question for straegy on how to handle/grade my son's paper on Julius Caesar

[Ame E.]

My ninth grade son just wrote a 2-1/2 page typed paper on Mark Antony's speech in Julius Caesar. The assignment was on understanding tone. Tone shows the speaker's attitude toward the subject and toward the audience. The tone of Antony's soliloquy over Caesar's body is one of sincere grief and rage, as you can infer from details of language and sentence structure. Brutus' speech at the beginning of scene 2 begins with a reasonable tone and shifts to one urging the crowd's acceptance of the assassination.
1. Examine Antony's funeral oration, actually all four long sections of the oration.
2. Idntify the tone and shifts in tone within the oration.
3. Give an example from the text to support each of your inferenaces about the tone.

My son wote this paper. He basically did not do the assignment. He basically wrote a paper saying how Antony manipulates the crowd into revenging themselves on Brutus' and Cassius. He wrote a very wordy nonspecific paper from a 5-line outline. Some of his points are well taken. He did not talk about tone in the paper. He has used passive voice and has many typos and grammar errors in the paper. This was after giving him more than adequate time to proof. I gave him guidelines for proofing.

The paper has good points. It is not well organized. It does not really have a thesis statement. At this point, I was going to have him correct the passive voice errors, get rid of banned words and use specific examples and words where he uses vague and general ones. .To do the assignment correctly, he would really need to rewrite the paper in terms of tone. The natural division of the essay would be Antony's four separate speeches and the natural way to do this would be to divide the essay up into four paragraphs and to discuss each part of the speech and the shifts in tone that evolve. This was not done. He gave me one humongous paragraph that went on and on and on. He did use random quotes to back up his points.

So do I let it go, give him C+ for what he has done... offer him a B if he makes the edits and then move on... or do I have him redo the whole thing? I am not an English teacher by trade, but was an English major once.

We are breaking for Christmas holiday on December 23rd. We need to be done with the play by then.

What would you do?

thanks

Ame E.

[Karenciavo]

One thing I really love about TOG's writing program, which I use with all the writing programs I use (yes, there are several :tongue_smilie:), is the grading rubic. My children know what is on the rubic and have, in writing, exactly what is expected of them. TOG has many of their rubics available free (http://www.tapestryofgrace.com/newworld/wa/Writing_Aids.htm) if you want to see it. Click on Grading to the right of Essay of Argumentation.

As far as what would I do? Depends. I would probably let him redo it, but he would still be penalized for not following the assignment instructions.

[Nan in Mass]

But I've faced lots of papers like this and what I usually do is have them do the assignment again in a different context. I point out the good things about their paper and then point out a few bad things. This is where I'd mention those good points, and then the lack of paragraph breaks and having lots of time for proofreading but not doing it (if you are sure he really didn't, not did but missed things). Then I point out that although it is an interesting paper, it doesn't meet the criteria. If your child is strong, you can ask him to find, in his own paper, the things that were listed in the assignment. If he isn't, then just briefly point out the missing stuff yourself, not comparing it to his paper. Then I'd do a demo paper. This, groan, is where about half the time I decide that the assignment is badly written. If so, the student and I try to come up with a better one. If not, I get my paper far enough along to demonstrate the point of the assignment. Then I say that he is going to try again, and make up a new assignment that is as like the old one as possible. In your case, I'd try to pick a short piece of writing where there was a change and have your son write about the change. We go round and round like this until they have it figured out. Or sometimes, I can see that they can't do the assignment because they aren't able to do some earlier step, like write a thesis statement or write a paragraph with a topic sentence. In that case, we work on that. I have had no luck at all just getting my children to redo an assignment. If they were able to do the assignment, they would have done it the first time. That means that I have to teach a bit more before they can redo it. And my children become uncooperative if I either critisize their original paper too much, or if I make them redo things.

Sometimes, when I tell them they haven't followed the directions, they say, "I know, but I had this idea..." I don't want to discourage that! In that case, I laugh, sympathize, don't bother with the demo, and tell them ok but they still have to practise blank. Usually, they have a good idea for how they will do that, either by redoing the original or by making up a new assignment.


As I said, though, I'm not very good at this, so hopefully someone else will step in with better advice. And I'm not assigning grades to anything, so I don't have to worry about that aspect.

