by the third sentence in the body paragraphs, begin illustrating your point with either a direct quote or a scene that provides the evidence you need to back up your claim. You do not need a quote or evidence in your introduction; however, if you do not have evidence in your two body paragraphs, I will return your assignment for more work. All great arguments provide evidence in order to convince their audience.  

      Vocabulary Words from this week: 

      1. Gauche- lacking social grace

      2. Zenith- the top of a trajectory; the highest point

      3. Futile- incapable of producing any result

      4. Ruminate- to think deeply

      5. Acrimony- tense bitterness in a relationship

     See you all next week! If you have any questions, comment, email, or text me and I will get back to you as soon as possible.                 

       

                                                                                                           

Milgram Experiment - Big History NL, threshold 6

Weekly Reminder

Class,

I enjoyed meeting with you all yesterday. I hope you walked away with a little bit more information and were challenged to see interpretations in more than one way. This will become helpful as we analyze different texts over the rest of the semester. To view information through our own personal lens is always helpful, but we also have a historical lens, a literary lens, and we can create a new one by putting texts into conversation with one another. We did this a bit yesterday with Carl Sandberg's poem and the Holocaust.

Remember, for this week, you will read the first sixty pages of Night and prepare two academic paragraphs in response to either your own personal claim or the three C's: The most compelling, most controversial, or most confusing scenes in the story. Your academic paragraph must include the following:

1. Make a claim.
2. Define your claim or further explain what you mean.
3. Provide textual evidence. This is where a quote should be placed. I'll provide more in a minute on how to do this.
4. Interpret that evidence to prove your claim.
5. Conclude your paragraph in a way that reminds the reader of your claim.


Here's an example paragraph:

                                           Ideologies, Adolescents, and Struggles 

         John Green’s Looking for Alaska is a compelling example of adolescent literature, particularly with its exploration of ideology. “Pudge” enjoys sitting in his religion class, and his big assignment is to explore what he thinks is the most important question the three main religions seek to answer. This broad assignment not only gives us a glimpse into Pudge’s mind but also introduces how his ideology is formed and tested. When he wrestles with finding a conclusion, he abandons the formalities and tells us what he thinks, and he says, “People, I thought, wanted security. They couldn’t bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn’t bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, and couldn’t even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn’t bear not to” (100). With this novel, we participate in the struggle with him to find meaning in life and death. These ideologies will later be tested with the loss of his first love, and those ideologies he struggles to define will become some of the most important issues he will face. 

You'll notice that the quote I used in this paragraph is followed by the page number in parenthesis. This is the standard MLA documentation style for quotations. The text is italicized. Remember, short pieces like poems and song titles, and even short stories, are in quotations. Longer pieces, like novels, albums, and movies are italicized. 

When you are adding in a quote, your goal is to embed it into your own original sentence. Avoid dropping a quote in and leaving it filling that space without you somehow working it into your own context. And if you drop a quote in and do not provide an explanation, the quote is awkward and leaves the reader trying to make meaning out of your conversation. Don't give them the opportunity. A good argument provides the interpretation. Let your reader know exactly what this quote proves and its significance. 

Your paragraphs are not limited to five sentences, but that is the absolute minimum for an acceptable length. They can be longer. Here's an example of a longer paragraph that includes all five elements with a little more expansion. :

                                       Huckleberry Finn: First Person Perspective

Huckleberry Finn is compellingly told from the first-person perspective, which helps to align the novel with the adolescent literature criteria. The reader is immediately pulled into Huck’s narrative, and through this, we are better able to witness his transition from a playful boy to a compassionate young man. When Huck is lost in the fog, we empathize with his fears and his return to Jim’s side brings relief; however, his dirty trick of gas lighting Jim into believing it was all a dream reminds us of the child that Huck truly is. It is through Jim’s rebuke that we feel Huck’s shame, remorse, and humility. When Huck says, “It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back” we see a significant change in Huck (47). He becomes compassionate and thoughtful, and we see how his relationship with Jim has changed from one of traveling companions to one of deep respect and friendship. Having this story told through Huck’s perspective brings in a more raw and emotional element than one that would be told through a narrator, and that emotion is what helps connect the reader to this story, adolescent or otherwise.

Also, you will need to review your vocabulary words for the week. You will have five more next Tuesday, so try not to get behind. The quiz will sneak up quickly. 

Please watch the interview posted with Elie Wiesel and Oprah Winfrey. I will also post a link to the experiment I mentioned in class. Try to watch that as well, since it will likely work its way into our conversations. 

If you have any questions or confusion, please reach out to me. You can leave a message on this blog, or send me an email. 

See you Tuesday morning!