W1. Foreign Language-Language Arts Interdisciplinary Writing Prompt

Good morning. This week's essay will be conducted in your Foreign Language class. I wanted to make sure that you had ammunition for your own ideas, so I've prepared a link to a reading that you can go over first to help you out. Make sure to click the link with the appropriate prompt for you, depending on what language you are studying.

I appreciate both your taking the time to do this for me, and Mr. Leister taking the time to administer it. I want to construct situations where you write when I am not around, so you can make sure that you can do all of these tricks that we learn in lots of different contexts and classes.

Once you are in Foreign Language class, you will have the entire period to compose your response. Remember that this is a graded exercise for me, so if you need any writing checks for my gradebook, this is a good way to get them.  Remember, you can't type on the original, so click "File," then "Make a Copy," so you can have your own personal copy. Do not share your file with anyone this time.

Latin Students
We wanted to give help with this, so here's Click here to read "The New Case for Latin," an article from Time magazine.
Here's the file with the prompt.
Again, do it in Google Drive, just like in Language Arts.
German/Italian Students
If you need help coming up with arguments, click here.
Here's the file with the prompt.
Again, if your class uses Google Drive, do it in Google Drive. If not, do it in Word.

Dollar Words #2: Cerulean

Our second Dollar Word is a little out of place in the curriculum, but one of my classes is writing about Latin in their weekly essay, so, if they're sharp (and notice this), they can find an argument for their essay. For everybody else, it's still a great word to know for writing.

cerulean - sky blue.

Usage Notes - "Cerulean" is a great word to use in your writing to help establish mood. It specifically refers to the blue of a sky-blue sky, and has connotations of peace and happiness. It helps a smart writer to establish a calm, pleasant mood in a sensory detail, either in an essay (to be convincing) or in a story (to indicate a happy point in the story). Cerulean is an adjective, which means that you should use it to modify an noun (the sky, blue eyes, the color of a dress)

Examples:

Suddenly, after days of rain, the clouds parted and a cerulean sky revealed itself - we could play the championship game after all.

I can close my eyes and visualize it now - the healthy, svelte youngsters playing under cerulean skies.

For such a gruff, irascible person, my football coach certainly drove an incongruous car - a cerulean two-seat convertible. (Here we're using it to create a contrast, "incongruous" means "not matching, unexpected, clashing")


Etymology:
"Cerulean" is derived directly from the Latin word for "sky" and "blue. It's been an English word for about 500 years.

Dollar Words #1. Optimal

We started writing our logical essays this week - they went really well, I thought, the best first set of essays I've ever had. I introduced our scoring system yesterday, and taught it to everybody. So, we want to start maximizing our scores on this kinds of essays. One way to do that is to use sophisticated vocabulary to pick up the $1 reward for each Tier 2 word (that's the teacher-y term I use for "big words that all educated people know").

The first in this series, which I am calling "Dollar Words" is one that my students are already familiar with - "optimal." I use my favorite source for these definitions, which is the Dictionary that comes with the Apple OS - it's the most thorough and readable set of definitions I have seen on a computer - online or not.

So,

optimal - best or most favorable.

Usage Notes - "Optimal" should be used to describe solutions to problems or situations - the optimal choice, optional conditions, the optimal candidate - they all have to do with making choices, solving problems, or dealing with situations.

Examples:

The optimal decision here is to hire an extra person for the Christmas rush.
I don't know if the conditions are optimal right for camping - it looks like it might pour later.
The optimal choice here is to have four four-week vacations instead of one longer summer vacation.

Examples of Possible Misuse:
I chose the optimal French fries at lunch. ("Optimal" is off-key when used to mean "best" for specific things, you could say "I thought that the French fries were the optimal choice, because the baked beans looked gross."
My friend Martha is optimal. (Same reason - "optimal" might describe the best friend to help with a problem, but not the friend in general.)

Etymology:
"Optimal" is derived from the Latin word optimus, which means "best." It's actually a relatively young English word; it's only existed for a little more than a hundred years. In your regular life, you have probably seen Optimum Online (they want you to think that they're the best internet provider) and maybe seen a TV show or movie with the tractor-trailer/robot Optimus Prime (he's the best one on the show, the leader of the good guys).