-Nan

[Nan in Mass]

PS - Since you are trying to get this done by Christmas, if you pick something different for the rewrite, I'd try to pick something that he's already read.

[HollyinNNV]

My ninth grade son just wrote a 2-1/2 page typed paper on Mark Antony's speech in Julius Caesar. The assignment was on understanding tone. Tone shows the speaker's attitude toward the subject and toward the audience. The tone of Antony's soliloquy over Caesar's body is one of sincere grief and rage, as you can infer from details of language and sentence structure. Brutus' speech at the beginning of scene 2 begins with a reasonable tone and shifts to one urging the crowd's acceptance of the assassination.
1. Examine Antony's funeral oration, actually all four long sections of the oration.
2. Idntify the tone and shifts in tone within the oration.
3. Give an example from the text to support each of your inferenaces about the tone.

My son wote this paper. He basically did not do the assignment. He basically wrote a paper saying how Antony manipulates the crowd into revenging themselves on Brutus' and Cassius. He wrote a very wordy nonspecific paper from a 5-line outline. Some of his points are well taken. He did not talk about tone in the paper. He has used passive voice and has many typos and grammar errors in the paper. This was after giving him more than adequate time to proof. I gave him guidelines for proofing.

The paper has good points. It is not well organized. It does not really have a thesis statement. At this point, I was going to have him correct the passive voice errors, get rid of banned words and use specific examples and words where he uses vague and general ones. .To do the assignment correctly, he would really need to rewrite the paper in terms of tone. The natural division of the essay would be Antony's four separate speeches and the natural way to do this would be to divide the essay up into four paragraphs and to discuss each part of the speech and the shifts in tone that evolve. This was not done. He gave me one humongous paragraph that went on and on and on. He did use random quotes to back up his points.

So do I let it go, give him C+ for what he has done... offer him a B if he makes the edits and then move on... or do I have him redo the whole thing? I am not an English teacher by trade, but was an English major once.

We are breaking for Christmas holiday on December 23rd. We need to be done with the play by then.

What would you do?

thanks

Ame E.

I'll tell you what *I* would do. But......I don't know what *you* should do.

He did not write on the prompt. This is a huge booboo. It is the biggest problem as I see it. It is something that needed to be caught at the outline stage. However, that might be difficult to catch with a 5 line outline. (And if you are using IEW, that is probably a big part of the problem. Edited to add-with IEW I would have expected a much more comprehensive outline.)

The other problem is that, IMHO, the prompt is waaaaaaaaay too hard. Did you come up with it? If so, I'm pretty impressed! I run a writing co-op and I would not assign it to a ninth grader unless they had a lot of background in Shakespeare or writing about tone or writing about literature in general. If I sat down to write this paper, I'd have a challenging time!

So, on one hand I think your ds failed in the essay he turned in. On the other hand, he was presented with a really challenging task. And I can't tell from your post whether you've been building towards this type of essay? Do you think that based on prior essays, he should have been able to accomplish this one?

My suggestion for the future would be to do more coaching at each step of the process. Ask for an outline and grade the outline. Ask for a revised outline to be sure he did the revision. Ask for a first paragraph and coach at that point. Ask for the revised first paragraph. And so on.......

I think coaching at each step of the way is more valuable at this point than grading. Pointing out the passive voice errors in one paragraph is less frustrating than an entire essay of passive voice errors. However, he should be able to run a spell/grammar check and he should be able to search out any banned words himself. These types of errors are things I would quickly zing him for-because he should be able to take care of them with a click of the button.

Because of the fact that you've got Christmas coming up and you'd like to be finished with the play, I guess I'd throw it in a file labeled, "I'll do this different next time......." And be done with it. And do it differently next time. Tell your son it's a Christmas gift:D
Holly

[Ame E.]

I used the writing prompt from Prentice Hall Literature "Platinum". It is not original. This is a question given to the students at the end of Act III. It's a critical reading and writing question. I thought it would be easy because it seemed very specific in what it was asking for. I was wrong. So wrong that he just ignored the question and wrote on what he felt like writing on..

Thank you for the tip about handing in the outline, looking at that, revising the outline, and then starting the rough draft. It is a step by step process. You are right.

I told him to write his thesis statement, and then to use one quote or quotes from each of the four sections of the speech to back up the thesis. That is all he has to do at this point. I may actually revise this assignment and ask him to show me his outline before he rewrites his paper. I told him he did not have to do it on tone, but that he did have to have a thesis.

