5.4. Should Schools Go Paperless?

What Are Learning About Today?

• We are reading a pair of short thesis-driven essays and practicing writing Text Citation Sentences. RI1.
• We are also reviewing both our RAFTS technique for analyzing a writing prompt to determine the role, audience, format, topic question, and size AND our ability to construct a prewrite.

What Do We Need to Know to Make Our Work Easier

1. Read over the directions for how to write a text citation sentence. Make sure to do it well, I don't give points for effort -- you're developing, proficient, or expert.
For Writing the Text Citation Sentence (Check 1)
2. Any statement that attempts to analyze a text can be designated as "explicitly stated" in the text, "should be concluded" by inferences in the text, "should not be concluded," by a lack of evidence in the text, and "explicitly contradicted" by evidence in the text.
3. The formula for a text citation sentence is, [CLAIM] + "explicitly stated/should be concluded/should not be concluded/explicitly contradicted" [QUOTED/PARAPHRASE EVIDENCE].
For Analyzing the Prompt (Check 2)
4. You should memorize RAFTS -- role, audience, format, topic, size -- these are the things that you have to ascertained when you are given a writing prompt.
5. This is a thinking exercise, so it doesn't matter how it appears on the page, you just have to get the answers right (don't forget that the T has to be expressed as a question).

The Text

My classroom runs in a different way from most of the ones in our district, which I think it's important that we talk about. Otherwise, people have such strong views about technology, that I thought that we should talk about my reasons and goals. I also want to say that I personally am only going paperless in one respect - photocopies. I would be the last person in the world to give up printed books; I fill my home and classroom with them. I also love notebooks, graph paper, Dixon-Ticonderoga pencils with that green foil, and old-school art supplies - I use them and love them. But, in the spirit of dialogue, I found two people that would argue these two sides for us - see which one you find more convincing.

   "Should Schools Go Paperless" Point/Counterpoint

Practice Exercise 1 - Complete During Class

Statements About This Text
RI1. Write a sentence or two for each statement below that follows the rules laid out in the "How to Write a Text Citation Sentence". Remember that there are two short essays here -- but sure to be clear about which one the statement is referring to.

1. The writer who favors getting rid of paper cares about the environment, but the writer who wants to keep paper doesn't care.
2. The writer of the second essay believes that having children learn to make letters with pencils is important for children's reading skills.
3. The writer of the first essay is advocating a total ban on all paper in schools.
4. The writers of the two essays agree that computers would cost a lot of money.
5. The writer of the first essay is younger than the writer of the second.