I am really looking forward to Christmas.

Ame

I have used IEW in the past, but am not using it now. This is his first Shakespeare play.

[dymphna57]

HI ! Can't say what you should do either. I would definitely ask myself why he did not do the assignment.

-First and most likely, I know that my kids and even lots of students of other teachers who happened to be living with me, have a lot of trouble with understanding exactly what the question is. As previous post eloquently states, if they don't get it they won't answer it. (Now, blathering , not really saying anything but saying a lot, is a good and useful skill and I have often received good grades from unsuspecting overworked tutors with it but it seems to develop fine without any assistance.;))
-Second problem is with structure as you say it didn't have paragraphs and the outline was only five lines.
-Third problem might be because he knows you don't feel strong in this area and decided to chance it.
My suggestion would be to either make up or use someones checklist so you can be more obvious in what you insist upon. Then the consequences are right out there and the grading will be more objectively visible.
I have a great non-writer struggling to get free before Christmas and I want Christmas off too so I know that this might not be the paper to prove it by. Thinking of you all!:grouphug:

[Cedarmom]

I don't know what I would do for this paper. Probably not even grade it, just call it a learning experience. For future papers, I would be a lot more hands on. On the day of the assignment, I would discuss it with my son. We would discuss possible answers that he could give. That way I made sure that he understood it. Then he would be responsible for turning in an outline, more detailed than five lines. I would make sure his essay was answering the question at this point. Then he would turn in a rough draft. I would choose two to three things for him to work on. I would also tell him the things that were done well.We might then discuss how he could improve the other things. Then he would turn in the final. If he had done the improvement's I asked for,he received an A. I then would make notes to myself on the other items he needed help on, and would work on that in the next paragraph. In 9th grade, I often helped my son on each step of the writing process. It was very time consuming. He is a junior now, and usually I can assign him an essay, and he will be able to do it on his own.

[Jann in TX]

I agree with the other poster that he needs to be coached. An 11th or 12th grader could probably do it...but not most 9th graders.

From my experience with him I bet he did not understand what the question/prompt was asking--he just wrote something that he THOUGHT you would want.

I would not put a grade on this assignment--just count it as homework completed/lesson learned and then go back and show/coach him through the process you expected him to complete (with a more detailed outline). He needs to check with you before moving on to the next step. (Kind of like what we just did in Math--go back a bit and then move ahead slowly showing all the steps)

Make sure he has a checklist of the objectives for each step.

[Carol in Cal.]

I used the writing prompt from Prentice Hall Literature "Platinum". It is not original. This is a question given to the students at the end of Act III. It's a critical reading and writing question. I thought it would be easy because it seemed very specific in what it was asking for. I was wrong. So wrong that he just ignored the question and wrote on what he felt like writing on..

Thank you for the tip about handing in the outline, looking at that, revising the outline, and then starting the rough draft. It is a step by step process. You are right.

I told him to write his thesis statement, and then to use one quote or quotes from each of the four sections of the speech to back up the thesis. That is all he has to do at this point. I may actually revise this assignment and ask him to show me his outline before he rewrites his paper. I told him he did not have to do it on tone, but that he did have to have a thesis.

I am really looking forward to Christmas.

Ame

I have used IEW in the past, but am not using it now. This is his first Shakespeare play.

Adults themselves have varieties of opinions about interpreting Shakespeare plays.

Certainly your son needs to do the actual assignment that you gave him, or an alternate assignment that you give him. When I was in ninth grade, we studied Romeo and Juliet. We had several weeks of discussions of it before we did research papers about it. I think that discussion and dissecting the language and nuances of the play is crucial before your DS tackles a thesis paper on any aspect of it. Also, I think that tone can be a challenging thing to a) recognize and b) support with quotes. I'm thinking that a first thesis paper should have an easier thesis to support, and that he should come up with his own opinion/thesis statement himself, after significant discussion of the play with you, or at least significant reading of commentaries on it. Discussion being far better. So I think that your allowing him to work out an alternative thesis is a great compromise.

I would ask yourself as well whether he is used to this type of essay, and pick an easy literary model to use if it's his first one. I believe that scaffolding of that sort breeds tremendous success.